Isaiah 55. I'm going to read
three or four verses. And then three or four verses
in Romans chapter 11. This is the first Sunday of 2007. And I chose this message on purpose. And I hope God will give me your
serious attention. The Bible says, buy the truth,
buy the truth at whatever cost, and don't sell it at any price. The Bible says this truth, this
book, is able to make a man wise unto salvation. We live in a day when truth has
fallen in the streets and trodden underfoot of religious men and
women. I want to talk to you a few minutes
about the truth. The truth shall set you free. Nothing else but the truth. Isaiah 55, my thoughts, verse
8. This is God speaking. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
We don't think like God. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. We're the opposite of everything
God is. We're opposed by nature to everything
God is. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways. higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. That's far peace. The
heavens and the earth, the distance between them. That's how far,
just to begin to describe it, how far God's thoughts are higher
than ours. God's ways above ours. God's
not like us. Not at all. All right. For as the rain cometh down and
the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, But watereth the
earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed
to the sower, and bread to the hearer, bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth." Listen to these words carefully. I have
spoken so many things, and it was just vain, it was just foolish,
it should have been forgotten and lost. But God never speaks
a word in vain. Every word that goes forth out
of His mouth. Now listen. It shall not return unto me void,
or empty, or useless. But it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto
I send it. That's the power of the Word
of God. Power of the Word of God. Oh,
that we might pay attention, that we might hear, that we might
understand. Take it to heart. Romans chapter
11. Romans chapter 11. Verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways are
past finding out, higher than the heavens above ours, like
the heavens are higher than the earth. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? or who hath first
given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again. But
of him, our God, the God of this book, the God with whom we have
to do, of him, and through him, and to him, and Hebrews 411,
Revelation 411, for his good pleasure are all things, to whom
be glory forever, of him, and through him, And to Him are all
things. All things were made by Him and
for Him and for His good pleasure. The title of my message this
morning is one I preached before here in 1999. And I want to preach it again
this morning, the first Sunday of this year. I hope God will
write it on your hearts. If you deal with your friends,
your family, only the truth will set men free. God's saved through knowledge
and understanding, through truth. God's saved by faith, but faith
comes by hearing this Word. If you haven't heard this Word,
I don't care how much faith you've got, it's not worth anything. wouldn't save a fling. Thanks
come for hearing this book. Hearing and understanding and
believing and taking it to heart. With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. Believe what? The truth of this
book. We live in a day when truth doesn't
matter anymore. religious experiences and feelings
and rituals and ceremonies and just about anything to get people
in, keep them in. That's what the churches do.
But there's only one thing that matters as we stand before God.
Truth. He said, I've magnified my truth
above all my name. How you treat this truth, this
book, It's how you treat that great God with whom we have to
do because He's the one talking. I don't like that. You don't
like God. Just that simple. Several years ago, I was sitting
in my kitchen at the bar. reading and drinking coffee.
Brother Mahan was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and
going through his notes. And he said, Brother Maurice
said, how would you like that? I said, let me give you a sermon
by John Newton. I said, sure, let me get my pencil. And he gave it to me, and I've
never forgotten it. And I preached on it before here.
I preached on it around the country. I've published it in my bulletin
and I've used it several times, referred to it in messages that
I've preached since then. I want to preach it to you once
again because it's so important. It's so basic. It's so fundamental. There's no true religion without
it. Cannot be. It's impossible. To have true
religion without these, I will give you three points of this
sermon that John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, this
is a sermon he preached a long time ago. I will give you three
points from that sermon, the first three points. But I wrote
it down that day, and over the years I've referred to it in
several sermons. But I just want us to look at
it this morning and take it into this new year. May God write
it on our hearts. And you dealing with your religious
brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, know this. Unless they know something,
some truth about God, they're not saved. They need to hear
the truth about God. And old brother Magruder once
said, and rightly so, don't criticize them because they believe a lie.
Tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. Tell them
who God is. He said they believe all they've
ever heard, but they haven't heard the truth. God help us
to tell folks the truth in the spirit of love, desire to see
their souls converted to God, which can only happen through
the truth. Only happen to the truth. Today I want us to look
at this outline again. This is the first Sunday of 07. And it may be the last one. But
it is the first one. And if I were picking a sermon
for this occasion, as I have, the last one I'd ever preach,
this might be it. It'd be appropriate. It's for
the glory of God. It's for the good of men's souls,
and that makes it very good and very appropriate at any time. But it's very, very needful in
our day. We live in a time of superficiality
in religion. Superficial. They just play with
the husk, and they don't know the nuts. You know, they haven't
found a real kernel playing in the ashes. Haven't found a fire. Very needful in our day. A time
when, as I said a moment ago, truth is falling in the streets
and being trampled underfoot, as in the days of Isaiah the
prophet and many times before and many times since. Truth has
fallen in the streets. We have the Bible. We carry them
around. We take pleasure in them. We
store Mama's picture in them and Grandma's old picture. Keep
records in them sometime, family records, but we don't know what
it's talking about. It's just something sacred to
us, kindly. Who cares what it says? Who knows
what it says? Everybody has a different opinion.
It must not make much difference. That's all the difference in
this world. What you think of this book and the message of
this book has to do with whether you enter heaven or whether you
drop into hell under the weight of your sins. This book's important. I've said it before and I'll
say it again. The most precious, precious, valuable, tangible
possession you have in this world is this book right here. It's
able to make you wise unto salvation. It'll introduce you to God. It'll
introduce you to yourself and show you your need. And it'll
show you the remedy in the Son of God. This book. You say, well,
I believe this, and my church believes this. It doesn't matter
what you believe, what your church believes. It only matters what
this book teaches. That's all. I told the church
here over and over, don't take what I say for granted. Check
it according to this book. The greatest apostle, the Apostle
Paul, preached in a place one time, and the Bible says those
men, after hearing Paul, day by day, they went home and searched
the Scriptures to see if he'd tell them the truth. Every time
you hear a preacher, you pick up this book, you find out whether
he's telling the truth. Me? Anybody. Because the only thing inspired
is what's in this book. It's the truth of God. But truth has fallen in the street.
There is more ritualism and superstition than there is true religion and
true worship in this world. Matthew 7, 13 through 23 describes
every generation that has been from
the beginning, that those who worship in the name of Christ,
of all of those who go to church and talk about Jesus, very few
of them, very few of them know who He is. One day they'll stand
before God and say, Lord, Lord, this and that and the other.
Don't you remember what we did and how we labored and all these
wonderful works? He said, depart from me. All
your works were works of iniquity. I never knew you. Get out of
my sight. And they're cast out. Very few
enter that straight gate and walk that narrow way which leads
unto life. Very few. We don't want to play with the
scriptures. We don't want to assume what we heard as kids
growing up is true. We want to look at the scriptures.
Look at the scriptures. True religion has for its foundation
divine, unchangeable truth. The everlasting gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel, the good news concerning
His Son. That's what it is. It's never
changed. There's never been but one gospel.
Never will be but one gospel. Never could be but one gospel.
But the gospel of God concerning His Son. The everlasting gospel. True religion. It's a creation
of God through this truth. Out of His own will begat he
us, born again through this truth. Not a fairy tale, not something
we imagined or something a preacher told us, but truth, the truth
of God. Only the truth can set men free. I'll give you an illustration
and then I'll get into the message. Everybody, all these preachers
around town and around the country, around the world, they quote
Romans 10, 13. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. And you know that's true. God
said it. But they forget about what goes
before and what follows after. After Paul made that statement,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,
he raised four questions. But how can they call upon Him
in whom they've never believed? How can they believe in Him whom
they've never heard? How can they hear without a preacher? And how can he preach except
he be sent from God? Psalm 145 and verse 18 It says, the Lord is near all
them that call upon Him. Doesn't that sound sweet? But
it follows by this, to all that call upon Him in truth, in truth,
in truth, you shall know the truth and
the truth shall set you free. The Bible talks about a time
when people have, Paul talked about it too, have a great zeal
but no knowledge. Paul said, I bear them record
they have a zeal of God but without knowledge. They're ignorant. They're going about to establish
their own righteousness and have never submitted themselves to
the righteousness of God which is in Christ Jesus. For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. They
have a zeal. I can bear them record that some
out here on TV, they have a zeal. But not according to knowledge.
