I'd like to read verses 37 and
38. Verses 37 and 38 of John 18. Pilate therefore said unto him,
Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. Everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is
truth? And when he had said this, he
went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in
him no fault at all. Let us look to the Lord. Father,
we give thanks this morning that we're privileged to come into
thy presence. And we do come into thy presence
in and through the merits of another, even the lovely Lord
Jesus Christ. And we come, our Father, praying
this morning that your blessing will rest upon this congregation
of believers and friends of the gospel and those, our Father,
who are here because they have an interest in their never-dying
souls. I pray that your blessing and
your spirit would abide here this morning and work in our
midst, our Father, to bring us all to the truth. and to the
Lord Jesus Christ who is the truth and the life. I pray thee,
our Father, today that you might be pleased to glorify yourself
through the service this morning. Receive the honor and the praise
that we've offered already and the hymns and the prayer that
was offered. And our Father, we ask that your
word as it goes forth, that it might be glorifying to thee and
that it might honor thee and that all who hear it today might,
Our Father, grow a little in their knowledge of Thee and their
understanding of the gospel of free grace. We ask today, Our
Father, that You would undertake for us. You know our weaknesses
and our frailties. You know our sins and You know
the great needs, Lord, of our lives. And so I bring this people
before you and I bring my own heart before you and I ask for
your intervention and ask for your grace to abound toward us,
ask for you to remember us all, and ask our Father that you would
supply our needs and strengthen us and that you would give us,
our Father, the ability to so walk in our day that we might
bring honor to you and glory to thy name. Forgive us, our
father, wherein we failed to do that. And we do ask that you
would be pleased to make our testimony effectual. We do pray
for the souls of men and women and ask that you be pleased to
use the gospel as it's preached in this place to open the eyes
of those who are blinded by sin and by Satan and bring them,
my father, unto the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His salvation. Grant, our Father, sinners to
be converted and brought to Thee in this place. Use the word,
our Father, to bless the saints and to give them solace and comfort
in these testing and trying hours in which we live. Bless Thy people
and raise them up and strengthen them with might by Thy Spirit
in the inward man. We pray it for Jesus' sake In
his name, amen. It is good to see each one of
you out this morning. We missed some of the regulars
last Sunday, and we're glad to see some of you back with us
today. And we trust that the Lord will
be pleased to use this service for your edification and your
upbuilding today. These verses that I've read to
you, I want to speak this morning primarily on verse 38 where Pilate
saith unto him, what is truth? What is truth? And what I want
to preach about today is what is truth and how do we know it
when we hear it? What is truth and how do we know
it when we hear it? Now the three most profound questions
that were asked in the Bible were asked by unregenerate men. by men who had no faith in the
living God, men who were lost, men who were separated from God
by the want of love and trust in God's Son. Now, the first
and perhaps the most profound question that was asked was asked
by Pharaoh long ago when Moses went to him and told him that
the Lord said, let my people go. And Pharaoh said unto Moses,
Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? Who is the Lord that
I should obey Him? Now, you don't get much deeper
in questions, theologically speaking, than that. Who is the Lord that
I should obey Him? Now, the second was asked hundreds
of years later by Bildad in the book of Job in chapter 25 and
verse 4 when he asked this. How can a man be justified with
God, or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Now then,
the third question is asked here in our text by Pilate, and this
is a question here that I want us to consider this morning,
and certainly Pilate voiced the perplexity of multitudes when
he asked this question. What is truth? What is truth? Now the very answers to these
questions won't come easy by, they won't come by just lightly
listening to the word of God. You must study diligently the
word of God to answer these questions and it's going to require, I
think, a great deal of hunger and probably there's going to
have to be an emptying out of your very heart before you're
going to be able to understand and receive the divine revelation
and the answer of these questions that we've asked this morning.
Now, what is the truth? What is the truth? How do we
know it when we hear it? Well, first of all, what is the
truth? Well, beloved, one of the accusations that was raised
against preachers in the days of Charles Spurgeon was this.
That is that they take too long to get to the heart of the matter.
