I invite you to turn this morning
your Bibles to the book of 1 John. The book of 1 John chapter 1. I'd like to read verse 9. 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Then if you would turn over with
me to the fourth chapter of the book of 1st John and notice verse
15. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God. I trust that as we read our two
texts this morning, that maybe you noticed one word, I will
call it to your attention, which is used in both of these texts,
and that is the word confess. Here in 1 John 1 verse 9, he
said, If we confess our sins, He, that is God, is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then in 1 John chapter 4
and 15 he said, If we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God, God dwelleth in us, and we in God. And so whatever this
word means, this word confess, it is a very important word because
of the two blessings that are attached to it. Remember that. It is very important because
of the two blessings that are attached to it. If we confess,
God will forgive, John said, by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. It implies, of course, that if
we never come to that place to confess, in the Bible's sense
of that word, God will not forgive our sin. In our second text,
it said, Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God,
God dwelleth in him, and he in God. If a person will not confess,
in the Bible sense of the word, that Jesus is the Son of God,
God has nothing to do with that person, and they have nothing
to do with God. Now we should at the very outset
this morning see that whatever this word confess means, we should
find out, we should find it out, and God helping us, we must do
it. We must do it. Now there are
two things that you and I need more than anything else, I believe,
in this world as we live out our days in this world. We need
it more than health. We need it more than wealth.
We need it more than prosperity. And that is, number one, the
forgiveness of our sins. We need to hear what the Lord
Jesus Christ said to the palsied man when he said, Son, thy sins
be forgiven thee. We need to hear that from the
very mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, say unto my soul,
David said, I am thy salvation. We need to hear from the Lord,
and we need to hear from the Lord in the Word, and we need
to have it established in our souls that our sins have been
blotted out, that they've been remitted, that they've been cancelled.
We need that. I think that every one of you
here this morning can sense the need of having that in your own
soul. And secondly, we need for God
to take us into fellowship with Him. We need a relationship with
God, He in us and we in Him. Do we not need that? I think
that every one of us here this morning would admit our solemn
need of a relationship, a living union, a living relationship
with our blessed Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these
are the two principal blessings that are involved in the justification
of a sinner. First, the forgiveness of his
sins, the pardon, we said, of all of our guilt, God blotting
out, as with a thick cloud, all of our sin, never to remember
them against us, casting them behind his back, not that they
would never be remembered against us anymore, so that when he looks
upon us, that he will see no sin in his Israel, in his Israel
of God today. Now, we need also, and this is
one of the blessings of justification, is the total acceptance of a
sinner in Jesus Christ, the beloved one, according to the good pleasure
of his will, Paul said, In Ephesians 1, to the praise of the glory
of His grace. Salvation is altogether by grace. It was according to the good
pleasure, meaning according to the sovereign purpose and will
of our God that we've been accepted as a sinner in the beloved One,
the Lord Jesus Christ. God having made all of the provision
for our salvation. Now both are mentioned here in
our text today, both of these blessings that are involved in
the justification of a sinner. They're both here in our text
and both are said to be connected with confession of sin and Jesus
Christ to be the Son of God. Now this word confess, And I
want you to listen carefully, because if you miss this, I believe
that you'll come up short in getting the blessing out of the
study this morning that you would otherwise receive. Now, the word
confess means in the Greek, and I'm not a Greek scholar, but
I use Vine's word dictionary on the words of the New Testament,
and according to the Greek, the word means to speak the same
thing. In other words, when one confesses
his sins, he speaks the same thing about his sins as God said
about his sin. He agrees with God as to what
God has said about his sin. So it means to speak the same
thing. To illustrate, it means to declare
openly by the way of speaking out freely such confession being
the effect of deep conviction of facts. In other words, there
are certain facts that we have deep convictions of which makes
us open our mouth and make this confession that John is talking
about. Now, John uses the term, we know,
in this book pretty regularly. And he speaks of what we've seen
and heard. That is, what we are declaring
unto you. John, as it were, says, we know. You remember he said, we know
that we have passed from death unto life because we love the
brethren. You know, he said that these
things have we written unto you that you may know. that you have
eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son
of God. Beloved, there comes a time,
and I believe this is the time in the morning, when we need
to believe what God said. We need to believe His Word.
