I invite you to turn this morning
with me to the book of Galatians. I changed my message on the way
this morning and I'll attempt to give it to you as the Lord
gives it to me. But Galatians chapter four, I
would like for us to read here a couple of verses beginning
with verse 15. I wanna read verse 15 and 16,
or maybe I should read down through verse 18. Galatians chapter four. Where is then the blessedness
you spake of? For I bear you record that if
it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes
and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but
not well. Yea, they would exclude you that
you might affect them. But it is good to be zealously
affected always in a good thing. and not only when I am present
with you." Now, the Apostle Paul had ministered the gospel of
the grace of God. He said that he had preached
Christ crucified unto these Galatians. He had made the message of the
gospel clear and plain, and they had received the message with
great gladness and with joy. And Paul said they were blessed,
so blessed, unto the message. He said, I bear you record. that
if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own
eyes and given them unto me. That's how much you treasured
me as being the messenger of God unto your soul. I preached
the good tidings of the gospel. Surely my feat was beautiful
unto you, and I preached the gospel unto you of good news,
and you received it. You were blessed in your heart.
God revealed it to you as I was preaching to you. and you rejoiced
in it. Now in verse 16 he says, am I
therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth. Now Paul
the Apostle was one who did not mince words but told men the
truth as God laid it upon his heart. He had a clear understanding
of the gospel. He had not received the gospel
from men but he received it as a revelation from the Lord Jesus
Christ. And might I say that any who
truly know the gospel, any who truly understand the gospel of
God's saving grace have received it the same way. We receive it
by the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in our soul. Now
it is not possible that a man by searching can find out God. It is not possible that a man
can know who Jesus is, except it be revealed to him. The Lord
Jesus one time asked the disciples, who do men say that I the Son
of Man am? And they said, well, some say
that you're Jeremiah the prophet, some say you're this, some say
you're that. But he said, well, whom do you
say that I am? And Peter said, Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, Blessed
art thou, Simon, son of Barjona, flesh and blood did not reveal
that to you, but my Father which is in heaven. So anybody who
knows the gospel, who truly knows the saving gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. They know it by the revelation
of God's Spirit. And isn't it wonderful that the
Spirit of God is in the world, and that the Spirit of God is
taking the things of Christ and showing them unto our hearts
even in the day in which we live, and that God is pleased to make
known Himself and to reveal Himself in our day. Now Paul says, have
I become your enemy because I tell you the truth, because I have
told you? the plain truth, that salvation
is not by the works of the law, but that salvation is through
the grace of God, and that righteousness does not come by obedience under
the law of Moses, but righteousness comes by faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And because I've tried to wean
you away from the old covenant and from the condemnation of
that covenant through the preaching of the new covenant of grace,
He says, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
They zealously affect you. You see, there was some Judaizers
that had come among these Galatians and had been leading them back,
trying to lead them back under the old Mosaic law, trying to
lead them back to obedience to the law, that they might gain
favor with God, that they might somehow rather get God to like
them a little more than what he liked them through grace.
