Sermon for Lord's Day January 15, 2023 The danger of hypocrisy

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Sermon for Lord's Day January 15, 2023 The danger of hypocrisy

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We'll turn to the book of Luke, chapter 20. We will be finishing up in chapter 20 this morning.
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I would encourage you to go ahead and mark your spot, put your finger back on Matthew 23.
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After we do the public reading, the standing honor reading
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God's Word, we're going to be jumping back over to Matthew 23 to read a large portion of that chapter as we begin the message this morning.
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But if you would, please, one more time, stand to honor the reading of God's Holy Word as we read from Luke, chapter 20, verses 45 through 47.
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These are the words of the living God, and in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses for a pretense, make long prayers, they will receive the greater condemnation.
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Thus far is the reading of God's Holy Word here. You may be seated. Let's go to the
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Lord in prayer together. Our Heavenly Father, as we come before you today as a congregation, as a body, as a church, as your church, as the church of the living
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God, Lord, we come with our hearts humble, with our minds.
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Lord, I pray that you would tune our minds, dear Lord, to the melody of the
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Scripture this morning, that you would cause us to think deeply about the serious nature of what
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Jesus is saying to these scribes and to these Pharisees, that you would help us, each and every one, every single person who hears this message, to examine our hearts, to examine our minds, to know, if we be in the faith,
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Lord, that you would be glorified in this time, it's my request to you,
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Lord, please, please, please show us Christ in the Scriptures, for it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
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As we mentioned here, we are closing out chapter 20 of Luke. There's been much in the 20th chapter of Luke that we have looked at, that we have examined beginning in the first verse of the 20th chapter.
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We see Jesus' authority really being challenged by those scribes,
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Pharisees in the crowd. We hear Jesus give them the parable of the wicked tenants in verse 9 through 18.
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We see this and we try our best to communicate and give the interpretation of the text according to the
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Scripture itself. In 19 through 26, Jesus is asked the question about, is it lawful to pay taxes?
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Jesus answers their questions. The Sadducees in the next section ask Jesus about the resurrection, though they themselves did not believe in the resurrection.
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Then Jesus, in this latter portion, turns to the scribes and to the Pharisees and he begins to really put the screws to them, if you have it that way, forcing them to come to an understanding, forcing them to come to a point of decision concerning about whose son is the
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Christ. Then, as he leaves off that statement in verse 44, we read these three last verses in this chapter which are quite short, which are quite succinct, which are quite straightforward.
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We hear the words of the apostle, Dr. Lucas. He says this, in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, so we know
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Jesus is speaking. Who is he speaking to? He's speaking to his disciples, but he's saying it in such a way that the entire crowd is able to hear what he is saying.
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It's not a private conversation that he's having between the disciples. It is aimed to them, but it is intended for everyone else around to hear what
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Jesus says. So what does Jesus say? Quite plainly, in verse 46, beware.
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Jesus says, beware. Beware of who? Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and who love greetings in the marketplaces.
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They love the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts. Then, really, in verse 47, we see the real scalding part of this short rebuke, this short account that we have in Luke, for Jesus says that they devour widows' houses, and for a pretense, they make long prayers.
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And Jesus leaves off, Luke leaves off for us with Jesus making this statement, they will receive the greater condemnation.
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Now, I know that there are times when we tend to put degrees on the seriousness of sin.
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We tend to mark some sins as a little less than others, and in one sense of the word, it is true that sin is sin.
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But Jesus makes it plain and makes it clear that these scribes, these
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Pharisees, and these lawyers were going to face a very serious condemnation.
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So, that being said, what is the sin of the Pharisees? If you're taking notes today and you want to put a title at the top of the page, we're going to be talking about the great danger of being a hypocrite.
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The great danger of being a hypocrite. And before we get into, really, into the application, into the breaking down of this passage of scripture,
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I want to read Matthew 23, verses 1 through 36. For in Matthew, we have the fully expanded speech that Jesus gives to the scribes and to the
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Pharisees. And really, we can get a fuller, orbed understanding of what
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Luke was saying to us by reading this. So Matthew 23, this is what the word of God states.
