A Time For Howling

Q: What does the Bible say about false prophets?

The Bible warns sharply against false prophets, labeling them as dangerous and deceitful leaders who mislead God's people. The Scriptures, particularly in Zechariah 11, provide stern warnings regarding false prophets and their destructive influence on God's people. False prophets are characterized as wolves in sheep's clothing, often seeking personal gain at the expense of the souls they are supposed to shepherd. God speaks sharply against them, stating that their end will be severe and they will be judged for leading others astray. This theme runs throughout both the Old and New Testaments, with repeated calls for vigilance against such false teachings, which can take the form of legalism or works-based religion.

Q: How do we know God's judgment is real?

God's judgment is evident through His historical actions and promises found in Scripture. The reality of God's judgment is affirmed through various scriptural accounts, such as the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. as prophesied by Jesus. In Zechariah 11, we see God's judgment being pronounced on false prophets and the corrupt practices that led to the ruin of His people. Furthermore, the power of God's judgment can be seen historically and is reaffirmed in New Testament writings, illustrating that unrepentant sin and falsehood will not go unpunished. God's faithfulness in executing judgment serves as a warning and reminder of His holiness and justice, emphasizing the seriousness of adhering to the true gospel.

Q: Why is the Gospel of Grace important for Christians?

The Gospel of Grace is essential because it reveals the true means of salvation and God's unconditional love for His elect. The Gospel of Grace is fundamental to the Christian faith as it teaches that salvation is not earned through works or human effort but is a gift given by God's unmerited favor. The message emphasizes that Jesus Christ, as our good shepherd, came to redeem His people, offering grace, mercy, and eternal life to all who believe. This gospel assures believers that their salvation is secure in Christ alone, freeing them from the burdens of legalistic religion and false teachings. Understanding this grace cultivates a relationship with God based on love and trust rather than fear of judgment, anchoring the believer's hope in the finished work of Christ.

Q: How did Jesus fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 11?

Jesus fulfilled Zechariah 11 by being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, as foretold by the prophet. In Zechariah 11, the Scriptures prophesy about a shepherd being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, which directly ties to Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus. This fulfillment underscores the divine sovereignty of God in orchestrating events leading to the crucifixion of Christ. The passage not only highlights the rejection Jesus faced but also points to God's plan of salvation through Christ's sacrificial death. This prophetic connection deepens the understanding of Christ's mission and the significance of His suffering for the sake of His people, reinforcing the truth that God's redemptive plan is rooted in His sovereign decree.