If we would have assurance, if we would have the blessing, we
must believe what God says. We must pay attention to what
God says. Now, John, I believe, was God's
echo. He was God's echo that when He
spoke, He echoed what God had already said. And the thing we
want to bring your hearts to do is to also be an echo of what
God said. We want you to confess your sin
unto God that you might be forgiven. And we also want you to confess
that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God in order that
He might dwell in you and you might dwell in Him. And I believe
that every preacher is to be an echo of what God has said,
what God has spoken in His Word. Not to stand up and to give His
own opinions, but to speak in agreement with what God has already
said, not our speculation, but God's Word. boldly, plainly,
uncompromisingly declared. So what we want to do is to find
out what God has said, and we want to agree with what God said. Now, beloved, that will bring
blessing. It will bring encouragement. It will bring assurance to your
soul. I believe, according to what
John here says, that salvation comes to the sinner. when he's
brought to agree with God, when he's brought to confess, when
he's brought to speak the same thing that God has spoken in
His Word, to speak the same thing about his sin as God says about
his sin, and to speak the same thing about his Son, his beloved
Son Jesus Christ, as God the Father speaks of Him throughout
this solemn Word. Forgiveness and communion with
God can come no other way. It can come no other way but
for an individual to come to that place, to be brought to
that place where he can confess his sin and confess the Lord
Jesus Christ. This book of John seems to teach
us that God and man have been in a great controversy, and that
they are in a great controversy with one another. God and man
in an argument, and this argument becomes so heated, this controversy
so great, that man calls God to his face a liar, and God calls
man a liar to his face in this book. If you read carefully,
and we're not going to be able to do that this morning, but
if you read the book of 1 John carefully, you'll see that there
is a controversy about this matter of sin and about this matter
of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then there is a total
enmity between the sinner and between him and the thrice holy
God because they're not in agreement. They're not in agreement by nature. Man is not in agreement with
God on these two issues of sin and salvation. The problem is
God has clearly spoken his mind on these two issues in our text,
and man does not speak the same thing. He will not confess. He will not agree with God from
the depth of his soul as to God's feeling and word in connection
with sin and salvation. He does not speak the same thing.
He argues with God. He says, I'm arguing with the
preacher. But the truth is, in reality, he's arguing with God. And you're wrong, and God is
right. You're wrong. You say, well,
I'm not the sinner. God says I am. Then, you're wrong,
my friend, and God is right. You say, well, I believe now
that Jesus aids and assists and helps. A sinner in his salvation,
but he's not all of God's salvation. Surely, what I do counts for
something. You're not in agreement with
God on His Son. His Son, my friend, is Savior. God sent His Son to be the Savior
of the world, John said. Now, then, beloved, if you're
going to be saved, you must come to the place where you confess
or where you speak the same thing that our God has to say about
these issues. Now, we go through life either
ignorant of or arguing with God about these two vital issues,
sin and salvation. We're born in a state of enmity
with God and not in agreement, not speaking the same things
as He does. We may be wrong about many things,
beloved, but we cannot afford to be wrong on these vital issues. We must come to the place where
we can confess our sin and where we can believe on Jesus Christ,
the Son of the Living God. You cannot agree with Him on
one and not on the other. If a man says, well, I agree
with what God said about a man being a sinner. I agree with
what God said about everybody coming up short of the glory
of God. Everybody falling into sin in
Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ and about
faith only in Christ can bring a man the righteousness which
God demands of him. I cannot accept that. You cannot
agree with him in one and not on the other. If one is true,
the other one is true also. You cannot be saved if you're
the sinner God says you are, unless you're saved by that one
that God has sent into the world. the righteous one, the Lord Jesus
Christ. God is so spoken that there is
no excuse for us to be in the dark on these subjects. It's
clear. It's clear. You say you're trying
to hymn us in. Well, the Word of God will hymn
you in. The Word of God is clear on these
subjects. We better find out what God has
said in His Word about our sin and about His Son, and we better
pray God to give us the ability to agree with Him and to speak
the same thing to Him. There are four facts about this
controversy that man has with God, man and God not being agreed. that I want to share with you
quickly this morning. I'll not keep you very long,
but I want to share these four facts with you. One of them we've
already touched on briefly, and that is that God has spoken. He has spoken on these issues. You have agreed with Him. Do you speak the same thing,
the same language as God speaks through and in His Word? Now,
I'd love it if we were to receive an authentic message, a word
from a living being on another planet. The whole world would
get interested in a hurry, would they not? Certainly they would. But our God speaks from heaven.
