Now you can open your Bibles
with me to Matthew 23. I want to bring, I trust this
is a message and not just a sermon, but I want to deliver what I
believe to be the Word of God, the message that God has for
this congregation and those who may hear it by tape in other
places. But I feel I want to deliver
this message calmly, without becoming emotionally involved
in this thing, without becoming angry, and just as patiently as I can. And I want you to listen to it.
This is a religious generation. America is a religious nation. Religious. I'm using the word
religious. We have church buildings everywhere.
That Indian reservation where I preached last week has 16 Baptist
churches alone. Baptist church. Presbyterian,
Methodist, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Christian, Catholic,
all the rest of them, 16 Baptists. There's a preacher in the average
town for every 100 people. There are preachers in the pulpit,
there are preachers in the pew, there are preachers at Armco,
there are preachers at Ashland Oil, there are preachers in the
stores downtown, there are preachers in the post office, there are
preachers in the city building, there are preachers everywhere. There's a Bible in every home
in this town. There's a Bible in every jail
cell. There's a Bible in every hospital
room. There's a Bible in every motel. You can't go anywhere in this
country and get away from religion. I listened to three preachers
on television this morning between 7.30 and 9 o'clock. Now the one
of them said a blessed thing. I wouldn't sit and listen to
one of them twice. I just heard him once, and that's
sufficient. Most everybody I know has a religious
affiliation, a religious heritage, a religious ancestry, a religious
background, or a religious hope. Everybody. One funeral director
in this town told me he'd never in the 25 or 30 years he'd been
in this town, ever buried a person that didn't have some kind of
hope. Well, what's wrong with religion?
Is that not good, preacher? No, that's not good. We have
religion without life. We have religion without God. a salvation that does not save,
a Redeemer that does not redeem, and a ransom that does not pay
the price. We are going through the motions
without any real joy or peace. The average organization called
a church is full of division and strife and discord and hatred. The average congregation The
average preacher would like to get out, and the average person
in the average congregation comes because it's his duty to do so. What's wrong with it? Well, our
Master shows us here in verse 23 of Matthew 23. He shows us
what's wrong. He says, "...warn you scribes
and Pharisees," and these are the leaders. These are religious
leaders. People follow their leaders.
Just about everybody is following some religious leader. They're
listening to some religious teacher, preacher, or leader. They're
following some teacher, preacher, or leader. They're going to hear
some preacher, teacher, or leader, just like you here have a leader,
you have a pastor, you have an under-shepherd, you have a preacher
you're listening to. And most people believe some
preacher. They're following some religious
teacher. And these people are following
the religious scribes and Pharisees. And he says here to these people,
you pay tithe. In other words, you take care
of the outward, you're careful about the outward form of religion. You're careful about your tithe.
You're careful about your ceremony. You're careful about washing
your hands. You're careful about your duties. You're careful about
your works. You pay tithes and observe days
and perform ordinances and do all these rituals. You do these
things even to the minute detail. You pay tithe even on mint, on
a little piece of dill, on a little piece of carrot leaf, every little
thing you're so precise to do it just like your religion prescribes
it to be done. But you have omitted, you have
left out, you have bypassed, you have ignored the weightier,
the weightier matters of the Word of God. Now the word law
sometimes means the Levitical law. Sometimes it means the Ten
Commandments. Sometimes it means the whole
Word of God. And he says you're so careful
about the outward forms of religion, you take your hat off always
when you come in a building. Oh, if you could just take your
heart and bring it down at God's feet. You do these signs on the
outside. You take the water and sprinkle
it on the outside. You kneel on the outside. You
fold your hands on the outside. You're so careful about the outward
observance. You're so careful about the days.
I always get amused when these people around here close their
shops on Saturday, or even on Sunday. They're so careful about
that. They're so careful about, you
say, Pritchard, wouldn't you have them close their places
on Sunday? I would have them do that, but most importantly,
I'd have them observe the weightier matters of the law. You're so exact about your duties
and you pay tithes and observe days, but you've omitted, you've
ignored the weightier, the heavy matters, the important matters,
the matters that God is concerned with, and that's justice, mercy,
and faith. Our Lord describes them and he
describes us. He said, You call me Lord with
your lips, but your hearts are far from
me. You call me Lord with your lips.
