If you will, open your Bibles
with me this morning to John chapter 8. Welcome our visitors. It's good to have Megan and Beth with
us. You're not visitors. You're family. John chapter 8. I would encourage
you in your leisure to read this whole chapter. It begins with
an account of the scribes and Pharisees bringing a woman, taking
an adultery to the Lord, to try to entangle Him in His words.
To try to use the law to entangle the Lord. And He said to them,
if any of you are free from sin, you will be the first one to
cast a stone at her. And beginning at the oldest one, I expect he
had the most sin. All the way down to the least,
the youngest, they went out. And it says they were not, it
doesn't say they were convicted for my love of Christ. It says
they were convicted by their own conscience. Romans tells
us that the natural man has the law of God written on his conscience.
That's a legal servile fear is what it is. The Lord said this
after that in verse 12. He says, Then spake Jesus again
unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth
Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
You want to know what the law says? Listen to what Christ says. You want to stop walking in the
darkness of the law? Listen to what Christ says. And
the Pharisees, of course, they came right back and they accused
him of something. Well, you bear a record of yourself
and your record is not true. And again, the Lord tells him
in verse 14, Though I bear record of myself, my record is true.
For I know whence I came and whither I go. But you can't tell
whence I come and whither I go. That's darkness. That's darkness. He says, You judge after the
flesh. That's darkness. That's darkness. I judge no man,
and yet if I judge, my judgment's true, for I'm not alone but I
and the Father that sent me. I like how he says this next
in this next verse, it is also written in your law. Who's the
law given to? The ungodly. The unrighteous. The law wasn't made for a righteous
man. He said, it is also written in your law that the testimony
of two men is true. If you teach the spiritual meaning
of that law, he says, this is what you would say, I am one
that bare witness of myself and the Father that sent me bareth
witness of me. And then they came back again
and said, where is your father? And the Lord said, you neither
know me nor my father as darkness. If you had known me, you should
have known my father also. No man laid hands on him, his
hour wouldn't come. And then the Lord told him this.
He said, I go my way, and you'll seek me, and you'll die in your
sins. That's darkness. You'll seek
me, and you'll die in your sins. Because where I go, you can't
come. A man can't approach God in the flesh. A man can't approach
God in the law. A man can't approach God by his way. He has to approach
God in his way. And then the Jews came back to
him again. They started questioning, will
he kill himself? Because he says, wherever I go, you can't come.
They don't have any idea what he's saying. And he said, you're
from beneath. I am from above. You are of this
world. I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you that
you shall die in your sins. If you believe not that I am,
you shall die in your sins. We are of the earth, earthy.
The first man Adam is of the earth, earthy. The second man
is from above. He is of the Spirit. And therefore,
by the same token, as you are born in your mother, from your
mother's womb, you are born earthy. after Adam, as you're born a
second time, regenerated, you're born from above, born a spiritual
man. That's the man with whom we worship
God. This is the flesh trying to worship
God right here, and all it is is question after question, ignorance
after ignorance, walking in darkness, bringing people before the law,
trying to accuse them and entangle the Lord of glory Himself in
His own words with the law. I said, that's not walking in
the Spirit. I am from above. You can't come to me unless you
come to me in spirit and in truth. I said therefore unto you that
you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I
am, you shall die in your sins. Then said they unto him, Who
are you? And he said, Even the same that I said unto you from
the beginning. He said, I have many things to
say and to judge of you, but he that sent me is true. And
I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. And
they did not understand that he spake to them of the Father.
And then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son
of Man, then shall ye know that I am, and that I do nothing of
myself. But as my Father hath taught
me, I speak these things. He that sent me is with me. The
Father has not left me alone. For I do always those things
that please him. And when he spake these words,
many believed on him. Many believed on him. They believed on him. And he
preached in his name. He preached himself. They believed on him. And he
told them what the law said about them. That they are in darkness. that He's the Light. He preached
Himself and some believed on Him. Then said Jesus to those
Jews which believed on Him, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed.
We continue in His Word. When we hear Him speak the first
time, right in here, we follow Him. Right in here, listening
to what He says. He's the Lawgiver. He's our King. He's our Commander. We follow
Him. We listen to Him. And we continue in Him. Believers
continue. They persevere in faith. They
don't turn back from Him. They keep following Him. They
continue in His words. If I'm going to hear Him and
continue in His words, I'm going to stay right on Him. I'm going
to stay right with Him so I can hear Him. I can't hear very good.
Not just physically, but spiritually. I've got to be with Him all the
time so I can hear what He's saying. So I can follow Him. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed, you follow me, and you shall know the truth.