When I began to prepare the message
for this morning, I began to have some understanding as to
why I have seen some of the things I've seen and observed so clearly
and so constantly among men in the last couple of years. God
was preparing a message in my heart for you. You'll find my
text this morning in Zechariah chapter 11. This chapter sets
before us a time of howling. A time for howling not by God's
elect, but howling by false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing, and
howling by those who follow them. When God Almighty speaks against
false prophets, He speaks in language that cannot be mistaken,
sharp, scathing, piercing language. The most frequent warnings given
in this book, Old Testament and New, are warnings with regard
to false prophets and false religion. I know people everywhere imagine
that religion, even if it is not true, is good for folks. If you think hell is good for
folks, it's good for them. If you think hell is good for
folks, false religion is good for them. What do you mean by
false religion? Anything that ain't true. Anything
that's not true. The sharpest denunciations given
in this book are denunciations of false prophets. The most damning
judgments pronounced in the Word of God are not against drunks
and pimps and prostitutes and pushers, horrible as those evils
are. The most damning judgments Pronounced
in this book are the judgments of God Almighty against false
religion and false prophets. And the most damning influence
in this world, the most damning influence in this world is Arminian,
free will, works, legal religion, by whatever name it may be called.
I would rather see you exposed to any form of evil than to false
religion. I tried to raise our daughter
protecting her as much as possible from corrupting evil influences,
keeping her from society that would lead her into corrupt vile
practices, taking great care of what she was allowed to see
and not to see on television, rarely, rarely going to a theater
realizing what She's likely to see and be influenced by him.
But above all other things, I took care to keep her from the influence
of false religion. It didn't matter whether it was
to please parents or to please friends or to please family.
False religion. I'd no more send her with my
relatives to a brothel with a religious name than send her with my relatives
to a brothel without a religious name. Zechariah 11 is a scathing
denunciation of false prophets and false religion. The key to
understanding this chapter is in verses 12 and 13, where the
prophet of God speaks about those 30 pieces of silver for which
our blessed Savior was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Now, since
the Holy Spirit tells us plainly that verses 12 and 13 refer to
our Lord Jesus Christ and His times when He came into this
world through the days, including this day, which are described
as the last days which began with our Lord's incarnation.
We are safe to assume that the whole chapter applies to our
Redeemer. It is a prophecy speaking of
Him. As always, as always, read the
Scripture in its context. as always, learn what a passage
means by judging it in its context. Chapters 9 and 10 of Zechariah
are announcements by our God of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ to redeem and save His people, both by the sacrifice
of Himself at Calvary and by the mighty operations of His
grace gathering His elect to Himself by His Spirit. Now obviously,
the prophecy speaks of our Savior's first advent. It refers to the
destruction of Jerusalem and to the destruction of the Jewish
state, the Jewish nation, by the judgment of God when He sent
the Roman armies under the leadership of Titus in 70 A.D. and leveled that city to the
ground, just as our Lord had foretold He would do in the parables
He gave. But it is a great and serious
mistake to make this passage or any other like it to be limited
just to the historic events that took place against Jerusalem.
To make any passage of this kind limited to just an historic event
is to rob ourselves of that portion of Scripture which God has plainly
declared is written for our learning and our admonition that we, through
patience and consolation of the scripture, might have hope. Now,
right in the middle of this chapter that begins with denunciation
and has denunciation all the way through it and ends finally
with the utter damnation of the false prophet, right in the middle
of this chapter, The Lord Jesus continues to speak of His mercy
and in His grace. In verse 7, He says, But I will
feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. The false shepherds, the hireling
shepherds, the false teacher, the false prophet, the deceiver,
the self-serving man who stands in the pulpit and claims to be
God's servant, he will feed Himself on you, and He will destroy you
if He can. But I will feed you." In other
words, the Savior is saying to His flock, to His chosen, to
that which men look at as the flock of slaughter, a flock they
would slaughter if they could. Our Savior says, all is all right. I'm giving you warning now. I'm
telling you what I'm doing. But I will feed you. I will give
you what you need, I'll care for you, I'll protect you, I