And they were trying to get God to favor them in some way other
than that God, through free mercy and free sovereign grace, would
favor his people. And Paul said, they zealously
affect you. I mean, these people have been
busy, and they've affected you. They have affected you with their
zeal and their enthusiasm for the law of Moses. But he said,
not well. Not well. It's not been good
for you. It's not been good for you. It's
not been profitable for you, because it's taken you away from
Christ. And if you be in any way removed
from Him, then that's not well. That's to fall from grace, and
that's to come back under, as it were, the judgment of God. Now then, he said, they would
exclude you. In other words, they would take
you out from under the umbrella of the gospel and the blessings
that come through the covenant being fulfilled by the works
of another to put you back under the old works covenant to make
you produce that which God would be approved of or which God would
approve of. Now then, he said, they would
exclude you then. They would exclude you. And you
know, sometimes we're not aware of the efforts of those that
would come by and drop us a little bit of what they call a little
bit of common sense and something that is very reasonable that
you ought to pay attention to. We don't understand that they're
trying to draw us away from Christ. They're trying to separate us
from the blessings that are in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That their message, if we followed it to its end and
its conclusion, that it would rob us of our eternal hope. It would rob us of every blessing
that God would possibly give to us. They would exclude you
that you might affect them. In other words, they'd like to
have you on their side. They'd like for you to say amen
to what they say. They'd like for you, you know,
to stand with them and to become law keepers and to say amen to
your own personal merit and your own personal righteousness as
being that which makes us acceptable before God. But in verse 18 he
said, it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing. meaning that whenever a good
thing is preached, when the gospel is preached, when the truth is
preached, when Christ is exalted, who is the way, the truth, and
the life, it's good to be affected and for you to become zealous
and enthused over that to the point where that you would, where
you are blessed in your soul and that you have the ability
then and want to go out and share that. be zealously affected with
this good thing. And not only when I'm present
with you. In other words, when I was present
with you and was preaching to you and bringing this message
of Christ crucified and life in Him and promises of God being
fulfilled in Christ and that Him, He being the one that fulfilled
the law and kept the law and obeyed every jot and tittle of
it, you were blessed and were affected by it. And I was present
with you, but he said, I'd like for you to be affected this way
even when I'm not. When these Judaizers are around,
why don't you speak of your blessedness then? Why don't you praise God
then for full, free salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well,
I want you to think a little bit. Am I therefore become your
enemy because I tell you the truth? Now look over at verse
11 in chapter 5. And I brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, now Paul's not talking about preaching that
circumcision in the flesh, just simply the cutting of the flesh.
He says, if I yet preach circumcision, meaning if I preach everything
connected with the law of Moses, if I am a preacher of the law,
if I'm a preacher of a man becoming righteous before God through
his law obedience, if I am a preacher of works and of righteousness
by law keeping, then why do I yet suffer persecution? Why is it
that these Jews are out here after me? Why is it that these
people who believe this heretical stuff, why is it that they're
still after my throat? Why is it they want to kill me?
Why is it they want to do away with me? Why is it that they
don't listen to what I have to say and don't want to listen?
Why is it? Why am I suffering persecution?
Well, he said, if I was preaching what they wanted to hear, that
the salvation of life was but good works. And I'll tell you
something, men don't get angry when you preach salvation but
good works. They don't get angry at that.
You remember our Lord. Hold your finger here in Galatians
and turn back with me to the Gospel of John chapter 10. And
I'll show you here that men don't get angry at good works. They
don't get angry at that. You can preach it. You can preach
that men and women are saved by their own personal merit and
obedience and their own personal righteousness and nobody will
get mad, nobody will get upset but a true believer. Nobody will
get upset with you except somebody that's had the gospel revealed
to them, and they know they've been saved by imputed righteousness,
by free grace. They'll get upset, but the world
won't get upset, and religious people won't get upset when you
preach salvation by good works. Now here in the 10th chapter
of John, Jesus in verse 32 answered them, many good works have I
showed unto you from my father, for which of those works do you
stone me? Jesus said, I've done many good
works among you. I've healed the sick, I've healed
the blind. And he said, all these good works
I've done, now which one of these good works are you stoning me
for that I've done? And then the Jews answered, saying,
for a good work we stone thee not. For a good work we'll never
get upset with you. For a good work we'll not be
offended. For a good work, no, because
we're all in favor of good works. And if you'll just preach salvation,
preach it up, preacher. Nobody's going to get offended
at you if you just preach that we can just make God happy with
us if we'll just do something that we think is good. No, no. But I'm here to tell you, beloved,
that men are offended They're offended at the grace of God. They're offended at the truth.
Men and women will always be offended by the truth. You preach
the grace of God to a man, and you tell a man what he is by
nature, and he's going to be offended at you. When you tell
a man that he cannot in the flesh please God, and that man is going
to be offended at you. When you tell him that he cannot
find out, he can get all the books he can find, and that he's
not going to find out who God is. Now listen, that man will
be offended at you. And I come here today and I don't
want anybody to become my enemy because of what I tell you. but
i'm going to tell you something listen i believe that i'm preaching
maybe to the generation of people that may be the wisest generation
that ever lived on the face of this earth i believe the people
of our day and time are very very wise the people of this
world are very shrewd the people of this world are they're very
clever the people of this world they're inventors just think
about even in my lifetime uh... and uh... you know daniel said
that in the end that mean that knowledge would would increase
and just think about it in my lifetime how many inventions
there have been how much advance society is made how wise men
are and what they've been able to do how luxurious our living
styles are today and how we've come such a long ways in in our
ability to uh... to uh... produce and so on and
so forth. It's a very wise generation.