How come? I'm hearing His words. I know
the truth because I'm listening to Him. I'm hearing what He's
speaking to me in the heart, the language that natural man
can't understand, in the power that natural man knows nothing
about. And the truth shall make you free. Free from what? What does the truth free me from? If I'm made free, then naturally
that says that before I was in bondage to something. If I'm
made free, how is it I'm made free? I continue in His Word. And the truth that His Word is
speaking to my heart makes me free. As the light comes up in
the morning and shines more and more and more throughout the
day, as we walk following Him and listening to Him and hearing
Him, we grow. in understanding and knowledge
of Him, we become more free, and more free, and more free,
and more free, until one day we drop these chains, this flesh,
and the ultimate freedom will be when we awaken His likeness.
And we're with Him. We're with Him. So every step
of the way on this earth, as we get more and more free, we're
getting closer and closer to that day. We're getting closer
and closer to Him. If we're going to follow Him,
we've got to follow Him and go to Him and get closer to Him. And we become more and more... You know, the more you look at
something... My grandfather used to have large gardens. Big, large
gardens. And I would watch him till these
gardens. And the rows would be perfectly
straight. Perfectly straight. And I'd say,
how do you, and I'd go, I had a tiller. I went and got a tiller.
I remember when I was about in eighth grade. I wanted to till
a garden. And I'd till, you know, check my rows, make sure they're
straight. I'm tilling along and I'm looking around and checking
everything. And I'd get to the end and look back and my rows
would just be like this right here. And I said, how do you
till your garden and make your rows so straight? I've seen men
put up strings and everything and try to follow them and all
these things. He didn't have any of that. He didn't have anything
to keep him walking. A straight line. Nothing. He
didn't have any boundary. He didn't have a ditch over here
and a ditch over here and he's walking a tight boundary trying
to stay in the middle. It was just nothing there. It
was just open field and it was just a straight road. I said,
how do you do that? And he said, if you go to the
end of, look at the end of every one of those roads, He said,
there's a big tree down there at the end of each one of those
rows. And he said, I set my face, my eyes on that tree down there
at the end of that row. And I don't take my eyes off
of it. I don't look at my work. I don't look at the row. I don't
look back at where I've been. I keep my eye on that tree right
there at the end of that row. And when I get to the end of
that row, it's straight. Run with patience the race set
before you, looking unto the author and finisher of our faith. If I start looking at my work,
and I'll start looking at my hands, and I start trying to
figure out, am I walking the straight and narrow path? I'm walking a crooked path because
I'm not looking at Him. I'm not following after Him.
I'm not listening to His words. I'm not becoming more and more
free from this world. When Peter looked down at the
waves He's walking to the Lord and he's looking at the Lord,
but when he started looking down at the waves and looking at all
the things around him, what happened to Peter? He started to sink
down. And the Lord reached out and
picked him up. Who do we walk toward? Who do
we follow after? Who do we listen to? Who is our
salvation? It is Christ Jesus the Lord. I'm not going to look at you,
Eric. I'm not going to look at you, Heidi. I'm not going to
look at you, Cheryl. I'm looking at Christ. Him. Him alone. We start looking to
one another, you know what's going to happen? Division. Strife. Envy. Covetousness. But if we look at Him, and we
hear Him, and He's telling us, all things are yours. You are
complete. My righteousness that I earned
before God's holy law is your righteousness. It's not only
yours. You've been made the very righteousness
of God. As God sees it, that's how it
is. The way God sees His people, that's how they are. That's why
the Scriptures tell us, as He is, so are we in this world. How is He? He's seated at God's
right hand. Would you just read, Mark? He
quickened us together with Him, having raised us up. We're seated
at the right hand of God. As He is, so are you. He's the
firstborn from the dead. If you see Him, you trust Him,
you know Him, it's because you've been born from the dead. We walked
according to the lusts of our flesh. in disobedience to God,
in wrath toward God, as children of wrath, even as others. But
God quickened us together with Him, put us in Christ and raised
us up with Him. God the Father says, this is
My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. As He is, so are we. In Him, God says, I am well pleased. We fall and we trip and our roads
get all crooked and out of the way and we start trying to look
to ourselves and look at the waves and He picks us up again
and He says, as I am, so are you. Righteous, holy before God Almighty. He doesn't take us and he doesn't
grab us and pull us up and turn us back to Mount Sinai and start
spanking us and whipping us and saying, you've got to obey that
law and obey that law and do everything that that law says.