We're told that God who in sundry times and in diverse manners
spoke in times past unto the prophets hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son. The book of Hebrews says that.
And so God has spoken from heaven unto us. But we're not interested. We're not interested and men
are not interested in what God has said in His Word. They'd get interested in a shot in a rocket up to the
moon, and they go up to the moon and they are talking back to
Earth. I'm interested in what the holy
God has said from heaven. What it is that he said about
sin and about salvation. Nobody cares, nobody's interested
in what God has to say. God has spoken openly, repeatedly,
clearly on these two issues that we've mentioned this morning,
man's sin and his son, and these, my beloved friend, are two of
the major issues that are covered in the Word of God. But man is
not interested. He don't care that God has spoken,
God has declared in His Word. Now look at verses 5, beginning
with verse 5 here in 1 John chapter 1. This then is the message which
we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, this is what He said,
this is what God said, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness
at all. The thing that John is talking
about here is the fact that God is holy, absolutely holy, and
God is light. In other words, there's no darkness
in God at all. There's no evil, there's no sin,
no unrighteousness. He's holy. The Bible speaks of
Him as being the thrice holy God of the Bible. If we say that
we have fellowship with Him, in verse 6, and walk in darkness
we lie and do not the truth. God says you lie and you do not
the truth. If you say I know this God, that
has spoken from heaven, but yet you're still in darkness. If
you're still in darkness, you lie if you say you know this
God, because He is in the light. He is the God of light and the
God of holiness. And if you're in darkness and
bondage to sin, then my friend, you do not know this God who
has spoken from heaven. If we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood.
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. And the sinner
will say, now preacher, there you go, talking about this bloody
religion of the Bible. My friend, this fact is true
about sin. Sin cannot be atoned for but
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that men want
a bloodless religion They don't want anybody talking to them
about the innocent Son of God dying on a glory tree, bleeding
out His life's blood in order to cover their sin. They don't
want to hear about it. But my friend, that's another
place where men are not in agreement with God. God will forgive sin
through the blood atonement of His own Son. We know that the
Bible says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission
of sin. There is no forgiveness. There is no blotting out. God
will never be satisfied until there's an atonement made by
one who is righteous, who is sinless, in order that our sin
may have a covering and that it may be blotted out from the
view of our God. And he goes on to say, if we
say that we've no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. It's not in us if we say that
we have no sin. Now, I know that there are people
living in this city this morning. There may be somebody right here
in this church building that you may say, but I don't understand
this business of me being a sinner. I don't understand it. As far
as I'm concerned, I have no sin. I don't have any sin. I remember
a man who came in the building down in Donovan Park and he had
been converted but he said there was a day when somebody told
him he was a sinner and it absolutely shook him to the foundation because
he didn't know anything about him being a sinner. And John
said, if we say that we have no sin, my friend, you're a sinner
because of your nature. You're born in sin. You're born
with a nature that hates God, a nature that is contrary to
God, a nature that will not love God until God does a work and
plants His own divine nature in this body that your own nature
is in. And so, if we say we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves. You're a sinner, my friend. God
says you are one. And you say, I'm not one. The
Bible says there's none righteous. No, not one. But you say, not
any but me. I'm righteous. No, but I am righteous. No, my friend, you're not righteous.
