I'd like for you to turn back
in your Bibles, if you will, to the 15th chapter of the book
of Acts. I felt impressed of the Lord
to come to this chapter this morning. I do trust that what
we have to say will be edifying and encouraging and that it will
be useful in the hands of the Spirit of God to move upon those
who are outside the Savior. I want to talk a little bit this
morning about four kinds of creeds. You know what a creed is? A creed
is a system of belief. And I think I see four kinds
of creeds in the Word of God that I think that needs to be
talked about. And I might even ask for your
help on some of these. As we begin, let us take note
of a little bit of the context here. My text really is verse
11. where it says, But we believe,
that's what the apostles believed, that through the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. Now you know
something about the background if you listened as Brother Chris
read this chapter. You know that there were certain
men which came down from Judea that tried to teach a doctrine
that were not true, a doctrine that was not so. And they were
teaching that except a believer, Gentile believers, Jewish believers,
were circumcised after the manner of Moses, they could not be saved. Except they be circumcised after
the manner of Moses, they could not be saved. Well, Paul and
Barnabas heard this, and there was no small disputing and argument
about it. And then there was a determination
made that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should
go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. They would have a conference
up in Jerusalem where all matters would be hammered out and solved. Solved forever, you would think.
Plainly, this was a very important conference. It was a conference
that ought to have settled the matter, the matter between law
and grace, forever. This was an important time in
the event, an important event in the early church's life when
this matter would be dealt with once for all. Does a man have
to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved? Well,
we see that God had begun to call out a people from the Gentiles
for his name. The Lord purposed to save Gentile
people for his name. And he had a certain number of
those Gentiles that he would call. And he is still calling
them today. God is still calling out that
people out of the Gentiles for his name. Now the apostles and
elders came together, the day came when the conference was
to be held in Jerusalem, and they came together to consider
this matter that we have set before you this morning. And
when there had been much disputing, arguing down there too. Peter
rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, you know how that
a good while ago, that's back in the 10th chapter, God made
a choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe. God's will and program was that
the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe the
gospel. And this was their salvation.
And God which knoweth the hearts bare them witness that they believe
that gospel. And the witness was that he gave
them the Holy Ghost even as he did unto us. Every believer has
the Holy Spirit. Every believer has the Spirit
of God abiding in them. And this is the witness that
you belong to the Lord. This is the earnest of the inheritance. This is God telling you that
you're His, that you belong to Him. The Spirit of God in you
bearing witness with your spirit that you belong to the Lord. And so God gave these Gentiles
that heard the Word and believed, He gave them the Holy Ghost.
He didn't say a word about them keeping the Law of Moses or about
them being circumcised. He didn't say anything about
them still being under the Law, if they ever were under the Law.
He didn't say a word about that. He just said that they heard
the Word and they believed the Gospel and God gave them the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given. Now,
I don't know whether you treasure the gift of the Holy Spirit or
not. But you ought to. You ought to. It's the earnest
of the down payment. It's that in us that declares
that God someday is going to have us in glory. That we're
going to be in glory with Him. That He's given us the earnest
of the Spirit. And look at verse 9, and He put
no difference between us and them. Now Peter's talking here,
and when he talks about us, of course, he's talking about the
Jews. God put no difference between us and them, them being the Gentiles. God dealt with them exactly the
same, on the same basis. Purifying their hearts by what? By faith? Purifying their hearts
by faith. How does a man get his heart
purified? By faith. That's the way you
do it. Somebody said, no, you tack the
Ten Commandments up on the wall of your bedroom, and you read
them every morning. No, that's not what it says. It says your heart is purified
by faith. That's how it becomes pure. By
believing the gospel, by hearing the gospel, and believing the
gospel. That's how we get a pure heart. Now somebody said, well,
that don't sound hard. Well, I will challenge your heart
with this. Believe unto the purifying of
your heart. That's the way it is. Believe
to the purifying of your heart. Now therefore, verse 10, Why
tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which
neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Our fathers and
we never were able to keep the laws. Too much for us. We weren't
able to do it. We all failed under it. It killed
every one of us. The soul that sinneth it must
die. And cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things
written in the book of the law to do them. Cursed is everyone
who fails to measure up to the law. Now, Peter says, why do
you tempt God to do this? Tempt God to put a yoke upon
these disciples. And you know men are still trying
to do that today, tempting God to put his people under a yoke
that no one has ever been able to bear. When a man attempts
to put you under the law, if you're a believer, Then he's
doing just that very thing. He's tempting God to put you
under a program that you cannot handle, that will only kill you
every time you make a mistake, every time you fail. And we're
all failures. There's not a person here this
morning that has not sinned and come short of the glory of God.
