in verse 2 of Ephesians 5, ìAnd
walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given
Himself for us an offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling
savor.î Now the Lord Jesus Christ has given Himself He's that one
that had something to offer, and He offered it. The Lord Jesus
was the offerer of the sacrifice which pleased God, which was
a sweet-smelling savor unto God. Christ, He is our sacrifice. A further scripture, turn back
to 1 Corinthians 7, Or chapter 5 it is, and verse
7. Notice in verse 7, where it says,
"...Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new
lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us." And of course the reference here is
back to the book of Exodus, I think it is chapter 12, where the Passover
lamb was offered up and the blood was put upon the doorpost. And
when the death angel came through, He passed over those who had
the blood of the sacrifice upon their doorpost and spared them. And so the Lord Jesus, His blood
was shed in order that our sin would be atoned, covered, And
He is our Passover Lamb. He is that One who died for us
and shed His blood in our place. So He is the sacrifice. And then in 1 Timothy 2 and verse
5, the Word of God says, For there is one God and one Mediator
between God and man, and this is the Man, Christ Jesus. Now, let us establish this point
that God is holy and no man can deal with an absolute God on
his own. He must have a mediator to be
able to speak to or to come into the presence of or to worship
a thrice holy God. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Bible says that there is one God, this God is holy. And
He is the holy, holy God of the scriptures. And remember the
angels as they cried out singing, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. So there is one God and He's
holy. And there is one go-between. One mediator between this holy
God and men. and Paul spells it out, it's
the man Christ Jesus. It's the man Christ Jesus. And then in Hebrews chapter 10,
the chapter that our brother read to us this morning, if you
have your Bibles and can turn there quickly, turn to Hebrews
chapter 10 with me, and I'd like to point out a few of these verses
here that establish that there has been a sacrifice made. and
that we're to pay attention to this glorious, great sacrifice
which the Lord Jesus Christ has offered on our behalf and we're
to allow nothing to spoil our coming to God through Him. And let us notice here in chapter
10 of Hebrews, In verse 10, by the which will, now the will
he's talking about is that will of God that sent the Lord Jesus
Christ who gave him a body and sent him into this world. He
came into this world by the will of God to be a sacrifice for
our sin. And so he said, by the which
will we are sanctified or set apart through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands
daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices
which can never take away sin. But this man, But this man, this
is the man whom we're concentrating on. This is the man we need to
look to. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool. For by one offering, He hath
perfected forever them that have been set apart in the election
of God, and are sanctified further by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, by this one offering, this sacrifice of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Wherefore, the Holy Ghost also
is a witness to us, for after that He had said before, this
is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And their sins
and iniquities will I remember no more. Now, you see how important
this covenant was. This is the covenant that God
has been ratified through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is the covenant whereby
He said, I'll remember their sins and iniquities no more.
Now this is important for us to understand that we're not
just talking about some passing attraction here when we're talking
about the sacrifice that our Lord Jesus Christ has made. This
sacrifice that He made is that eternal covenant that He made
between God and Jesus Christ, between God the Father and God
the Son and the Holy Spirit whereby God is pleased to remember our
sins and iniquities no more. Now, notice in verse 18, now
where remission of these is, there is no more offering for
sin. So the sacrifice we're talking
about that's been laid on the altar of God is the only sacrifice,
the last sacrifice the only one God had pleasure in, and the
last sacrifice that will ever be made for sin. Take heed to
yourself and to your mind and your heart as you come to God
through this sacrifice. This, my friend, is the sacrifice
that God has made through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is a very serious thing. There's no more offering for
sin. No more offering for sin. And
over here later when it says that if a man sin willfully,
if a man turn away in unbelief from this sacrifice that God
has made through the Lord Jesus Christ, And we've received the
knowledge that this sacrifice has been made, and God's been
pleased with it, and you and I are to take account of the
fact that this sacrifice is so important to God, He said there
will be no more. No more sacrifice for sin. Never will there be another one.