Not according to knowledge. One of the biggest problems in
our day is men have wrong opinions of God. And they had it down through
the ages. It's a natural thing. God has to be revealed to men's
hearts through this book. by the Spirit and grace of God.
No man knows Him by nature. It's a supernatural, spiritual,
heavenly revelation to the soul. Only way I could ever know God.
God stoops down to reveal Himself to me through His Son, through
His Word, by His Spirit. Isaiah chapter, I mean Psalm
50 says, God charges Israel of old. He said, you thought, you
foolish people, you thought that I was altogether such a one as
yourselves. You thought God was like you?
That's what he's telling them. You thought God was like you?
How could you think such a thing? To think God is like you. His
thoughts and His ways and His judgments are so high above yours. Past tracing out. Past tracing
out. Of Him and through Him and to
Him are all things. I'm going to be brief. I'll give
you some passages. I won't read all these passages,
but I want you to take it to heart. John Newton so wisely,
and I like the way he stated every word. True religion, point
one. True religion. arises. I like that. Salvation is not
a microwave thing. If we have been saved, we're
being saved. And if we have been saved and
we're being saved, we shall be one day plum saved. True religion,
in its beginning, in its origin, arises out of a true knowledge
of God as He's revealed in this book. I ask people what they think about
God. When I first came here there
was a couple of preachers that talked to me for three or four
years trying to get me to join the ministerial association. One of them was trying to get
me to join a country club. I never did do it. I had trouble
with it. One day I called a dear friend
preacher, wiser than me. I said, what do you think about
that? He said, you don't want to do
that. He said, they'll meet together and they'll talk about their
God, what they're doing for God, what work they're doing for the
Lord. It's all joined hand in hand.
You mention one word about your God, they'll jump on you like
a bunch of chickens on a June bug. That's exactly right. I don't
worship the God they do. I don't like the God they serve.
And they hate the God I serve. It's just that simple. True religion. And that's what I want. I don't
want to be religious and then go to hell. Do you? True religion
arises out of a true knowledge of God as He's revealed in this
book. And that's what I want. And by
the grace of God somehow, that's what I have. I know God. I know the Lord. Well, let me
make a few statements. Number one, John 17, verses 2
and 3, Thou hast given him Christ's power over all flesh, that he
might give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given him.
It takes the power of Christ to give it, the power of Christ
to reveal God. And this is life eternal. that
they might know Thee, know God, the only true God in Jesus Christ
whom Thou sent. That's life eternal. 1 John 5.20
says the same thing. We know that the true God has
come, given us an understanding. We may know Him that is true,
and we're in Him that is true. This is true God, and this is
life everlasting, life eternal. Salvation. Knowing God is salvation. And if you look at Matthew 11,
verse 27, you'll find that the only way you can know God is
if Christ, the sovereign Christ, the enthroned Christ, is pleased
to reveal Him to you. Study this book, we ought. Learn
from this book, we ought. But in the final analysis, unless
God gives a seeing eye and a hearing ear, You'll perish in your sins
with this book in your hand. Salvation of the Lord. I repeat,
it's a spiritual, supernatural revelation of Himself to the
souls of men. Paul said, He revealed Himself
to me and revealed Himself in me. And that's life. That's life. Through religion is knowing God
in truth, not some long, gray-bearded, fatherly-looking something sitting
up in heaven, bending over the balcony, wondering what's going
on, what's going to happen next. He is Almighty God, ruling and
reigning sovereignly over everything that happens in this world. I've
been watching what's going on on TV and the vileness and the
wickedness And I see it as it is. God's
judgment upon this generation. God's judgment. How much worse can it get? I
don't know. But I know only God can stop
it. And He's letting it go right now. Our nation is letting her go.
