Tonight we're going to be in
the book of Proverbs if you would like to turn there. Proverbs chapter 4. Our subject tonight and our title
is Good Doctrine. Good Doctrine. I was talking
to Donnie Bell on the phone today and he told me what his text
and title was. I told him what my text and title
was and he laughed. You know, he preached for us
at the conference. You remember his laugh. He laughed
real big and he says, Oh, we have good doctrine. We have good
doctrine. I hope the Lord will let us enter
into this tonight. It's the second verse. I didn't
even get past the second verse because it's right there. Um,
so let's just read these two verses chapter four, verse one
and two. Hear ye children the instruction of a father and attend
to no understanding for I give you good doctrine. Forsake you
not my law. Good doctrine. Our doctrine is
strong doctrine. Our doctrine is meat, and it's
milk, and it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Men will debate their doctrines,
and they'll debate their religious beliefs, and they'll debate about
anything, won't they? There was a debate last night
on the TV. Everybody's wanting to prove who's right. But when
it comes to the doctrine of the Lord, it's good doctrine. It's
not for debate. It's the truth of the Lord, who
he is, what he has done. Now our doctrine, it's far more
likely to be rejected more than preaching divine sovereignty
of the Lord. You can preach that in some churches that don't believe
the truth. They'll listen to you talk about
sovereignty. You can preach total depravity in some churches. And
I know people who's told me before, when you talk about the Lord's
sovereignty, you talk about total depravity, you talk about particular
redemption, those kinds of things, they agree. They're like, yeah,
yeah, I agree with that. I agree, but what are they preaching?
What are they preaching? They don't preach Christ. You
can know the doctrines of grace and not know the person, the
Lord Jesus Christ. You can have it up here, but
not in here. And that's a scary thought, isn't it? I've known
Calvinists that were, they didn't know who God was. I've known
several people that have missed Christ altogether. Lord, don't
let us miss Christ. If we miss Christ, we've missed
it all. It doesn't matter what we know. We miss Christ, we missed
it all. Now we do preach these truths
of sovereignty of God. We do preach the truths of the
Lord only dying for his people. We do preach election and adoption
by the Lord himself, predestination. We preach those things. Those
are good truths, aren't they? Those are good truths. But this
evening, I'm hoping to tell you what our doctrine is. It's the
hope. in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the doctrines of grace.
It's the doctrines of grace. It's what he done for his people
in complete salvation. Now, men will talk about certain
points of different religions. as being their doctrines. I came
from a church way back when I grew up in a false religion, a pastor
in a false church, and we had rules and bylaws written on the
big poster on the wall. They had their doctrines specifically
there saying this is what we believe. If we were to do that,
we would just put Christ is all. I mean, or it is finished. That
would be the simplicity of it. And that's the point. That's
the point. If we get away from that, we're missing him. We're
missing him. If we start deviating from that
in any way, we're missing him. What doctrine do those men preach
in those churches? Our doctrine is good doctrine
because of who it declares, who he is and what he has done. It doesn't never shine a light
on you and I, does it? Our doctrine never shines a light
on me. It always looks to Christ. It always points to Christ. If
you want to know if a man's doctrine is good doctrine when he's preaching,
ask yourself, is he telling me about my savior or is he telling
me about his self? Is he telling me about a choice
I need to make? Is he telling me about a life I need to live
a certain way? Is he putting me under the law? Because if
he's putting me under the law, that's not good doctrine. That's
just not good doctrine. Now, for those who don't know
the truth, There are three blasphemous lies that I want to look at briefly. Three blasphemous lies that you
all know about, but I don't think I've ever actually spoken on
these three things at one time. These are the three primarily,
and I'm sure there may be others, but these three primarily are
the ones the Lord showed me that men will take the truth and they'll
add to it in some way, shape, or form with these three things.
The first one is free will works religion. Free will works religion
where they say Jesus loves everybody. He died for everybody. You need
to make a choice for Jesus. You need to let him into your
heart. And it's almost as if God voted for you and then the
devil voted against you and you have to, you have to break the
tie. You have to break the tie by choosing one or the other.