will shepherd you, I will pastor you. Now, let's look at verses
1 through 17 briefly. First, the chapter begins by
describing the judgment of God, judgment that God brings upon
His own house. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that
the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl tree, for the cedar is fallen,
because the mighty are spoiled. I will owe ye oak's abation,
for the forest of the vintage is come down." I know there are
lots of folks who say we believe the Bible literally and we interpret
the Bible literally and we don't put any spiritual interpretation
or allegorical interpretation on that. Try crying to cedar
trees. Try getting a fir tree to howl.
This obviously is spiritual language. It is referring to those timbers
with which the house of God in Jerusalem, the temple, were constructed. Those timbers, the mighty cedars,
the strong oaks used in the house of God to erect the house for
the worship of God. The devouring fire came upon
the temple, which was made of the cedars of Lebanon. and upon
Jerusalem when God destroyed that place in 70 A.D. He brought judgment upon His
own house. Why did He do that? Why did God Almighty send a pagan
general with pagan armies to destroy His house and the people
He had raised up under His name, the nation of Israel? Why did
He do that? Our Lord tells us plainly. He
said, you've made my house, which ought to have been a house where
God is worshipped, a house of prayer, a den of thieves. And the thieves were the fellows
in the pulpit. The thieves were the fellows
who were supposed to be the shepherds taking care of the house. The
thieves were the scribes and the Pharisees, the Herodians,
who robbed the people of the Word of God and fed themselves
on the riches of the people that they could cunningly taunt them
into putting in their own pockets. But we must not imagine that
there's no application for us today. Peter says, if you want
to turn there, 1 Peter 4, 17, God does the same thing throughout
the ages. In this day, the house of God
The professed Church of Christ is just as corrupt as the temple
was during the days of our Lord's earthly ministry. The priests
of old and preachers today offer men and offer women and offer
boys and girls everything their hearts can desire. They have
entertainment and they have counseling and they give education. And
they will offer you a little psychological help if you need
it. Some have medical staffs so that
they can help you through medical problems. They offer everything
imaginable. Churches these days, rather than
being called churches or church buildings, are often referred
to as family life centers. That sounds good, doesn't it?
Family life centers. We're building our new multi-million
dollar family life center while we're going to have an indoor
track. And we're going to have volleyball and softball and dodgy
ball and any other kind of ball you want. And we'll have something
on Monday night for mamas and Tuesday nights for daddies and
Wednesday nights for little boys and Thursday nights for little
girls and Friday nights for teenagers and Saturday nights we'll reserve
for singles who are looking for somebody to meet up with. In
other words, we're going to build us a family life center and keep
you so active with religion that you can't possibly come to know
your family, much less love them. Family life centers, entertainment,
delightful times together. They offer everything except
the one thing God requires, a sacrifice. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Look here in 1 Peter 4, 17. As
always, our Savior's fan is in His hand, and He thoroughly purges
His floor, separating the wheat from the chaff. For the time
has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. The gospel
is a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways, saving some
and slaying others. To chosen, redeemed sinners called
by grace, it brings life and salvation. To the unbelieving
and the reprobate, it brings condemnation and death. Those
gates which are shut against the gospel will be open to destruction,
I promise you. The hearts will either be opened
by grace or broken by judgment. A spirit of judgment and a spirit
of burning, Isaiah tells us, are the means God uses to melt
the hard heart and to consume the wicked. Sometime back, Brother
Joe Terrell and I were chatting and chatting about new faces
coming. See a new visitor up and down
there. And Joe said, yeah, they come. And once in a while, somebody
stays. Most of the time, folks come.
Here's several or two. Well, we can't take that. He
said, I've almost got the place whenever I see somebody walk
in the doors, I wonder why God sent them, to save them or to
kill them. This is serious business. This
is serious business. The gospel will either melt the
heart or yet further harden it, just as Pharaoh's was hardened.
Look at verse 3. Beginning in this third verse,
the prophet describes the coming of Christ as a thing that causes
false shepherds to howl. howl like wolves. That was certainly
the case during our Lord's earthly ministry. When he came preaching
the gospel and folks began to follow him, the scribes and the
Pharisees and the Herodians, oh, how they began to howl. Oh, they cart, and they slandered,