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Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, he said, the scribes and the
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Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but do not the works that they do.
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Notice what Jesus says here, for they preach, but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
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They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues.
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They love the greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But Jesus, again, in this personal speech to the disciples in the conference of everyone there, he says, but you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers.
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And call no man your father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven.
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Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.
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And we really get to motive right here, what Jesus really begins to bring, tie together, what he's saying here in verse 11 and 12, he ties the first portion of his speech with the last portion of his speech, together with these two statements, when he says this, the greatest among you shall be your servant.
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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
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But woe to you, this term woe is a very, very strong word, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.
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You neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.
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Again, this is a very strong statement that Jesus is making. He's saying, you don't allow people to go into the kingdom of heaven, and you yourselves are not even going into the kingdom of heaven.
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Contrary to popular thought, Jesus makes it plain. In verse 15,
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Jesus says, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he does become a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
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Is everybody getting how plain Jesus is being here? He said, you cross land and sea, you go out of your way to try to proselytize, to make people like you, but when you do, they're not only not like you, but they're twice as bad as you.
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And again, he calls them children of hell. Woe to you, verse 16, woe to you blind guides who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.
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You blind fools, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred that ought to be easily understood, right?
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Jesus is asking these rhetorical questions so that they can be understood, which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred.
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Verse 18, and you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.
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You blind men, for which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred.
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So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it, and whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe, mint, and dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.
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These, Jesus said, these you ought to have done without neglecting the others.
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You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and of self -indulgence.
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You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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See, Jesus makes the connection, right? He's letting them know that I'm speaking about you.
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Verse 29, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and you decorate the monuments of the righteous saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.
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Thus you witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
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Fill up then the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
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Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous
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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
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Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
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We hear Jesus saying this in Luke. We reread it here in the text in Matthew.
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This is not a thousands of years in the future judgment that is coming on the people of Jerusalem, on the scribes, the
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Pharisees and the hypocrites. It is a soon to come within that generation judgment and it is very, very serious.
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Jesus never made empty promises. It does not do us any good for us to make empty promises to people.
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You can be certain that judgment is on its way according to what
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Jesus is telling them here and he's calling them out by name and he's using a specific term, hypocrite.
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The Greek word is pronounced hypocrates. It sounds like a
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Greek philosopher, but it's really a strong word. Two different ways this word is used.
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It's used in the Old Testament. It's used in the New Testament. The Hebrew word is kone, something like that.
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The New Testament word is hypocrites, but the Old Testament usage, it's always used, defined this way concerning a hypocrite in the
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Old Testament as being described as one who is godless, one who is profane and one who is irreligious, which is just the opposite of what the
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Pharisees and the scribes thought themselves to be. In the New Testament, the term that's used has a variety of definitions, but to just sum them up, it's used as one who answers.
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A hypocrite is one who answers or interprets. A hypocrite is an actor, a stage player, one who puts on a mask, if you would have it.
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Back before our time, back in the old, old days when they would put on plays before they had technology, before they had multiple costume changes, many times the same actor would play multiple roles and these roles would be delineated or demarcated by the fact that in one hand, they would have a mask, in the other hand, they would have a mask.
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And when it came time for them to say the line in the character of the mask in the right hand, they would put the mask up over their face.
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And then when it would come time to say another line in the form of the other character, they would put the mask upon their face.
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So it was a masking, if you would have it. It would be a hiding behind of a mask.
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It would be one who is pretending to be something that they are not. And this, my friends, as it was a great danger then to which
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Jesus unashamedly spoke provoking words to these people, it is still a danger in the time in which we live today that hypocrisy will send you to hell.
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The danger of being a hypocrite. What is the danger of being a hypocrite?
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Well, number one, it sends people to hell. Number two, it is being a hypocrite, biblically speaking, means you are deceiving yourself.
