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Hosea for a breath of fresh air, in a sense, because it's filled with judgment and justice.
Next week we'll have our annual meeting. If you're not a church member, you are more than welcome to come if you'd like to learn about our church.
It'll be a worship meeting, what the Lord is doing and how he's blessed us and what we'll ask him to do in the future, required by law for a corporation or institution like we are, but we also want to do that just to give you an opportunity to listen and to talk and those things.
That'll be next Sunday night. By the way, it'll be bring a dessert, so if you're shopping ahead of time, I'll bring a dessert for that afterwards where we can just have some fellowship.
My goal is always to have our business meetings distinctively
Christian, annual meetings distinctively Christian in the sense that if you go to West Boylston Town Hall and you go to a meeting there and then you come to a meeting here,
I think as saints, as we gather, they should be different somewhat, shouldn't they, in terms of our godliness and fruit of the spirit and those kind of things.
All right, Deuteronomy chapter 10. We were here last week and basically I introduced this passage as almost a summary, our cliff notes are a boiled down condensation of what
God required of the people of Israel. When Joshua was going to take command of the
Israelites, when they passed over into the promised land, you see, remember the background of Deuteronomy, they're still not in the promised land and Deuteronomy is written over the proportion of about one month, it's a bunch of sermons, three particular sermons of Moses and as they would do in those old days, here's
Moses' charge. Can you imagine, let's pick a wild coach, Woody Hayes.
I almost said Woody Allen, I don't know if he's a coach or a director, but Woody Hayes for the Ohio State Buckeyes and he was just this feisty guy and you can imagine the day before he resigned,
I mean got kicked out or whatever happened to him, I hope he didn't get resigned or got kicked out, he would say to the new coach or to his associate,
I'm going to pass this baton but tonight I'm going to rally the troops one more time. This is the go get them speech and that's exactly what happens here with Moses.
Moses is going to pass the baton off to Joshua, God has told Moses you're going to die with still a gleam in your eye, you're still young and you still at 120 years old have many years to go but since you've disobeyed me, you're not going to make it into the promised land and I'm going to have you give the people one more charge before you get the new leader and that's basically
Deuteronomy. There's three sermons and here Deuteronomy 10 is found in the second sermon and he really here in Deuteronomy 10 boils it all down.
What are the five main things we need to do, God says, well it's right here and so let's just go over this, some in review and then we'll add some stuff at the very end for those of you that want to get really convicted, you just stay tuned.
By the way, just to ask you a couple of questions before we start, Deuteronomy means what? Second law, would you think that is a good description of the book or a bad description and why?
Well, that's interesting, it's not the second law, it's there's only one law, what if he's telling the law the second time?
How do we get the word Deuteronomy, Deutero -to -onomy or anonymy law, how do we get that?
If you never know, just always guess Latin, some Latin thing probably. The Vulgate called it Deuteronimum but the
Hebrew calls it something else and the literal translation of the Hebrew for the book are the first two words in English, they're four words, these are the words and that's a way better title than the law because when we think of the law especially, we think of this thing that's on people's back and Israel just carried around this horrible law.
But here it's divine instruction, it's the Torah, it's God's love for Israel to say this is how you're to live,
I love you and I'm not going to just let you run around like all the pagans doing what was right in their own eyes.
And so I don't really even like the title although we'll have to keep it but really this is Moses' explanation of the law and Brian's got it right in the sense he's not giving the law the second time,
Moses is explaining it. Do you know what Deuteronomy really is? It's an expository sermon of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.
He's preaching in a sense verse by verse, he's expositing the law. All right, let's go to Deuteronomy 10, 12 to 22 for just an overview of what
God is requiring Israel and then by implication, what does God require of us as worshipers?
Does anybody remember the first commandment? It's couched in negative terms. Go ahead anybody out loud.
You can say it in King James English too if you like. No other gods before me and this is the positive spin if you will of that.
If we're to have no other gods before us, then how should we live before God? And so this is very, very important.
It's almost equal to loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength but this is in Mosaic terminology and our outline tonight will look at five questions that help us understand this passage.
It's almost like a jet tour of the Torah. Start your engines, let's go. Number one, first question and again, some of this is review,
I'll try to add some extra stuff for those that were here last week. Question number one found in verses 12 and 13.