You're not. You don't agree with God on this
subject. You will not speak as God speaks on this issue. God
said, all have sinned and come short of His glory. And you will
not agree with that. You will not openly confess with
facts in your soul and heart, experience speaking out of your
mouth. It's true! I am a sinner. I'm a rebel against God. I've
broken His holy law. I've sinned against Him. And
I am deserving of the wrath of God. Now look in 1 John chapter
3. And look at verse 4 and 5 of
1 John chapter 3. Whosoever commit a sin transgresses
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. Now, I know there's a lot of
people that don't think they break the Ten Commandments. They're
great law keepers. And you remember the rich young
ruler said, all those I've kept from my youth up. My friend,
they do not understand that they have broken the law of God, and
as has been said so many, many times, that when we repeat something
God says, it's not vain repetition. Remember that. And the Word of
God says that if you break one point of the holy law, you're
guilty of all. You're guilty of all. And every
man whosoever commit a sin, he transgresses God's law. When
a man does that which is contrary to God, contrary to the nature
of God, when a man does that which is wrong in the sight of
the Word of God and the truth of God, that he's a transgressor
of God's law, he's broken the law of God, and that cannot be
mended except by the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know in verse
5 that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there's
no sin. The only way you're going to
escape This, having been a lawbreaker, a transgressor of the law, is
to be in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be enclosed in Him, and there
is no sin in Him. No sin in him ever sinned that
I committed in the fifty-some years I've known the Lord. Have
all been by the old nature, by the old man. Never by the new
man, the God-man, that new man, the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is formed in a believer by faith when he's regenerated by the
Spirit of God. And so Jesus was manifested to
take away our sin. Here we have our sin and we have
God's Son and Him doing that which we could not do ourselves,
taking away our sins. And so do you agree this morning
that you're a lawbreaker? that you've broken God's holy
law and that you stand condemned before the bar of God. And the
justice of God demands your execution. It demands that you go to hell
and spend eternity there under the wrath of God because you
are a transgressor of the holy spiritual law of our God. Notice in I John chapter 2 and
in verse 1 and 2, John says, My little children, these things
write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, and
is there any among us who have not? John said, you deceive yourself
if you say you have not sinned. So, he says, and if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. We have an advocate with Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our advocate. He's our lawyer. He's the one that pleads with
the Father on our behalf. My friend, you could not be saved
from your sin. You could not be saved eternally
apart from the intercessory work of this righteous One, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Apart from Him, you could not
be spared. Jesus Christ, we're told in verse
2, is the propitiation for our sins. And that means that He
satisfied God on the behalf of our sin. that He's the one that
expiated our sin. He's the one that pacified God
on the behalf of our sins until He was fully satisfied on the
behalf of our law-breaking and our sins. He is the propitiation
for our sins, and not for our sins only, but of the sins of
the world. Meaning that God has a people
from every tongue, nation, every race, every race of people on
the earth. Not all men without distinction,
but all men considering their race and so on. So we see that
Jesus Christ has been the propitiation for our sin. He satisfied God. You see, somebody's got to satisfy
God on behalf of your sin. Do you agree with that? Do you
agree? You cannot satisfy God yourself. How are you going to pay the
old debt you owe? You owe a debt and you cannot pay it. Now, God's
wrath against sin must fall someplace. either on the sinner or on the
sinner's substitute. Now look in 1 John chapter 5
and verse 9, and we try to restrict ourselves as much as possible
to this book of 1 John. But 1 John chapter 5, beginning
with verse 9, "...of men the witness of God is greater." Do
you believe what men tell you? Well, every once in a while we