Look at the computer geniuses and look at all that we have
now that we didn't have a few years ago. And most of this have
occurred in my lifetime. In 60 some years, all of these
things, or most of them, have occurred. Things that didn't
happen 5,000, maybe 900 and some odd years before They've happened in the last
couple of generations. And so we need to understand,
beloved, that the people of our day and time, that they're very
wise and shrewd. They're inventors and they're
lawyers and doctors and they're mathematicians and they're all
kinds of people in this world that excel in education and all
of that. But when you stand and tell those
people, you cannot know who God is, except He reveal Himself
to you. That offends those people. Now it's not that we don't have
Bibles. We got more Bibles than we ever had. And it's not that
we don't have translations of the Bible. We got all kinds of
translations. We got so many translations,
I can't keep up with them all. I don't know how many translations
we got, but we got many, many of them. And it's not the fact
maybe that people are not reading their Bibles. Maybe they are
reading their Bibles. But I'm here to say, and I don't
want you to become my enemy, but I'm here to tell you that
you can't find out who God is simply by just reading. simply
by just reading the Bible. The God of the Bible must reveal
Himself, make Himself known to you. Salvation is by knowing
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is an intimate knowledge. And
unless God is pleased to show Himself to you, then you're not
going to know who He is. We've been studying, the young
people have, out of the Gospel of John, and we've read this
last Tuesday night, about Jesus when he was at the feast in Jerusalem,
how that there were many that saw his miracles and believed
on him. But yet the Bible says that Jesus did not manifest himself
unto them because he knew all men, he knew their hearts, You
see, God doesn't look on the outward appearance. He looks
on the heart. God knew their hearts. He said, I don't need
anybody to tell me what's in man. I know man. He didn't make
himself intimately acquainted to them, even though they believed
on him. They believed on him, but they weren't saved. They
believed on him only because of the miracles which he did.
And Jesus did not manifest, commit himself. He did not become intimately
acquainted with them. They did not know him unto life
eternal because he must be the initiator of that knowledge. He must commit himself unto you. He must make himself known. unto you, or else you cannot
possibly know who he is. So now, beloved, when we begin
to talk about these things that this world does not know, even
though men are clever, and even though they're very wise after
the world, and they're certainly able to make, and this has been
described as one of the most prosperous Generations that have
ever lived on the face of the earth. People have more than
ever before. But nobody knows what the true
riches is. Very few people know what the
true riches are. Folks are better off than ever
before as far as the world is concerned and the things of the
world. But when it comes down to the true riches, who is the
Lord Jesus Christ, men know very, very little about him. Well,
I thought about this a little bit and you know there are certain
things that you say that just make people, they offend people,
but you can't help that. You can't help that if you're
going to preach the truth. Now there's three or four things
that come to my mind that I believe is offensive to people, and I
believe that only God's people know, and I believe that as God's
people know these things, there's where the true blessedness is,
and they are blessed. They are blessed because they
know these things. Now one of the things that just
comes immediately to my mind is that this generation does
not know the character of the God of the Bible. They do not
know the truth about who God is. They don't know who is running
this world. They don't know. Now, it is a
blessed thing to know our God and to know something about what
he's revealed about himself on the pages of this Bible. Now,
it's not necessary that you go out and look up some philosopher
to tell you something unique about God in order that you might
know him better than somebody else. That's not necessary. God
has revealed himself on the page of this book, and God's not hiding
from anybody. And if you're sincere with all
of your heart, mind, and soul, if you seek the Lord, I believe
that God would be pleased just to reveal himself and make himself
known unto your heart. But I'd like to say something
here that I believe is very, very important. The God of the
Bible, the scripture says, He's in the heavens and He's done
whatsoever He's pleased. We worship a God, and I know
there's a familiarity with God in our day and time that is is
nauseous to me. There's a familiarity with God. People say they know God. I was
reading recently about a certain lodge, and a fellow spoke of
the leader of their lodge as being the most high potentate. And I knew right off, and some
of them call their leaders worshipful fathers. Now that's evident then
that these people don't know anything about the God of the
Bible, the true character of the God of the Bible. The God
of the Bible, my friend, is a God who is absolutely holy. He's a God that is holy. He's
a God who is pleased at times to come among men and to reveal
his presence, make himself known among men. And do you know that
most of the people of the Bible that God was pleased with when
they come into the presence of God, most of them fell on their
face. You don't read about them, you
know, standing up and shouting and jumping around and throwing
hymn books and stuff all over the auditorium and all of that.