He takes us as a tender, merciful, loving brother and pulls us to
himself and says, look to Calvary. There's where your whipping took
place. I took it on your behalf. I laid down my life that you
may walk away You're a free man. And you're free indeed. Now come
here and smell my garments. Smell my garments. Smell what
righteousness smells like. Smell that which God said is
a sweet-smelling savor unto Him. He pulls us near and He says,
that's what you smell like to Me. My spouse. My beloved. You smell wonderful
to Me. What about my sin? We say, what
about this? What about what I've just done?
What sin? I remember your sins no more.
Past, present, future. Christ says, I put them away. I paid them. If you have to pay
them, you say, my blood is worthless. He said, I pay them. I paid them. Our High Priest didn't only walk
into the Holy of Holies as no other man had ever done. He walked
into the Holy of Holies and He Himself is the sacrifice. He is the blood. He is the Lamb. He walked in and presented His
hands and His side to God the Father, the Holy God with whom
we must stand And God the Father said, sit down till I make your
enemies your footstool. I am pleased with your righteousness. And He is pleased with all those
that He put in Him. Always has been, always will
be, and for eternity He will be. When we get to glory, it
won't ever stop. We won't get to glory and get
there and then have people praise us for what we did as we walked
this earth. We'll get to glory. and cast our crowns at His feet
and say, let's all look to Him. Let's all look and see what He
did. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy am
I. Worthy is the Lamb. Oh, we're
going to have to walk. We're going to have to follow
Him and hear what He says. Follow Him and hear what He says. And he said this. They answered
him. And they said, Will we be Abraham's
seed? We were never in bondage to any
man. Verse 33. How sayest thou ye shall be made
free? Oh, brethren, listen to me. Religion, blood, the will of
the flesh, the will of man, none of those things will set you
free. They were born the natural descendants of Abraham. True
enough. They weren't in bondage like
Israel was in Egypt. That's true. They weren't. But
they were in bondage in a far worse way because they looked
to their being a member with Abraham, being of his family,
and thought, here ends my righteousness. They looked to their law-keeping
and thought, here ends my righteousness. They looked to the fact that
they had the oracles of God given to them and said, here's my favor.
Here's my righteousness. After all, God did say, do this
and live. To think that we can do something,
that we can honor God's law and live, is the height of our depravity. Abraham didn't have the law.
The law came 430 years after Abraham believed God. You know
what Abraham had? He had what every believer has. He had the Word that Christ speaks
and that He continually speaks, the truth that sets us free.
You know what he had? He had the promise of God. Did you know salvation is by
promise? It's not by works. Salvation
is God saying, I will and you shall. I'll obey my law and make
it honorable and you shall be made righteous in me. He sent
forth His Son that in saving a people, He might be just. That
His law be not faltered with or altered in any way, but that
His law be carried out to the precise, exact justice. Obeyed in precept and satisfied
in justice. He sent His Son to do that. And
because He sent His Son, and because He and the Son are one,
even as the Father, Son, and Spirit are one, brethren, He
is also the Justifier. And if a man is justified, if
God says where remission of sins is, there's no more offering
for sin, that means you're free. You're free. But you can't preach
that to a man. If you preach that to a man,
you know what's going to happen. He won't walk according to the
law. I beg your pardon. He sure will. That's the only
message that'll make him. I'll tell you what'll happen
if you preach the law to a man. When you're around, they'll look
like they were obeying it to a T. But in their heart, they're
hating it with everything they got. It's a dread. It's something
they hate. It's something they don't want
to do. It's just dreadful to them. Don't want to do it. Do
you want to be here? Did you come here this morning
because you wanted to? Or did you come here this morning
because you thought, well, if I go to church, that would be one
more notch in my belt for God to see when I get to glory? You
came here because you wanted to. Those of you that came here
to hear a message about the freedom that's in Christ came here because
you wanted to come here. You came here because you want
to hear about your Redeemer. And those that didn't, let me
ask you this. Why do you want to go to heaven? That's what
it's going to be from the time you get there to the time forever. It's hearing about Christ. It's
rejoicing in Christ. It's Him being exalted. That's
what I'm sent to do. I'm sent to tell you, your warfare
is accomplished. Christ accomplished it. I stuttered
and stammered around yesterday. I wanted to make this statement.
I've seen police officers on videos, TV, you know. I've seen
them, those men that have been caught, I've seen them wrestling
those fellas, wrestling them and just strangling them and
doing everything they can to get them in there behind those
bars. Because every one of them will tell you, I'm not guilty.
