Let's turn again to the Gospel
of Matthew chapter 5. I am sure you are like I am in
many respects as we read the scriptures. Frequently we run
across passages that are troubling at first reading because they
appear to teach that that surely is damning to our souls. And
then we'll listen to somebody preach on them and they usually
get even more troubling because they preach them that way. and
read the things written on them, and they get more troubling,
because everybody seems to read them that way. But in reality,
if God the Holy Spirit will give us eyes to see and a heart to
understand what he's written in his word, those passages that
at first reading seem to be so troubling are more comforting
than words can express, more cheering to our souls than can
be imagined. Such a passage is Matthew chapter
5, verses 21 through 26. Matthew 5, verses 21 through
26. Now remember the context. Our Lord has just declared, except
your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven. His subject has not changed.
He's still talking about the same thing. Let's read these
verses together, and I'll come back and give a fuller of them
later, but lest I run out of time or forget to say something,
I want to make some comments along the way and give away my
message as a start. Matthew 5.21, you have heard
that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. Whosoever shall kill shall be
in danger of judgment. Okay, well, I'm safe. I've never
murdered anybody. But I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment. That's different. Or is it? Is
it possible for you or me to be angry with a man like us without
a cause? Not hardly. Not hardly. You've
got plenty of cause to be angry at me. You may not know them,
but you've got plenty of cause. And I've got plenty of cause
to be angry at you. But there is a man who is our brother whom
we hated without a cause. He is the Son of God, our Savior.
Hated him without a cause. Some of you still do. He shall
be in danger of judgment. And whosoever shall say to his
brother, this brother whom he hates without a cause, Raca,
you contemptible thing, shall be in danger of the council.
But whosoever shall say to this brother whom he hates without
a cause, you fool, You reprobate, despise man worthy of hell, worthy
of death. Whosoever shall say thou fool
shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy
gift to the altar," now, you're going to come worship God? You're
going to come worship God, hating His Son, considering His Son
a contemptible thing, despising His blood atonement and His righteousness?
If you bring your gift to the altar and remember that your
brother, the same one he'd been talking about, hath ought against
thee. Oh, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy
way. First be reconciled to thy brother,
or you can't worship God. You've got to first be reconciled
to Christ. And then coming off of thy gift,
agree with thine adversary quickly. He's not talking about a different
person. Your brother, whom you hated without a cause, whom you
considered an imposter worthy of death. Agree with thine adversary
quickly whilst thou art in the way, lest at any time the adversary
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee,
Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the
uttermost farthing." Now, how are we to understand those words?
What do they mean? I'll show you more clearly, the
Lord willing, in a few minutes. But I want to talk to you plainly,
answering this question. How can I come to God's altar? How can I come to God's altar? Now, throughout the scriptures,
ever since the fall of our father Adam, from the days of Adam onward,
every man who worshipped God, worshipped God at an altar. It
was established as soon as Adam fell in the garden that God will
be worshipped at an altar with a sacrifice. You can't come to
God any other way. You got to come to God at an
altar, and you got to come to God with a blood sacrifice. You can't come any other way. God won't have it any other way. All through the ages of the patriarchs,
From Adam to the time that Moses came and God gave his law by
Moses, men and women worshipped God wherever they worshipped
him. They erected altars of stone and called upon the name of the
Lord. And when God called Moses up
into the mount on that day when God gave the law and showed him
the picture of things in heaven, things that were to be accomplished,
and showed him how he was to make the tabernacle, he told
Moses to make one altar. Just one. And he set the altar
in one place. After the days of Moses, when
Solomon had built the temple, the house of God was established
permanently at Jerusalem. God said, put the altar right
there. And that's the only place where men and women could ever
worship God as a gathered people coming to call on his name. You
cannot come to God except at this altar. In fact, when they
prayed, They were instructed to pray toward that altar. Bow down and pray toward Jerusalem,
toward that altar. You can't come to God except
you come to God looking to this altar and this sacrifice. God
will not be worshipped anywhere else. He will not be spoken to
anywhere else. He will not speak to you anywhere
else. The only way men and women could
come to God was by that altar. But that altar was just typical. We no longer bow toward Jerusalem. We no longer bow toward any physical
earthly altar. The altar in the Old Testament
and all the altars that men erected prior to the days of Moses were
altars that were ceremonially and typically erected, pointing
us to the fact that God Almighty will be worshiped at one altar.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. I'll show you the altar. Hebrews
chapter 13. I'm fully aware this is what
folks call Easter Sunday, and I'm also fully aware that men
and women everywhere are worshiping at altars. I heard a fella on
the news this week talking about how holy the week is. Folks come back to God. They
come back to God for a day and kiss the altar. Boy, that'll
make you feel close to God, won't it? Maybe before the old man dies,
you can kiss the Pope's toe. Oh, that'd make you feel good,
close to God. Sheer paganism. You're just as
well worship a God made out of a stump with stump water for
holy water. Pure paganism. It doesn't matter whether it's
First Baptist Church, Grace Baptist Church, or St. Peter's Basilica.