You sing all these glorious hymns with your lips. Oh, how I love
Jesus. Amazing grace. How great thou
art. But your hearts are far from
me. He said you wash your hands and you're so careful about what
goes in your mouth. But you're not too careful about
what comes out of your heart. You ignore those evil things
that live within. He said you clean up the outside,
but on the inside you're full of corruption and excess. Is
that it? Is that it? That's the problem,
he said. That's what's wrong with religion. It's an outward
conformity. It's an outward ceremony. It's
an outward ritual. It's an outward claim. It's an
outward creed and catechism. It's an outward affiliation.
It's an outward association. It's an outward ritual. It's an outward worship. And
we have gone through the motions so long, we have claimed, but
I'm a Baptist and I'm a Methodist. I believe in baptism by immersion.
I believe in baptism by strength. I believe in kneeling when you
pray. I believe in standing when you pray. I believe in giving
a time. I believe in giving more than a time. I believe in meeting
on Saturday. I believe in meeting on Sunday.
I believe we ought to stand when we read the Word of God. I believe
we ought to sit down when we read the Word of God. I believe
we ought to sing the Psalms. I believe we ought to sing the
hymns. I believe in predestination. I believe in free will. We've
got all these things outwardly, outwardly, outwardly, and we've
got nothing on the inside. That's the problem. That's exactly
what he said. We're a conglomeration of outward
conformists to patterns handed down by somebody else. And a
work of regeneration, a work of recreation, a work of awakening,
a work of grace in the soul that makes a new person, a new creature. One who fellowships with God,
who walks with God, who lives with God, who thinks on God,
who knows Christ. is something the average person
knows nothing about. If you'll just hold Matthew 23
for the moment and turn to Matthew 15, and like I said, I want to
keep from being so emotional in this matter, in this message,
and just deal with it as it is. It's facts. Peter stood on Pentecost
and he said, save yourselves from this generation. It's an
untoward generation. It's a perverse generation. It's
a hell-bent generation. It's a religious generation.
Deliver yourself, for God's sake, do something for yourself. In Matthew 15, verse 10, our
Lord said this. Father decided to call the multitude,
and he said, Hear and understand. It's not what you put in your
mouth that defiles you. The churches of this town, and
don't misunderstand me now, but every one of them can get together,
Catholic and Baptist, Presbyterian and Anglican, Church of Christ
and Holiness, can get together and fight whiskey. They got a
common denominator, they got a common cause, to keep somebody
from putting whiskey in their mouth. But scarcely one of them
ever preaches a nickel's worth of gospel. to do something about
Satan that dwells in people's hearts. That's a fact. And our Lord said, it's not what
you're putting in your mouth that's tearing you up. It's what's
coming out of your blooming heart. That's your problem. It's what's
coming out of your heart. It's the evil in your heart.
That's what's coming out of the mouth. That's what defiles a
man. And then came his disciples and
said, the Pharisees were offended when they heard that. These religious
leaders were offended when they heard that. These preachers were
offended with you, they get offended with me. If we can put the abortionists
out of business, and the pornographers, whatever you call it, out of
business, and the liquor crowd out of business, and Las Vegas
out of business, we're still going to hell. We're still a
bunch of cleaned up graves. We're still a bunch of whitewashed
sepulchres. We're still a bunch of people
who hate God in our hearts. and hate each other, too. We'll
find some other way to fleece people. If we don't get them
at the gambling table, we'll get them somewhere else. But
we'll get them. They said, our founding fathers
were Christians. Our founding fathers hated black
people and hated Indians and murdered them by the scores while
they sang, Oh, How I Love Jesus. You know that and I do. This nation was born on an economical
basis, not religious. Isn't that right? He's been teaching
American history for 20 years. He'll tell you a little bit about
our founding fathers. They're a bunch of crooks, most
of them. That ain't patriotic, but it's so. The United States
of America is not the kingdom of God. America's just as lost as any
other country on this earth. And these fellows got offended
when they heard that. Verse 13 said, But he answered
and said, Every plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted
shall be rooted up. Leave them alone. Leave them
alone. They're blind leaders of the
blind, and if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall
in the ditch. And that's what's happening. The blind's leading
the blind. Look at Matthew 23. Let me show you something. You
listen to this. Here's a picture of our day,
and our Lord described it. This is the Master speaking.