Salvation is knowing God, as He's revealed in this book, and
submitting to Him and worshiping Him in truth. That's salvation. I made a decision. I don't care
how many decisions you make. Do you know God? Do you know God? Number one, I'm going to give
you two or three things about God, and I think these things
are essential to knowing God and understanding the gospel.
Number one, and I don't know why anyone would ever dream of
anything else, God is absolutely sovereign over all things. God is absolutely sovereign over
the creation of this world. He's absolutely sovereign in
providence. He rules this world. It's in
His hands. It's under His control. Even
when His Son hung on the cross, delivered there by the determinate
counsel and full knowledge of God, those wicked men could only
do whatsoever His hand had determined beforehand to be done. He was
in charge. They'd go so far, no farther.
God's on the throne. He said, I don't understand that.
I don't either, but I know it's so. If it's not, we're in big
trouble. If it's not, we're in big trouble. He is absolutely sovereign in
creation, in providence. And why would anyone think that
he's not sovereign in salvation? He is absolutely sovereign in
the salvation of sinners. The Bible said in Psalm 115,
why should the heathen say, where now is your God? And I've been trying to tell
the religious heathen of this generation where my God is for
a long time. I give David's answer, our God's
in the heavens. And the next point of that is,
He does whatever He pleases. If that weren't so, He wouldn't
be God. Our God's in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases.
Psalm 135. He does according to His will
what He pleases. in the heavens, in the earth,
in the sea, and all deep places, everywhere. He does according
to his will. He's ruling. He's reigning. He's
God. In the context of all those horrible
things that happened to Job, God's saint, Although God was
always in charge, Satan was on a leash. He could only do what
God permitted him no more. And when all was said and done,
he failed. He said, you turn me against
Job, turn me loose to get to Job, and he'll curse you to your
face. God said, go at it. And he never
moved away from his faith. Faith in God. And old Job said
concerning all of those things that came from different sources,
he said, God's a one mind who can turn him. Nobody. Whatever his soul desires. Listen to this statement. Whatever
his soul desires. That's exactly what he does.
That can only be said of one being in the universe. God. That's what makes Him God. He's
over all. The Supreme Being does His will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this earth,
and none can question what He does. He's God. Not very many
folk believe that in our day. A lot of folk believe in God. A lot of folk believe in Jesus.
But we must believe in the message revealed in this book if you would make it to heaven. You know another thing about
God that we hear very little about this morning. David alluded
to it in his Sunday School class, which was very good. The Bible says in Habakkuk 113,
Thou art of pure eyes. and to behold evil, and cannot
look on iniquity." God is so holy and so pure that even the
heavens are not pure in His sight. Job 25 verses 4-6 talking about
how can a man, that which is born of a woman, ever be justified
by God just in God's sight? A man that's a worm. The son
of man which is a maggot. How can they ever be just and
clean in the eyes of God? God's so holy. So holy. So God hates sin. It's odious
and despicable to Him. Odious and despicable. He's holy. And God is infinitely just. Exodus chapter 34 and verse 7. God can by no means clear the
guilty. I'm guilty, aren't you? God is
holy and God is just and He cannot clear the guilty. He has declared
The wages of sin is death. And you're a sinner. He has said,
the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die. And I'm a sinner. And you're a sinner. He cannot,
he cannot, not only he will not, he cannot clear the guilt there
because he's so holy and so just. Sin must be punished. Must be
punished. Must be punished. He has spoken. The word is gone forth from the
Lord. The wages of sin is death. If
we would be saved, we must know this God, this holy God, this
just God, whom we've offended. How can we know what need we
have of reconciliation if we don't know the difference between
us and God? Number two, true religion arises
out of a true knowledge of man, me, you, as we're described in
this book. It can't be otherwise. Faith
comes by hearing, hearing by this book. We must know God as he's revealed
in this book. We must know ourselves as we're
described in this book. to our Savior. We take note of
human goodness and morality of men and women, and we judge them
accordingly, and that's all right. That's right and good in as far
as it goes. But we can only look on the outward
appearance. We can only see what a man is
pleased to reveal to us of himself. God looks past all that. past
all the camouflage. God looks in the heart. Man looketh on the outward appearance. God looks on the heart. He knows every word before we
ever speak it and every thought before it ever comes to mind.