It doesn't matter. Pure paganism. From Hebrews chapter
13, verse 10. We have an altar. We have an
altar. You don't see one up here. And as long as God gives me breath
and good sense, you're not going to see one up here. We have an
altar. It's not here. It's not here. But we have an
altar. Folks say, where's your altar?
I'm preaching up in Montana, and folks have bought the building,
and they've taken the idolatrous cross there from the wall, and
there was an Episcopal preacher. I met him. He would preach one
night, and he asked the lady sitting beside him, he said,
why'd they take down the altar? Why'd they take that down? And
he didn't know it, but I was planning to deal with why they
took it down. Because we don't need that. We have an altar.
We have an altar. Whereof, now watch it, they have
no right, no authority, No permission, no ability to eat. You can't
possibly, you can't possibly eat the sacrifice offered on
this altar who served the tabernacle. If you've got an earthly altar,
it can't be done. The altar of sacrifice in the
tabernacle in the temple was typical of this altar, who is
our Lord Jesus Christ, his person, his work, his sacrifice, and
his merit. As our substitute, he is the
author by which we come to God and by which God comes to us,
and there's no other way. This is what God, the Holy Spirit,
teaches us in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 10. The only way sinners
may have access to God, the only way sinners can come to God,
the only way we can find acceptance with God, is through Christ our
altar. Our altar is in heaven. Our altar
is in heaven. I'm not talking about a physical
altar. We recognize no altar on the
earth and no altar in heaven. I had a fellow preaching to me
when I was a young man, an old man. He's learned better now. I like to fell out of the pew,
wanted to crawl under it, wanted to throw it over his head. He
said, you know, we've lost faith in the Ark of the Covenant. We
don't know what happened to it. Don't know what happened to it.
Sounded like one of those Hollywood things, in search of the Ark.
He said, I found out what happened to it. Turned over to Revelation
and said, it was raptured up to heaven. The Ark's gone. No, no, that
one's gone. The Ark is a living person. and
their physical altar is gone, our altar is a living Redeemer. Do you understand that? Our altar
is in heaven. He who is our altar, and he who
has this one for his altar, needs no other and will have no other. If you have an altar upon the
earth, you don't have one in heaven. It's just that plain.
You can't have both. You can't have both. You've been
preaching nobody worships God, who worship God at a physical
altar? No. God the Holy Spirit means
nobody can eat this altar which is in glory who worships at an
altar down here in this earthly tabernacle. Can't be done. We
cannot approach God without a priest, a mediator, and a sacrifice.
And Christ is our priest, our mediator, and our sacrifice. We have no other. There is still
but one altar. In this gospel day, all physical,
carnal, ceremonial altars are instruments of idolatry. Use
any altar for acceptance with God other than Christ, and you
have no right to come to God, no right to the merits of Christ.
If you have another altar, your altar will drag you to hell.