This is not a fanatical, radical, upset preacher. This is our Lord
very calmly declaring what's true of his generation, of that
generation to whom he preached in person, and our generation.
He said in Matthew 23, verse 2, the scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses' seat. Meaning what? They're pretending
to be prophets. They're pretending to be prophets.
They're pretending to be the descendants of Moses and to occupy
the same position or seat of authority and power that Moses
occupied. But let me tell you something.
It takes more than Moses' seat to make a prophet. It takes Moses'
God and Moses' message and Moses' experience of grace. That's what
it takes. A man can sit in Moses' seat and not be a prophet. And
then verse 5, listen to this. This is religion. All their works
they do for to be seen of men. All their works they do for to
be seen of men. Let me ask you some questions.
For whose eyes do we build these gaudy buildings? Put these steeples
on them that reach up into the clouds with a cross pointing
toward. Is that for God's eyes? Do we do that for God? Is that
to impress God? I'll tell you who we do it for,
people. We want folks to see our steeples higher than anybody
else's, and our buildings bigger than anybody else's, and our
stained-glass windows are more colorful than anybody else's,
and our pews are a little softer, and our rugs are a little deeper,
and our crowds are a little bigger. We do it for men's eyes. We do
it to be seen of men. You know it and I know it. God
says, you don't build me a house. God doesn't dwell in houses.
God dwells in hearts. Looks like we'd quit fixing up
the building and go to fixing up the heart. Doesn't it to you?
That impresses God. Let me ask you another question.
For whose information do we count our numbers? I was in a church
recently, I had a number board on the wall, it says number and
sunderskill, so many. For whose information do we do
that? Is God not able to keep records? We do it to be seen
of men. You know why we do it. You know
exactly why we hang those numbers on the wall. We do it to be seen
of men. Why all these great crusades
report there were 10,000 there or 20,000 there and 2,000 additions
and 2,000 conversions and 2,000 in the choir, why do we do those
things? To be seen of men. Let me ask
you this, for whose information do we write up our socials and
our church gatherings in the paper? I turn in the paper and
I see where the Winnie Jones circle meets, you know. And there
were 20 there, and they sang this song. Whose information
is that for? Is that for God's information?
I'm sure he's aware that the Winnie Jones Circle met. We're
doing it to advertise ourselves. It's exactly why. Why do we write
up these? For whose eyes do we publish
gifts? I pick up a church bulletin,
and I see where this class gave this much, and that class gave
that much, and this class had this many, and that class, and
then a contest, see who I have the most. For whose information?
Who are we trying to impress? Men. That's exactly what we're
trying to impress. We're trying to impress men.
We do all these things to be seen of men. We publish our good
works. You felt the other bunch of people
go down to Haiti and build a church, and they put their picture in
the Ashland paper. Twelve men went down to Haiti and helped
a bunch of people build a church. Why didn't they slip out of town,
go down there and do it quietly and privately as unto the Lord
and say nothing about it? I'll tell you why. We do it to
be seen of men. When a church pays off a mortgage
and they have the burning of the mortgage, somebody's going
to put it in the paper every time. And they'll make sure the
reporters are there to get a picture of the pastor standing there,
a silly thing, holding a piece of burning paper and dropping
it in a plate. We do it to be seen of men. You know it and I know it. We do missionary works and we
do all these things and report it for the eyes of men. He says
they do their work to be seen of men because we've lost sight
of the glory of God. And verse 6 says, look at it,
6 and 7, they love the uppermost rooms. They love the chief seats. They love the titles of religion.