All of us have failed. We're only able to stand before
a holy, thrice holy God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ
and have that righteousness of the Son of God put to our account. That's the only way we can stand
before God. Righteousness, yes. Righteousness
is demanded. But, beloved, it's through the
obedience of one that many has been made righteous. It's through
his obedience that we've been made righteous. But now, he said,
but this is what we believe. This is our creed. The apostles'
creed. Now we're going to talk about
their creed last. That we believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they.
We believe us Jews are going to get saved just like these
poor Gentiles got saved. And that is through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, I thought about maybe
giving a brief summary of four different creeds here. And the
first creed that I thought about was the creed of the natural
man. The creed of the natural man. What does a natural man,
he comes into this world, as a sinner, he's born dead in sin,
he's born in a state where he's under the wrath of
God and the judgment of God, he's under condemnation. What
does he believe? What is it that the natural man
believes? If you had to tell me what was
the creed of the natural man, what would you say? You know,
the Apostle Paul said, The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto them, neither
can he know them, because the things of God are spiritually
understood. The natural man considers God's
ways being foolishness. He says that this business of
purifying the heart by faith is a bunch of foolishness. It
can't be done that way. It's got to be done in other
ways. Now, we know and I've often heard that men, natural men, say, well,
you've got to do the best you can. That's part of their creed. Do the best you can. Do you know
of anyone who ever done the best they could? Do you? I don't know
of anyone who ever done the best they could, myself, and I've
lived longer than everybody outside of Lillian over here, in this
building. I don't know of anyone who ever
done the very best they could. I've heard people say that they
tried to do the very best they could, but that's a natural man's
creed. Now God says that a man's got
to be as righteous as he is, that a man's got to be as good
as he is, and I wonder how that you measure up to him. That's
the question. You say, I do the best I can.
Do you measure up to what God requires? And that is that you
be as righteous as he is. Well, somebody else will say,
well, my creed is we need to be kind to one another. Well,
there's nothing wrong with kindness. But is that the gospel? But that's
the natural man's creep. Well, I do the best I can, and
I'm kind to my neighbors. Well, that will not get you past
the graveyard. That will not get you to heaven.
That will not get you into the state of eternal life. And he
says, well, I'm a very loving person. Well, you may be a very
loving person. But that is still not the gospel. But that's the creed of a lot
of natural people in this world. They say, I think that we just
need to love everybody. And if we just love everybody,
don't condemn anybody, then I think that'll help get us to heaven. No, it won't get you to heaven.
And then somebody else says, if you just pay your way in this
life, not a burden on other people. I think that's my creed, is I
pay my way and not a burden on other people. That's not the
gospel. You see, that's the way a natural man thinks. And the
scripture says that there is a way that seemeth right unto
a man, but the end thereof is the way of death. that it's death
of the soul for a man to miss the gospel. And the creed of
the natural man is not right before God, it is wrong before
God. Now, do you have anything you
would add to the creed of the natural man? What does he believe?
The man outside of Christ, the man who has no hope in his heart
of eternity, what does he believe? Is not these things that we mentioned?
This is the way that he approaches it? Well, it is exactly the way
that he approaches it. All right, now secondly, and
we are going to hurry on here, is the creed of the religious
man. The Pharisees, you know, there was a certain sect of the
Pharisees in verse 5 which believed, saying that it was needful to
circumcise them and command them to keep the law of Moses. They
were very religious people, very religious, and going through
the outward motions. But the Bible says, you know,
these folks, they say, well, you know, you've heard it, join
the church, be baptized, pray, give your time and your money,
and you'll be saved. Well, that's Cain and Abel gospel.
That won't save you, my friend. That's you trying to get good
enough for God to save you. And there isn't any such thing.