There are many who think that the cross was an altar, wear
them around their necks, have pictures of them in their church
buildings. The cross was an instrument of death. It was no more an altar
than the Roman whips that scourged our Savior's back. When the Scripture
speaks of us glorying in the cross, it's not talking about
the physical cross. It's not talking about that at
all. No, no, no, no, no. The cross in which we glory is
the doctrine of the cross. The gospel of redemption accomplished
at the cross. But the cross on which our Savior
died is not an altar. It's not an altar. Folks are
so anxious to worship such things, you know, that, oh, we don't
worship. Well, why don't you get some men and we'll tear them
out? Won't you upset me saying, oh, we don't worship. I'll kill
you if you touch my God. That's the issue. That's the
issue. Cross is just a piece of wood. If I could find it,
honestly, if I could find the whole cross on which Christ died,
Merle, I'd burn it to ashes and scatter it in the strongest wind
I could find. Because idolatrous men worship such nonsense. That's
not the altar. Christ is our altar. Some folks
have the idea that the heart of man is the altar. And I know
folks talk about the sincerity and so on, but your heart's not
an altar. You're not going to come to God because your heart's
sincere. For first thing, your heart's not sincere. It just
isn't. It just isn't. You may think
it is, but your heart's deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. That means it's not sincere. Not ever, really. Not ever. Some folks have the idea that
the Lord's Table is an altar. When Faith and Doug got married,
we rented that place outside of town. And the janitor, we
started to put the wedding cake on the communion table. The janitor said, oh, you can't
do that. That's their altar. I wanted to do with it like a
campfire. But I said to him, I said, at the price I'm paying
to rent this thing, I'll stand up here and dance on this altar
if I want to, put the cape down. No, there's no altar. There's
nothing holy about this. Not a holy table, not holiness. This is not a holy place. No,
no, no, no, no. Christ is our altar. The worst
form of idolatry I can imagine is the common practice these
days. In Baptist churches, Baptist churches, worse than independent
Baptist than any other kind, and they're all bad, putting
a piece of wood down in front and calling it an altar and tell
folks to come to the altar. Come lay your all on the altar.
Come kneel at the altar and give Jesus your heart. Come to Jesus
now and be saved. And you know what they mean?
Come down here to this altar and God will save you. Oh, no,
he won't. Oh, no, he won't. Come to this
altar and God has saved you. Do you understand the difference?
A preacher, how are we going to get to Him? You can't walk
to Him. No, you can't. You can't lift your hand and
get to Him. You can't say a prayer and get to Him. Come to Him here,
without moving a muscle, without saying a word in your heart. You see, this thing called worship
is altogether spiritual, not carnal. It is altogether a matter
of the heart, not of the flesh. Christ is the only altar there
is, the only altar God will accept. Turn back to the book of Exodus.
Let me read a couple of verses with which you are now, I hope,
familiar. Exodus chapter 20. God has just
given the law, but He hasn't finished giving it yet. Get down
to chapter 20 and verse 23, you'll see He continues with the very
same thing He was doing in giving what's called the Ten Commandments.
You shall not make with Me other gods. He shall not make with
me gods of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold."
Not even fancy gods. An altar of earth thou shalt
make unto me. An altar of earth? Man, that
doesn't look like anything I've seen on television lately. An
altar of earth? A dirt altar. A dirt altar. And
shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings,
thy sheep, and thine oxen. In all places where I record
my name will I come unto thee and bless thee." Verse 25. And
if thou wilt make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone. Now here's the reason. If you
put anything of yours in it, then we like to put our names
everywhere. Isn't it amazing how we like
to sign our names? I remember the first thing I made when I
was in junior high school, the first wood project. I found me
one of those burners and I put DSF on that thing, just as if
the whole world is going to know who DSF is. That's me. I did
that. You put your tool on it, you
corrupted the whole thing. Look at it. If thou wilt make
me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for
if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. You corrupted the whole thing.