They love the uppermost rooms, the chief seats, and they love
to be greeted with doctor. When did preachers become doctors? Reverends, oh how we love to
stand and officiate. I'll tell you why there's so
many little churches everywhere, because everybody wants to be
the king, the chief. Everybody wants to be the king,
that's why. That's exactly why. That's why there's so many churches,
because they've got to have so many pulpits and so many pianos
and so many song leaders and so many deacons and so many elders
and so many chief seats. And titles, we have to have enough
to go around. So the more of these folks we
create, the more churches we're going to have to create. God
doesn't need 400 churches in Ashland, Kentucky. He needs about
one. He needs about one. And all the
people that come together in here, His man, whoever that is.
But no, we love the chief seat. We love the titles, we love the
uppermost rooms, we love the greetings, you know. That's the
reverend, that's the reverend, that's the doctor, that's the
bishop, that's the elder, that's the superintendent, that's the
associational missionary, that's something else. We never learn
anything about verse 11, "...he that is greatest among you shall
be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Look
at verse 14, verse 13. You scribes and Pharisees, you
shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. You need to go in
yourselves, you won't suffer those that are entering to go
in." What does he mean by that? They don't preach the gospel,
and they discredit men who do. They discredit men who do. And
then verse 14, listen to this, "...Woe unto you Pharisees, you
hypocrites, you devourer of widows' houses." You take money from
the poor to support your greed. Every time I see one of these
television preachers giving away his vials of water from the River
Jordan, or giving away a genuine olive-bound Bible from the garden
of olive trees over there, or giving away some dove in the
lapel, or some little pin to wear, or some little superstitious
ornament, or a visual aid and all the poor widows out yonder
and poor people send in their money to support that fellow
that's driving a Cadillac, living in a huge condominium and supporting
a big organization. That's devouring widows' houses.
That's exactly what that's doing. It's devouring widows' houses.
It's such a shame. Let me show you something in
Ezekiel 34. Yes, there's something wrong with religion. It needs
a general house cleaning. It needs a John the Baptist to
come to town and drive all of the snakes out. It needs a visitation
of God's wrath and God's judgments. It needs our Lord to plait the
cat of nine tails and go through the house of God and drive out
the thieves and tell them, my house shall be called a house
of prayer and you made it a den of thieves. In Ezekiel, look at Ezekiel 34,
listen to this, verse 1, the word of God came to me saying,
son of man, you prophesy against the pastors of Israel, shepherds
of pastors, pastoral, you see shepherd, pastoral, pastor, you
see that? The pastors of Israel, prophesy
and say, thus saith the Lord God to the pastors, woe unto
you shepherds of Israel that feed yourselves. Is that not
what they're doing? Feeding themselves. They feed
themselves. Should not the shepherd feed
the flock? What do you feed the flock? The Word of God. What
do you feed the flock? The Gospel of Christ. What's
the children's bread? The Word of God, the Gospel of
Christ. But you're busy feeding yourselves. You eat the fat. Now here's a shepherd out here
that's got a whole bunch of sheep in a corral. He won't take them
out. He doesn't care about them. He
doesn't take them out to the pasture and stand and watch while
they walk in the pasture's green and beside the still waters and
feed themselves and fill themselves and rest themselves, and he cares
for the sheep. Here's a good place, eat there,
eat here, eat there, eat yonder. He keeps them in the corral and
he eats the fat. He finds a good sheep and he
kills him and eats him. And listen, read on, and you
clothe yourself with the wool. He skins them and takes the wool
and clothes himself, and you kill them that are fed, and you
feed not the flock. The disease you've not strengthened.