And this is, we know this is heresy, we know this is blasphemy,
but this is what men do in order to try to go about establishing
their righteousness. They are doing something in order
to be approved of by who they think God is, but no man can
choose God, it's God that chose. See, that's good doctrine. It's
God that chose a people in the covenant of grace. It's God that
made the choice to redeem. And you and I love that about
our God, don't we? We love the fact that God chose to save me.
And we know that if he didn't choose to save you and he didn't
choose to save me, we wouldn't have been saved, would we? We
would have never, never come to the knowledge of the truth,
but he chose in mercy and in grace to save his people. No, what free will works religion
promotes is self. I've made a choice. I prayed
a prayer. The scripture tells us plainly
that salvation's of the Lord, not of the will of man, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of blood, but of God. That's what
he tells us in John 1. It's not our will, it's his.
It's his. Second thing that's blasphemous
is legalism. Legalism. Legalism is it's just
as damning as the first one. It's just as damning as free
will works religion. But what it is, is men offering themselves
up to God. After they say they believe they
live a certain life or they they they're well they're legalistic
by definition. That's lawmongering. That's what they're doing. They're
saying you need to. Yeah, you're well, we believe in grace. We
believe in the truth, but it's also you have to do this and
you have to do this and you have to do that. You've heard that
before. Different places, different preachers saying that it's not
true. Christ didn't do it all. We're in trouble. We're in trouble
if he's looking to me. to produce anything for any part
of my salvation, I am in trouble. I am in trouble. But what did
the Lord say? And we've looked at Hebrews.
I love going through Hebrews. We're getting close to the end
of it now. But it was evident that Christ did it all. When
this man by himself purged our sin, he sat down. This man entered
once into the throne room of God, the holiest of all, by his
own blood. And he put away our sin by his
own blood. He did it all. grace, plus this
or grace plus that no, it's Christ is all Christ is all the scary part is brethren, they
believe for this, I guess sad would be a good way to put it,
they believe they're justified by what they do. So they want
evidence in their life. They need evidence that I don't
do that anymore, or I don't do this, I do this now. And they
justify themselves, and they think they're justifying themselves
before God, and it's not true. God's looking to one as our justification,
and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. If we don't have him, we have
no justification. We have no justification. counting on us
to do this or that by the law. Scripture says in Romans 3.20,
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's
simple. No flesh shall be justified in
His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." That is
so simple. No one's justified by the works
of the law. No one's getting better and better. Nobody's sinning
less and less. I heard somebody, my great grandmother,
she said, she's passed away a long time ago. I heard her say, it's
been a month since I have sinned. Can you imagine saying that?
No, I'm preaching to our congregation. We're just a bunch of dead dog
sinners up here. We agree with each other. For
you to say, I stopped sinning, that's self-righteous, isn't
it? That is so self-righteous. We're not progressively becoming
better and no one can be sanctified by keeping the law. The law is
to give knowledge of sin. The law is to get, that's all
it does. It makes, it shows you you're a sinner, shows you you're
a sinner. And unless God gives you repentance
and faith of being a sinner and run to Christ, then you're going
to see the law and say, okay, I see I'm a sinner. Now let me
keep the law to try to fix it. And that's what men do. That's
what men do. Our sanctification is the Lord
Jesus Christ, said in 1 Corinthians 1.30, but of him are you and
Jesus Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. He is our sanctification. His
spirit outpoured upon his people, that's their sanctification.
Now the third and final heresy, men declare, is antinomianism,
antinomianism. First we had free will works
religion, then we had legalism, and now we have antinomianism.
What is antinomianism? It's lawlessness. It's men saying,
well, if it's all by grace, if you're telling me it's all by
grace and God chooses to save and there's nothing I can do
because my works don't count for anything, I'm going to live
however I want to live. I'm not going to come to church anymore.