They take too long to get to the truth. Preachers get down
to the truth and tell us what the truth is. If you're going
to preach, I don't just skirt the truth and don't just give
us the run around but get right to the business of telling us
what the truth is. And beloved let me say this and
say it very clearly and plainly that the truth is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ is the truth. Now you
will never have true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
will never know the truth and you'll never know God's salvation
until truth is revealed to you, until Christ is revealed to you. You cannot know a person that
is not revealed to you. Unless a person reveals himself
to you, you will not know them. And nobody knows Jesus Christ
except those to whom he is revealed. Christ is known by personal revelation. Christ must be made known to
the heart. The truth must be made known
to the heart. A man knows the truth and he
knows Christ at the same time because Jesus Christ is the truth
personified. He is the truth personified. Now the closest that we can come
to captualizing the truth is to say that the truth is in a
person. that it is in a person and that
person is the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll never know the truth
till you get in Jesus Christ. Paul said I speak the truth in
Christ and again he said the truth is in Jesus. Now, how can we know this truth? Well, beloved, the devil is the
father of lies, and we know that Adam and Eve believed in the
garden a lie, that they believed a lie. We're told in John chapter
14 and verse 6, Jesus saith unto him, speaking to Philip, he said,
I am the way. I am the way. He says, I am the
truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Now, beloved, when we speak of
the truth, and we speak of Christ being the personification of
the truth, and when we speak of knowing Christ and telling
you that to know Him is to know the truth, and we know that Pilate
was a lost man, he did not know Jesus Christ, he was not in union
with Christ, he knew Him not. And so when we're saying that,
what we're trying to tell you is that the Lord Jesus Christ
spans the distance between God and sinners. That the only way
that a sinner can come to know God is for somebody to span the
distance between a sinner and a holy God. Jesus Christ is that
one. Now, beloved man would manufacture
a way of his own, and by means of his own resolutions and reformations,
his prayers and his tears, he would climb up to God some other
way. Some other way. There is a way
that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death. There is a way that seemeth right.
Man says there's got to be another way to God except by Jesus Christ. There's got to be truth somewhere
else besides in this one that the preacher's telling us about.
Well, beloved, it is impossible no man is going to come to know
the truth until he knows the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Satan
who would keep the exorcised sinner on his self-imposed journey
to God. It is the devil that would tell
you that you just keep on trying to get to God some other way
besides listening to what the preacher's telling you. It would
be the devil that would tell you that a man can get to God
by his own good works or that a man can get to God somehow
or other by his religion or by his being identified or associated
with certain religious organizations. And beloved, that's a lie of
the devil. It's not the truth. There's only
one way to get to God, and that is through Him who has bridged
the gap between a holy God and an unholy sinner, and that is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith needs to lay hold of
this glorious truth that Christ has come all the way down to
sinners. That He's come all the way down
to sinners. The sinner could not come to God, but God in the
person of His Son, the Lord Jesus, has come down to sinners. Christ has come down, and Jesus
Christ receiveth sinners. And you that are here this morning,
if you know not the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, that
Jesus Christ is God and He will receive sinners. That He is the
way to God and He is the truth of God. He is the way. He's the
way to the Father. He's the way to heaven. He's
the way to eternal blessedness. Now Jesus says, I am the truth. And that means that Christ is
the full because the truth is God, my friend. Truth is God. And Jesus Christ is the full
and the final revelation of God that this world will ever, ever
see. Jesus Christ is the full, I say,
and the final revelation of God. Let me get back to this. Adam
believed a lie. He believed the devils lie in
the Garden of Eden. Now the Bible says in Ephesians
4 and 18, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. Now, beloved, that describes
the condition of a lost man, of a man who is separated from
God, a man who has not the life of God in him, a man who knows
not the truth of the living God. The Bible says in Proverbs 4
and verse 19 that the way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not at what they stumble. They do not know. And a thousand
systems, beloved, has been devised by the mind of man to find a
way to get around God's truth, to get around God's Son, to get
to heaven without coming through the Lord Jesus Christ. And without
knowing Him. And without having Him to be
the Lord over their lives. Some way to get around the Lord
Jesus. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse
29 says that God hath made man upright but they have sought
out many inventions and in Romans 3 and 11 it says there is none
that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They all want to skirt and get
around the truth. And they will be, listen, the