You haven't healed that which is sick. You haven't bound up
that which is broken. You haven't brought again that
which is driven away. And you haven't sought that which
was lost, but with force and cruelty you've ruled them and
eaten off of them and stolen from them. You see what I'm saying? And that's what our Lord says
in here. In Matthew 23, 14, he said, you generation of hypocrites,
you devour widows' houses, steal from the people. You don't study
and prepare and feed them the Word of God. You're interested
in feeding yourselves. You're interested in your own
profit. You're interested in building big buildings, putting
your name on them. You're interested in leaving
a memorial. There'll be a memorial. There'll
be a voice out of hell crying, Oh, send Lazarus to dip his finger
in water. That's your memorial. I tell you where I want my name,
in the Lamb's Book of Life. And he said, for a pretense,
you make long prayers. bunch of men standing around
holding hands, praying over a stack of letters to get some more letters
with some more money in it. You know what I'm talking about.
You're playing a role. You're not praying. You're not
praying. You're playing games. That's
what you're doing. You want to take that letter and get in the
closet and shut the door and ask God to bless that dear soul,
all right. But don't get in front of a television
camera and stack up a bunch of letters and hold hands with some
goop beside you and act like a feminine homosexual and try
to appear righteous before God. It's a game. It's a game. They're playing games. And you're
going to receive the greater damnation. He said in verse 15,
your compass sea and land to make a convert, soul winning
crusades, soul winning teams, soul butchers is what they are,
soul butchers and you come up with sea and land, you have to
make one proselyte, one convert, one Baptist, one Methodist, one
Presbyterian, one Jehovah Witness, you walk up and down the communities,
handing out your literature, knocking on doors, and when you
make it, Watch how he says this. You make him. You make him. God didn't make him. You make
him two-fold more the child of hell than you are. Isn't that
awful? God saves his sheep. You don't save them. Oh, this
is so sad, I tell you. Look over here at verse 25. It's reformation, you see. It's
cleaning up the outside. It's getting somebody to join
the gang, you know. Verse 25, "...warn of your scribes
and Pharisees, you make clean the outside of the cup, but within
you are full of extortion and excess." Verse 27, "...you are
like a whited sepulchre, you appear beautiful, you appear
righteous." And verse 29, let me give you this quickly, and
then I'm coming to these three points here. He said in verse
29, listen to this. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
you build the tombs of the prophets, and you garnish the sceptres
of the righteous." You can't pick up a book or a magazine
now, a religious magazine, in which they don't brag on Luther,
Calvin, Hus, Zwingli, Owens, Whitefield, Isaac Watts, Toplady,
McShane, Brainerd, Spurgeon, isn't that right? You know what
all these people have in common? They're dead. They're dead. And the easiest thing in the
world is to brag on a dead prophet, a dead preacher, and kill a living
preacher, preaching the same message. I've read very extensively
Calvin, Zwingli, Luther, Spurgeon, Whitfield, Newton, Watts, every
one of these men. I'm preaching precisely, identically
what they preach. Precisely identically. Even preach
their sermons, their outline, label and all the rest of it.
But this generation and yet my own city where I've been preaching
32 years won't come to hear me. But they'll brag on Luther. They'll
name their children Calvin, But this is what our Lord is saying.
The same thing is true. When Moses was on this earth,
they crossed him every time he turned around. When Moses was
standing leading Israel, they crossed him at every turn. God
had to kill a bunch of people to keep them off Moses' back.
Do you know that? They hated him. They said, what did you
bring us out of Egypt for, to die here in the wilderness? We're
tired of this light bread. We're tired of this water out
of a rock. We want some garlic and onion. Moses went up the
mountain, stayed a little while, and they said, He ain't coming
back. He left us. Let's make us a golden calf.
Well, when Moses died, oh, I tell you, he was something. He was
something. Boy, he became something. We
have Moses. We have Moses. Of course, we
hate the disciples now. The disciples were there then.
They said, we hate you, but we love Moses. But boy, then the
disciples died. And they all began to call themselves
Saint Jude and Saint Luke and Saint Matthew. They weren't saints
when they were here. They killed everyone of them.