I don't have any need to go to church then. That's antinomianism,
and it's alive and well. Even in some churches that I've
been to, there's mentalities of people that have, well, whatever's
gonna happen is gonna happen. But that doesn't excuse us not
to pray. The Lord said, ask and you shall receive. That doesn't
excuse us to stay at home and not come to service. He said,
assemble yourself together. Isn't that the command he gave
us? But why do we do that? What's our motivation? To add
something as part of our salvation? No. We have to eat. We have to feed on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and this is the place He said He would do it. This
is where He said, I'll meet with you. That's why we come, to hear
about Him and His finished work. No, we're not antinomians. We're
not going around thinking, well, whatever's gonna happen is gonna
happen. No, we cry out unto our Lord. The scripture says, the
lot falls in the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord.
That means when we wake up in the morning, cry out to Him,
Lord, me grace for today. Give me grace for today. The
other mentality, the flip side, the antinomian mentality, well,
if he's going to give me grace, he's going to give me grace. And if
he's not, he's not. I can't change his mind. Perish the thought. Ask, he says,
your heavenly father knows what you have need of, ask him. And
see, that's the love that we see from the Lord to his people.
He really loves his people. Matter of fact, he said one One
look from her, the bride, the church, one look ravishes his
heart. One look. What do you think that
look is? It's our prayer. It's our prayer. Now, we don't
offer up that prayer as part of our salvation. I've already
said that. I just want to reiterate that. But we do pray unto him. We do cry out unto him. We're not antinomians. That's
not, antinomianism's not, we're not lawless. That's not good. That's not good news, is it? That's not good doctrine. How will the Lord's chosen people
live? Is it a reflection of his grace upon us? What do I mean
by that? We want to live looking to him. Wouldn't you love, wouldn't
you love to have his peace all the time? Just to see his face
all the time where nothing bothered you at all? Not a, no phone call
troubles you whatsoever, because you're just resting in his peace,
you're seeing his face right there. Wouldn't that be glorious?
It's called heaven, did you know that? That's what it's gonna be, that'll be
heaven. But that's what we desire, to see him all the time. To rest
in him, we desire to live in him. Our motivation is the love
that Christ has shed abroad in our hearts, that's our only motivation.
That's our only motivation. We're not motivated by the law
anymore. We're not motivated about lifestyle.
We're not motivated about this or that. We're motivated by love. He said he shed abroad the love
of God in our hearts, and we're constrained by that love. He
keeps his people with that love. We don't want to be a reproach,
do we? Somebody that's anti-nomian,
they don't really care whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen.
We don't want to be a reproach on the church. We don't want
to bring shame upon the Lord's people or the Lord's house. I
don't want to be a hindrance to you. Why? I love you. It's that
simple. This isn't a complicated message. No, we don't do that and say,
well, look what I've done. And that's part of my salvation.
No, that's not it. But we don't want to be a discouragement
towards each other. We want to encourage one another. Now, these
three blasphemous teachings I mentioned, they're the work of Satan. And
in every church, in every church that believes the gospel. There
is wheat and there is tares. There is wheat and there is tares.
And the scary part is the tares believe themselves to be saved.
And most of the time, the wheat are the ones worried, am I saved?
Am I a believer? Is that not true? You ever, you
know, we go from day to day and you, you struggle because we
take our eyes off of him. We're looking around us. Well,
and you hear your adversary chirping in your ear saying, well, if
you were a believer, you wouldn't do that. If you're a believer, you wouldn't
have thought that. If you're a believer, you've heard it.
I've heard it. But we're the ones that worry
about whether or not we're His. So what do we do? Look to Christ.
Believe on Him. Look to Him. That's what we do. And if He gives us the ability,
we certainly will. We certainly will. The tares
will be with the wheat until the Lord comes back and takes
his wheat home, takes his people home. That's just how it is.
And those that are left to themselves, they'll believe one of those
three heresies, one of those three blasphemous lies. None of that is good doctrine.
Those lies, none of that's good doctrine. So what is good doctrine?