devil is the father of lies. And I asked you this morning,
how can we know the truth? How can we know it? Well, listen,
the devil is a liar from the beginning. And we go to bed and
we get up to a lie. We go to bed to a lie and we
get up to a lie. in this world. We are under the
influence of lies in this world. Political lies. And all of you,
all of you are certainly aware that right now we're hearing
all of the political garbage that's going on in the world
and we know that nine-tenths of it is nothing more than just
deceit and lies. And then we have the religious
lies that we go to bed with and get up with in the morning in
this world. How many people today Deceived
and being damned by the false religions that are in this world
How many people are listening this morning to a lie? They're
sitting and they're listening to somebody that is has watered
down the Word of God that is handling it deceitfully and Telling
them that there's ways to God Except through this one way that
the Bible states clearly and that is through the Lord Jesus
Christ Christ says I am the life. Now Christ is the emancipator
from death and if you would live spiritually you must come through
the Lord Jesus Christ because he is indeed the truth. Lost
man is alive to the things of the world but he's dead to heavenly
things and all of these lies that he hears he's very much
alive to that And he's looking for something, and of course
the devil knows how to bait him, and the devil knows how to catch
him. And we know that men are caught. Now listen to me, the
one who is out of Christ just exists in this world, but he
has no spiritual life. I'm here to tell you this morning,
my friend, that if you know not the truth, if you know not Christ,
if Christ does not dwell in your heart by faith, if you have not
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm here to tell you, you have
no spiritual life and you are deceived if you think that there's
some way to get it, some way to gain heaven, some way to miss
hell, some way to spend eternity with a holy God, except to know
this one, the Lord Jesus Christ, you are deceived. Now, the one
who is out of Christ then, he exists in this world, he has
flesh life, but he has no spiritual life. The Bible says in John
5, 24, the one who believes in Christ, has passed out of death
into life. The one who believes in Christ.
There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ, because they've
passed from death into life. Christ is our life. Now then, the Bible says in John
3 and 36, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life. but is under the wrath of God. And so my friend, this morning
what we're seeing here is that when we answer this question
of Pilate, what is truth? What is truth? Now we're answering
it by telling you that the Lord Jesus Christ is the truth. And Jesus said in the 37th verse,
he said, everyone that is of the truth will hear my voice. If you be of the truth, if you
be of the way, if you be one of God's children, you'll hear
his voice. And he said, I am the way. He said, I am the truth. And
he said, I am the life. And that's it. and that's it
now then my friend there is such thing as a false as a false faith
a faith that is built upon the lies the religious lies that
we hear in this world now there are so many people that I've
met in my time that I was just as sure as I was breathing that
they had a false faith they had a faith they had a faith indeed
but it was built on a lie It was built on something they heard
some preacher say. It was built on something that
grandpa said or grandma said. It was built on something that
somebody told them and it was not the gospel truth. And they
believed it and their faith was built on that. It was a false
faith. Now listen to me. Now as I mentioned
earlier, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man. I've
got the hammer on this a little bit. There is a way that seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. It's the way of death to go some
other way besides the way that God has mapped out. To get around,
to skirt, as we said, the Lord Jesus Christ, to ignore Him.
There's going to come a day, my friend, when you're going
to wish that you had read the Bible more. And when you would
have said to yourself, now if I want to find the truth, then
I better go to God's book, and I better listen to what the Word
of God says. Because you can read everything
in this world, everything that's printed in this world, and if
it doesn't stand true to the testimony of the Word of God,
those who wrote it and those who spoke it have no light in
them. It's Jesus Christ that is the
way to glory. And nobody gets to heaven except
going through Christ and being in Him. Now then, false faith. Let me just talk to you a little
bit about false faith. And let me show you this. Men
are deceived and they're easily deceived by Satan and by the
lies of our day. And false faith, let me say this,
it can do much. And yet while doing so, do nothing
for the soul but that which is damning to that soul. But false
faith can do a whole lot for people. Just listen to this.
False faith can excite the emotions as it did those who cried Hosanna
to Christ as He entered Jerusalem and later cried, Crucify Him! Give us Barabbas! Let this man
be crucified. Now false faith can reform the
life and make men morally upright as it did the Pharisees in the
New Testament. False faith can attain high office
as it did in Judas' case who was numbered, the Bible says,
with the apostles. False faith may even speak well
of Christ as did Pilate who said, I find no fault with him. But yet he was not a converted
man, he was not a saved man. False faith can bring one to
be baptized as Simon in the 8th chapter of the book of Acts.
