The earth is full of heretics.
Many, many strange doctrines are being taught and being preached
and expressed in our day and time. Never do I think that there
was a time when it is so important for God-called preachers to cry
aloud, be not carried about, with different and strange doctrines
as in our day. Now, the old enemy of the devil
has no more subtle device, I don't think, for damning and ruining
the souls of men than that of spreading false doctrine, false
teaching. The devil is a murderer and he's
a liar from the beginning, the Bible says, and he never ceases
going to and fro in the earth seeking whomever he may devour. It doesn't make any difference
to the devil. If you're seeking something,
he'd be glad to give you something. He'd be more than happy to give
you a doctrine, to give you a teaching, something that would, as far
as you're concerned, would satisfy you. And I become very, very
concerned when I see people going about, trying, as it were, one
church after another, going to this place. And we know that
false denominations are crying out, come, come and give us a
hearing. Come and listen to us. Come and
listen to what we have to say. Come and listen to our doctrine.
Come and listen to our teaching. Well, we know that the devil
is a murderer and he's seeking to devour the souls of lost men. Outside the church, men are in
his grasp. Men and women are in his grasp,
taken captive by him, the scripture says, at his own will, and they're
unable in and of themselves to escape his change. Men and women
are not able in and of themselves. Do we realize that? Do we realize
that when that there is a deceivableness of unrighteousness, that there
is teaching that is going about that will most surely reprobate
the souls of men, and it's irreparable if God does not intervene. This is the importance of such
a message as we have here today. Now, inside the church, the devil
sows heresies. He propagates errors. He fosters
departures from the faith. Now, the devil knows that he
cannot stop the flow of the water of life. He knows he cannot. I believe that the devil is bound
until the purpose of the gospel is accomplished, but I do know
this, that heresies abound in the earth and in churches, and
I know that the devil has tried for generations to poison the
water of life. He's tried to adulterate and
corrupt the water of life, and we know it's true on every side. He is called Apollyon in the
scripture, the destroyer. Well, the Holy Spirit has raised
up, I believe, a standard against the devil, and that is the Word
of God. Do you believe that? That Word
above all, the songwriter says, above all earthly powers, no
thanks to them abideth. The Word of God abides. No thanks
to the enemies of the Word of God, but the Word of God abides. And this is the standard that
God has raised up against false doctrine, against heretics, against
heresies. The Word expounded, if you please,
and unfolded. The Word explained. The Word
opened up, the Word preached, the Word made clear to the head
and applied to the heart. This is that chosen weapon by
which the devil must be confronted and which he must be confounded. And so we give ourselves anew
and afresh today to the business of the proclamation of God's
Word. The Word was the sword, you remember,
which the Lord Jesus Christ used when being tempted by the devil
in the wilderness. Now, in every assault the devil
made on our Master, the Lord Jesus, he replied with, it is
written. Now, the Word of the Lord is
the sword of the Spirit. The Bible, faithfully, freely
expounded, is the safeguard of the Lord's Church. Don't ever
forget that. My friend, We need to make sure that we have the
reading of the Word of God and the expounding of the Scriptures,
the preaching of the Word of God faithfully and clearly in
order to preserve and to safeguard the Church of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 and verse 2 and
also verse 3 and 4, he said, preach the word. He said, be
instant, in season and out of season. He said, reprove and
rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will
come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their
own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching
ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth. and
shall be turned into fables." Brother Barnard said one time,
it is high time that we preachers quit bragging about not being
theologians and find out what the Bible has to say and get
to the business of saying it. Can I get an amen to that? I
certainly believe that that's exactly what we as preachers
in our day and time must do. Now we're living in a day when
a preacher or anybody else cannot say one doctrine is true and
another is false because he'll be branded as a bigot, as a narrow-minded,
uncharitable person. But beloved, we're not of that
stripe here. give us because we're not going
to call black white and white black. We're not going to do
that. We're going to speak the truth and tell you the truth
the best we can. Now the scripture was not written
in vain. Do you believe that statement? The scripture was
not written in vain. Man shall not live by bread alone
but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God. Job
23 and verse 12. said I have esteemed the words