And so, if this is the only sacrifice for sin, how much more should
we take heed to the way that we approach God when we come
in to the assembly of the saints? Now then, first of all here,
let me mention some of those known intruders which are perpetually
molesting our peace and disturbing our service. More or less what
we're trying to describe here is some of these vultures, these
kites, these buzzards, which must be driven away by the people
of God as they come into the assembly of the saints through
the sacrifice that our Lord Jesus Christ has made. Now, then, the
first thing I would like to say is that the first intruder that
we would want to describe or point out to you, we describe
as wicked thoughts. Wicked thoughts. Now, Beloved,
we know according to Job 1.6, that there was a day when the
sons of God, which I believe was angels that assembled before
God, they come into the presence of God before the Lord, and it
is said that Satan came also among them. That Satan came also
among them. In other words, when the angels
of God, when they met for worship, there was the devil. There he
was, right there in the midst of them. He came right along
with the angels into the presence of God. And beloved, we know
that when we come in to the house of God many, many times, wicked
thoughts flick through our minds. They come and they go, and we're
hindered in focusing upon God in Jesus Christ because of these
wicked thoughts. Our time is taken up. thoughts
of lust and thoughts of sin and thoughts of foolishness that
come into our minds that distract us from being able to appreciate
fully what God has done in sending His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
to lay down His life on our behalf. And these, first of all, I want
to point this out because I believe that we need to know and we need
to recognize that these thoughts, that they're sent by the devil
himself, our own nature being allied to the devil, and these
lusts, of course, will rob us of the blessing that can be ours. Now the next intruder or buzzard
or vulture that I want to mention is whirly thoughts. Whirly thoughts
which sprang from the very force of habit. Now all week long we
are occupied, most of us, with various and sundry things in
this world, some in order to make a living, some because of
their household duties and responsibilities, some because of various other
duties and responsibilities, their minds are filled with worldly
thoughts, worldly things, all week long, all week long, they're
concentrating on things of the world, carnal things, fleshly
things, and how to do this, how to do that in the world, how
to keep their books, how to keep their business going, or how
to keep their job, or how to fulfill their responsibilities
on their job, and so on and so forth. And so by force of habit,
When they come into the house of God on the first day of the
week, then here they are again and their minds fill up. They
begin to fill up with their job. Thoughts about, well, let me
say it like this. I wonder how many times, how
many rooms is built on a house in the assembly of the saints
of God. I wonder sometimes how many automobiles
have been repaired. right in the church building
on Sunday morning in the minds of men. I wonder how many other
things that could be mentioned have taken place in the minds
of people while the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is being
presented or where the truth about Him is being set forth
in the assembly. Oh, we're doing all manner of
things. And maybe you're going over your
history lesson, or maybe your biology, or there's something
that you're dealing with in your mind. You're paying no attention
to what's going on in the house of God. And these intruders,
my friend, are like these vultures that came down on Abraham's sacrifice
that he had to shove away, that he had to chase away, that he
had to shoo away. Now there's all kinds of thoughts
in your mind this morning as you come into this building.
And I say it's by force of habit because all week long we have
to be thinking after the world and according to the ways of
the world and to deal with our schoolwork and deal with our
work on our jobs and various things that just simply occupy
our mind. But on the first day of the week,
My friend, we must recognize that this is not a worldly, worldly
situation that we've got here. This is a spiritual transaction. This has to do with the worship
of God, the coming into the presence of our God. And the next thing
is this, anxious thoughts, fruits of unbelief that plague our minds
and our hearts. as we come in. Now I recognize
that there's a lot of burdens in our day and time. There's
a lot of struggles for people. I don't suppose it's any worse
maybe than it ever has been, but certainly it's as bad as
it ever has been. And there's a lot of things to
make people anxious in our day. But my friend, could we not lay
aside, I mean, could you not spare just a couple of hours
on Sunday morning to lay aside your anxious thoughts about whether
you're going to have a job next week or whether you're going
to have something to eat or whether or not things are going to continue
well with you? Couldn't you lay it aside? just
for a little while in order that we might approach unto God and
that the sacrifice might be presented, talked about, and declared and
preached. My friend, we're talking about
an accomplished redemption when we're talking about redemption.