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It's one thing to be deceived by someone else. It's one thing to be led to believe something by looking at someone else.
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But it's a whole other thing to believe something that is a lie simply because you want to believe it's true even though you have a pretty good idea that it is not the truth.
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There are many in the professing church of Jesus Christ who are pretending the
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Christian life. John Calvin put it in very high theological terms.
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He said this, hypocrites are so stupid they do not feel their own sores. Pretty spiritual, huh?
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They don't realize it, right? They continue on in the lie. This is what the
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Pharisees were doing. They were pretending to be something that they were not.
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They were pretending to own a righteousness that did not own them. So what is a hypocrite?
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According to the Old Testament, it's a godless, profane, irreligious person. So when
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Jesus was speaking to them every single time, he was calling them hypocrites.
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It was very much stronger than simply saying you're stage actors, you're pretenders.
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He's saying you are irreligious, you are godless, heathen. And so we see this word used 13 times in the
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Old Testament. We see it used 17 times in the New Testament. Probably most of those times were right here in Matthew chapter 23, right?
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And so we see these, for example, in the Old Testament in Psalm chapter 35, 16, as an example of an
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Old Testament usage. The psalmist writes this, like profane mockers at a feast, they gnash at me with their teeth.
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That's profane mockers. That's the word in the Old Testament that's used for hypocrites. In Proverbs chapter 11, verse 9, with his mouth, the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge, the righteous are delivered.
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But with the mouth of godless man, that's the word in the Old Testament used for a hypocrite.
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In Isaiah, again, it's used against the godless nation I send him. That word godless nation is the word that's used for hypocrite.
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Stephen Charnock, one of the old Puritans said this, it is a sad thing to be a Christian at supper, a heathen in our shops, and devils in our closets.
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So in our text today, we see very plainly, very forthrightly,
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Jesus sets forth this scalding rebuke, and we have this scalding rebuke given to those, the religious leaders of his day.
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Who needs to hear a word like this? The religious leaders of our day. Who needs to hear words like this?
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The little children in our churches. For children and adults alike need to know that it is not a pretend
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Christianity. It is not a make -believe, put -on, sham show of faith that will make you saved.
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It is being born again by the Holy Spirit of God. It is God making the man, woman, the boy, and the girl a new creature in Jesus Christ.
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J .C. Ryle said, No sin seems to be thought of by Christ as more sinful than hypocrisy.
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None drew from him such withering condemnation during his whole ministry.
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Jesus did not speak this strong to anybody during his entire ministry.
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And when he saw the teachers of the law, and he saw the Pharisees wearing this cloak of religion and pretending that they had a greater outer holiness, while their hearts were full of wickedness, his righteous soul seems to have been full of indignation, according to Ryle there.
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And let me say this, how many of you maybe have recognized this saying or had this told to you?
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Let's say you talk to somebody, and you begin to talk to them about the Lord, and you invite them to come to church with you, and you hear this answer,
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I don't want to go to church, it's just full of what? Hypocrites. And sadly, we do just like that, like you're doing here, naturally we laugh.
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But we ought to be concerned about this. We ought to be concerned because my answer in general is, come on with me, one more ain't going to hurt us.
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But we ought to take this seriously and understand that as God's people, we are to strive to lead holy lives so that when folks look at our lives, when they hear our conversation, when we communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to them, they don't look at us as every other church member, but they look at us as someone who's been saved by the grace of God, whom
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God has changed us from the inside out, that he's caused us to think new thoughts, that he's caused us to live life a whole different way.
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We are not hypocrites, that we certainly are sinners, but sinners who have been saved by the grace of God.
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And that we do not live our lives by faith in ourself or in our good works, but we live our lives by faith in the
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Son of God who loved us and who gave himself for us. So hypocrisy, hypocrisy here in this text is we have read the completeness of that text.
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The hypocrisy of the text that we read and the hypocrisy of today is no different. A charade is still a charade, a put -on is still a put -on, and a false confession of faith will still be, as it was then, damnation to the one who makes it.