Most of them fell on their face. Most of them humbled themselves.
Most of them got down before God and were as dead men before
God. Because the God of the Bible
is an awesome God. He is a majestic God. He's a
holy God. He's a God that men fall down
before. And you remember old Moses when
he got near the burning bush, which was a symbol of the presence
of God. Take off thy shoes. You're on
holy ground. Holy ground. But this generation,
they talk about God, you see, they call their lodge brothers
the most high potentate and worshipful father, and then they speak of
God as being just the man upstairs. The man upstairs. This generation
has not faced the fact that God is the creator of men, that he's
the creator. He's the almighty God, and that
everything that was made was made by the God of the Bible,
and that he's the creator. He's your creator, and that you
need to become a worshiper of his. You know, we're not too
much concerned about what God thinks about us. We're not too
much concerned. The fella goes into a restaurant
and he sits down and he said, well, I got to pray because what
will people say? If they see me eat and I don't
pray, what will they think? Well, what's God thinking? Have
you ever thought about that? What's God thinking about what
you're doing or what you're not doing? You know, some woman one
time come up to me and said, you know, I'm glad you're here.
I was gonna preach in a Bible conference. I'm glad you're here.
I'm sure looking forward to hearing you. And I said to her, you know,
I wish I was as anxious to get up and try to preach to you as
you are anxious to hear me. The older I get, beloved, the
more I am concerned about getting up and trying to say something. God is in the heavens, and God
is looking down, and God is holy, and we better be careful about
trying to come into the presence of God with our little ignorant
nothings as we're mouthing them off, you see. God is holy, and
we need to be aware of that. He's an awesome God. And we need
to be mindful of that. And the older we get, the more
conscious we become. Are we going to tell a lie on
God this morning? Or are we going to speak the
truth? Are we going to tell God? And when we bow our heads, are
we really talking to God? Or are we just trying to impress
the people that sit around us, around the table? What are we
trying to do? Are we trying to worship God? If we're gonna worship
God, then let's be honest in our souls about it. This generation
don't know who God is. Let me tell you, the God of the
Bible is an omnipotent God, an omnipotent God. Now that word
means that he's almighty, that he's all-powerful. Our God is
in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. He's an almighty God, and he
rules in heaven and earth. The God of the Bible is not only
omnipotent, all-powerful, able to do whatever He wills to do,
whenever He wills to do it, but He's an omniscient God. And that
means that He knows everything. That means that nobody ever tells
God anything. That He knows everything from
the beginning. That He's a God that all of His
works are known to Him from the very beginning. He's an all-wise
God. He knows every thought that before
it ever comes in your mind, He knows it. He already knows it. So God is not only all-powerful,
He's omniscient. And not only is He omniscient,
He's omnipresent. And that means that wherever
God's doing anything, He's there. And if God's going to do anything,
wherever He's going to do it, He's got to be there. And the
God of the Bible is everywhere. David said, if I make my bed
in hell, O thou art there. Wherever we are, God is there. He's an omnipresent God. Do we
know this God of the Bible? Now don't get offended at me. I'm telling you something about
this God. And another thing about Him is He is absolutely immutable. That means that this God don't
ever change. We're a very changeable people. We change all the time. Man is
fickle, feeble, and he changes all the time. But God didn't
get old like we do. God does not...somebody said,
well, that fellow's going to mellow with the years, and he
might. But God does not mellow with
the years. God is an eternal God. From everlasting to everlasting,
He's God. And He never changes. And even
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says that He's the
same yesterday and today and forever. This God is immutable. Now on one occasion, and if you
have your Bible, you might turn back with me to the book of Daniel,
chapter 4. On one occasion, Daniel had the
unpleasant task of telling O Nebuchadnezzar the dream, and revealing the
dream that Nebuchadnezzar had received from God, and nobody
was able to explain it to him, but O Daniel, he understood the
dream, God gave him wisdom about it, and so it was necessary that
he would confront the king and tell him exactly what this dream
meant. Now in Daniel chapter 4, It is
thou, O King, that art grown and become strong. Now, I'm not
going to get into this dream. I just want you to see here that
as Daniel revealed this dream, it wasn't pleasant. But it had
to do with the sovereign God. It had to do with the fact that
God ruled in the heavens. And this is offensive to men.