I said all what was bad to tell you what's good. What's good
doctrine? God chose to elect a people before
time ever began. He chose to set his affection
upon them in love. He chose to have compassion upon
them in mercy. Now what would motivate him to
do so in us? What do we see in ourselves that
would motivate him to do that? And if you say anything, don't,
just don't. The answer is nothing. It's all
by grace. By grace are you saved through
faith in that not of yourselves. You didn't have anything to do
with it. I didn't have anything to do with it. It's the gift
of God by grace. That's good doctrine. All of
grace, all of grace. Now, all three of the things
I mentioned before, they'll take the word grace and they'll add
something to it or they'll take away something from it and they
don't believe it's all grace. Good doctrine. is preaching Christ
all by grace, all by his grace, he saved his people, all by grace. Grace is the entire message of
the gospel, isn't it? He elected a people, he redeemed
a people, he justified them, he sanctified them, he glorified
them. He's coming back for them, why? Grace, that's the entire
message of the Bible. Not works plus grace. It's not
grace with a little bit of works. It's not free will of man. No, it's God that chose. It's
not that we chose God. He says that in the scripture.
You didn't choose me, I chose you. You didn't choose me, I
chose you. He chose us unto salvation by grace
alone. What kind of grace am I talking
about? Well, if we knew, and men use the word grace so many
times that we have to put terms on it like sovereign grace or
electing grace or redeeming grace. And I got a few written down
here, electing grace, redeeming grace, saving grace, keeping
grace. All of those are the same word though, grace. That's what
that means. It means electing grace. It means
sovereign grace. It means redeeming grace. That's
what grace is for his people. That's good doctrine, preaching
that. All that he gives, he gives by
his grace. By his grace, we get what we
do not deserve. We get what we do not deserve.
What is that? The Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace is how he saves sinners. Amazing grace. We're going to
close with that hymn here in just a minute, but it says, "'Twas grace that
taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How
precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed." If
men knew the definition of grace, they wouldn't have to put adjectives
on it. They wouldn't have to put adjectives on it. Because
grace in and of itself, it's God's grace. It's amazing grace. There's so many adjectives you
can put on it, but it still remains the same beautiful word, the
same glorious truth. No matter what you put on it,
you're really not adding to it. It's just the Lord's grace. That's
enough right there. That's it. There's only one kind of grace,
and that grace is free. That grace is sovereign. That
grace is ordained. That grace is perfect. That grace
is precious to you and I, isn't it? Grace is precious to you
and I. This is good doctrine. It's God honoring, rendering
man powerless. If you preach that it's all of
grace, what you're saying is you have nothing to do with your
salvation. I have nothing to do with my salvation. That's
good doctrine. That's good doctrine. We are
saved by God choosing to save us. Saved us by the sacrifice
of himself. And he reveals this glorious
hope all by his amazing grace. Everything that was done was
done because of grace for his people. Our hope in Christ, it's
a certain hope, isn't it? The hope that's been revealed
by grace, it's a certain hope. And I actually ended up writing
five points down in a verse after each one of them, and I probably
could just preach this as a message in and of itself, but it goes
with this, because we hope in the Lord's grace. We hope in
the Lord's good doctrine. We hope in the person, the Lord
Jesus Christ. We don't worship a doctrine, we worship a person.
If we start looking at the doctrine that we hold as being Calvinism
or whatever it may be, we can miss Christ. We preach good doctrine. We preach Christ is all. That's
what we do. The good doctrine is that he
saved his people all by grace. Our hope in Christ alone is certain
and steadfast, number one, because our father promised it. Our father
promised it. Titus chapter one. says Paul,
a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to
the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth,
which is after God in us in hope of eternal life, which God that
cannot lie promised, promised before the world ever began.
That's a hope that we have, the promise of God before the world
ever began. The second reason we have hope,
because our Savior purchased it. Our Savior purchased this.