False faith can give large gifts as did Ananias and Sapphira in
Acts chapter 5. False faith can fellowship and
amaze you with believers, as Demas and Diotrephes for a while
was in fellowship with believers. False faith can be zealous. It can be sincere and even fight. for its beliefs, as did Saul
of Tarsus before his conversion. False faith can even persevere
in its competence until the day of judgment, as those in Matthew
chapter 7, I believe it's in verses 20 and 21, who prophesied,
cast out devils, did many great works in the name of Christ,
only to hear him say, depart from me, Ye that work iniquity,
I never knew you. This is what false faith can
do. But beloved, false faith, no matter how sincere, cannot
produce the life of God in the soul. They can't do it. I mean
you just get a dose of it, you get the biggest dose of it that
you can possibly get a hold of, and it cannot ever produce life
in your soul. There isn't anyone that can give
your soul life except the Lord Jesus Christ. Life is in His
hands, and to have Him is to have life. If you don't have
Him, you haven't got it. You say, I don't know whether
I got Him or not, preacher. You don't have life unless you have
Christ. Read the Word of God. Now, beloved,
this false faith can never know, it can never have assurance,
and it can never know that it's passed from death, that that
soul is passed from death unto life. False faith can never produce
a heart. that is broken over sin, such
as we read about in Psalm 51, where David said, Against thee
and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear
when thou judgest. Faith, listen, if it's false,
it'll never bring a man to mourn over his sins. and to mourn over
his failures and his weaknesses. False faith will not do that.
False faith can never bow down and forgive the brethren for
Christ's sake. False faith can never love and
desire the Redeemer more than all the things of this present
world. Take the world and give me Jesus.
Those of false faith can never sincerely sing that song, sing
that old hymn. False faith may appear genuine,
deceiving both the one that possesses it and those around them, but
it does not fool God, and it does not come from God or lay
hold of eternal life in God's Son. False faith will leave you
in the day of judgment on your own, standing alone Naked before
the God of the universe without a covering for your sin. False
faith. You got a little something you
believe? You say, I believe a little something, preacher. Well, listen
to me, only faith in the truth, only faith in Christ, given by
God through revelation, through the Spirit of God, can stand
you instead and enable you to stand before God at the judgment,
your sins forgiven, And you robed in garments that God Himself
is the tailor of, and garments that God will accept you in.
Garments of white. Only as you're trusting in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and only as you're found in Him. Now when
Pilate asked Christ, what is truth? Christ didn't answer him.
He did not answer it. You cannot find where they answered
him here when he asked this truth. Now this is unusual because most
of the time, if you'll study the New Testament, you'll find
that when Christ was asked a question, sincerely, that he answered it. He would answer the question.
Paul said that Christ had witnessed a good confession before Pontius
Pilate. Paul told us that in 1 Timothy
6 and 13. Now, did he or did he not? Well,
I believe he did. I believe he witnessed a good
confession. I would say that it was perfect.
It was a perfect confession that he witnessed, and Pilate said,
well, what's true? Jesus said, they that are of
the truth, they hear my voice, they've heard what I said, you
ask them. Over in verses 20 and 21, Jesus
said, I spoke openly, I ever taught openly, I taught in the
synagogues, you don't have to ask me, ask the people that heard
me. The people that heard me, they're in the way of the truth.
They know me, and they know what I've said. And so Paul, when
he mentioned this, was telling the truth. Pilate was not sincere
when he said, what is truth? Now, you know, you've heard those
who sneered and those who have scoffed, and you know how they
act when they get close, get a little bit close to hearing
something that is of God. What is the truth? You say you
come into the world to bear witness of the truth, and you say that
those that are in the way of truth, that they hear you? Well,
what is the truth? Well, this was not sincere. And Christ, for over 30 years,
had been in the world, and he had been preaching and testifying
and telling men and women the truth. And the world knew him
not, and Pilate did not know him. Now, another reason why
he didn't answer it was because Pilate was not, he was not hungry
for the truth. He wasn't hungry for the truth.
Christ knew his heart, as He knows your heart this morning.
He knows whether you're hungry for the truth or not. Now God
has received, I think He has reserved the best for those who
want it. You just mark that down. God
has reserved the best for those who want it. Now, if you notice
the text again, that the scripture says here in verse 38, and when
he had said this, when Pilate said this, he went out again
unto the Jews and said to them, I find him no fault at all. He
didn't wait around for the answer, he turned his back on the Lord,
didn't want to know or didn't have time to wait on the Lord
to tell him what the truth was. Now the truth must be revealed
by God. You cannot know it if He doesn't reveal it to you.