But John, he died in the exile on the Isle of Patmos. But they
suddenly became saints. Even the government recognized
them as saints. They transcribed the Bible and
made it Saint Matthew now. When Matthew was here, they were
hounding him from city to city. But he's dead. And you know who
they're hounding there? They're hounding the Reformers.
Luther had to run for his life from one end of Germany to the
other. And now he's the hero of the whole nation. Calvin had
to actually leave Switzerland and go to France to keep from
being killed. And now you'd think he owned that place. He's dead. And they're building monuments
to the Reformers, and they're killing preachers now that preach
what the Reformers preach. I was listening to one of these
freewill Armenian preachers on Channel 13 a few months ago,
and he said, what we need today is some men like Luther and Calvin
and Spurgeon. I thought, boy, boy, oh boy,
oh boy. Wouldn't it be great to be dead
so you can be famous? That's the truth. That's what
Christ said. He said, you go out there and spit on the monument
and rub it. This is old John Calvin's monument. Old John. Old John's dead. But
when he was here, they wanted to build him one all right and
put him in it. That's human nature. That's human
nature. Oh, he says, verse 33, how can
you escape the damnation of hell? Our Lord was not smiling when
he preached this. He was not smiling. But this
is today's religion. And look at these three things
that he said here in verse 23. I just want you to look at them.
He said, you do all these outward things, but you've omitted three
things. You've omitted justice, you've
omitted mercy, and you've omitted faith. Now let me give you this
just briefly. The Lord is not speaking here
only of justice and judgment between men. He's talking about
the issue of the hour. How can God be just and justify
the ungodliness? That's exactly what He's talking
about. Turn, if you will, to Job chapter 24. It's been the
issue. Job wrote it three times. It's
been the issue down through the centuries in Job 25. Job 25,
verse 4 through 6, listen to this, Job 25. How can man be
just with God? That's what you've omitted. You've
played religion and played church and played preacher and played
the game all these years, but you've omitted, you've neglected
this serious issue. How can man be justified with
God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? That's the issue. God is never
any less than He is. Almighty, holy, perfect, righteous
man is never any more than He is. A wiggling maggot, a worm,
an inhabitant of the dunghill. Well, how is God going to be
just and justify such a creature? How is any creature like that
ever going to ascend to the fellowship of God and with God? Well, it's
in Christ. It's in Christ. God sent his
Son to redeem us. He sent his Son to the downhill
to get us. He sent his Son down to the pool
of corruption to lift us and wash us, represent us, be all
that the law required of us. You see, the issue is not your
dress, it's your depravity. The issue is not so much your
habits as your heart. The issue is not so much your
ways, Tom, it's your will. Ask for the problem. I will not. But that old will's got to be
conquered. Got to be conquered. And while you go about all your
religious activities, I ask you, what about the holy law of God?
While you pay your religious dues and play at prayer, I ask
you, what about the justice of God? What about it? You've omitted justice. All right,
look at mercy. You've omitted mercy. Now listen,
I know that we're to be merciful to each other. We're to be merciful
as our Heavenly Father is merciful. But the matter here is a consideration
of the mercy of God towards sinners. Turn to Matthew 9. Let me show
you this. You haven't dealt with this issue.
You've gone about all these different games you're playing in the name
of God, and you've neglected this issue. Judgment, justice,
righteousness, truth, holiness, the law of God, sin's punishment. What about it? And then mercy. Look at Matthew 9, verse 10. It came to pass as Jesus sat
at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came
and sat down with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees
saw it, they said to his disciples, why does your master eat with
publicans and sinners? And Jesus heard that. He said,
they that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick. Well,
people don't need doctors. Sick people need doctors. Now,
you go learn what that means. That's what you've neglected.
I will have mercy, not sacrifice, not ceremony, not ritualism. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. I'm not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Go learn what that means. Moses
said, Lord, show me your greater glory. Show me your glory. And God said, well, Moses, hide
here in the rock. No man can look on me and live.