That ain't going to happen for you to get good enough that God
will save you. There are some people that actually
believe that they can, by religious acts, bring themselves into favor
with God. But you can't do that. You know, I was thinking about
this. People that believe that they
are going to make themselves so good by their religion and
by their practice and by their adherence to duty that God will
save them. I thought considerably about
that and it's kind of like a man going down to the river and standing
on the bank waiting for all the water to flow by so he can walk
across. That ain't going to happen. It
ain't going to happen. It will not. You cannot get yourself
good enough where God's going to favor you and save you. No,
sir. We're going to find out that
the only one of these creeds that's right is the Apostles'
Creed. It's not right. A man cannot be saved that way.
God will accept the way he has appointed, and that's the only
way he's going to accept. It's through believing, hearing
the word of the gospel and believing that a man is saved. Not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing
brought about by the Holy Ghost. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy. The way which God
has appointed, he will accept. All right? Now there's nothing
wrong with a man joining the church. Nothing wrong with being
baptized. Nothing wrong with him praying.
These are good things. And giving of their time and
money, that's a good thing. But that's not what saves a man.
But religion will tell you that's it. That's it. And that is a
false creed. Don't get involved with that.
And then I thought about the creed of the modern-day fundamentalists.
We have, you know, fundamentalists, this town is full of them, and
they're everywhere. You turn on television, that's
about all you hear is the fundamentalists, the fundamentalists. And you
know what their creed is? Their creed is, we believe if
a man exercises his free will and opens up his heart's door,
then they'll be saved. Because we don't believe God
can do anything unless we let him. That's their idea. That's
their creed. Unless we let him. As one of
their preachers said, not even God can steer a parked car. You've
got to have the engine running. Well, what is that? That's human,
that's man-centered religion is what it is. Man-centered religion. These fundamentalists, will tell you that the way to
get saved is for you to do something, for you to make a decision, for
you to agree with a system of theology. But that is wrong. You know, if salvation was left
up to us opening up our hearts, we'd all be in a pickle because
none of us has got the key. You don't have the key. You don't
have the ability to give yourself the disposition to repent. You don't have the ability to
come to God on your own. Jesus said you cannot come on
your own. You can only come as he draws
you. as he draws you to himself. Salvation is the work of God
from the beginning to the end. The fundamentalists have got
it all wrong. Man is dead in sin and his will is contrary
to God. His will, his nature is contrary
to God. And he will not come to God.
He cannot come. It's like the water running over
the Niagara Falls. He cannot reverse its course.
Man's nature is dead. He's dead in sin. And only God
can make a sinner live. Only God can call out a man and
give him a hearing ear and a seeing eye. Only God can do that. All right. The creed that I see here in
the scriptures is the Apostle's Creed, and I told you we'd get
to that in a moment. There was no room for the Fundamentalist
Creed in the Apostle's Creed. There was no room for that. I
like the way this scripture sets it forth, verse 11, and I think
it would be good for you to memorize this verse of scripture. Memorize
it and think on it a great deal. But Peter said, summing up this
whole thing, leveling the ground, getting down to where they said
the rubber meets the road, getting all of the facts, laying aside
all of the dross, getting down here to the pure gold. How is
it that God saves a sinner? How is it that he does it? Well,
Peter is clear as crystal here. And I want you to know that where
Paul learned his doctrine, as is set forth in the book of Galatians,
you know what Paul said in the book of Galatians? He said if
righteousness came by the law, Christ is dead in vain. He said
that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in
God's sight. This conference here was the
foundation of Paul's understanding of the gospel of God's free grace,
Peter's understanding of the gospel of God's free grace. And
we need to understand that when we've sifted through all that
we've heard in religion, and when we've being able, by the
grace of God, to get a picture of how the natural man looks
at things and sees things, and how the religionist looks at
them, and how the fundamentalist looks at them, that we scratch
through all of that and we get down to the bare foundation,
and we bottom some place. And the place to bottom is right
here, verse 11. But we believe, we believe something. We have conviction about something. This is where we stand. This
is our conviction. This is our creed. Somebody said,
well, it isn't very long. It ought to have been 10 or 12
pages long. It don't need to be. It don't
need to be. He said, but we believe. We do
indeed. I do. It's the only hope of a
sinner. is to believe what he's saying here. This is the way
we got out of the mess. This is the way we're going to
overcome the world. This is the victory. I like what
happened later. I'm going to come back to this.