We've said that before. But John 16, you can read verse
13 through 15 and you'd see it clearly there in those verses. But it must be hungered for and
it must be sought after. Now you say what you want to
say. You say what you want to say. This is very important in
the field of practicality. Truth will be known by those
people who hunger for it and those who seek after it. In Acts
17 and in verse 11, if you have your Bible and you want to turn
there, you look at this verse. It says these were more noble
than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with
all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether
those things were so. Now listen to me, truth will
be known by those who are hungry for it and those who seek after
it. Did you come here with a readiness
of mind? Did you come here seeking the
truth? Did you come here hungry for
the truth? Did you come here wanting it?
Are you hungry this morning? Well, my friend, listen to me.
Listen to me. You do not approach the truth
like you approach the television. When you sit down in front of
a television, you just lock your brain in neutral and it just
idles on. But you don't approach the truth
that way. If you want to know the truth,
you must be willing and you must be hungry for God to show you
the truth. And this must be the state of
affairs with you ere you discover the truth. You must be hungry
for it. You must sincerely be asking,
what is the truth? Preacher, what is it? Now, however
this comes about, however God ever brings you to the place
where you're hungry, Jesus cried out and said in his day, John
chapter 7, he said to those, he said, is there anyone thirsty?
O ye that are thirsty, come ye to the waters and drink. It's
the man who's thirsty. It's the man who's hungry. It's
the man who's empty. It's the man who doesn't have
anything. And he comes to God seeking the way. And he's all
burnt out on trying to get to heaven on his own. Trying to
have some peace on his own. He'd give up on it. And he comes
and he's hungry to find God's way. And some way or another,
God's going to work out in your soul before He ever saves you.
He'll work out in your soul. And whatever He has to do, I
don't know what He will do. I don't know how He'll do it.
But He has a way of doing it. He has the wisdom to know how
to do it. And He'll bring it to pass. And if you ever get
to heaven, my friend, you're going to be hungry to go there
before you go. And you're not going there not
missing a lick on your chewing gum, and just simply just saying,
well, I'm just going to heaven. Well, how do you know? Well,
you're not going to go, my friend, unless you've been made hungry
and desirous, unless God's emptied you out, unless there's been
a withering work of the Spirit of God in your flesh, and God's
brought you to the end of yourself, showed you how uncomely you are
before Him, and stripped you of all of your hope, and brought
you to where you'll trust. in Him. Now if you want to know
the truth then, you must be willing and you must be hungry for God
to show you this truth. Now in Psalm 25 and verses 4
and 5, David said, Show me thy ways, O Lord. He said, Teach
me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth and teach
me, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait. On thee do I wait all the day. Now what's he waiting for? Well,
he's waiting for God to show him. He's waiting for God to
teach him. He's waiting for God to lead him. That's what he's
waiting on. How long do you think we ought
to wait, preacher? How long do you think we ought
to wait? Well, seeing as there isn't any other way to get out
of this world and go to heaven except through Jesus Christ,
I'd say you ought to wait. as long as you live. I say you
ought to wait as long as you got breath. Wait before God. Wait before Him. Look to Him. It takes a little waiting on
God to get a readiness of mind to want Him to teach you the
truth. It must be hungered for as we
said and it must be sought after and it will be hungered for and
it will be sought after or you won't get it. You won't get it. Now what must I do while I wait? Preacher, for God to reveal Christ
to me. For God to make Christ known
to me, what shall I do while I wait? What am I going to do? Well, you can read the Bible.
You can read other good books. Books that are good, that are
sound. Books that are no lie. Books
that will teach you the truth. You can read. And then you can
attend church where the gospel is preached. You can go and you
can sit and you can listen like that little boy back in Spurgeon's
day that sat right out on the edge of his seat and cupped his
hand over his ear and said, now, his grandma asked him, he said,
why are you doing that? He said, well, the preacher said that
If God calls sinners, and if God calls me, I want to hear
Him. I want to hear Him. I want to be where God can call
me, where God can speak to me, and God can show me His truth. Well, read the Bible, as we said,
and good books, and attend church. And my friend, listen to me now.