and they bickered, and they fought. They did everything they could
to oppose him because they realized that as soon as the sun came
and set men free in their souls, he set them free from the bondage
of their corrupt religion." Look at verse 3. There is a voice
of the howling of the shepherds. How come? For their glory is
spoiled. A voice of the roaring of young
lions. for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. Once the sinner had been given
eyes to see, once he's been given the light of grace to see that
the branch of the Lord is beautiful and glorious, he escapes the
prison house of darkness and sees that the religion that held
him in darkness and bondage is nothing but darkness, bondage,
and corruption. That's how Isaiah speaks of it
in Isaiah chapter 4. when the sinner is made free
by Christ, the proud ambitions of self-serving false shepherds
is destroyed, and they roar. They roar like young lions against
Christ, against the gospel of His grace, against His servants,
and against those newborn souls who follow Him. Indeed, in the
next verse, God's elect, against whom Satan's offspring roar. It doesn't matter how smooth-tongued
they are. It doesn't matter how well-educated
they are. It doesn't matter whether they wear a sweater and preach
to you with a contemporary band playing in the background, or
wear a backward collar and stand and talk to you about rituals
in a foreign language. False prophets are all the offspring
of that roaring lion, the devil, who seeks whom he may devour. In verse 4, they speak of God's
people. opposing them, and our Savior
speaks here of his people as the flock of slaughter. Read
it with me. These appear to be the words
of Christ himself, our good and great Shepherd. Thus saith the
Lord my God. Remember, our good Shepherd lived
here in perfect obedience to the triune God as our mediator
God-man, establishing for us a perfect righteousness which
he brought in by the sacrifice of himself. And now he, the servant
of God, says, Thus saith the Lord my God. God speaks to me,
the shepherd to whom he trusted his sheep. Feed the flock of
slaughter. It's another sermon. I'll get
to it another day. But pastoral work, pastoral work, by modern
standards, the man talking to you is anything but a pastor. And I acknowledge it. And I hope
never to be, and never to be, pressured by anyone and never
to pressure myself to become what men call a good pastor.
He goes around the community, makes his rounds, keeps a schedule,
visits every member of the church at least once every year, maybe
once every two years. And if he can't do that, they'll
hire another visitation pastor who will help him out with it.
And there he ministers to people. That means he sits around the
kitchen. idling away hours, sipping coffee with old women, gossiping
like old women. That ain't pastor work. That
ain't pastor work. To pastor a people is to feed
their soul. To feed their soul. And that work is accomplished
on your knees before God Almighty, studying His Word, seeking His
message. Our Lord says, The Lord God said
to me, feed the flock of slaughter. Though false prophets and false
shepherds, self-serving, covetous preachers, care nothing for the
souls of men, Christ is the shepherd who constantly serves His sheep. Let us never forget that. Read
the 34th chapter of Ezekiel. I urge you to read it. We won't
now, just for the sake of time. Read it and read it carefully.
The whole chapter talks about just two things. False shepherds
and the shepherd. False shepherds who fleece the
sheep, and use the sheep, and feed themselves on the sheep,
and the shepherd who cares for the sheep, and seeks the sheep,
and binds the sheep, and carries the sheep, and protects the sheep.
Christ, our good shepherd, cares for his sheep. He laid down his
life for the sheep. The good shepherd does that.
Our Lord Jesus did that as our Redeemer and our Mediator, and
every shepherd who is a shepherd of his people under him does
that same thing. He lays down his life for God's
people and God's cause. The Good Shepherd seeks his sheep
and finds them. He calls his sheep by name, leads
them out, and gives them eternal life. He feeds, protects His
sheep and brings them all safely to His heavenly fold. Now look
at verse 5. Our Lord Jesus Christ delivers
His sheep from those false shepherds who oppress them with free will,
works, religion, oppressing religion of the law and bondage that men
promote. He speaks of this flock of slaughter
that He has come to feed and speaks against those who would
slaughter them. Notice how he describes them,
whose possessors. What a strange language men use
for God's people. I hear preachers talk about my
church. This is not my possession. I
didn't ransom your souls. I didn't choose you. I didn't
save you. It's not my church. We are his church. But men who
serve themselves. look upon everything and everybody
as theirs, whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not
guilty. And they that sell them say,
Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their own shepherds
pity them not. For I will no more pity the inhabitants
of the land, saith the Lord. I will deliver the men, every