of his mouth more than my necessary food. Let us do, beloved, likewise. Now we have in our text here
this morning, in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 9, three things
that I want us to talk about. First of all, we have a warning
Secondly, and that warning is, be not carried about with different
and strange doctrines. Secondly, we have Paul's prescription
for an established Christian heart. His prescription for an
established Christian heart. He said it is good that the heart
be established with grace and not with meat. And thirdly, we
have an instructive fact when he said, meats have not profited
them which have been occupied therein. And by that he meant
that these that have been exercised with and have been involved in
taking the ceremonial view of what is good to eat and what
isn't good to eat, what can make you holy and what can make you
unholy, what can give you acceptance with God and what can keep you
out of the fellowship and presence of God, he said they never got
anything out of it. They never got anything out of
it, and we'll find that to be a very instructive fact. Well,
first of all, then, we want to talk up and take up this business
of this warning. Be not carried about with different
and strange doctrines. I said a few weeks ago that when
I drive a nail, I try to drive it all the way in and try to
drive it as far as anybody possibly can, hoping that nobody can pull
it out. Now, these words of Paul are
not hard to be understood. He said, be not tossed to and
fro by every false doctrine that you hear, and the airways are
full of them, and we know that many around us that are hypocrites
and false prophets. And we're not to be moved about
by every false doctrine that we hear, like ships that are
without a compass or rudder that are blowing in the wind. False
and strange doctrines will arise, as long as the world stands,
in number there many, in details varying, in one point always
the same, a departing from the gospel of free and sovereign
grace, always a departing from the gospel of Christ. Now these
false doctrines exist now. Remember this, Be not carried
away, Paul said in his statement of Scripture. Paul's warning
is not the only one we find in the Word of God about this. In
the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 7
and verse 15, Beware of false prophets which come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. In
Paul's last address to the Ephesian elders, he warned them in Acts
chapter 20 and verse 30, He said, of your own selves shall men
arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them. And in 2 Corinthians 11 and 3
he says, I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. Galatians 1 and 6, Paul
said, I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. And again
he said, O foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath
been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Let me say to you
that any congregation of believers that ever heard the message of
the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, any man who ever
got up in front of a congregation of people and preached the gospel
of God's grace truthfully and faithfully has set forth the
Lord Jesus Christ and he has been evidently crucified before
the eyes of those people. And everyone who believes the
gospel believes in a crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has
been evidently set forth, crucified among you. Having begun in the
Spirit, Paul goes on to say, are you now made perfect by the
flesh? How turn you again to weak and beggarly elements? He
observed days and months and times and years, and listen to
what he said. He said, does anybody know what
he said? He said, I am afraid of you. I am afraid of you. Stand fast, he said in Galatians
5 and 1, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be
not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. In Ephesians 4 and
14 he said be no more children tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine. Cautions 2 and 8, beware lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions
of men. And in 1 Timothy 4 and 1, the
Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith. There shall be false teachers
among you, 2 Peter 2 and 1, who privately shall bring in damnable
heresies. Damnable heresies. That means
teachings that if you listen to them and if you believe them,
they'll damn your soul to an eternal hell. In 1 John 4 and
1, it says, Believe not every spirit, Many false prophets are
gone out into the world. Jude 1 and verse 3 and 4 contend
earnestly for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
For there are certain men crept in unawares. Certain men crept
in unawares. Mark well these texts of scripture.
Now these things were written for our learning and for our
profit. What shall we say to these texts?
Well, I know what they say to me. And they say this very clearly
to me. These texts show me that the
early churches were not models of perfection and purity. And
I think to think otherwise is absurd. We know that the early
church, and even though the gospel was preached faithfully by the
apostles and by the early church fathers, that still they were
not free from heresies and damnable, damnable doctrines. And so we
must not be carried about We must be true to the next generation.