This is very important that we understand this. What do we come
to in our day? If you want to get wet, jump
in the water. If you want to get hot, get up
next to the stove. If you want to know Christ, Go
where he's known and go where he's preached. That's what you
ought to do. That's what you can do while
you're waiting on the Lord. Now Baptists, and I really don't
like to say this because Baptists are my people. They're my kind
of people. I believe like true Baptists
believe, I think. But Baptists, as far as just
the normal run of them are, they're some of the most ignorant people
spiritually speaking on the face of the earth when it comes to
the Bible. And why is this so? Well, because
the average Baptist don't go to church but once a month. That's
true. The average Baptist don't go
to church but once or twice a month. You can't get them in a church
building. Not only that, the average Baptist is not hungry
for the things of God. He's not hungry for the truth
of God. He's got no appetite for the
things of God. And you know that when you set
a bunch of them down, and start trying to preach the Word of
God to them, and get on some precious truth or doctrine taught
in the Bible, and they just almost just, oh you can just see them,
they just all, they're in pain. Just like some kid sitting at
the table, his mother's trying to force feed him his broccoli,
and he doesn't like it, he didn't want it, he doesn't want anything
to do with it. And that's the way most Baptists
are when you try to preach election or try to preach the effectual,
particular redemption truth to their hearts. They won't listen
to it. They won't listen to it. No, they're not hungry! And that's
what I'm telling you today. Luke 1 and 53 says, He that hath... He hath filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away. Beloved,
mark it down. This is the law of God's kingdom. That's the way you get it. You
come hungry, and God will show you truth. And the truth is the
Lord Jesus Christ and until you know Him, you don't know truth. And when you know Him, you know
more than your professors and more than the psychologists of
our day. You know God and you know His
way of salvation, truth, and life. Now for the anointing of
God upon our hearts, and I do pray for you, I pray for you,
Only an awakened conscience is really desirous of knowing the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you have your Bible, turn
to 1 John 2 and 27. 1 John 2 and 27, listen to what
this says. But the anointing which ye have
received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man
teach you. But as the same anointing teacheth
you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it
hath taught you, Ye shall abide in Him, in the Lord Jesus. You'll abide in Him. You'll abide
in Him. Not in your false religion, not
in your false hopes, not in your deceived ways, but you'll abide
in Him. Well, if you're hungry and are
seeking the truth, how will I know when I'm hearing the truth. How
will I know when I'm really hearing the truth? And I think that's
a legitimate question to ask. You say, Preacher, I mean I go
to church, but how do I know whether or not I'm hearing the
truth or not? When I sit and listen to a preacher,
you know I'm not a theologian, and I'm not studied up on these
things, and I don't know all about this, and I haven't always
done everything I ought to do, and I'm not as smart as I ought
to be. And so how would I know, preacher, whether or not I'm
hearing the truth or not, when I listen to the preacher? Well,
there is a five-fold test that you can apply to what you hear
from week to week to determine whether what you're hearing is
truly Bible or merely the invention of a man. There is a fire full
test And I want to give you these five things, and I'm going to
give them to you as quickly as I can. And I want you, if you
can, to remember them and apply these things, apply them to what
you hear. Apply them to what you hear on
the radio. Apply them to what you hear when
a preacher gets up before you or when you're reading something.
Apply these five things. Number one is what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing, what the preachers
say, does it give God all the glory? Does God get all the glory? Now beloved, there's no getting
around this acid test. When you're listening to a preacher,
does God get the glory when he preaches? Now that which does
not glorify God in all of his perfections cannot be of God. It cannot be. Because God will
glorify himself. He said, I won't give my glory
to another. The glory of God is the number
one reason why we meet and why we preach. and why we live in
this world. The chief end of man is to glorify
God. And the chief end of every church
service ought to be to give God glory. and everything we preach
ought to be in harmony with that. What is our motive in preaching
the gospel of Christ? We need to understand that it
is our motive that determines the value of our ministry. It's our motive. Did you get
that? It is our motive that determines the value of our ministry. Without question, there are several
worthy secondary reasons for proclaiming the message of Christ
crucified. Now hear me out. It can be said
that we preach for the salvation of lost sinners. Well, that's
good. There isn't anything wrong with
that. And it can be said that we preach for the edification
and the comfort of God's people. And that's worthy. No question
about it. That's very worthy. Or it can
be said that we preach so as to leave unbelievers when they
leave this world and stand before God, to leave them without excuse. And that is a worthy and good
reason for preaching the gospel. But our first, now hear me, our
first and primary reason for continuing to minister the gospel
must be the glory of God in Jesus Christ. That's the first and
the primary reason of our preaching. Now you listen to me now. We
will never stay true. No church will. Stay true to
the glory of God. Stay true to the message of salvation
by Christ alone, through grace alone, if any of these secondary
motives become the primary one for our ministry. Did you get
that? You'll not stay true to the glory of God. If you make
the salvation, listen to me now, we'll be tempted, listen, if
one of these becomes the primary, reason for our ministry, one
of these secondary things that I mentioned, we will be tempted
to compromise the message that we preach. For example, should
the salvation of sinners, should this become the motive for our
preaching? then I think that, and I certainly
greatly desire the salvation of sinners. I desire your salvation. I pray for you. I pray for you
before I come to preach for you. God, speak to their heart. I
don't know who's going to be there, but you know who's going
to be there. I pray for you that God will
save you. But listen to me. If this was
to become our primary reason for meeting together, If this
was to become our primary reason for preaching, then we would
be tempted to take the sharp edges of the message of the gospel
for the sake of more sinners being what we would call saved. Getting people saved. Have you
ever heard Baptist preachers talk about getting people saved?