one, into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king,
and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand will I
not deliver them." Now look at the language our Lord here uses
to describe these scribes and Pharisees of His day, and their
successors in our day, those men who are workmonger, religious
leaders, teaching righteousness and redemption and salvation
by works. by your own deeds. First he tells
us that they slay the souls of men. They slay them with the
poisonous doctrines that they invent, teaching by the commandments
of men, that men are to seek righteousness by their works. And thus they flay them like
slaughtered sheep. Turn to Micah chapter 3. Let
me show you this passage. Micah 3. They destroy the sheep
to feed themselves. I'm often asked, Brother John,
do you think these real worshipers are sincere? No. None of them? Not a one of them. Do you think they're honest?
If they were honest, they wouldn't lie to you. Do you think they're
deceived? Yeah, I agree with that. Deceived
by their own belly, which is their God. They fleece the sheep
and flay the sheep to feed themselves, Micah 3.3. who also eat the flesh
of my people and flay their skin from them, and they break their
bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as the flesh
within the cauldron." I'm so sick of self-serving, money-grubbing
preachers who do what they do, everything they do, because they
get a little gain. Rob Barnard said it 40 years
ago, and it's still true, said it 60 years ago. Somebody ought
to put a 10 cent bounty on the head of preachers. 10 cent might
be too much. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Several weeks ago, I went to
Lee, England. I wrote several letters as men
were preparing and planning to place a new preacher. I said,
now listen, don't take up an offering anywhere, and don't
worry about my expenses. Don't mention my expenses to
anybody. God will take care of it. Don't
mention it. Well, how are you going to get
them back? I don't know, but I've never had Mr. Tripp yet.
God takes care of things, and men who do what they do for money,
be it a penny or a million, fleece the sheep. They feed themselves,
not the flock. They act like they are lords
over God's heritage. The Lord God says, Son of man,
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to
them, Thus saith the Lord unto the shepherds, Woe be to you,
the shepherds of Israel, that do feed themselves, and yet they
hold themselves not guilty." Not guilty? Instead of thinking
they've done something wrong, instead of acknowledging that
they're thieves and robbers, they say, Why? How dare you question
God's blessings on me? Blessed be the Lord, I'm rich.
Look at me. Why, how could a man do these
things? Why, how could I be so successful? How could so many
people be so anxious to come to church here if I weren't God's
servant? Surely, surely my success before
men makes it obvious that I am successful with God. No, success
before men makes it obvious you're successful with men. No more,
no less. Not only that, but they're heartless.
Self-righteous, self-serving religionists are always heartless.
Oh, they talk about love. They talk about love by pounds,
and there's not an ounce of pity in them. Their shepherds pity
them not. The one man that I know personally
who has done more to disrupt the peace and harmony of God's
church than any other man in the last 25 years, The one man
who has attacked every preacher I know who preaches the gospel
of grace that he also knows. Accusing the men of false prophets
and so on. The one man who's done everything
possible to draw away disciples, act and so on. I got a bulletin
from him last week, a week before. Some of you got it or you will.
And he talks about love and peace and unity. Talks about it by the
tongue. It practices corruption and deceit
and ungodliness. Our Lord Jesus speaks plainly.
You think my language is scathing? Listen to here, Matthew 23. Matthew 23. I wish I could speak
the words as scoffingly as he did. Believe me, I would. Matthew
23, 15. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
you blasted hypocrites. For you come past sea and land
to make one postulant. You do everything you can to
get somebody to follow you and give you a dollar. And when he
is many, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Woe unto you, you blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear
by the temple, it's nothing. Oh, well, he takes God's name
in vain. Oh, yeah, he doesn't understand
spiritual things. But don't you dare touch the
gold. Whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he's
a debtor. Verse 23, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and
anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the
law. You pay tithe on things that men can see and smell and
applaud. But judgment, justice satisfied? Mercy? The mercy that only God
can give? And faith? That faith in Christ,
the gift of His Spirit? These ought you to have cared
for. These ought you to have done,
and not to leave the other undone. From such shepherds, Christ delivers
His sheep by the gospel. Let me show you, Isaiah 66. I
don't mean He sometimes does. I mean He always does. Most of