find somebody that is believable, and they convince us of certain
things. But John said, if you're one
of those that receive the witness of God, remember this, that this
God that spoke from heaven, this God who has spoken, this God
has given a message, and the witness of God is greater than
the witness of any man that you will ever hear. For this is the
witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath a witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar. Here's this argument. Here's
this heated argument. God says if a man don't believe
the witness that I've given from heaven concerning my son, then
this man is a liar. He's a liar because he believeth
not the record. that God gave of His Son. God
has given a record and man has not believed it. Man has not
said the same thing or spoke the same thing. Man has not agreed
with God on this issue. He's not agreed with it. He says,
God you are a liar. I don't believe the record that
you gave your son, that you sent your only begotten beloved son
into the world to die for my sin. I don't believe that. I
do not believe it. And we hear that all the time
from people in this world. They do not believe it. Okay? Now this in verse 11, and this
is the record. that God hath given to us eternal
life. And I want you to understand,
this is the record that's established not only in our Bibles, but in
Heaven. The Word of the Lord is forever,
the Bible says, settled in Heaven. It's there, and the record is
this. This is the record that God has given. Eternal life. God's going to save somebody.
Are you interested? Somebody's going to get saved.
Somebody's going to be delivered from the wrath of God. Somebody
is going to miss hell. Are you interested? He says,
God hath given to us eternal life. He gave it to us. He gave
it to us. It was His free favor. According
to the good pleasure of His will, His sovereign will, was that
He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
According to the good pleasure of His will. And we give praise
to His grace for doing this. Mark Twain said that salvation
is the divine favor. If it was not, then God would
cast you out and let your dog go in. My friend, salvation has
got to be by grace. Nobody's going to be saved. Listen
to this. God hath given, that's grace, that's what that is, given
to us eternal life. If you ever get eternal life,
it'll be because God gave it to you. God gave it to you. It cannot be had on any other
terms. You say, I don't know whether
I'll take it on those terms. Then you don't agree with God.
You're not speaking the same things that God is. Therefore,
you've not confessed. Therefore, your sins are yet
upon you. Therefore, you do not have a
relationship with God because It says in verse 12, He that
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. If you've got the Son dwelling
in your heart, Which the Bible says you have when you confess
with deep-seated conviction given to you by the workings of the
Holy Ghost in your soul. No man can call Jesus Lord but
by the Holy Ghost. And when this conviction comes
upon you, He truly is the Son of God. Truly. Then, my friend,
you have life. You have life if you have the
Son. You got it. You got eternal life. That's
the kind of life our God gives, eternal life, and you have it
if you have the Son. He says, well now, let me point
this out. He that hath the Son hath life.
He may not have anything else. You see, that man, he doesn't
have any religious credentials. That man doesn't have anything
to establish in our eyes that he is a bona fide saved person. Does he have the Son? May not
have anything else, but if he has the Son, then he has life. I speak that to the encouragement
of poor, poor children of God who have nothing to call attention
to themselves except their sin and failings. If you have the
Son, you have life. I say, He may not have anything
else. Keep that in your mind. He that
hath not the Son of God, He may have everything else. and not
have the Son, and if you don't have the Son, it don't matter
what else you have. If you don't have the Son of
God dwelling in your heart by a God-given faith, then you do
not have eternal life. Eternal life is a living union
with a living person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And when God saves a man or a
woman, a boy or a girl, He puts that individual into union with
the Son of God. And Christ is our salvation. He's my salvation. He is our
salvation. And so you may have everything
else. Salvation is in God's Son, the righteous Lord Jesus Christ
who propitiated the wrath of God for represented sinners. Those for whom He represents.