I didn't do it. I'm not guilty. That's me and
you, by nature. But I've never once, not one
time, when the law says of that man, he's free to go. He's free
to go. I've never once seen those officers
have to wrestle one to get him out from behind those bars. When
they hear the verdict, he's free to go. They come out. They come out. Brethren, I don't have to coerce you to
Christ. I don't have to try to use wisdom
of words. I don't have to water down the
pure wine of Christ's blood to get you to come to Christ. I
can preach Christ unapologetically in His full majesty and glory
to you. And when He speaks, right in
here, when He shines the light right in here, when He says,
follow Me right in here, heed My words right here, we turn
away from Mount Sinai and say, I'm free. I'm free. I'm free. That's why I can preach
this message and I don't have to put restraints on you. I don't
have to put cuffs on you. I don't have to keep turning
you this way and that way and this way. The law that I preach
to you is the law of liberty in Christ Jesus the Lord. And
those that are happy to be free in Him, follow right on the course. They stay right on Him. They
follow right on Him. I don't want to look this way,
that way. I don't want to go back. I want to stay right with
Him. He's my freedom. You know what Paul told the Corinthian
church? He wrote them the letter. There was all kind of envy and
division and strife going on in the church. A man had been
caught in terrible fornication. I'll tell you exactly what was
going on. I looked at it, looked at it, looked at it. I'll tell
you exactly what was going on. Half of the people were saying, Paul
commanded us and told us that what we should do is kick this
man out of the church. And half of them were saying,
Paul told us also to be merciful and gracious. And that's what
I think we should do. We should be merciful and gracious to him.
And both of them were wrong. You know why? Because both of
them were looking at things according to the letter of the law. They
were both puffed up, Paul said. Paul said, would you rather I
come to you with a rod or would you rather I come to you in love?
He said, this glorying is not good. It's not good. But you
know what Paul never did tell them? He never did tell them
that we're breaking God's law. the law of liberty and of grace.
He never once told them, you need to get out of this church.
You need to leave this church. He didn't tell them that. You know what He told them? Even
as you've been enriched by Christ and come behind in nothing, even
so shall He continue to keep you, confirm you unto the end,
that you may be perfect. When He wrote them the second
letter, He told them this. He said, you sorrow unto repentance. But it was a good sorrow. That's
a sorrow not to be repented of. And he told them this. He said,
your consolation in tribulation is the same consolation that
we have when we're in tribulation. He said, that consolation is
the comfort wherewith God comforts us. And as our trials abound
and our sufferings abound, even so our consolation abounds by
Christ. by Christ. When the head hurts,
when your head hurts, doesn't your whole body hurt? I've hit my hammer before and
after I got through cussing for five minutes, I've turned around
and said, my whole body hurts. That hurt my whole body, it hurt
so bad. The sufferings of Christ are
called the sufferings of Christ for His people because when the
body and its members suffer, tribulation. He knows it. He's
compassionate. And the consolation that we have
is as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, even so the consolation
abounds. It abounds even more. Christ
is that consolation. They said, we were Abraham, see,
we never abonished anybody. Verse 34, Jesus answered them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. Now these fellows brought somebody
else to him and said, she's an adulterer. Because as long as
we're doing that, people won't be looking at us. If we constantly
bring others before the law, then nobody will be looking at
old Clay here. But the Lord pulled the carpet
out from under him. And He said, Whosoever committeth
sins, the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the
house forever. This house right here is dissolving.
All your law, obedience, and your trying to serve the law
and obey the law for righteousness, everything you've ever done in
your religion is going to perish when this body perishes. Because
it's carnal. It's not in the Spirit. It's
carnal. If you knew Christ, what does
Christ say here? But the Son abideth forever.
This is righteousness that won't perish. If the Son, therefore,
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. You shall be
free indeed. I know you're Abraham's seed, he
said. But here's the sin. Here's the sin that they committed
and that we continue to commit. But you seek to kill me. You
seek to kill Christ. That's the sin. Every time I
put my hand to a work and I entertain the thought that this is going
to, I mean the least little thought. Have you ever given money to
somebody that needed money and kept it to yourself? Be honest. It's hard to help somebody. I can tell my wife. Why do we have to tell somebody?
Because we're proud of it. We feel good about it. That's
sin. That right there made that work
unacceptable to God. The pride with which we did it
made it unaccepted with God. But if the Son makes you free,
His offering, His one offering, It was without sin. It was without
God. It was without pride. It was
without any of those. Here's one offering, and God's
satisfied with it. That'll make you free indeed.
He'll make you free indeed. Well, I didn't even preach my message.