you have been in Some kind of freewill Arminian works religion
somewhere along your way. Most of you have been abused
by false shepherds. Some who get this tape. I have
some dear friends who honestly could be very wealthy people,
but preachers talked them into giving all the money away. You
know who they gave it to? But God delivers you. He always
does. He won't let his sheep be led
to hell by Satan. Isaiah 66, verse 5. Hear the
word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word. Your brethren that
hated you, that cast you out for my namesake, said, Let the
Lord be glorified, but he shall appear to your joy, and they
shall be ashamed. He shall appear to your joy,
and they shall be ashamed. All right, back in our text,
verse 7. Here we read the sweet promise of Christ the shepherd
of our souls to his people." Zechariah 11, 7. And I will feed
the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And
I took unto me two staves, the one I called beauty, and the
other I called bands, and I fed the flock. Three shepherds also
I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them, and their
soul also abhorred me." So much for God loving everybody. So
much for God loving the sinner but hating his sin. He said,
I loathe them just exactly like they loathe me. Then said I,
I will not feed you. I won't take any care of you. I won't pastor you. I won't shepherd
you. I'll leave you to die in your
sins. Look at it. I will not feed you. That that dies, let it die. And that that is to be cut off,
let it be cut off, and let the rest eat every one the flesh
of another." Go ahead and feed on each other. I'll leave you
to yourselves. Shepherds commonly carry one staff. It's called
a shepherd's staff, or a shepherd's rod, or a shepherd's crook. Christ
carries two. David said, thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me. And here our Lord names his two
staves by which he comforts his people. He says, I have this
staff that I name beauty, and this staff that I name bands.
Bands might better be translated binders. Now, I recognize our
Lord doesn't tell us precisely what these two staves are, but
it's obvious to me by both their names and their use what they
are. The first staff is called beauty. No question in my mind
that's the gospel of God's free. sovereign grace in Christ, by
which he proclaims mercy and grace and peace and pardon, life
and liberty, righteousness and eternal salvation to poor and
needy sinners. The second staff is called bands,
binders, by which he feeds his people. Whoever heard the tale
of a stick feeding anybody, well, we just did. What are these binders? They're the ordinances of the
gospel by which he binds his sheep together and feeds their
souls. Believers' baptism, church membership,
the Lord's Supper. Here we live together as one
family and we are bound together in mutual fellowship and love
one for another by the preaching of the gospel and the worship
of our Redeemer. And then he speaks of three shepherds that
he promises to cut off in one month. Who are those? The scribes. Religious scholars, learned,
oh, they can read the Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. They
have read the theology books, and they know the letter of the
word, but don't have a clue what it means. Pharisees, religious
separatists. As a matter of fact, the word
means separatist. Religious fundamentalists, legalists, people who cherish
An outward show of religion and cherished outward ceremonies
and cherished creeds, but know nothing of mercy and love and
grace and tenderness. The meanest people topside of
God's earth, religious folks who don't know God. They pride
themselves in their righteousness. Lord, I thank you that I'm not.
I thank you that I haven't. Now, I'm careful to give God
the faith, but I want you to know I did this. I have a hand
in making myself to differ." Herodians. These are folks like
those Jews who took Herod's name. They pretend to be the true seed
of Israel. They're party men. They're denominational
men, defenders of denominations. They love the church status quo
and cherish it. That means they always oppose
Christ and his gospel. John Gill suggests that instead
of the Herodians, This third group may refer to the Essenes.
That was a group you hear little about, but actually you know
them very well. They're all around us. They vainly
imagine that they can actually appease and satisfy God's justice
and law and holiness by depriving themselves of pleasure. So they live in celibacy. Or
they don't drink wine. Or they don't smoke or chew or
drink or run with folks who do. Or they don't eat steak or they
don't eat fish or they don't eat collard greens. Whatever
it is they deprive themselves of. By these things we make ourselves
good. And once a year we put acid on
the foreign food. Look at verses 10 through 14. Our Lord speaking
by the prophet. that by his accomplishments as
our Savior, he acted in judgment upon those who despised him and
in mercy toward his chosen. He says, I took my staff, even
beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which
I had made with all the people. When Christ destroyed the nation
of Israel, he took the gospel. which he had given to them alone