Christ is our altar of earth. He is one whom God made, not
me. He is our altar of stone, the
solid altar made of God, the altar of God's making with whom
we have nothing to contribute, to whom we have nothing to contribute,
from whom we can take nothing. He's the altar by which we come
to God. All forms of carnal worship in
this day of grace are just idolatry. God is spirit. They that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We are the circumcision. We are truly God's people. We've
been born again to worship God in spirit and have no confidence
in the flesh and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Let us once and for all
put away every form of idolatry from our thoughts and from our
deeds and from our minds in this business of worship. Turn over
to 2 Kings, 2 Kings 18. You remember that brazen serpent
Moses made? God commanded him to make a brazen
serpent. Everybody who looked at that serpent, who had been
bitten by one of the five serpents in Israel, was healed. And that
serpent was a picture of Christ. Our Lord said, as Moses lifted
up the serpent into the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. Moses made that brave serpent,
for one time, for one time. And Moses, now Moses was not
exactly what you'd call a cowardly leader, but he was sure proud
of that serpent. You know what he did? He tucked
it away. He kept that thing. And Joshua kept it, and David
kept it, and Solomon kept it. It was kept throughout the history
of Israel as a relic. Oh, that's good. We like to keep
things, don't we? Go in churches, sometimes they've
got their, you know, when they've been over 100 years old, they'll
take their first communion set and put it in glass casing. Oh,
that's wonderful. That's wonderful. We like religious
relics. Well, they don't mean, there's
nothing wrong with that, let's see. There was a young king by
the name of Hezekiah. It takes a young man usually
to do this stuff. Old men lose the spunk. Hezekiah
is 25 years old. And Israel is still worshipping
that stinking brazen serpent. How can you say that? Stinking
brazen serpent? It was wonderful for the purpose for which God
made it. It was an abomination for what they were doing with
it. Look at it. 2 Kings 18.4. Hezekiah removed the high places
and broke the images and cut down the groves and broke in
pieces The brazen serpent Moses had made, for unto those days,"
not in those days, unto those days, from the day that Moses
made it and tucked it away until this day that Hezekiah destroyed
it, the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and Hezekiah
said, it's a worthless piece of brass. He called it in Houshtan,
a worthless piece of brass. That's all. Every imaginary altar
that men make, every imaginary religious relic men have, every
imaginary holy thing to which men burn incense before God,
hoping somehow these things will make us close to God. Oh, I feel so close to God. I want to feel close to God.
Believe He is solid! believe him, and near, so very
near to God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person of his
Son I am as near as he." The time of the altar was totally
and completely fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ. He is that
altar that God made And he is that altar that God told Moses
to make later and set in the tabernacle, set it right there
so that the first thing any sinner saw as he came to worship God
in the tabernacle of the temple was that altar that stood out
in front of him. You couldn't come, you could
not come to God. Except you come by that altar.
If you couldn't come to the house of God, except you come by that
altar. When you come up toward the tabernacle,
you come up toward the temple, you come up to Him whose name
is Holy, first thing you see is this altar on which God's
sacrifice is burned and consumed and accepted by God. And when
you go your way out into the world, the last thing you see
is this altar. always before the eyes of His
people, always on their minds. The only way by which we can
come to God is this altar. The only way by which we can
live before God in this world is this altar, and the altar
is Christ Jesus the Lord. He fulfilled the time. Now this
is what our Lord's talking about back here in Matthew chapter
5. Matthew chapter 5. How can I come to God? How can
I come to His altar? Let's begin at verse 23. Notice
the word therefore. That's the key to the whole passage.
Therefore. It relates us to exactly what
our Lord has said in verses 20 down through verse 22. Except
your righteousness shall exceed. If you have ought, or your brother
has ought against you, you remember that you've offended your brother.