You, brethren, must get well fixed in your heart the doctrine
of Christ, and you must abide in that doctrine in order to
leave a testimony and a witness to those that would come after
us. Now there were abundant errors, both in doctrine and practice,
even in apostolic times, and it's evident that that's clear.
Now to tell me there's no need to warm the church in our day?
Of different and strange doctrine, I believe it senseless and unreasonable. Surely the dumb dog and the sleeping
shepherd are the best allies of the wolf. The thief and the
robber and so we don't want to be a dumb shepherd and we do
not want to be a silent Individual when it comes to speaking of
the truth paul said in first timothy 4 and verse 5 If thou
put the brethren in remembrance of these things thou shalt be
a good minister of jesus christ rise up Wake, those of you that
are sleeping, and remember that these doctrines are pressing
in upon us. In our day, by the pen, by the
tongue, by the press, and by the pulpit, we are constantly,
incessantly being seduced to leave the truth for error and
heresy. I tell you this is real. I'm
not here talking about something, just filling up space with words.
I'm telling you it's real. Never was there a more timely
Never was there a more time and if we pretend that this is just
to be ignorant. In other words, if we pretend
that they don't exist, if we just pretend that we're just
in a world that's friendly to the grace of God and to the truth,
and all we got to do is just go on and just slide along, you
know? No, no, my friend, let me tell
you, it would be like the proverbial ostrich that stuck her head in
the sand. The danger is real, and it's
great, and it's unmistakable. Never was it more timely to say. for wise men, but it is mostly
found in fools. And I tell you, there's some
people... Yes, they had the truth. Well, that's hogwash. A man can
be very zealous, very enthusiastic, All the time, we must not forget
that Satan is often transformed into an enemy. The Bible studied, the Bible
preached. Jesus said in John 5 and 39, Against ancient or modern heresies,
whatever they be and we must remember that study the Word
of God Well, that's my warning against
being carried about with different and strange doctrines. The second
thing I have to talk about is Paul's prescription for spiritual
health and for spiritual establishment. Listen to it. He says, for it
is a good thing, it is a good thing that the heart be established
with grace and not with meats. So this is Paul's prescription
for a healthy established heart. Now there are two words in this
prescription which I believe require a little bit of explanation. The first is grace as listed
in the text and the second is meat. But I want to just switch
here and talk about the meat and then talk about grace. A
right understanding of this is absolutely essential to a proper
use of the apostles advice. We will take them as we said
backward from the way they appear in the text. First, meats. Now
in the Old Testament some meats were called clean and others
were called unclean. Pork was one of those that was
called unclean in the Old Testament. To eat certain kinds of flesh
under Jewish law made a Jew ceremonially unholy before God and no strict
Jew would touch or eat such food on any account. because it would
make them, they thought, unholy before God. Now let me ask some
questions about this. Now there are some people I know
that still like to eat fish on Saturday, or what is it, Friday. They like to eat fish on Friday.
And there are others that possibly have different other diets. I
know some of the Adventist people, they don't like to eat pork.
They want to eat some kind of a chop that is made out of vegetables
and so on, they don't like to eat pork. Well, were these distinctions
still to be kept up after Christ ascended into heaven, or were
they done away by the gospel, these distinctions? Now, were
Gentile converts under any obligation whatsoever to the Levitical law
when it came to their food or to their diet? Were Jewish Christians
obliged to be as strict about the meats they ate as they were
before Christ died and the veil of the temples rent in twain?
Was the ceremonial law about meats entirely done away with
or was it not? Was the conscience of a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ to be troubled with fear lest his food
should defile him? Let me try to answer those questions.