for 4,000 years. He took it away. The covenant 2,000 years earlier,
he had made with that people alone, with all the people of
Israel, the Mosaic Law Covenant, and the Law Covenant was only
given to Israel. No one else was ever expected
to keep the Passover or the Sabbath. He said, I broke it. How did
he break it? I broke it and abolished it by
fulfilling it all. And now Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. By
his death, our Lord Jesus Christ has forever abolished that Mosaic
system and that Mosaic law. Verse 11, And it was broken in
that day, and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me,
The poor souls who understood the meaning of all that law represented,
they knew this is the word of God. I cried, it's finished! And it was finished! And they
knew it was me. Verse 12, our Savior describes
his betrayal for 30 pieces of silver. But I want you to notice
three things in verses 12 and 13. Clearly they refer to Judas
Iscariot betraying our Lord, but they refer to more than that.
Number one, the act of betrayal here is said to be the act of
many people, not of one man. They weighed for my price thirty
pieces of silver. I take that to mean that all
who refuse to trust the Lord Jesus Christ do so because they
count Him a worthless thing. Unbelief, you see, is not a passive
thing. It is an active choice, an active
decision. Men and women make. I will not
trust him because he is not worth my faith, my confidence, or my
surrender. They betrayed me for thirty pieces
of silver. Read Exodus 21, 32. You'll find
out what thirty pieces of silver are. They were the price to be
paid for the most common maidservant or manservant who had been gored
by an the price of an insignificant slave. Second, the Son of God,
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Lord and Ruler and Master
of all, became Jehovah's manservant and was gored to death by the
ox of divine justice that he might redeem us from our sins.
Third, all this was done by his own will and his own decree as
Jehovah's servant. I said to them, give me my price. The Lord said to me, test it
to the potter. I took the thirty pieces of silver
and test them to the potter, and I did it in the house of
the Lord. Now wait a minute, the Lord Jesus
didn't really do that, Judas did that. If Judas did it, the
Lord did it. If they weighed the price, the
Lord weighed the price. Well, how can you say that? Nobody
does anything except by His hand, and His will, and His decree. And He does it for the good of
His elect. Everything. Then, after the Jews
took God's Son, nailed Him to the tree, and killed Him in the
horrible agonies of the cross, He miserably destroyed those
wicked men. Verse 14. Then I cut asunder
my other staff, even bands, binders, that I might break the brotherhood
between Judah and Israel. When Titus came into Jerusalem
in 70 A.D., he utterly, utterly, utterly destroyed the city, the
temple, and the nation. So much so, so much so, that
the Jews were scattered. Folks talk about being Jews.
I have friends who are Jews. They're going back to Palestine.
They're going here, they're going there, doing this, doing that.
Let me tell you how many of them in the world, I can tell you
exactly how many in the world can tell you which tribe they
came from, or if they really did even come from one of the
tribes. Tell me again. Since 70 AD. Do you know how
many can tell you? Not a single one. Not one. There is not one person
walking on this earth who really knows by any historic pedigree
that he's a Jew at all. Not a one. Not a one. Oh, you can tell by the physical
characteristics? All physical characteristics, yes. Live over
the under, yes. Family's been over the under,
yes. But their pedigree has utterly been destroyed. So they can't
put their finger on anything and say, there, that proves it.
Can't do it. Can't do it. When God destroys,
God destroys. And if God's pleased to withdraw
from you the binders, the preaching of the gospel, the worship of
his son, those things that hold together his people, we will
be just like those Jews, scattered, with no brotherhood and no peace,
no strength, no help, no life. But Dr. Jackson, that's going
to happen here. I've seen it happen elsewhere. I've seen it
happen elsewhere. I've seen it happen elsewhere.
What should we do? See that you prize him, him who
is valued by this world. at nothing but a worthless prize
him as the pearl of great price. Sell all you have and buy him
every day without money and without price. And may God give you grace
to do so and give me grace to do so for Christ's sake. Amen.

A Time For Howling

What does the Bible say about false prophets?

How do we know God's judgment is real?

Why is the Gospel of Grace important for Christians?

How did Jesus fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 11?

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A Time For Howling

What does the Bible say about false prophets?

How do we know God's judgment is real?

Why is the Gospel of Grace important for Christians?

How did Jesus fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 11?

Sermon Transcript

About Don Fortner

Comments

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