And in this church especially, people ought to be paying attention
because we're preaching an accomplished redemption here. We're not in
here telling people that they must redeem themselves or they
must in some way or another cooperate with Jesus in order that redemption
might be accomplished. We preach that redemption is
accomplished, and that Jesus Christ has offered himself, and
that there is free salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
that there is good hope through grace, and people's minds and
hearts need to be riveted on that. Your whole soul needs something
that is sure and steadfast and constant. And if you listen to
the Word of God and believe what the Word of God says, your soul
cannot help but be helped. So lay aside. We've heard people
say that worry doesn't help, and I don't think it does. So
why don't you lay it aside? Why don't you leave it outside?
Why don't you leave it at home? Why don't you leave it outside
and don't be dragging it in here to plague you in the morning
when you're listening to the Word of God? And so believe your
beliefs and doubt your doubts. Believe what the Word of God
says and concentrate on the Word of God. Now also I think that
one of the intruders that I thought about was church business or
church differences. You know, many, many times when
we come into this place on Sunday morning, there's maybe some little
something or other that would distract us, something that would
somehow or other set things in bad order for us. during the
day. I've known people that if they
happen to come into a church service and somebody's got their
seat, which they've been, you know, they've got a certain pew
where they sit all the time, and if somebody's got their pew
down below, that messes them up for the whole church service.
I mean, they're just not going to hear nothing that day because
so-and-so sat down in my pew. And therefore, I just, I just
am out of sorts. I'm all out of sorts and I cannot
deal with people, you know, being so forgetful. This is where I sit right there. Well, anyway, there are many,
many things that can distract us and can make our situation. The devil will use it in our
minds, and these are like these vultures that come down on Abram's
sacrifice, and they have to be driven away. We cannot allow
it. It's too important. The church
service is too important and we cannot allow these faults
to rob us. And so any differences that might
come up between us. Beloved, we're here to come into
the presence of God and we cannot allow these vultures and buzzards
to rob us of the benefit of our coming together. are coming together. This is not just an exercise
in futility. This, my friend, is what God
has prescribed in His Word that we're to do. We're to meet together
so much more as we see that great and glorious day coming when
the Lord Jesus Christ is coming. And we need to come together
for the good and the benefit of our souls and our lives. Now, I'm going to make a point
of these intruders of saying that they must be chased away. They must be chased away. First of all, might I say, for
Christ's sake, they must be chased away. I tried to tell you that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to God. John 14 and
6 says that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father except by me. Now for Christ's sake,
and for the sake of his message, he said, I am the door. By me,
if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and
out and find pasture. For Christ's sake, My friend,
these vultures must be driven away. Anything that would keep
you from thanking on Christ and the benefit of His death to your
immortal soul must be chased away. You must, and the word
there I understand in the Hebrew is puff them away like you would
Blow them away. They must be blown away. You
must puff them away for Jesus' sake because He's the Son of
God, the Savior, who was absolutely serious about your soul not being
lost. So He came into this world, laid
down His life, died to save you, and you come in here with thoughts,
worldly thoughts, anxious thoughts, sinful, wicked thoughts in your
mind, going through your head while the preacher's preaching.