Well, what did Paul? We believe, I hope you believe,
that Paul was an enlightened man. Do you think he was? I believe
Paul knew the gospel. I believe that God revealed the
gospel to him and made him to know the gospel in his soul,
in his heart, and he was an enlightened man. Hear what he says about
all of this. Paul says, I know and am persuaded
by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. Romans 14 and 14. Meat, he says,
commends us not to God in 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 8. For neither if
we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse. Now that's what he said. Paul
establishes clearly that all of this ceremonial law business
about meats were done away when the Lord Jesus Christ came. The kingdom of God, Paul says,
is not meat and drink. but righteousness and peace,
joy in the Holy Ghost, Romans 14 and verse 7. So let no man
judge you, he says, in meat and drink, or in respect of an holy
day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, Colossians
2 and 16. Now nothing, J.C. Ryle said,
shows the fallen nature of man so clearly as the readiness of
morbid and scrupulous consciences to turn trifles into serious
things. Now, follow with me if you please.
Neats in this verse of scripture denotes anything that is added
to the gospel as a thing of primary importance. Now get that. Meats
here denotes anything that is added to the pure, unadulterated
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as a thing that is of primary
importance. By meet, Paul means ceremonial
observances either wholly invented by man or else built on mosaic
precepts which have been abrogated, and that word means done away
with, and suspended by the gospel. Now that's exactly what he's
talking about. He says, by means, and I want to make this clear,
Paul means ceremonial observances either wholly invented by man
or else built on mosaic precepts which have been abrogated and
superseded by the gospel. It was an expression that was
well understood in the days of the apostle meats, meaning works
or anything that was added to the gospel supposedly to make
it effective and useful in the lives of believers. Now the second
word is grace. And this word On the other hand,
I believe, denotes all or is a comprehensive description of
the whole gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is the main
feature of the gospel. Grace is the fountain of life
from which our salvation flows. Grace is the agency through which
our spiritual life is not only given, but is kept up and sustained
in the soul. Are we justified? If we are,
it is by grace. Are we called? Then it is by
grace. Have we forgiveness? Then it
is through the riches of His grace. Do we have a good hope? Well then, that good hope is
one that we have through grace. Do we believe? If we do, it is
through grace. Now are we elect? If we are,
it is by the election of grace. Paul in Romans 6 and 14 says
we're not under the law, but we're under grace. Now Paul lays
down in our text this great principle that it is by grace, not meets,
that the heart of the believer must be established. Now what
I want to do is to establish the hearts of the people of God,
those to whom I preach. Now this is the need of the hour.
I don't know that I'm sufficient for the task, but I'm the one
that's here, and I'm the one that's responsible to do it,
and I want, if I can, to establish your heart. I say it's the need
of the hour. Now we have much indwelling sin
in us. We have many, many faults. many
weaknesses, many frailties. We have a corrupt nature. No
man living has any other kind of nature than we have. All of
us are sinners. We're all fallen in the first
man, Adam. Now, our faith is sometimes feeble. We may have it, have it very
much, in our hearts, but it's sometimes feeble, our hope is
sometimes dim, and our consolations in this life are sometimes very,
very small. Does that describe you? Well,
it describes this preacher. Now, we're not at ease. We're
not at ease. We are very restless in our souls. Does that describe you? We are
indeed. We're not at ease, I'll tell
you. We will never attain to the joy and peace in believing,
it seems, that we're not ever going to come to where our hearts
are established. Now, if you don't believe, you
will never be established. That's what the Word of God says.
You must believe God. You must believe the testimony
of His Word as He has set forth the truth in His Word concerning
Christ and His salvation. Well, sure, where are we going
to turn? We have these problems. We're restless. We're not at
ease. Our hearts are not established. Our consolations are small. Our
hope dim. And our faith feeble. Where are
we going to turn? What are we going to do about
it? Well, we're going to do something. The enemy suggests some shortcut. Some road to establishment. Some, if you please, quack medicine. He shows us some addition. to
the gospel, some man-made device, some exaggeration of a truth,
some flesh-satisfying invention, some improvement on the old path
of free grace, as the false religionists would say it. He says, do this
and you'll be happy. Do this and you'll be established. He says, wear a hat and you will
be established. He says wear drab clothing and
of course when I say wear a hat I'm sure he's referring to or
what I'm referring to is those that believe that all women should
wear hats in the church service and wear drab clothing, don't
call attention to yourself. Long sleeves, oh yes women must
wear long sleeves and the admonition is don't cut your hair and you'll
be established. And the next admonition is, cut
your hair and you will be established. Wear your hair in a bun and you
will be established. Stop this and start that. Whatever it might be, whatever
is peculiar to them, the one doing the speaking and the talking,
whatever he likes or doesn't like, that's what he's expounding
and he tells you, you'll be established if you just do what I tell you
to do. Now, beloved, we know the devil
and his instruments often beguile unstable souls and lead them
into misery and lead them into bondage for years. I've met people
that said they believed in Jesus Christ that were in the steepest
bondage and misery that you could possibly find. People that said
they were free, but yet they were not at liberty in Christ.