And it offended this King Nebuchadnezzar. He says, It is thou, O king,
that art grown and become strong, for thy greatness is grown and
reaches unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.
And whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from
heaven, and saying, Hew the tree down, and destroy it. yet leave
the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band
of iron and brass in the tender grass of the field, and let it
be wet with the dew of heaven, and let this portion be with
the beast of the field till seven times pass over him. This is
the interpretation, O King, and this is the decree of the Most
High, which is to come upon my Lord the King. that they shall
drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beast
of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen,
and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven
times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High
ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he
will. Okay, and then look down in verse
30, the king spake and said, is this not great Babylon that
I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my
power and for the honor of my majesty? While the word was in
the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O
king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken that kingdom is
departed from thee. Now, God said the kingdom's going
to depart, the stump will be left, you'll come back, but you're
going to be driven out and you're going to be as a beast to the
field until you know that the heavens do rule and until you
know that God is sovereign and that God has his way in the kingdoms
of men, and he gives those kingdoms to whomsoever he will. And they
shall drive thee out, in verse 32, from men. Thy dwelling shall
be with the beast of the field. That's exactly what we've said.
And until thou knowest it, the Most High ruleth in the kingdom
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. I wanted to back that
up with the scripture. Now then, the same hour this
thing was fulfilled, in verse 32. And at the end of the days,
in verse 34, Nebuchadnezzar lifted up his eyes into heaven, and
his understanding returned unto him. And what was the first thing
he did when he got his eyes open? I mean, when God brought him
down, when God showed him who he was, what was the first thing? I mean, when... And when he had
an understanding, it came back to him. He blessed the Most High
and praised and honored Him that liveth forever and ever. This
generation won't do it. This generation got no praise
and no honor for the living God, for who He is and for what He
is. No, no, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and
his kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants
of the earth, listen to this, are reputed as nothing while
there is less than a drop in the bucket. And he doth, God
doth, according to his will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or
say unto him, What doest thou? Now what we've done here is establish
that God is an awesome God, He's an all-powerful God, He's a God
that rules, He's a God that is enthroned in the heavens and
whatsoever pleased Him, that He will do and that He has done
in the past. It's right for in the vocabulary
of God to have, I will and I shall, because He is the eternal, unchanging
God. And those that walk in pride,
Nebuchadnezzar found that God is able to abase them. Okay,
so we've talked about the omnipotence of God, and we've talked about
the omniscience of God, and the omnipresence of God, and the
immutability of God that is unchanging. He's this great God that Daniel
spoke of here. Now I've got another thing that
I want to mention about this God that men do not understand,
this generation's ignorant about, and that is of the justice of
God. And I want you to turn with me
to the book of Isaiah, The book of Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah
chapter 45, that is the justice of God. Men are ignorant of God's
justice, even though they're wise and intelligent, and even
though they're much educated in the ways of the world and
the things of this world, they know nothing about His absolute,
strict justice. In verse 21 and 22, but verse
21, let's read that. Tell ye, and bring them near,
yea, let them take counsel together, who had declared this from ancient
time, who had told it from that time, have not I the Lord, and
there is no God else besides me, notice, a just God and a
Savior, there is none besides me, a just God, a just God. You know, many, many times we
hear people talk about infants and when they die, whether they
go to heaven or whether they go to hell. You know, the judge
of all the earth is a just God. And whatever God does is just
and it is right. But He's a God of absolute, strict
justice. And do you know, and I want you
to keep your finger here in Isaiah 45, turn over with me to Romans
chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. The God of
the Bible is an absolute, just God. This explains it, I think,
a little clearer here. In verse 26 of the third chapter
of the book of Romans, Paul says, To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just, his righteousness, that