If he hadn't have died, we could not, we've never been shown mercy
and grace. He had to die to do it. He purchased it. He purchased
salvation for his people. He purchased this hope. He said
in Hebrews 9, 12, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. That's past tense, isn't
it? having obtained. Third thing, the reason we have
this hope is our substitute possesses it. Our savior possesses this
hope and he freely gives it to his people by grace. It was him
that came to you, wasn't it? You didn't seek him out. He sought
you out. And he said, this is what I've
done. This is the salvation I've wrought. I've saved you. I've
bought you. I've redeemed you. You're mine. All by his grace. He possesses it. Hebrews 6.18
says that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for
God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for
refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us. Which hope we
have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and
which entereth into that within the veil. Fourth thing is that we have
the earnest of this hope. You know what earnest money is?
Whenever you're buying a house, you put that money down to tell
them that you're serious about it. The Lord gave us earnest.
Whenever he left, he said, if I go not away, the comforter
cannot come. He sent his spirit to comfort his people, to comfort,
to call and comfort his people. He is the earnest of this salvation
of this hope that we have. Ephesians 1 says, In Christ ye
also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession,
unto the praise of his glory, were sealed with the Holy Spirit
of promise, which is the earnest of the possession. Who's the
possessor? He is. We don't possess it, he possesses
it, and he gives it freely to his people. Isn't that glorious?
All by his grace. Last one. In Christ, I want to say this
as clearly as I can be is it's it's almost. You ever heard somebody
say it's too good to be true? It's too good to be true. Well,
it's true. What I'm about to tell you is true. Why God said
it. In Christ, you are worthy of this grace. In Christ, you
are worthy of this hope. Colossians chapter one says,
God strengthened with all might according to his glorious power
until all patience and long suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks
unto the Father which hath made us meet. Meet, that's the word. Made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saint in light. See, this is all given
of God by his grace. He made his people worthy to
go to his kingdom, to be in his presence, to enter in to the
throne room of God. They're worthy to do so because
of the finished work of Christ, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy. This is the doctrines
of grace. This is good doctrine. This is
what the Lord, this reveals the Lord. It doesn't point to us
and build us up and put us on a pedal stool, make us look like
we're something. No, it puts him, you can't preach Christ
high enough and man low enough. I think Henry Mahan was the one
who used to say that, and that's the truth. You could have a preacher stand
up here and put you down on that lawn, calling you a sinner, and
you'd be like, amen, amen. There's no hope in that. Tell
me about a substitute. Tell me about the surety. Tell
me about grace. I know how bad, I don't know how bad I am. That
wouldn't be true to say. I have a little bit of an idea
about my sin because I saw what my sin cost. The Lord Jesus Christ,
it cost his life. It cost the father, his son.
That means that I'm bad. I'm really bad. But in Christ
Jesus, we've been made good. We've been made right. We've
been made pure. We've been cleansed all by his
grace. All by his grace. 1 Timothy 4, 6 says, if thou put
the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a
good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of
faith and good doctrine. and good doctrine, whereunto
thou hast obtained. So many men, so many churches,
they are looking at what they're doing on top of grace. And here
we try by the Lord's grace to preach good doctrine, to preach
the Lord Jesus Christ and it's all by his amazing grace. Let's
read these two verses one more time in closing. Here, ye children,
the instruction of a father, and attend to no understanding,
for I give you good doctrine. Forsake you not, my law. Forsake you not, my law. In this salvation, in this good
doctrine that we're preaching, Christ is all. You could sum
it up like this, and I've summed up several things this way, but
I think this goes just right hand in hand with it. Christ
is all, salvation is of the Lord, and it is finished. Christ is
all salvations of the Lord, and it is finished. And how is it
all that could be given to a sinner like you and a sinner like me?
Grace. Grace. All of grace. That's good
doctrine. Let's pray. Father, cause us
to believe your truth. Cause us to seek after you. Bless
this strong understanding for your glory, we pray. In Christ's
name, amen. Let's turn to number 236, Amazing
Grace.