I like what happened here when the disciples were told about the decisions
or the decision that was made up here. Where is that verse at in this
chapter? I seem to have lost it right
now. Oh, verse 31. Here it is. Which when they had read, you
remember after the conference, they sent out a letter telling
Well, let's look at verse 28. For it seemed good to the Holy
Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols,
and from blood, and from things strangled, fornication, from
which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. So when they dismissed, they
came to Antioch. And when they gathered the multitude
together, the rich, when they had read, they rejoiced. The consolation. Do you think
they understood the language of the apostles? Now, if there
was still to be a mixture of law and grace, do you think there
would have been any rejoicing? Any consolation? I don't think
there would have been. If all they had given would have
been a summation of the natural man's creed, the religious man's
creed, the fundamentalist's creed, there wouldn't have been any
consolation, no joy. No one shouting, hallelujah,
praise God, I'm free from all this bondage, religious bondage. Praise the Lord for free grace. There was joy. They rejoiced. My soul. You get out from under
the law, and you'll get some joy in your soul, in your heart. Salvation is of grace. So, back
to the Apostles Creed in verse 11, but we believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. We shall be
saved. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved. Not you are working on it, but
ye are saved. By grace ye are saved. The unmerited
favor of God, God's favor, which you cannot buy, you cannot work
it up, you cannot draw attention to God and get it, it comes from
God. It is like that gentleman after the Civil War,
he was down south and he stopped for breakfast in a hotel, and
when they brought his breakfast, It had these grits on it, on
the plate. And he said, What's this? And the woman that brought his
breakfast said, Dem's grits. And he said, Well, I didn't order
any grits. She said, You don't order grits,
they just come. And that's the way the grace
of God is. The grace of God comes. But I say to you that you cannot
in any way flag it down. And this world is full of people
who think you can flag the grace of God down and say, hey, turn
in here. No, no, the grace of God cannot
be flagged down. The grace of God comes. Faith
cometh, cometh. It has got to come. And it can
only come from God. Faith comes from God. So by grace
are you saved through faith. That's how you're saved. We believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be
saved even as they, us Jews who are very religious. We're going
to get saved just like them poor Gentile dogs. We believe we're
going to get saved just like they did. They heard the word,
they believed the gospel, and they were saved! And the Holy
Spirit was given to them. And Peter said, that's the way
it's going to happen with us. We're going to get saved the
same way. Well, you know, I praise God for this 15th chapter of
the book of Acts. Because there was an awful lot
of problems here that was solved if anybody's listening. A lot
of problems solved. A lot of contention that didn't
need to exist anymore and wouldn't exist if people would listen
to what this chapter says. But we've had people, we've had
people sit right here in our pew that went out of here saying
that you can mix the law and the gospel. And there isn't any
truth in it. You cannot mix law and grace. You can't do it. Law is one thing,
grace is another. And thanks be unto God that salvation
is by grace. Free grace. Free grace. Well, you know, I thought a little
bit about the Apostles' Creed. And if you read this 11th verse
and study it, you'll see that the Apostles believed that all
were sinners. Because you're talking about
getting saved. What do you get saved from if you're not a sinner?
You can't get saved unless you're a sinner. So our creed is that
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the
wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the apostles believed in
salvation, didn't they? They believed in salvation. There's
nobody here who's going to doubt that. The apostles believed that
a man could be saved. Now that alone is a miracle. That a sinner can get saved,
that's a miracle. That's a wonderful thing. Praise
God, that's a wonderful thing. Now you know, it might not excite
you, but it excites me. The older I get, the more I'm
convinced that if it had been for the grace of God, I'd have
went to hell. And not only that, but I wouldn't have had anything
to preach for the last 54 years if it hadn't have been for the
grace of God. Salvation is by grace. So they believe in salvation. And what does it mean if a man
says, I believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
We shall be saved even as they. What does that mean? That means
that we're accepted of God. When a man gets saved, he's accepted
of God. God accepts you. Ephesians 1,
6 says we're accepted in the Beloved. Accepted in Him. And the righteousness, you know,
Paul said in the book of Romans, chapter 4, I believe it is, he
said, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies
the ungodly, his faith gives him what God has demanded he
have. Faith is counted for the very
thing that God demands of you. God demands you to be righteous,
and when you believe God, then he gives you what he demands.