He propitiated the wrath of God. You cannot get into favor with
God except through the Lord Jesus Christ. There's one mediator. Paul said in Timothy, between
God and man, you cannot speak to God without a mediator. You cannot approach unto God
without one go-between, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh,
if we ever come to see it, we'll love Christ, we'll speak of Christ
as God has spoken of Him, and we'll speak of our sin as God
has spoken of it. Fact number two. The first fact
was God has spoken the first fact in this controversy. He's
let his mind be known about sin and salvation. Fact number two,
I'd like to say that we all at one time or another have argued
with God about what he said about these two subjects. Notice here
in 1 John chapter 1 again, And I call your attention to verse
8 again. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We can go
one of two directions. We can say we have no sin when
we're faced with what God said. God said you have sin. God said
there's none righteous, no, not one. God said all have sinned
and come short of His glory. You can go one of two directions.
We've not sinned or, in verse 9, you can confess you can agree
with God what He said. And look in verse 10. He says
if we say that we've not sinned, we make Him a liar. We're calling
God a liar to His face. Because we're saying and we're
not saying. Now you say, well I don't ever, I'm not conscious
of ever being in an argument with God about this issue. My
friend, when were you saved? You say, I got saved when I was
35. You argued with God for 35 years and you called God a liar
to his face every day you lived. You say, I wasn't conscious of
it. You might not have been conscious of it, but if you'd have died
in that day and time, you'd have went to hell just like you'd
have been conscious of it every day of your life. How long were
you outside of Christ? Well, you were calling God a
liar to His face. This is a controversy which has
been going on, my friend, through the ages. But if we say we've
not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. Which course have you taken?
Have you agreed with God? Have you said the same thing
that God has said about your sin? That brings me to the third
fact. And that is that God is not in
favor of peaceful coexistence in these matters. Now I want
you to get what I'm saying. God is not in favor of calling
a truce with you He's not like we are. The philosophy, you know,
of our country toward those who've been our enemies in the past
and those who may yet be our enemies in the future is that
many, many times we have what we call a peaceful coexistence. You go your way, you do what
you want to do, and we'll do what we want to do, and we'll
get along. But I want you to know, my friend,
this philosophy that we may have toward other countries, God will
not do it that way. He's not going to do it. He's
not in favor. God, my friend, you may say,
well, I have my view. And God has His, and that's the
way it's going to be. No, my friend, that's not the
way it's going to be. Because God is determined to
bring the whole world into agreement with Him. God is going to bring
the whole world into agreement with Him. God has a right to
demand that you agree with Him. He has a right to demand that. It's all through this book that
the Word of God teaches that God demands, He's commanded,
like in the book of Acts, He's commanded all men everywhere
to repent. Repent? Somebody said, what in
the world does that mean? Well, Acts 20 and 21, where Paul
said, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks,
repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Repentance? What does it mean? There's no
salvation apart from God giving the gift of repentance and He's
the enthroned Christ and He gives the gift of repentance to the
elect sheep. Repentance. All this is is a
sinner agreeing with God, speaking the same thing that God says
in His Word about this sinner. What is repentance? But a sinner
agreeing with a broken heart, with a tear in his heart toward
God about his sin, agreeing with God about his sin and about his
son. Now, the sinner used to be in
his pride. He would argue with God, and
we did. Now, the sinner is bowed down
with tears, as we said, in his heart and his soul. He said,
God, I agree with you. And he speaks the same thing
to God as God speaks about the sinner. I do deserve hell. It's a mercy. that any sinner
like me is out of hell. That's repentance, my friend,
when a man is able to say that. Are you able to say that? I deserve
to be in hell. It's a mercy if I'm not in hell. The poet said, Hear, Lord, My
soul convicted stands of breaking all thy ten commands, and on
me justly might you pour your wrath in one eternal shower. If you were to send me to hell,
my soul would have no plea, should vengeance now my soul pursue. Death and destruction are my This, my friend, is agreeing
with God. This, my friend, is confessing.