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A false confession of faith will still be damnation to the one who has been baptized.
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It'll be damnation to the one who's joined themselves to a local church. It will be damnation to the soul of any person who has not been born again.
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The reality never changes. And that simply is this, to say it again, you must be born again.
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Praise God. So please hear me today.
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Men, women, boys, and girls alike, please hear me today.
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Jesus said these words, what will it profit you if you gain this entire world, but you lose your own soul?
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Consider this, consider this, because consideration of this thought will be life to your soul.
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It will be life to you. Hypocrisy, pretending to be saved is utterly foolish, by the way.
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It is utterly foolish because you cannot fool the Lord. You can trick me, you can trick everybody in this world, you can trick your friends and your family, but you cannot fool the
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Lord. Let me illustrate the foolishness of hypocrisy. Let's say, for example, you were to attempt to go to an event that required a ticket for entrance.
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When you get to the entryway, the ticket taker is standing there, and guess what they say?
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Ticket, please. And you begin to reach into your pocket and you pull out your ticket, which, in reality, and I don't know why
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I thought of this this week, Susie, but I thought of John, but let's say you pull out your ticket that you're going to present to the ticket taker.
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You pull it out, and it is a handwritten piece of paper that has been produced by a two -year -old with three different colored crayons.
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And you hand it to the ticket taker and you say, here you go. Now, the ticket taker is going to look at you and they're going to say this, we cannot permit you to enter this event because this is not an official ticket.
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Well, sure, it's official. My child drew this up. Sure, it's official.
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There's three different colored crayons that are scribbled on this page. Utter foolishness thus far, right?
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However, so you may respond one of two ways. You may say to the ticket taker, can we not just pretend like this is a real ticket?
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Or if you were wise, you would say this, and you would ask a question, how may
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I obtain a genuine ticket? Now, the second response would be the proper response.
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The first response, though it sounds preposterous, I will say this, it does follow the logic of most people who want to go to heaven.
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They want to go to heaven, but they don't want a holy and a righteous
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God to be there when they get there. They want the God of their imagination. They want the
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God of their own creation that they've created in their minds to be the God who permits anything and everything and just says, come as you are.
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Now, certainly, I know that is a statement that is sometimes misused, sometimes rightly used.
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It can go either way, come as you are. How else are you going to come to Christ but as you are?
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Because if you're coming any other way than as you are, as a sinner in need of grace, there will be no salvation.
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But if you come, if you take that term, that phrase, that idea to mean God will take me just any old way, any old time that I come, my friend, you are going to be sadly mistaken on that great and final day of judgment.
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Going on, professing to love God and denying him with our lives, as we've read, is one of the greatest sins that anyone will commit.
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Hypocrisy is an evil. Jesus said to the
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Pharisees in Matthew 22, verse three, you remember what he said there, they practice or they preach, but they do not practice.
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Now, that's the ESV. I know that King James, the New King James and other versions may word that a different way, but we use this term even in our day, right?
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Practice what you preach. That's what Jesus is saying to them. And what Jesus is saying to the crowd that's standing by is look, these men, these scribes, these
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Pharisees are telling you, they're quoting to you Moses' law, what the law of Moses said is true and it is right.
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But Jesus said, when it comes to you doing what these men say that they are supposed to be doing, don't do it because they are not abiding by Moses' law.
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They are not honoring God with their lives. So I'd like to make a point of clarification here, just so that I don't, it may be a restating, but I don't want there to be any confusion about the things that I'm saying here.
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I'm not saying that Christians are perfect nor will be perfect. I'm not saying that sinless perfection is a reality in the life of the believer because it is not.
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As long as you are in the flesh, you will fight with sin. That's why
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John Owen said, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. So we will fight sin.
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But what I am saying is this, that when we sin, according to the word of God, we have an advocate.
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We have Jesus Christ, the righteous, whom we go to, whom we turn to when we do sin.