Now, there's nobody here that would send a straw man to church
here in your place. Would you do that? No, you wouldn't
do that. Just a a put-together straw man
filled with straw and sawdust. But my friend, no, you wouldn't
do that and put your name on the front of it and said, just
set this in my pew on Sunday morning. No, but you might just
as well as to come in here in the shape that some of you may
be in this morning. come in here with no thoughts
toward God. No thoughts about the redeeming
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. No thoughts about worshiping
the holy God of the Bible and how that you a sinner can approach
unto Him and worship Him. No thought whatever You might
as well send a straw man here and stayed home yourself. You
need to drive away, for Christ's sake, these sinful thoughts,
anxious thoughts, worldly thoughts. And then I think for your own
sake, My friend, how shall you ever profit by the worship if
you're not engaged in worshiping God through Jesus Christ? How
are you going to profit? How are you ever going to grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ? And the
Word of God expressly commands us grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And how are you going
to do that when you waste all of the time that you have in
the house of God just thinking about various and sundry things
and doing things that you're letting your mind run in the
same direction it does all week. You've got to drive these things
away for your own sake. I believe you'll be spiritually
more healthy if you will concentrate on driving all of this foreign
material out of your mind so you can wait before God and be
blessed before God. And then I believe the very character
of the day. The first day of the week demands
that these thoughts be driven away. Do you know that our Lord
Jesus Christ, that he was raised from the dead on the first day
of the week? And then you come in here on
the first day of the week and your thoughts is about all kinds
of different things besides the fact that your Savior, your Redeemer,
that death, hell and the grave could not hold him, but that
he was brought out of the grave and he was resurrected by his
own power and might, and the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshipped,
and he's to be respected, he's to be honored. And you come in
with your heart full of all kinds of various thoughts that would
keep you away from thinking about His resurrection. The Bible says
He was delivered for our justification, or He was delivered for our offenses,
and He was raised again for our justification. And so we need
to reflect upon that on the first day of the week. And I think
it is inconsistent with this day of light for us to be in
darkness. And as long as you're thinking
about wicked thoughts and letting sin and wickedness go through
your mind in the meeting, as long as you're filling up the
time and space thinking on things that has to do with the darkness
of this world, it's inconsistent. This is the day of light. and
you're the children of light. And God's people are to dwell
in the light and to walk in the light. And as we do that, my
friend, we must and will progress in the way of the Lord. But these
buzzards and vultures are going to have to be driven away for
us to say clearly that we're walking in the light. Get those
things out of your heart and your mind. And then it is inconsistent. We're supposed to be living on
the resurrection side of the grave. And we often talk about
how that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been raised. We were
crucified with Him, we were buried with Him, we were raised with
Him, and we walk in resurrection victory, and we're walking on
the resurrection side of the grave. And so why should we be
spending our time when we're supposed to be in the meeting
honoring God resurrected Jesus Christ, why should we spend our
time raking around as it were in the grave of this world? Why
don't we just concentrate on things above where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God. And then it is inconsistent with
this day of the presence of the Spirit of God. for us to be thinking
of carnal things and forgetting the things which are above. The
Bible says in Romans to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Now I believe that the Spirit
of God lives in the church. I believe that the church is
the place, according to what Paul said in Ephesians, the place
of the habitation of God through the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit
lives in the church. And so the indulging of vain
or anxious thoughts when we're engaged in the worship of God
is grievous to the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4 and verse 30. We are not to grieve the Holy
Spirit. And if God has so planned for
your eternal salvation, and has so sent His beloved Son, and
His Son, in great sacrifice and agony of soul and life, has laid
down His life to save your soul, and then you come in and your
thoughts are about everything else besides this. Then my friend,
how grievous this must be to the Holy Spirit of God. And I
warn you this morning, these vultures must be driven away. And we must, in order that we
not grieve the Holy Spirit. These thoughts and cares must
be driven away or they will increase and multiply. This is a growing
habit that people have. It is a growing habit. They come
into the church and they say, well, I don't know anything that's
went on there for a month. I don't know anything that went
on. I've talked to some people that have attended this church.
Some young people that told me that they said service after
service and they never understood one thing that was being talked
about. Understood nothing. They were
thinking about something else. They were thinking about when
it was over, about what they were going to do in the afternoon.
They were thinking about what they did yesterday and what they
did last night on their date or this or that or something
else. Minds on everything else besides
what it ought to be on. And I'm going to tell you this
is a growing habit. You start out doing that, thinking
those ways, and you will continue on, and growingly, growingly,
it will happen. You have one unbelieving thought,
and there's another one that will come just following it. And you need to understand that.