Hard establishment does not come by joining this or that. Or by
doing this or that. Not meats, but grace. Other things
have a show of wisdom, perhaps, and gives a temporary satisfaction
to the flesh. Colossians 2 and verse 23. But
they leave you an unhappy soul, nothing bettered, rather worse
off. than you were at the beginning.
Beware about quack medicine that would tell you that if you try
this, you'll surely be established, you'll be happier than ever before,
and you'll certainly be more fruitful and useful than ever
before. Beware of it! I'll tell you there ain't but
one thing that will establish. But what we need is a clear knowledge
of the divine scheme of grace. We need to understand the eternal
purposes of God in Christ Jesus. We need to understand that God
set out to redeem a people that were fallen, a people that were
not able in and of themselves to save themselves or deliver
themselves. He set out through the riches
of His grace to make us to have a standing before Him whereby
we would be holy and without blemish before Him, without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing. God set out to redeem us, to
receive us unto himself. He gave us a holy calling and
he called us by his own name and by his own word and he put
us into his family. Now it's application to the elect
By Christ's redeeming work, this eternal purpose of God in Christ,
we need to understand it. We need a firmer grasp of the
doctrines of grace, of God's free love in Jesus Christ our
Lord. We need to understand more fully.
Christ's full and complete satisfaction for sin. Hebrews 10 and 14 says,
By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are set apart
through that offering. We need to understand that. Complete
satisfaction. That blessed is the man to whom
the Lord, whose sins are forgiven, and to whom the Lord will not
impute sin. God will not impute sin to his
people. We need to have an understanding,
a more full understanding of justification by simple faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5 verse 1 says, therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. And it doesn't make any difference
how old you are. If you're just a youngster believing on the
Lord Jesus, He's your peace. And if you're middle-aged, He's
your peace. If you're up in years, He's your
peace. Years keep coming to Him. Therefore,
being justified, being declared just as if we'd never committed
a sin, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 4 and 5, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Christ is the fountain of grace,
and to know Christ, beloved, is to know the grace of God,
to know his offices, to know his power and his sympathy, his
priestly work, and his intercessory work. This is what we need if
we're going to be established, this This is the secret of heart
establishment. Would your heart be established
this morning? Let it be established with grace. This is the old path
of peace. This is the true panacea for
restless hearts. Now, this may seem very simple
to you. It may seem too easy. It may
seem cheap. It may seem commonplace. It may
seem too plain for you. But all the wisdom of man or
of this world can never show a poor sinner a better road to
rest and peace than this. There is no other road. Martin Luther preached justification
by faith in his day, and great light came to that day and time
preaching justification by faith. But there are many people to
whom he preached to over and over and over again justification
by faith that men and women are justified before God, given a
standing before God by faith in Christ. He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Over and
over he preached and declared these truths until, and he said
the people wouldn't believe it. They wouldn't believe it. They
were too steeped in Roman Catholicism and in many of the false religion
of his day. And he said he, on one occasion,
And of course he never did this because the righteousness of
man worketh not, the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness
of God. But he said he wanted to take
his Bible and slap something up the side of the head with
it that they wouldn't listen to what he had to say about justification
by faith and by faith alone. Listen to me. There is no individual
in this world that can become righteous before God except by
believing unto righteousness. You must believe unto it. With
the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth,
confession is made unto salvation. I woke up in the middle of the
night one night here a while back, and that came home so forcibly
to my heart. John, tell them that the only
way they can be righteous is to believe unto it. You can't
get to it any other way. Nobody will ever be righteous
before thrice holy God except through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now old Spurgeon, he said this. He was a famous preacher in England
and there were many that he said five or six a week that would
make their way to his door. And they would come from many,
many miles around and would travel, some of them for weeks at a time,
to get to his door to knock on his door and would ask him. They felt they had a unique and
very, very unique situation in and of themselves. They felt
that their problem was unique to everybody else's problem and
they would come and they would knock on his door and And old
Charles Haddon would come to the door, and they would say,
you don't know who I am, but I am a sinner. He said, well,
sounds to me like you're just like everybody else I've ever
met. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And
they would go on and say, oh, but you don't understand, Mr.