I'm going to tell you the points of my message are. I'm going
to give you a word of warning here first. Then I'm going to
give you my points and that's it. I'm not even going to turn any scriptures
with you. Let me give you a word of warning. Freedom in Christ. Liberty in Christ. Satan tries
to imitate everything God does by grace. I'll give you three
ways he imitates it. It makes men feel good about
themselves. A profession of religion. A profession
of religion. Multitudes think that because
they have made a profession of faith, they're good. That's it. Self-righteousness. A man gets
weary of living an evil life and he looks around and he sees
these people that obey the law and they have a good life and
he says, I'm going to have some moral reform in my life. That's
not liberty. And antinomianism. Antinomianism. Some people hear this, that they're
free in Christ, and they say, well, if I'm free in Christ,
I'll live just like I want to live. I'll sin as much as I want
to sin. Don't you do that now? Don't you hate it that you sin
as much as you do now? Paul said, we're slanderously
reported. We're slanderously reported that
that's what we preach. And he said, their damnation
is just. Men who said that about Paul and the other apostles,
all they were trying to do was point men away from freedom in
Christ back to the Law. They were saying they were antinomians.
Let's go back to the Law. Let's go back to our traditions.
Well, here are my points to you. Christ frees believers from the
Law. He frees them from the Law. Christ liberates believers from
sin. They are free from sin. Christ
frees the believer from all human religion, from all the traditions
of men, the commandments of men, all those things, frees us from
them. We see them for what they are. Christ gives the believer
liberty to love. To love. Go home and read Romans
7. We were married to a man one
time who was strict. Who was a strict man. Looked at everything with a glove
of perfect righteousness. holiness. And He whipped us constantly. And He beat us constantly. And
we were married to that man. He beat us constantly. And ruled
us by law and strictness. But in Christ, we died to that
man. He died to us. And we died to
Him. And now we're free to be married to another. And we're
married to Christ. And we love. And we serve. We do everything we do. Because
that man took us home and he said, we said, we want to do
something. And he said, you can if you want
to, but you don't have to. I've given everything to you.
Everything that you see right here is mine, honey. You just
sit down and I'm going to put it all in your lap. It's all
free. Well, honey, let me get up and
do something to help you. You can, honey. You're free. Get
up and help me. If you want to help, help me. You can do whatever
you want to. But you're free. You're free. You can sit there if you want
to. You're free. And she said, Oh, I'm never going
to leave you. I'm going to walk with you and
do everything for you. I'm not going back to my old
ways. I'm going to follow you and live with you and honor you
in my walk and everything I do. Read Romans chapter 7. And then
Christ makes believers free to approach the eternal God. You
know where our high priest is? He's seated in the heavens. And
by Him, we have boldness. Boldness. We can walk right in. In prayer, we can come right
to Him and pray for forgiveness, pray for wisdom, pray for strength. Walk right in. And then lastly,
Christ makes believers free to one day enjoy the glorious liberty
of the sons of God. That's when this flesh is dropped
off of us. And we come into His presence
and we're made the very image of God. We know Him as He's known
us. And we're perfectly free! We're
free now from the dominion of sin. We're free from the penalty
of sin. But we've still got this old
man with us, don't we? We've still got this old man.
It wants to go back to the law. It wants to go back to the ceremony.
It wants to go back. It wants to go anywhere but to
Christ. But one day, that body's coming off. And we'll see Christ
and we'll know Christ. And our song from then on will
be, Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. You've not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you've received
the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. Let me ask you a question. Anybody that feels compelled
by the law or that you have to, that it's a legalistic, dreaded,
servile fear that you've got to serve the law for righteousness, Folks that preached to you, that
preached to you in the past, or you may be sitting under now,
here's the litmus test. Is what they say, is it solely
for the glory of God and to put man in the dust? Or is it to
put something in man's hands? Are they doing what they're doing
because they love you and they want you to hear the truth and
they want you to know who the truth is? Or they want you to
give them their money, your money, and bow down and carry a heavy
load that they put on you? What is it they want? I've had
junk cars and I've had nice cars. I've lived in houses where I
sat at night and watched the ceiling tile fall out. When I
graduated from college, $75 a month. in Ruston, Louisiana. And I've
lived in nice houses. There's nothing you can give
me. I don't want your money. I don't want you working for
me. I don't want you to do it. I
want you to come and sit down and hear Christ. And hopefully,
by God's grace, He'll give you the heart. He'll give you the
heart. In everything you do, you do out of a heart of love
for Him. That's the difference between law and grace. Christ
makes you free, you're free indeed. The title of the message is free
indeed.