he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now the thing that I want to
impress upon you is that God is absolutely, whatever happens
to man in time or eternity, God is absolutely just in doing what
he does. Somebody says it is not right
that this particular situation, and we look at the situation
over in the Balkans, somebody said it's just not right. Well,
that's according to our judgment it's not right. And many, many
things we look on, we look on situations and we determine it's
not right. Somebody dies young and we say
it's just not right. An infant dies, we say it's just
not right. Many, many things we pass our
judgment, it's not right. But the ways of God are absolutely
right. God is righteous in all of his
ways. Now we know that God does many,
many things that we don't understand, that we cannot figure out. We
don't understand with our little puny minds. That's why the preachers
are still getting up after some calamity on the earth, and many
people have been killed, or some dreadful thing happens, they
get up and preach funerals, and say, God didn't have a thing
in the world to do with this. He didn't have nothing to do with
this. You know why they say that? Because they're ignorant of the
God of the Bible. They're ignorant of the fact
that God always does right, and that God is in control of all
things in this world. And that if something happens
we don't understand, why don't we just say, God is entitled
to know some things we don't know, and go on and honor and
glorify the God of the Bible. He's a God that always does right. But you see, with our intelligence,
we just can't bow to that, that God does right and our opinions
don't count. Oh, we can't bow to that. We
can't give up our, you know, our little corner on what's right
and what's wrong and so on. I'll tell you what we better
do. We better come to find out who this God is. And this generation
is ignorant of this God. I've heard preacher after preacher
get up and tell people, God didn't have anything to do with that.
Well, I'm here to tell you the greatest comfort there is in
the world is to believe that God's got everything to do with
it. And if you believe that the God of the Bible is who He's
revealed Himself to be, a God who never made a mistake, a God
who cannot do wrong, if we believe that, then we'll take some comfort
in whatever happens, and we'll bow down. and we'll worship this
God. Yes we will. He's an absolute
just God. Now that brings me to say something
else. You see, He's just and He's the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now this shows you,
I believe, if we look at it like this, it'll show us how just
our God really is. Do you know, as we look back
here in Isaiah 45, it says that He's a just God and He's a Savior.
Now what is the connection there? Well the connection is this,
God is absolutely just. Meaning this, not only does God
do right unto all men, and if a man is outside of Christ he
sends him to hell. If he's in Christ he goes to
heaven. Not only is that true, but what we want to see here
is that the God of the Bible is so just, that every time there's
a sin forgiven. And I want you to understand
that if you've ever had one sin forgiven, one sin, that God forgave
you of that sin. And the Bible says that if we
confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But let me tell you and point
this out to you that the only way God forgives sin is because
it is just for Him to do it. He can maintain His holy and
righteous character and be a God of law and a God of truth. and
forgive you because his justice has been absolutely satisfied
by our Lord Jesus Christ. God never forgives a sin that's
not paid for. Am I right? Every sin that God
forgives is a sin that has been paid for. It has been paid for. You say, oh God forgive me of
that sin a long time ago. Listen, let me tell you something.
You wouldn't have been forgiven if Christ had not have bore that
sin in his own body on the tree. You'll never go to heaven unless
God, for his son's sake, is satisfied. Unless Jesus satisfies God on
our behalf, we cannot go to heaven. And this generation thinks they
can run around and put a little different slant on their sin,
they can talk about it a little bit, and they, you know, it's
somebody else's fault, and so on and so forth, and God will
have mercy on them. God's hand of mercy is free to
save and deliver, because His Son died in our room instead
in place because his son suffered what was due our sin. God is
just and the justifier of all who believe in Jesus. Now that
brings me to say this, that if God forgives sin that is paid
for, then he must forgive the sins for whom Christ died. He
must. He's just. He's just. Can Jesus Christ go to the cross
bearing his own body, our sin dead? Can he go and suffer the
vengeance of God on our behalf? And then God shut up his bowels
of mercy and have no compassion. Can God hang his son on a cross
and his son bleed and those fire bleeding wounds pours out that
life blood? And then God not save his people
for whom the blood was shed? Absolutely. The Lord must The
Lord must forgive those for whom Christ bled and died. He must!