Baptist preachers never saved anybody. There isn't a Baptist
preacher alive that ever saved anybody. God saves sinners. And you've got to remember that.
It's not our business to come here just simply to get somebody
saved. That's not it. Where there's
a bigger picture, God is to be exalted and glorified in everything
that we do. Perhaps we could make the narrow
way a little bit wider. Perhaps we could do that, so
as to accommodate more people. so as to get them in, don't you
see? Now we are to a degree interested
in results. We'd like to see this building
plumbed full, using every one of these chairs here, people
sitting here listening to the gospel. However, we must not
make the secondary, primary, and compromise our message. We must not do it. We must not
do it. Now I believe that the one thing
that will keep us on the track and consistent in our message
and method is to do everything for the glory of God. Now listen to me. Paul's motive,
as he expressed it in 1 Corinthians 10 and 31, must be our motive. He said this, Whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God. Whatever you do, See to it that
in the end that God gets the glory. See to it that God is
glorified in whatever you do. Now that which shares God's glory
with the creature, it cannot be true. And when a man gets
up and tells you that you can be saved if you'll cooperate
with God, and you can be saved if you'll let God save you, that
man is robbing God of His glory. I'm here to tell you that salvation's
of the Lord, it's entirely in God's hands, and nobody, nobody
ever gets saved until he gets ready to save them, and whenever
he gets ready to save them, he will save them. He has all power
in heaven and earth, and none None can stay His hand. Whatever
He determines to do, He will do it. His Word will not return
unto Him void. It will accomplish that whereunto
He sends it. God will save His people. He'll
save His people and you better bow before Him and begin to seek
the Lord that He'll give you a heart. that will follow hard
after Him and that will look to Him because He's a God of
power and a God of might. He's the Sovereign Almighty God. Salvation by the works of man,
the will of man, or the merits of man is contrary to sound doctrine
for it takes away the glory of God's free grace. It takes it
away, it destroys it, it tramples upon it. Now then, number two,
I'm giving you five things, the rest of them will be shorter,
much shorter, but I thought I ought to spend the most time on the
primary. On the primary, okay. Number two, does what we hear,
what we're hearing, the preacher, when he preaches, does it humble
man? And does it put him in the dust
before a great sovereign God? Does it put man down? Does it
put him in his place? What are we hearing these days?
If what we're hearing these days is against flesh, does it promote
humility before God? Does it cause men and women to
fall down prostrate before a thrice holy God? Or does it promote
pride, sinful, carnal, fleshly pride? What we're hearing in
our day and time does nothing but puff up the sinners, makes
little gods out of sinners. That's all we're hearing. You're
just a little God, and God can't do a thing with you unless you
let Him. That's all a lie. Ain't no truth in that. One day
God will stand you up before Him, and He'll say, Depart from
Me, you workers of iniquity. God can cast you into hell any
time He gets ready. The Bible said you fear God.
You fear Him, who is able to kill both body and soul, and
cast you into hell. He's able to do that. God can
do it. And so now, in all doctrine,
John 3 and 30, in all doctrine, in all preaching, He must increase
and we must decrease. Let that be your rule. Is what
that preacher is saying? Is that preacher, is he saying,
Jesus Christ, let Him increase and let men decrease. Let them become smaller and smaller
until they're like Isaiah said, just a drop in the bucket. less
than nothing before God. Men, my friend, are nothing before
God and they'll remain that way until God makes something out
of them. And until God gives you His Son,
you're an empty vessel. And until God puts Christ in
you, you're hollow all the way to the foundation of your feet. Now then, True doctrine puts
man in his rightful place on the dunghill, not on a throne.