He knows all of our motives. He knows why we spoke it. And
sometimes we have a hard time figuring that out, but he doesn't.
God knows. God knows. God looks right past
all the outward things, and he looks on the heart, and what
he sees is this. The heart is deceitful. Ninety years, I know. God showed
me. The heart is deceitful above all things. That means above
anything else in the world. And desperately wicked. And that
word desperately is a medical term and it means incurably,
incurably wicked. That's my heart. I can't change
it any more than an Ethiopian can change his skin or a leopard
can change his spots. I can't change it. It's what
I am. That's what I found in Jeremiah
17.9. Look at Matthew 15 just a moment,
please. I want to try to point out as
best I can what I'm talking about. I want you to see it. These Jews had a religion of
touch not, taste not, handle not, and all of these do's and
don'ts, and don't eat without washing your hands, and the ceremonies,
they made up. Didn't come from God. And they
condemned the Lord because he didn't follow those things and
all their little rules. But he says in verse 18, those
things which proceed out of the mouth, they come forth from the
heart. And that's what defiles a man.
And you can tie his mouth shut and it's still in his heart. Do you understand what I'm saying? You know, when I was a young
fella on the farm, I got a big old black cow one time, and she
just liked to kick people. She'd kick the bucket over and
kick the stool over, and people had to stand way back, you know,
and try to milk her. And I put the kickers on her,
and they gave her to me to milk, because I was meaner than she
was. But I put the kickers on her and she couldn't kick me.
But she still wanted to. She still wanted to. There's
a lot of things about society, for our reputation, because of
our families, many things that keep us from doing as badly as
we could. But it's still in our hearts. Still in your heart. You still think about it. You
still ponder those things. You're just as wicked as the
devil before God. Your neighbors can't see it,
but God sure can. These things in the heart of
a man, out of the heart, precede evil thoughts and murders and
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These
are the things which defile a man. These things that come out of
the heart, out of the heart, God help us to see these things.
Because that's what God sees. That's what God sees. 1 Corinthians
2.14, The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. They are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them. We cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. And I've been telling you to
read the Bible. But you can't receive the things in the Bible.
Read it prayerfully. Read it like David did. Lord,
open mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Read it prayerfully. You say, I don't have time. Well,
it's a matter of life and death. You make your own decision. Matter
of life and death. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse
3. No man can call Jesus Lord, but
by the Spirit of God. Romans chapter 5, we're all enemies
of God by nature, all ungodly, ungodly. John 6, 45, and we cannot,
we do not have the ability, to come to Christ except God draws
us. No man can. No man can. No man can. God is holy and we are sin. God
is just and we have nothing to satisfy His law or His justice. That brings us to the last point.
What's our hope? What's our hope? God cannot clear
the guilty. And I'm guilty. Boy, I'm guilty
inside and outside and upside down, ever which way. Our hope is in this next point.
True religion rises out of a true sense and understanding of the
great things God's done for us. in His Son. A true sense and
understanding of the great things God's done for us in His Son. Done for sinners in His Son.