Spurgeon, I'm lost. And he said, well, the Bible
says the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which
was lost. You don't understand, Mr. Spurgeon,
I'm without strength. I'm ungodly. Well, Mr. Spurgeon
said, just sounds to me like you're one of them to whom Christ
has come into the world to save. He said, the Bible says that
when we were without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. And he would just tell them over
to the simple gospel. And he said, they thought that
I was going to give them some unique formula whereby their
problems were going to be solved. They were going to go away and
say, I talked to the famous preacher in London and he told me this,
he told me that. But no, he just went right to
the gospel. Just went right to the gospel. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. Paul said, I was the chief
of sinners. But then a little later on he
said, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. I'm here
to tell you people this morning that the only solution to sin
is, it is Christ that died. That's the only solution. And
it doesn't make any difference in what setting it is in your
life and what you're dealing with in your life. There is one
one way out of your dilemma, and that is faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is faith in His death and
His life. The Lord Jesus suffered death
in our room and stood in place. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who bore our sin in His own body into the tree. The wrath
of God poured out upon Him. And we read here in the Scripture
that we have an altar. whereof they have no right to
eat which serve the tabernacle. If somebody is serving the Old
Testament law and going on they've fallen from grace, Christ has
been made of none effect toward them, they have no right to eat
of this altar that we're eating of. This altar you come and you
eat by faith at this altar. And then he goes on to say, and
I like this, wherefore Jesus also that he might set apart
the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. And
let us go therefore to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. The Lord Jesus Christ, my friend,
we worship Him, we bow to Him, we're established through faith
in Him. And He's the one that gives us grace, grace, and beloved,
it is grace that not meets that settles the heart of the believer
and gives you some rest, gives you some peace. There are so
many unestablished and unsettled Christians wondering about, tossed
to and fro for want of a pure truth and prescription on how
to get out of the mess they're in. And I'm telling you, just
go back to the Lord Jesus. Keep coming to Him as a sinner
every day. Don't ever get above that. Somebody said, shouldn't
we get above coming as a sinner? No. We do not get above coming
as this poor sinner unto the Lord Jesus every day. Now there
have been some who have turned away from us in the past because
the grace of God was not enough for them. It was not enough for
them. They would tell us to our face,
we're not ready yet to turn loose of the law. We're not ready yet
to turn away from everything else and to trust the grace of
God. Now if they're God's children,
let me say, they will come back and some of them have come back,
thank God they've come back. because we may be amused and
excited and kept quiet for a little time, our self-righteousness
and pride fed by a religion of meats. But mark my words, unless
our religion be one in which grace is all, we shall never
be established and you will be back if God be in you You will
be back. You will come back to the grace
of God and be established in the grace of God. Now notice
briefly this third and last thing. I must hurry up. I kind of got
carried away on that point. The fact that is set forth here
by Paul, he said, Meats have not profited them that have been
occupied therein. Now remember what we said about
meat. I'm not going back through that. I believe Paul had some
people in view. There were some people on his
heart when he said this. Now what he means is, and I want
to impress this on you, that they got no good out of their
religion. They got no good out of it. They
were wrapped up in all of this doing this and not doing that,
doing so and so, and getting involved in not eating this and
eating that. They were very, very, very strict. But he said they didn't get any
good out of all of it. Wouldn't eat an egg laid by a
hen on a Sabbath day. They didn't get any good out
of it, even though they wouldn't eat the egg. Been a whole lot
better off than eating the egg. They've got no good from their