It's saying the same thing. No longer wondering whether God
is right to have a hell or not. Do you know that there are people
that wonder, why in the world does God have a hell anyway?
Why does He have a hell? Well, one old brother said, I
understand justice. Grace I cannot understand. Are you and I not in that same
fix? R.C. Sproul, I think it was,
said that. He said, Justice I can understand,
but grace I cannot understand. What is it, my friend? Listen
to me. Listen to me. No longer wondering
whether God's right to have a hell. The world says, why don't he
save everybody? Why didn't he just save everybody
and get it over with? He's a God of grace and a God
of mercy. Why didn't he save everybody?
You know what our question is? Is why did he save anybody? Now if you come to the place
where you confess Will you agree with God? Will you speak the
same thing? You will say to God, Lord, why did you save anybody? Why did you save anybody? Well,
we are often made to wonder that. And I think this morning, if
the spirit of real repentance is in our hearts, we will have
to agree. that God is merciful, merciful,
merciful to have saved any one of us from a devil's hell. Faith
says, God, you're right about your son. I dare not, I dare
not approach you apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and His merit. Oh, my friend, think of a sinner
and an absolute God. My friend, a sinner cannot approach
an absolute, thrice holy God. He must come through God's Son. Faith says, I'll approach you,
but only through the way you prescribed. He was right when
he said, no man can come to the Father but by me. And that's
the way I come, dear Lord. Do you not come that way every
day? Friend of mine, do you not come that way every day when
you bow your knee? When you go into your closet
to pray, do you not come through Jesus Christ unto the Father? You cannot come any other way.
And when you come that way, you're confessing. You're saying to
God, I agree with you. I know I cannot come any other
way. Now, when, you know, God spoke
from heaven and said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am what? Well pleased! Well pleased! And when faith says, you're pleased
with Him, and faith says, I'm pleased with Him. I'm pleased
with Him. You love Him, and the Bible says
the Father loved the Son and gave all things into His hands.
You love Him, and I love Him! That's what faith says. I love
you Lord Jesus. We love Him because God the Father
said I love Him. He's my beloved Son in whom I'm
well pleased. Well, I believe you cannot be
saved apart from this. Repentance and faith. I don't care how many preachers
that has given you assurance. I don't care how many electrical
good feelings that you have go through your mortal body in this
life, I don't care how many years of service you have devoted to
your religion, you cannot be a child of God, you cannot be
saved apart from agreeing with God from the heart on these vital
issues. Your sin and God's Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He'll send you to hell if you
remain His enemy. Or He'll break you and save you
by sovereign mercy, by sovereign free grace. And that brings me
to the fourth fact. And the last thing. It is a certain
fact Now you listen to what I'm saying, it is a certain fact,
all men, everybody here, everybody who ever lived, now lives, or
ever shall live, must sometime agree with God on both of these
issues. Now did you get what I said?
It is a certain fact, all men, everybody here, everybody who
ever lived, now lives, or ever shall live, must sometime or
other agree with God on both these issues. Romans 14 and 11,
this is so certain that God stakes His eternal existence on it when
He said, for it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every
knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. Same Greek word. Speak the same
thing to God. God says, As I live, saith the
Lord, as sure as I am God and have an eternal existence, every
knee is going to bow, and every tongue is going to confess that
I am Lord. Now in Jude, in verses 14 and
15, God speaks of how the Lord Jesus is going to come back from
heaven, and He's going to execute judgment, and He's going to convince
all that are ungodly. Going to convince all that are
ungodly among them of their ungodly speeches and deeds. Now you say,
you mean to tell me God's going to convince all the ungodly of
their true state? The Bible teaches that He is
going to do that. He's going to convince them of
their sinnerhood. What did Pharaoh say in Exodus
9 and 27 when God had sent the hail and the fire from heaven
down on Egypt? Well, he called Moses and Aaron
and said, I have sinned this time. I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous and I and
my people are wicked. That's what he said. And that's
what he's going to bring all the wicked to say. He's going
to bring them all to say, the Lord is righteous and I'm wicked. I'm a sinner. Confess. Now notice in Philippians 2,
I call your attention to this passage. It's a classic passage
and one which I think probably most of you are familiar with.