If we allow some little distraction in the congregation to cast us
down and distract our thoughts, There will be another, and there
will be another, and there will be another. It will keep coming. It's a habit, and it's a growing
habit, and we need to get away from it. Run these vultures off
and these buzzards out of our meeting. Well, the question comes
to me as I get ready to wrap this up is how are we to do it?
How are we to do this? Such a problem as this, how are
we going to eradicate? How are we going to drive these
buzzards away? Well, first of all, we need to
set our heart to it. Set our heart to it. When the
soul is set upon a thing, then it is likely to accomplish it. When the soul is set upon it. My friend, when you're conscious
of the fact of how serious this is, and how that you someday
are going to stand before God by yourself, you're going to
stand before God yourself, and that you're going to give an
account of yourself before God. You see how important this is
that you come to the place where that you set your heart and your
soul upon this matter. Now when you come into this place,
you must resolve to give up your soul for that day to matters
of eternity, eternal matters. You come in, before you walk
in that door, you say, I'm going in here to worship God. I'm not
going in here to necessarily fellowship with people. I'm not
going in here just to carry on with my friends. That's not what
I'm going in here for. I'm going in that door right
there to sit down, and my soul must be concerned about eternal
matters. And I'm thinking about God. I'm
thinking about Christ. I'm thinking about my soul. I'm
thinking about standing before God one of these days. I'm thinking
about my sin and how I'm going to get rid of my sin. And I'm
reflecting upon that. You must resolve to give your
soul to eternal matters when you walk in that door. And that
this day is not going to be wasted and spent on a bunch of foolishness
like many of my days are. It's not going to be done. I'm
not going to allow it. I will not permit it. These things
must be driven away and I will drive them away. Now then, secondly,
We need preparation. We're talking about how we're
going to drive these vultures away. We need preparation of
our hearts before coming in this place. Well, we're told that
men ought not preach without preparation, and they ought not.
But then you are not here without preparation. Think of preparing
the soil for the seed and how much time is spent by a farmer
with the disc and the hair and the duck tooth getting the ground
tilled up until it can receive the seed. Now I'm no way implying
that the only work that is done in the souls of men is what they
do. I'm not implying that. But I'm
referring more or less here in this statement to the people
of God. and to their need of preparing
their hearts to receive and to hear the Word of God when they
come. Now if you fight and argue all the way to the church building,
a husband and wife arguing, or if you're arguing with the children
all the way to the church building, Is it any wonder that you don't
get anything when you get there? Is it any wonder that you don't
remember nothing that the preacher had to say? Is it any wonder
that you don't remember the prayers that are offered up by the brethren?
Is it any wonder that you never get any words to the hymns settled
in your soul, in your memory? Is it any wonder? Because you
come in, the Bible says they that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and truth. Do you come in here honest? Do
you come in here in the spirit of truth? Do you come into this
place here all worked up, And you've been into it with this
one or that one or somebody else, especially the family on the
way to the church or so on. And you had to argue with somebody
before you ever got ready to come to church. They didn't want
to come and so on and so forth. You, my friend, listen, you need
to prepare the soil just like that farmer. And you can surely
see that the ground and the preparation of the ground is in many ways
more important What difference does it make whether the fella
doing the planting's got a clean shirt on or not? What difference
does it make? What difference does it make if he's wearing
old shoes or real nice shoes? What difference does it make?