You said to your brother, you fool, rack up. You said to your
brother, I hate you and I don't have any reason. Therefore, therefore,
points us back to all of this. You see, our Lord said, whosoever
shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire. That
word fool, this exact word is used only one of the time in
the entire New Testament. Hold your hands here and turn
to 1 Corinthians 3. Only one of the time. The word fool is
used many times in Scripture, but the word that's here used
for fool is only used one other time. It's the word from which
we get our word moron. Moron. But it means more than
a man with no sense. It's talking about one who is
worthy of death, reprobate, cast off, worthy of hell, a godless
man. Here in 1 Corinthians chapter
3, Paul is talking about one foundation. We must be built
on this one foundation. You can't be built on another.
If you do, everything built on the foundation is going to be
burned up. Well, how on earth can we build on this one foundation?
Look at verse 18. Let no man deceive himself if
any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world. You think
you're so smart? Let him become a fool that he
may be wise. Not the one way you're going
to build on this altar. Not the one way you're ever going
to have wisdom before God. You've got to come to God. trusting
Christ Jesus the Lord, acknowledging yourself to be a fool, an ignorant,
sinful, godless, wretch, deserving hell. I'm just not about to do
that. I know. I know. You won't. You'll
do anything else. You won't do that. You won't
do that unless God makes you do it. But if God Almighty ever
makes you to see who and what you are, you will see His Son
in His glorious accomplishments of redemption. And you will bow
before Him, trusting His Son alone and crying, My God, it's
true, I'm a fool. I've been a fool all my days,
an ignorant, godless, hell-deserving wretch. Oh God, have mercy on
me. Now you're wise. That's wise. The preaching of the gospel,
people of this world call, what? Foolishness. But to those who
believe it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. All right,
back here in our text, Matthew 5. Therefore if thou bring thy
gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother
hath ought against thee. You came here this morning, come
to the house of God. You may have come thinking, well,
surely nobody's going to talk to me like this man's talking
to me. Oh, I pray God's talking to you, and he causes you to
remember that God Almighty has got a reason to send you to hell.
Leave your gift before the altar and go thy way. First, be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come offer thy gift. Now, commonly,
folks say these words are talking about us being reconciled to
a brother who has alter gates to us, teaching us brotherly
love, All right to apply them that way, I reckon, but that's
not what the text is teaching. Clearly, the scriptures teach
we ought to be reconciled, continually seek, live in peace with one
another, but that's not what this text is teaching. The context
points us in a higher direction, a direction profitable to our
souls. Our Savior in this chapter is showing us the demands of
God's holy law and our complete inability to meet those demands.
Is he not telling us then that we cannot come to God except
upon that altar which God has provided, with that sacrifice
God has provided, even Christ himself? The brother we've offended
above all others is our Savior. He is that brother with whom
we have been angry without a cause. Unbelief, you see, is denying
him. It's saying to him, you fool.
It's not discerning the Lord's body. It is man's hatred of God. It's calling him a liar. Read
the book of God. To the Gentiles, all this is
foolishness. To believe him not is to make God a liar. It's to
say God's not fit to be believed. It's to agree with the Pharisees
who said this man will never be accepted of God nor of us. There's no coming to God until
we are reconciled to him in whom alone God is well pleased. reconciled
to God by faith in Christ. And then, believing on Christ,
we come to God. And it takes our poor, dirty,
feeble efforts. It takes our attempts to pray,
selfish as they are. Our attempts to worship, carnal
as they are. Our attempts to focus our hearts
on Him, as divided as our hearts are. Our cup of cold water, Offered
in the name of a disciple, as polluted as we make it. Our love
for him, as unloving as it is. Our devotion to him, as undevoted
as it is. And he has washed us, all that
we are, in his precious blood. At Merlehart he accepts it, just
as he accepts Christ's righteousness and sacrifice. So what the book says, we offer
up prayers and sacrifices acceptable to God. God Almighty. Oh, this is more than I can give.