He must! He must cleanse them from their
sin. He's just! Now this generation
says, no, it ain't so. It ain't so. The religious people
of our day, smart as whips, say it's not so. It's not so. I'm
telling you, they don't know who God is. You're not going
to become my enemy for me telling you the truth about this, but
He's a just God and He is a Savior. He does save His people from
their sin. He does. The Bible says that
His name shall be called Jesus. for he shall save his people
from their sin. So he's an absolute just God. Now this brings down the wrath
of this religious generation upon us. For us to dare say that
if Christ died for all those for whom he died, he will see
the travail of his soul and he will be satisfied Well, I just
believe if you know who God is, and if you know the truth about
the God of the Bible, that you're going to say Amen. Amen is just. He's just. Righteousness and
truth is met together at Calvary. And now the hands of God are
free to have mercy on all for whom Christ died. And thank God
He will. And thank God He has that mercy
on some of us here. Okay, now I think the next thing
I'd like to say, and I'm going to hurry up here, I'm just preaching
to you as the Lord gives it to me, and I want to say this, and
I believe this generation is ignorant, not only who God is,
this generation is ignorant of what sin is. They're ignorant
of what sin is. Now we often, we know this is
true because you see we hear preachers get up and they, everything
to them is, sin is meats and drink, sin to them is places
and things, that's what sin is. Now the Bible is clear, I want
you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 15, Matthew chapter 15
and now I understand that There are certain drinks that are evil
whenever people have consumed them and imbibed them in an immoderate
way. But I would like just to make
this statement, and like I say, I'm not trying to make enemies
of anybody, but sin... Somebody said, alcohol has ruined
our young people. Have you ever heard that statement?
Alcohol ruined our young people. Now beloved, I don't believe
that statement. I don't believe it. I believe
that our young people have ruined alcohol. You never saw a bottle of whiskey
wobbling down the sidewalk. You never saw that. You never
saw a barrel of whiskey that was wobbling down the sidewalk
or that run into somebody and killed them. You never saw that.
it's the people now you see we must come to understand that
outward acts are from a wicked heart that sin is a nature it
is a principle that we're born with it now you say what you
want to I won't make you my enemy but I want to tell you the truth
somebody said now drugs have ruined our young people I'll
tell you what, now you can say what you want to, but I say our
young people have ruined drugs. Are you against the manufacture
of drugs that they use in the hospitals in order to, are you
against anesthesia? that they give to patients in
the hospital before they operate on them? Are you against that?
Are you against drugs that they give to people in recovery rooms
to keep them from screaming and holding on to the metal bars
on the side of the bed until their hands are white? Are you
against that? Absolutely not! Drugs are a,
I believe, now you can say what you want to about it, but I believe
that many, many ways this, our generation, I may need some of
them one of these days. I won't take anything now, but
I might need some one of these days. Now, I'm not necessarily
talking about marijuana. I don't know that much about
it. And I'm not talking about cocaine and these other drugs.
I'm just saying that sin is a principle. Sin is not in a box. Sin's not
in a bottle. Sin is in the heart of a man. That's where it is. And this
generation says, well, what we do is go out and pick the fruit
off of the tree. And you know, this is one of
the things, one of the problems I got. I never smoked a cigarette
in my life. I never lit a cigarette in my
life. Never did. I'm telling the gospel
truth. But I want you to know this.
These people that are suing these tobacco companies, they're suing
them. Oh, they're suing them for big
bucks. And they think they got a right to do it. They feel they
got a right to do it. For as I'm concerned, those people have
no right to do it. For as I'm concerned, they should
have never smoked it themselves. They had no business ever lighting
up the first one of them. That is their sin. And if it
hadn't been for their heart, it wouldn't have happened. It
wouldn't have happened. Now, I just don't hold to these things.