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We confess our sins and the scripture says, he forgives us of our sins and he cleanses us of all unrighteousness.
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So our application today for this passage of scripture is exactly the same as it was last week.
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We are to examine ourselves. How are we to examine ourselves according to the scriptures?
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What are we to examine concerning ourselves to see if we are in the faith?
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Quite simply. So our aim, our goal, our mark, our target, so to speak, is not the righteousness of the
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Pharisees. It's not the righteousness of your pastor and your elders.
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It's not the righteousness of your mother and your father. It's not the righteousness of your great -grandmother who was a godly, sainted woman.
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But our aim, our goal, our prize, our mark, our target is
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Jesus Christ. This is our target. This is who we are to look to, to the
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Lord Jesus Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the law of God and died in our place.
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The apostle Paul, in writing to the Romans, said this in chapter 10. Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for Israel is this, that they might be saved.
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For they have a zeal of God, zeal for God, but it's not according to knowledge.
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For they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, seek to establish their own righteousness.
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And so they did not submit to the righteousness of God. For Christ, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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Thomas Watson said this. I say, a man may have excellent notions of Christ and may be able to make an elegant discourse of him and yet not know him savingly.
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Though he be not grossly ignorant of Christ, yet he may be spiritually ignorant of Christ.
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The knowledge that hypocrites have of Christ has no saving influence upon them.
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Bless you. It does not make them more holy. The knowledge that a hypocrite has of Christ does not make them more holy.
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For who is it? It is not just the knowledge of Christ that makes one holy. It's the impartation of the righteousness of God to the individual.
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You can have all the head knowledge in the world. You can be the most eloquent preacher and speaker in the world, but except your heart and your mind have been made new by the
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Holy Ghost of God, you are not a new creature. And so you stand in need of regeneration.
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But the good news is you've still got breath in your body. You've still got life in you that you can respond and move to the
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Lord. Thomas Watson went on to say this. It is one thing to have a notion of Christ, another thing to fetch virtue from Christ.
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The knowledge of the hypocrite is a dead, barren knowledge. Boy, if that doesn't describe to a
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T the Pharisees and the scribes. It's a barren, dead knowledge. It does not produce the child of obedience.
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He said there's a great deal of difference between a scholar that studies medicine for the theory and notion that he may have the rules of it lying before him and one that studies medicine to practice it.
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Hypocrites are not practitioners. They are all head and no feet.
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What a statement. Now, as believers, we have it set before us in the Bible to be people of action, right?
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When a man, woman, boy, or girl is saved, you don't just remain as you are, but you grow and you move and you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to a life, if you would have it, of activity. Matter of fact, it's used several different terms.
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We're called to run the race that is set before us, speaking to Christians. We're called to press toward what?
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Toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We are called to present our bodies a living sacrifice unto the
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Lord, which is our reasonable worship. We are called to fight the good fight of faith.
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So my question to you, in light of just those few scriptural examples there, are you fighting the good fight?
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Are you presenting your body as a living sacrifice?
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Are you pressing toward that mark? Are you running that race?
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The Christian's life is not only an intellectual ascent to the truths of the scriptures, but it is an experiential reality in the life of the individual who professes to have been saved by the grace of God.
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It's not intellectual knowledge only, that's part of it, but it is an experiential knowledge that Christ has saved you and made you a new creature and your life has been changed.
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So the question would be to you, is this, are you saved? By that,
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I mean this. Has God, through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, made you a new creature?
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Are you now hating your sin and loving the Savior? These are questions that are not rhetorical, they are meant for you to consider, meant for you to ponder, meant for you to think about.
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Next question, do you have a hunger and thirst for the things of God? For Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
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Next question, do you love God's church? Do you look forward to gathering with your brothers and sisters in Christ?
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Or, and I say this with a broken heart, or can you do without these things, with or without these things?
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Because there are a great many in the professing church of the living God today who will even say such things, but those who aren't willing to say such things live as though they believe such things.