On the dunghill, that's where he belongs. He drinks iniquity
like a dog drinks water out of a mud hole. Man is a sinner born
that way, born into sin. And until God saves him, God
have mercy, until God washes him clean, until God cleans him
up and gives him a new heart, a heart of flesh, to believe
on him and trust him. The sinner is going to hell.
Now, it puts God also in the rightful place upon His sovereign
throne on high, ruling and reigning over all of His creatures, disposing
of each one of them according to the good pleasure of His will.
That's what true preaching does. That's what it does. Number three.
Let's hurry. Does it honor the justice of
God? What I'm hearing, what preachers preach, does it honor the justice
of God and does it honor the law of God? Does it? Okay, now
my friend listen to this a little bit. Whatever God does must be
in accordance with his own righteous character. God will not save
anybody at the expense of his holy law. In order for God to
count you righteous, somebody has got to live perfect under
the law. Somebody's got to live perfect.
Somebody's got to be holy. Somebody's got to keep that law. I mean keep it. I'm not talking
about these people now that are just saying they keep it and
running around acting like they're pious and holy and all that. No, I'm talking about somebody
sure enough keeping every jot and tittle of it. Somebody's
got to do that before God's going to save anybody. And I'll tell
you who did it. Who did it? The Lord Jesus Christ
did it. He kept every jot and tittle
of it. That's my substitute. That's the one who stood in my
place, my room, stared and praised before a thrice holy God and
answered to God for me. And He's the one who said, Father,
you take my righteousness and my holiness and you put it on
His account until He stands before you blameless, spotless, without
a mark upon Him. Father, you count Him to be righteous
in my place. I have become a sinner for Him,
and I've died the death of the cross for Him. Everything He
was is imputed to me, and I've died the death. Justice demanded
that the soul that sinneth, it shall die! And Jesus died! And He was no sinner. What does
it mean? It means He was dying vicariously! He was dying for somebody else! It means He was dying for His
people, that's what it means! And He was dying for me. And
He died in my place. And so whatever God does, He
does. in accordance with his own righteous
character. Don't ever, anybody ever get
the idea that we're preaching a salvation that don't take into
account the holy law of God Almighty. If that law is not satisfied,
you and I are not free. We're not free unless the payment
has been made to satisfy the demands of that law. And Jesus
Christ, he fulfilled that law. He satisfied that law. And Paul
said, do we make void the law through faith? He said, God forbid,
no, we don't make void the law through faith. He said, we establish
the law. Because Jesus is the only one
who ever kept it. And I preach Him. I don't preach
myself. I never kept the law. I don't
know of anybody else that has. And I don't preach anybody but
Him. Christ I preach. I preach Jesus. Because He kept it. He kept every
job. He didn't fail. He never failed. He kept it. Now then, listen
to me. God cannot justify without a
Redeemer. And where redemption has been
accomplished, Listen to this, God must, He must justify and
He must forgive. Is that what the preaching says
that you listen to? That when Jesus Christ hung on that cross,
He died for somebody, He satisfied God, He satisfied God on the
behalf of a people and God will, He must, His justice demand that
He justify that he forgives somebody. That somebody's going to be forgiven.
It's not whether they make up their minds to or not, it's whether
God will justify them. Christ is the just and the justifier
of all who believe in him. And that's what this means. This
is what I'm talking about. Is that what the preaching shows
us? That God must, that he will,
that he be just. Alright, number four. Does the
preaching we listen to, does it exalt the person and the work
of Jesus Christ the Lord? Now all true doctrine begins
and ends with Christ. It begins and ends with Christ.
He is the Alpha and the Omega. That's what that means. And He
is the Author and He is the Finisher of the Faith. That's what that
means. Exactly. All doctrine begins and ends
with Christ. He is the Center and He is the
Substance of the entire Word of God. Christ is the Center
and Substance of the entire Bible. Now, any teaching which detracts
from him or his work to any degree is untrue. It's untrue. Now that's
simple, isn't it? But that's an acid test. If somebody
gets up and tells you, you do the best you can, you get to
heaven, that's their gospel. This gospel of doing the best
you can and you go to heaven. Well, there's several things
wrong with that. Number one, it's not in the Bible. Number
two, it is untrue from this standpoint that I never met a man in my
life or a woman in my life that could honestly, sincerely, I
mean with judgment day honesty, could say I've done the best
I could at every point in my life. I never met anybody like
that. Have you? I never met anybody
that could say it with judgment day honesty. I've heard people
say it. Oh, I've done the best I could.
But not in reality, not in truth. And so that