He smells the sweet aroma of Christ's sacrifices. That's acceptable. And he smells the sweet aroma
of this sinner washed in Christ's blood. robed in his righteousness,
and everything I attempt to do for him." He said, that smells
good. That's acceptable. It stinks
before me. But God says, that's acceptable. That's acceptable. Because God
accepts us in his Son. Look at verse 25, Matthew 5.
Agree with thy adversary quickly. Oh, that's what I've been talking
about us No, I don't think so. That's a good idea to try to
live in peace with all men, as much as it's possible to live
in peace with all men, so that you can live a quiet and peaceable
life in all godliness and fear. But have you ever tried to be
reconciled to an adversary? I've tried a few times. I've
learned a few lessons. I've tried. You can't be reconciled
with an adversary. It can't be done. It just cannot
be done. Give it a shot. You can't get
a fella who's angry with you not to be angry. You can't get
a fella who's got wrath against you to put away his wrath. You
can appease and beg and plead and wrath. You're not going to
be reconciled to an answer. He may hide it for a while, but
you ain't going to be reconciled. He's waiting. He's waiting. What's
this talking about then? Be reconciled to the adversary.
In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah speaks and says, appeared
to me as an adversary with his bow bent and right at my heart. Job said there's a day called
the day of my sorrow. When God appears against me as
my enemy, I have been made to see what I am, see the evil of
my own heart, and see my corruption. In that day, when God comes in
mercy to save a sinner, the first thing he does is he appears as
your adversary. And I'm going to tell you something.
If you've never seen Him as your adversary, you've never seen
Him as your advocate. You won't value Him as your advocate
until you see Him as your adversary. Oh, He comes as an adversary.
But He's not an adversary against us. He's an adversary for us. He said, I will be an adversary
for you to devour your enemies. He's an adversary for His people. He appears as an adversary to
make us know ourselves. And our Lord says here now, you
go be reconciled to your adversary quickly while you're in the way.
Come be reconciled to Christ. Well, how on earth can I be reconciled
to this adversary? I agree with him. How come he's
got his bow bent and his arrow marked for your heart because
you deserve to die? Lord, I take your cause. You're
right. I'm a fool, a godless wretch. If you send me to hell, it's
right. It's right. No man ever deserved your wrath
like I do. Agree with him. The only way
you can ever find acceptance with God is by the righteousness
I brought in, by the atonement I made, by the blood that I shed. Oh God, you're right. These hands,
this heart can never please God. Put away sin, but you can. This
man shall be peace. This man has magnified the law
and made it honorable. And now, agreeing with him, I'll
not be cast into the prison, into the lake of fire by the
hands of the judge, but rather I'll go to God's altar. Turn to Psalm 26. I'll wrap this
up. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. I call you, my brothers and sisters,
Come to God's altar, believe in God's Son. I call you who
tremble before God, whose bow is bent, whose sword is drawn,
and appears to be against you as your adversary. Come to Him,
kissing His sword, and kissing His arrow, and bowing at His
feet. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry
when His wrath is kindled but a little, and agreeing with your
adversary. Come to God's altar. This is
how I come to Him right now. This is how I come. Psalm 26,
verse 6. I will wash my hands in innocency. Now, wait a minute. Can it be
that Doug Hacker can come to God innocent? Innocent? Absolutely. I'm innocent before
God. You can't come any other way.
Christ put away my sin. I'm innocent. I tremble in the knowledge of
my sin, but before my God, I am without sin, innocent. So will
I come past thine altar. I'll lay hold of your altar."
Adonijah laid hold of the altar in guilt and died. Joab laid
hold of the altar in guilt and was killed at the altar. Let
me tell you something, you will never lay hold of this altar
and perish. I will compass thine altar in
innocent sin. O Lord, that I may tell everybody
what I have done for Jesus. No, no, no. That I may publish
with the voice of thanksgiving and tell all thy wondrous works. I'll embrace your altar with
all my heart. I'll embrace you, O blessed Son
of God. And I will, with thanksgiving,
publish to the world, to the day I die, your righteousness,
your lovingkindness, your redemption. O God, my Savior. Amen.