But the ground, it makes a difference. The ground has got to be prepared. And you need to work on that
before you come to church. Am I in any frame of mind to
listen this morning to somebody get up and exalt my Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ? This may be the last time on
earth that I ever hear the message of free salvation in a crucified
Redeemer. Am I ready? Can I hear it? Am
I here to do that? Is that what I'm here for? Am
I prepared for that? My friend, we've taken too lightly
what we have, the message that we have. We've taken it too lightly. And we need to prepare our hearts
and to think before we come in to the house of God. There's
a need for preparation. Now this, but this be done above
all, I think what we need to do is to cry to the Spirit of
God for help to make our spirits rest on this day. You know the old Sabbath was
the day of rest. And you know that Christ is our
rest. And for us to be able to rest
on this day, the first day of the week, is for us to hear or
write the message of the gospel. And for us to hear it with clear
mind, to hear it, us having done all that we could do to get ourselves
into a state of thought and heart and mind aware that the gospel
as it comes to us might be retained and appreciated in our souls. And so we need to cry to the
Spirit of God You only can give me rest through what I hear this
day, oh Lord. And so give me the Holy Spirit,
the spirit of rest, the spirit of the Sabbath. Give me the spirit
of the Sabbath in order that I might truly be able to rest
myself in the Lord this day. My friend, there's a lot of people
cracking up. I hear them building new wings on the asylums all
over the country. People taking more and more drugs
to be able to cope with everything that's going on. My friend, we
need the spirit of rest in our souls. And we need sometime or
other, somewhere or another to be able to truly rest. And the only way that's ever
going to happen is for the Spirit of God to give us the Spirit
of rest. And we need to pray earnestly
before we come into the house of God to hear the only message
that will give rest to a poor lost sinner. And we need to pray
that the Spirit of God will give us a heart to enter into that
message and to be helped I mean helped all the way through our
souls in order that we might be able to cope with the other
six days that we're facing that's before us. And only God knows
what all is coming down the pike for us. And we need to come in
here remembering, remembering, last of all, in whose presence
we are. God lives in His church. He lives in His church. Now,
I want you to just quickly turn over, and I'll be done, to Ephesians
chapter 4, where the scripture plainly says,
or chapter 3 maybe it is, In verse 21 it says, unto him
be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world
without end. And in verse 22 of chapter 2
it says, in whom ye also, Paul speaking to the church at Ephesus,
in whom ye also are builded together. Builded together for inhabitation
of God through the Spirit. So the church has been built
by God for a place of habitation for Him through the Spirit. Now what does that tell you?
Now if you go to somebody's house, you expect to what? See them
there. You expect to see them there.
That's right. You go to their house, you knock
on the door, you don't expect some stranger to come to the
door. You expect the people that live there, the people you know,
to come to the door. Now brethren, when you come to
that door out here and you walk in, this is to be looked upon
as God's house. God's house. Now, I recognize
the fact that God does not live in buildings. He lives in the
hearts of His people. But when you come in here where
the church of God meets together, This is where God lives and you
expect to be in the presence of God when you're in this place.
Don't matter who's officiating, doesn't have anything to do with
that. It has everything to do with the fact that God said the
church is built together for a place of habitation through
the Spirit. It's got everything to do with
that. And then you remember when Jesus gave the Great Commission.
to the church. He said, you go into all the
world and preach the gospel. And, Lord, I'm with you. I'm
with you. I'm with you. Well, do you want
to believe that or not? I believe it. He said, I'm with
you. And did he not say, where two
or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst. I'm right there. I'm there. And
his presence is real in the church. And we need to remember in whose
presence we are. The things that we say, what
we say, what we allow to go on in our own lives and hearts,
minds, what we allow. We've got to remember we're in
God's presence. And we've got to remember that.
Make no difference if it's the preacher or the fellow that sits
in the furthest back, whichever side they sit on. It doesn't
make any difference. We're all in the presence of
God and we need to remember that. We need to remember it. So I
hope this morning that God has visited our hearts and to give
us some understanding of maybe how we could apply this text
to our lives about driving away these vultures, these buzzards,
these things that would devour the sacrifice, right before us. We cannot allow it, brethren.
Sisters in the Lord, it cannot be done. We have a pure gospel
to preach. We have the great and glorious
gospel of the redeeming grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
it commands the attention, it commands the whole soul of the
people that hear it. And you cannot allow anything
to distract you. You cannot allow it. I have a statement.