Somebody says, oh, cigarettes are sinful. Well, you can say
what you want to about them. There's a whole lot of things
out here that you can make sin out of. But as far as I'm concerned,
when you smoke them, you are the one that's responsible for
that. And when you take a drink of alcohol, you are responsible
for that. And if you are immoderate in
the use of things in this world, that's your sin. That comes out
of your wicked heart. You can't go around blaming everybody
else for your problems. You can't do that. Face the facts. These are your problems. And
when you confessing your sin, throw that in with it. I'm just
telling you what I believe. Now in verse 17, or in verse
16, Matthew 15, Jesus said, are you also yet without understanding?
Do you not yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the
mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught?
Whatever you eat, see they were arguing with Jesus telling him
he ought to wash his hands before he eats. They were religious,
strictly religious. Wash your hands before you eat. And he said, don't you understand
that whatever you eat enters into your mouth, goes into your
belly, and then it's eliminated? But those things which proceed
out of the mouth, they come forth from the heart, and that's what
defiles a man. For out of the heart proceeds
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses,
and blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man. But to eat with unwashing hands,
Defileth not a man. It's the heart. Man's heart is
desperately wicked. Who can know it? Man's heart
is incurably wicked. Who can know it? His heart! I
mean, he was born that way. A sinner. Passed on down from
Adam. Right on down. He was our representative
in the Garden of Eden. Passed right on down. And it's
your old wicked heart. That's where the problem is.
I told you before, the wicked outward acts and whatever they
be, outward sinful acts are from a wicked heart. And you do the
things that you do because you are what you are. And if a man
don't finally get done with repenting of what he's done and get back
to what he is before God, he's never got to the truth. And this
generation of preachers and religious people, and the preachers are
nothing more than just the spokesmen for the religious organizations
of this world. That's all they are. They're
just saying what the people believe. They wouldn't say nothing else,
of course. Never. But I want you to know this,
that we've got to get back to what we are in our repentance. We're sinners by nature. And
therefore we're sinners by choice and by practice. And we need
to repent of what we are. Have you ever repented of what
you are? Say, I never thought there was anything wrong with
what I was. Everything you ever done that was wrong, you did
it because of what you are, friend. And that's the principle. Sin
is nature. Now, I'm against the use of any
drug that's not prescribed by somebody that's a whole lot more
intelligent than I am. And I'm against the use of alcohol.
And I'm against smoking cigarettes. I'm against all of that. Absolutely
against it. I'm against it. And I don't think
you ought to be involved with it. I don't think you need that. And I think you ought to leave
it alone. But let's get this straight. about where this drunkenness and this business
of being a dopehead, where it all comes from. You say, well,
my boy would never do that. Oh, yes, your boy will do it.
He'll do it because he's just like you are. You've done some
things that you know you oughtn't to have done. Your boy will do
it. Your daughter will do it. Yes, they will. Because they
got a wicked heart. And you can go out all you want
to and it's been tried before. Go out all you want to and bust
up all the bottles of whiskey and alcohol there is in the world. Break it up! And I'll tell you
what. There'll be somebody make some
tomorrow. There'll be somebody make it. And it's in the world. You just gotta understand where
the problem is. It's in your heart. That's where
it is. Now, I hope I haven't made any
enemies. I've got to quit. There's another
thing I wanted to say, but I just felt these things in my heart
coming in today, and I just felt, well, I'll just preach on them. Just preach on them. And I generally try to keep things
more in order maybe than what they was today, but it's all
right, too. I just wanted to get these things
out to you. And if you're here today and
you say, preacher, I never really saw myself like that. And that
it's come home, the chickens have come home to roost this
morning. That I've got to stop blaming
everybody and stop blaming all this stuff. And stop thinking
about, well, sin is a place. Sin is a thing. No, no. Now, there may be places where
sinful stuff goes on. I don't doubt that. But I've
heard people say, well, I couldn't preach in that. They told me
I couldn't preach in this building. If anybody ever took a drink
in here, couldn't preach in here. Well, I don't like the smell of it
anymore than anybody else does. But that's not a place. Why not? If we come in here and
our hearts are right before God, do you think we can't worship
in there? Absolutely we can. We have, haven't we? Many, many
a time. Many, many a time we worship
God in this place. Lord's good. All right. Well, some of you already know this,
but