And I'm going to pass by you, and I'm going to declare my glory
unto you. I will be merciful. to whom I will be merciful, I
will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I tell you this,
preacher, people, district superintendent, bishop, cardinal, pope, we're
all sinners, unclean sinners, undone sinners in need of the
mercy of God. That's what we're neglecting.
We've got our discipline committees and somebody stumbles and falls
and we zero in on them like a bunch of hornets, you know. We've got
our self-righteous standards. We've got things you can do and
can't do. We've got black marks and red
marks and white marks and checks and all these different things.
We're just all a bunch of sinners in need of the mercy of God.
And that's what we neglect. We don't come to church as sinners,
we come as saints. We don't come to church as sinners
crying out like David in Psalm 51. Listen to this in Psalm 51. Here David, the man after God's
own heart. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness and thy tender mercy. Blot out my transgression. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Blind Bartimaeus, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us.
Now we come to church as religious people and righteous people and
our Lord said he didn't come to have anything to do with those
kind of people. You see, he's a doctor, he's
a physician, and he treats the sick. What are you doing here? My family doctor got so tired
one day, this is a true story, He got so tired one day of all
these people that were in his office that ought not to be there,
didn't need him. He came in the office and said,
ìAnybody in here sick?î He wanted to find somebody that
really needed him. And I said, ìI'm asking anybody
here sick?î ìWell, my neighbor sure needs the gospel. There's
a woman that works with me. I wish she could hear you preach.î
I do too. I believe I'd rather preach to
her. Buddy, I got an old reprobate
uncle that ought to hear you. I wish he could. I wish he could. I believe he'd rejoice. I believe
he'd come a little better prepared for God's presence than some
of us come. Who needs God? We're rich and
increased with goods and have need of nothing. You don't know
that you're naked, miserable, poor, and blind. Mercy! That's what I'm talking
about. You've neglected. You've been
playing church so long, you forgot what you came for. I came for
mercy. And then last of all, faith.
Faith. You've neglected justice. You've neglected mercy. You've
omitted it. You just plum-lifted out. Isn't
that true today? You listen to them now. You listen
to these preachers. There's everything in there but
justice. Nobody's answering the question,
how's God going to be God and justify me? How's God going to
stay on the throne and take me to glory? That's a major undertaking. That's a miracle of heaven. How's
God going to be just? What about His law and His justice?
What about the soul that's in it that shall die? Oh, I found
that in Calvary, Christ. What about mercy? Preachers don't
preach about mercy. And then faith, faith. Turn to
Hebrews 11. Let me show you something before
I quit. Hebrews 11. And before you cast
this message off as just being the rattling of a sovereign grace
Calvinist, before you throw it off, you remember that I quoted
this message from the words of my master. That's who puts this
sermon. In Hebrews 11, verse 6, without
faith it's impossible to please God. He that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and he's the rewarder of them that diligently
seek him. You read that whole 11th chapter
of Hebrews. It says there in verse 4, by
faith Abel offered that sacrifice to God. By faith. I believe. I believe that Jesus died and
he died for me. I believe. By faith Enoch was
translated, verse 5, that he should not see death. He walked
with God by faith. Verse 7, by faith Noah being
warned of God built that ark. Verse 8, by faith Abraham when
he was called to a place that he didn't know anything about,
he went out, he obeyed God by faith. And verse 13 says these
died in faith. You can't add anything to that.
These things are written that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you might have
life through his name. I believe in baptism, confession
of faith, but that water doesn't save anybody. I believe in the
Lord's table, this doing remembrance of me, but that wafer and wine
can't save a flea. I believe in walking in honesty
and righteousness and holiness and doing good works, but good
works can't save anybody. A man is saved by faith and not
by the deeds of the law. I believe in worshiping God and
giving and supporting the poor and the preachers of the gospel
and getting the gospel out and living a clean, moral, righteous
life. And God's people will. But I'm
telling you this, it takes Christ to save, the blood of Christ
to cleanse, the righteous life of Christ to make us holy. Here
is our sanctification. Here is our righteousness. And
we've omitted these things.