1 Corinthians 5.21 God sent His own Son into the
world made Him to be sin for us. God the Father made His Son
to be sin for us. That One who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That is what God
has done for us in the Son. What else? God sent Him to die
just for the unjust that He might bring us to that he might bring
us to God. He died for us that he might
bring us to God. He bore our sin in his own body
on that tree. God made his soul an offering
for sin. In a summary way, let me just
say this. He came into this world as one
of us. Wherefore it behooved him in
all things to be made like unto his brethren. He came into this
world as one of us. A real man. Yet the God-man. And he trusted in the Lord from
his mother's womb. That's what God requires of you.
Me too. But I sure didn't do it. I don't
trust him like I ought to now. But he did. And he did it for
me. He did it for me! And every day
of his life, over 33 years, he lived in a way that God said,
I'm well pleased. And that's the righteousness
that I stand in before God. And God is well pleased with
me. As He is, so are we in this world. Because we're dressed
in His righteousness. And all the sin that I was charged with was laid
upon Him. And God spared me and poured
out His wrath upon Him, His only Son. That's what God's done for
us in His Son. So true religion arises out of
these things. Write it down. God will write
it in your heart. True religion arises out of true knowledge
of God. It's revealed in this book. There can't be any true
religion without a true knowledge of God. True religion arises
out of true knowledge of me, as I'm described in this book. And I know a lot of people, they
just talk about what pitiful things they are, and wretched
creatures they are, and testimony meeting, but the reality of it,
we've met God in the truth, and it's real. I know who God is. I know who God is. Some folks
talk about, yeah, I believe God's sovereign. I do, too. I know
He is. I've been to the potter's house.
I've been to the potter's house. Somebody says, yeah, I know all
men are sinners. I know that, too. That's where
I live. Reality. And then the glorious
good news of what Christ has accomplished for sinners. Mm-mm. There can be no true religion
without it. And what the Bible tells us about Christ is that
all that God required of us, He provided for us. Everything that God required
of me, my Savior provided it for me. I couldn't, but He did. Why did he do it? Grace? I don't know. Love and grace.
And for the glory of His great name. And the more clearly a
sinner comes to see God as He is, and see himself in God's
light, the more he'll admire and love and adore and worship
the Lord Jesus Christ. For that's the only remedy. The
only remedy. Lost sinners. Can you graciously
submit to the God of the Bible? You must. One day you must. One
day. That Savior of ours who was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross, God had highly exalted
Him and given Him a name above every other name that ever has
been or ever shall be. And one day at the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow, things in heaven, things in earth, things
under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ
is L-O-R-T, to the glory of God. It's not a matter of whether
we'll ever confess it, it's a matter of when. It's a matter of whether you
do it willingly, graciously, or whether you're forced to it.
It's going to happen. Every man and woman that ever
lived on the face of this earth is going to stand before the
Son of God one day and be judged by Him in righteousness and executed
by Him. Amen. May God help us. May God help
us to spread this word abroad. Salvation and worship of God
based on truth. Not based upon ideas and notions
that we come up with down through the ages, what we see plainly
and clearly in this book. Not complicated things, but plainly
and clearly in this book. Who's God? He's God indeed. Who
are we? Sinners indeed. Paul talked about
seeing the exceeding sinfulness of sin. I've seen that. It's a reality. Who's Christ? He's the only remedy. He's God's
glorious Redeemer. He redeemed us under God by His
own blood. Set us free from sin and its
curse and its death. May God give all of us more faith. And if you haven't had any before
you came here this morning, I hope you have it when you leave. Faith
that trusts Christ. What does that mean? It means
to put all your hope in Him. Trust Him. All your hope in Him. I'm a sinner before God. I only have one hope of escape,
one hope of salvation. It's all in Christ. He's not only my Savior. Spurgeon used to say, He is salvation
itself. He that hath the Son hath life. God bless you. Okay, David.