But I want you to look at this passage with me and will soon
be done. Here in Philippians chapter 2, the second chapter.
And beginning with verse 9, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
him, that is the Lord Jesus, and given him Christ, A name
which is above every name. The Lord Jesus has this. He's
highly exalted of God. And He's been given this name. This name. The name of Jesus
in which God has connected His power, His redeeming grace, and
His salvation. And this name is above every
name. There is no name to equal this name of Jesus. that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth, and that every tongue, verse 11, should confess. There is that word again, confess,
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
There is one difference in this word in the Greek. And in the
Greek, this word confess here has two more letters attached
to it than what the word confess back in our original text in
1 John had. And what these two letters adds
to it is that they will speak the same thing, but they will
speak the same thing loud and clear. They'll speak the same
thing loudly. They'll speak the same thing.
They must raise their voice. No more whispering. No more just
talking loud enough mumbling around. No more of that. You
will speak loudly and clearly that Lord Jesus Christ, He is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. Oh my friend, I hope
we see this. The elect speak out loud now.
They speak out loud now. Jesus is Lord. He's Lord. And we say it to the glory of
His eternal Father. Peter said back on the day of
Pentecost that this same Jesus God has made both Lord and Christ
in raising Him from the dead. And we say, He's Lord! He's Christ! He's the Lord Jesus Christ! And we glory in His name. It thrills our heart to be able
to speak of our God. He's Lord! But there's coming
a day when all must speak that word. God, I think of those in
hell. and how that in that day, when
the Lord puts them in that place where they must speak loudly
that Jesus is Lord, I can hear a sinner say, I can hear him
say, you know, I was a rebel against God all my life, and
if God would let me out of this place today, I'd go right on
back and be a rebel still. But God has His foot on my neck,
and He has crushed me, but He's the Lord. He's the Lord. My friend, every man is going
to bow. My problem is not if you will
bow. My problem is when you're going
to do it. You're going to do it. You're going to do it. When are you
going to do it? Are you going to confess, speak the same thing
today, Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father? Are
you going to agree today that He truly is the Son of God with
might and power to raise the sinner from a spiritual death
unto everlasting life? Well, you wait till that day
when God, like old Cassius Clay, most of you are too young to
remember this, but when he fought Sonny Liston, and he was beating
him to a pulp, they'd had a controversy before about Cassius's name,
and Sonny wouldn't speak his name. And when old Cassius Clay
was beating him to a pulp, he said, What is my name? What is
my name? What is my name? Speak it! Speak
it! As he was pounding on him. And
I want to tell you what, God's going to pound on every sinner,
every one of his enemies, and they're going to speak. And they're
going to speak loudly! Jesus is Lord! I never believed
it while I lived, but I believe it now! Jesus is Lord! And they'll say it to the glory.
of God the Father. Father, in the name of Jesus,
we ask that it might please you, our Father, to give somebody
here today Lord, that ability, we know that repentance and faith
are gifts of God. Christ was raised from the dead,
seated at the right hand of the Father to give, to give, to give
to repentance, give repentance and faith. And Lord, may there
be somebody here this morning that receives the gift of repentance
and faith directly from the throne of God. and they'll be able to
say Jesus is Lord. They'll be able to say, I know
I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my
all in all. They'll agree with God. And every
time they find in the Word of God what God says about these
two vital issues, they'll agree with God and take sides with
God against themselves. They will speak out and plainly
declare that they're on the Lord's side. and that they believe God
and His message. Father, have Your way in this
meeting, and Lord, glorify Yourself and honor Yourself. It's been
a joy to be here this morning, and we give You praise and glory.
In Jesus' name, Amen.