notions, whatever their notions are. They have not been more
inwardly happy, is what he means, more outwardly holy, or more
generally useful. These people have not. Now man
made additions to the gospel of Christ, however ably defended
and supported, do no good to those that adopt them. Now that
may sound like a very trite statement, but it's a true statement. doesn't do any good to those
that it matters not about you say well those people fill the
building up preaching that stuff they probably did you say well
they built an addition on their building preaching that stuff
probably did may build another addition too man will believe
a lie long before he'll believe the truth and if you know anything
you know that they'll believe a lie especially when it comes
to religion now they may have the money and they have the buildings
But they don't have the truth of God's grace. They confer no,
listen to me, no increased inward comfort, these meats. They bring
no growth of real holiness, real holiness. Now this sham stuff,
I mean this veneer business, how long is it going to take
us to get away from that? There'll have to be a generation
or two perished from the face of the earth around here before
we'll be completely away from this veneer business. I'm telling
you, true holiness is a man or woman trusting in the Lord Jesus
Christ with all of their heart and all of their soul. It's a
man or woman bowing daily to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It's a man or woman coming to
the place where they have absolutely no will of their own, where they're
willing to sign over themselves as slaves unto the Lord Jesus
Christ, and where they'll be disappointed if God does not
use them right up to the nub until the day they leave this
life. That's what holiness is. having no will of your own, bowing
yourself to the will of God, willing to be used by God in
whatever way He'd want to use you, submitting yourself, laying
yourself down before Him just like you'd lay a blank sheet
of paper down, Lord stamp on me Thy will and Thy will only
is what I want. That's what I must have. And
I'll be disappointed if you don't use me. If you turn me loose,
If you ever set me down and say, now I'm going to serve you, John.
If the Lord Jesus ever says, you sit down and I'm going to
serve you. You remember that story in the scriptures about that
if a man comes in from the field a servant, does the Lord say
to him, sit down here and I'll serve you? No. He says, you go
ahead and fix me something to eat. The Master says. The Master
won't ever turn you out. you'll be his slave forever,
as long as you live in this world, serving him. And the day comes
when he says, you sit down and I'll serve you, then that means
he's done with you. He's done. And then he goes on
to say that when we've done all that was our duty to do, everything
that was our duty to do, and I don't know if anybody's ever
done that. Do you? I don't know of anybody. But when you've done
all that you're duty to do, you're yet what? Unprofitable servants. And that's what we are, and to
this day, unprofitable servants. But we're servants of the living
God. Now then, listen to me. Calmly, quietly, but firmly,
decidedly, unflinchingly, the assertion is made. Meats do not
profit them that have been occupied therein. It don't profit them. Never leave grace for a religion
of meats. Paul said, and I like what he
was. Do you like what he was? He said,
I am what I am by the grace of God. That's what he said. Now, I don't, I personally don't
aspire to anything above that. Do you? I don't. I'd just love
to be like the Apostle Paul. I'd like to be able to, oh, I'd
like to be able to face death like he faced it. He said, the
time of my departure is at hand. He said, the Lord, the righteous
judge, will give me a crown of life along with all those that
love Him and that serve Him. I'd like to be faithful unto
death. Be thou faithful unto death. The Lord will bless His
people and through the grace of God establish their hearts.
I do hope this morning that at least if I didn't establish your
heart, that at least I got you interested in the prescription,
in the only thing that'll ever stand you instead. The only thing
that'll ever make you happy when the ill winds and the trials
and the test of life are upon you. And in the hour of death,
the only thing gonna sustain you is to be well fixed under
grace of God. Trusting, trusting, trusting,
not in yourself, not in what you've done or not done. Trusting
in what He's done, what Christ is, and what He's done.