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I can do with or without the church, but I want you to know, if you're a believer, you will love
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God's church. You will love God's people. If you are okay with being without these things, these questions that I pose to you here, if you are okay without these things, then
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I would go so far as to say that you are lost. And that you stand in need of salvation.
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Again, I want you to be very thorough and very slow and very meticulous in saying that because I don't want to be misunderstood or misquoted on this.
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This is the reality of the scriptures. There is a large portion of many church members across our land that are merely playing pretend with Christianity.
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And they are not faced with having to answer questions like these.
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They are not set forth in any kind of challenging or probing way, but these questions are glanced over.
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These questions are ignored. These questions are set aside when they cross the minds of every man who stands in the pulpit each week.
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But they ought to be questions that are asked. And every single individual believer in Christ can with confidence face these questions and can with confidence answer these questions.
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Rob went on to say this in closing, but who among those who are condemned will receive the heaviest condemnation?
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What was it that Jesus said? These, these scribes, these Pharisees, these irreligious, godless heathen who pretend faith will receive the greater condemnation.
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It will fall on those who had great light and knowledge, but they made no proper use of it.
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It will fall on those who profess great holiness and religiosity, but in reality, they clung to their sins.
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In one word, the hypocrite, Ryle said this, the hypocrite will have the lowest place in hell.
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These are awful propositions, but they are true. The reality and eternity of future punishment are among the most basic truths revealed in religion, which it is hard to think about without shuddering.
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For Jesus said to them, how will you escape the damnation of hell?
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But it is good, Ryle said this, it is good to have all that the Bible teaches us about heaven and hell firmly fixed in our minds.
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By way of practical application, that statement that Ryle made, those who had great light and knowledge made no proper use of it, is whom the greater condemnation will fall.
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How is this applied to folks in our day and in our time? Well, folks, if you hear the gospel, number one, if you've got access to a
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Bible, you've got access to the unfiltered source of the knowledge of God.
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You have unfiltered, unimpeded access to the Word of the living
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God that points us to the saving work of Jesus Christ. They did not have that then, but what they did have was
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Jesus Christ in their midst. For a period of time, they literally had the
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Son of the living God, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world standing before them, speaking to them of whom they denied outright.
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They had a great life. They had great access to knowledge of truth.
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And brothers and sisters today, we had the Word of God. We had the preached Word of God. We had the taught
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Word of God. Certainly, it's flawed. Certainly, it's faulted by men like us.
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However, it's better than not hearing it at all.
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And the greater condemnation will be to those individuals who sat week in and week out.
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Hearing the Word of God and refusing and rebelling and rejecting the truth of the scriptures themselves.
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These are the words of the living God. There's a reason that we say that.
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It's not to be like somebody else. It's because it's an announcement. It's a proclamation of truth that ought to cause your heart and your mind and your head to perk up, to realize that these are the words of life.
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And to say with Peter, Lord, to whom shall we go? For you alone have the words of eternal life.
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To whom will we go? Thomas Manton said this, a man cares not to be with God so that he might be securely without Him.
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And then last of all, John Conan and other of the Puritans made this statement. God gave us a noble soul with His own image imprinted on it.
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And we, by sin, impressing the character of the devil upon it.
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God gave us an immortal soul and we, by abusing it to sin, do what we can to destroy it.
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How ill must God take it at our hands that we thus deface and spoil the masterpiece of His workmanship?
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The call is quite simply this, repent and believe the gospel.
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God made man in His image, after His likeness. God gave you an eternal soul and you will spend eternity in one of two places, heaven or hell.
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You will spend eternity in hell because you reject the true and the living God. You reject the truth and the fact that His son died, made propitiation for our sins, was buried and that He rose again on the third day.
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You will go to heaven because Christ in His mercy and in His grace has effectually called you unto salvation and drawn you with bands of love unto
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Himself so that you might believe on His name.
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And in believing on Him, you may have confidence that your eternity, that your sin has been set, the debt for your sin has been settled and paid and that for all eternity you will be able to spend glorifying