That's righteousness. to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifies the ungodly." His faith is counted
for righteousness. Here's an ungodly sinner. He
comes in. He takes a seat. He hears that
God is in the business of justifying the ungodly, and it's not through
works. It's through him believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that when he believes on
the Lord Jesus Christ, that his faith is counted for the thing
that he's never had all of his life, righteousness. Ah, that's wonderful. That's
wonderful. That rejoices an old sinner's
heart. Praise God. Accepted of God. And it also means we've got a
substitute. You've got to substitute. That
means that God's looking at somebody besides you so that you can just
continue to enjoy this thing. That's right, continue to enjoy
it. God's not looking at you. He's looking at your representative.
And you say, I don't know whether I can handle that. That's pretty
deep. Well, that's not really very deep in the sense of the
gospel. The gospel is plain on it. that
God has laid on Him the guilt of us all, and that God exacted
from Him full payment for our sin, and that God looks upon
His lovely Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and is full of compassion
toward us. He loves His only begotten Son,
and because He loves Him, He loves you, if you are in Him. Compassion. Compassion. God loves His people. We oftentimes
forget about that, don't we? But He loved us so much that
He put us in His Son and said, I won't look at you anymore.
I just look at Him. And God gets up every day and
looks at His Son. And He's well pleased with His
Son. And so He's well pleased with
us. If you're saved, you've got to substitute. Now, you know,
I don't want to I wouldn't want you or I to die, go out of this
world, still in our sin. I just wouldn't want that. I
want that God would put you in His Son, so that when you go
out of this world, that all that His Son is, is yours, and that
you're in Him And that God looks upon you as He looks upon Him. And He only sees you in Him.
That's the only way God sees you. Since you're saved, that's
the only way God sees you. That's the way He views you.
You're in the Son. In the Son. In the substitute.
And you know that means that all of our sin has been paid
for in the substitute. Our sin was laid on Jesus, and
he paid the full price. God the Father exacted from him
every cent I owed the justice of God. Now, brother, sister,
that must be so, or you and I are still hopelessly lost in our
sin. God exacted from him full payment
for our sin, and to be saved means that the debt that you
owe God has been cancelled. It has been paid for, it's paid
for in full. Now that's what it means to be
saved. So, the Apostles Creed says we believe that through
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're accepted of God. Through
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're made righteous, as righteous
as Christ is. And through the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, our sins have all been paid for. Now that's
what Peter was saying here in verse 11. It's through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. You know, I like
what he said here last, even as they. I like that because, you know,
If somebody said, well, do you think the Jews will be saved?
And they'll immediately answer, oh, yes, the Jews will be saved.
Do you think the Pharisees are going to be saved? Oh, yes, they're
religious people, you know. They're so very religious. They
won't even eat an egg that was laid on Sunday. No, no, no, no,
no, they won't do that. And they won't spit on the ground
on Sunday because they'll be plowing the fur and the dust.
Can't plow on Sunday. Think they'll be saved? Circumcised? Think they'll be saved? No, they're
not going to be saved. But if they do get saved, they're
going to get saved just like we poor Gentiles. who have spit
every Sunday of our lives, who have eaten eggs that were laid
on Sunday every day of our lives? Almost. Some of you may not,
but I would probably be eating one. But I'm convinced of it,
even as they. Even as they. The Jews have got
to get saved like the Gentiles. Somebody said, the Gentiles have
got to get saved like the Jews. No! It's not that way. The Jews has got to get saved
like the Gentiles. Now that shows you the truth
of the gospel right there. That brings the gospel out in
clear light. God takes these Gentile dogs,
and I was about to say mangy Gentile dogs. God takes them,
and he saves them, and them upright, sophisticated Jews. It's got to get down and get
saved, just like them Gentile dogs. That's amazing. It's amazing,
but that's the way it is. That's the way it is. May God
save somebody here this morning. May God be pleased to give you
life in His Son. Life in His Son. Martin Luther,
I think it was, had said, Two things that he didn't want to
do. Number one, he didn't want to think about dying apart from
Christ. He didn't want to think about
death apart from Jesus Christ. Number two, he didn't want to
think about standing before God apart from Jesus Christ. And I don't think you and I,
if we've got a lick of brains, want to do either one either.
We don't want to die outside of Christ. and we don't want
to appear before God outside of Christ. Father, in Jesus'
name, Father by the Holy Ghost and the power of the Spirit,
be pleased to move upon this congregation and save the lost
that are here. Bring them to the understanding
of what has been said here today, and may the gospel bear fruit. Father, receive the glory, receive
the glory, hallelujah, for free grace, salvation, and Christ.
We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.