What does God require of his people? When God calls out a people, what does he require of them?
And there's quite a few things, very good. Let's just read these. And now Israel, what does the
Lord your God require from you? And again, remember all capitals in Lord. This is Yahweh, this is the personal name, this is the covenant keeping
God. He requires from you but to fear the Lord your God, one, to walk in all his ways, two.
Deuteronomy means what? Second law. Would you think that is a good description of the book or a bad description and why?
Well, that's interesting. It's not the second law, it's there's only one law. What if he's telling the law the second time?
How did we get the word Deuteronomy? Deutero to, onomy or anonymy law. How do we get that?
If you never know, just always guess Latin, there's some Latin thing probably. The Vulgate called it Deuteronym, but the
Hebrew calls it something else. So that in the literal translation of the Hebrew for the book are the first two words in English, there are four words, these are the words.
And that's a way better title than the law because when we think of the law, especially we think of this thing that's on people's back and Israel just carried around this horrible law.
And so I don't really even like the title, although we'll have to keep it, but really this is Moses' explanation of the law and Brian's got it right in the sense he's not giving the law the second time,
Does anybody remember the first commandment couched in negative terms? Go ahead, anybody out loud?
You can say it in King James English too if you like. No other gods before me and this is the positive spin, if you will, of that.
It's almost equal to loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but this is in Mosaic terminology and our outline tonight, we'll look at five questions that help us understand this passage.
It's almost like a jet tour of the Torah. Start your engines, let's go. Number one, first question, and again, some of this is review,
I'll try to add some extra stuff for those that were here last week. Question number one found in verses 12 and 13, what does
God require of his people? When God calls out a people, what does he require of them? And there's quite a few things, very good.
Let's just read these. And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you? And again, remember all capitals in Lord.
This is Yahweh, this is the personal name, this is the covenant keeping God. He requires from you but to fear the
Lord your God, one, to walk in all his ways, two, to tie up Pharaoh's arms, center outside the big fortress.
You can tell I just saw it a few weeks ago. And center outside the fortress, and then somehow the anger of Kong, instead of tearing all the people up, the little figurines of plastic or whatever the movie is, he would get an offering, and instead of maybe some oranges down at the
Chinese restaurant or whatever to appease this God or give the God something. If you told a pagan in the old days, serve
God, they would be thinking, okay, we need to sacrifice one of the babies, sacrifice a virgin, sacrifice food, sacrifice a lamb.
And here, we're not to serve God in that way. Of course, there were some sacrifices they had, but in terms of serving
God, this does not mean, quick, go take the furniture polish and shine up that little
God's head that you've got over there someplace that's made out of bronze. No, we're to serve the
Lord God. Have no other energy to serve any other
God. This basically means give it all to God 110%. You hear sports people, lay it all on the line.
Serve God that way. And lastly, you must keep his commandments. For your drudgery.
No, we learned last week, for your good. God is not a cosmic killjoy, as one man said, up there going,
Abendroth is having fun, smash. No, it's for our good. So that's question number one.
What does God require of his people? Question number two found in verses 14 and 15. Why does God require our allegiance?
Really, to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength is about allegiance. And why does God want that? There are three reasons found in verses 14 and 15.
I'll tell you the reasons, I'll read the verses, and we'll just keep moving on and review. The reasons are, he's a great creator, he loves his people, and he freely chose his people.
Verse 14, behold, to the Lord your God belong the heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.
Yet on your fathers did the Lord set his affection to love them, and he chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is to this day.
Why are God's people to worship him and follow him only? Because he made them. He loved them, and he's chose them.
He's chosen them. Question number three, what kind of allegiance does
God require, found in verses 16 and 17? This is the convicting part, as I said last week for me, very convicting.
What kind of allegiance? Does anybody remember? Rote obedience, rote allegiance, going through the motions allegiance,
I'll be there in body but not in heart allegiance? No. He requires allegiance from the heart and with full devotion.
Look at verses 16 and 17, circumcise then your heart and stiffen your neck no more, for the
Lord your God is a God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, that talking about a mighty man, a warrior
God, and an awesome God who does not show partiality nor does he take a bribe.
When we're to love God, when God's people that he's made and loved and chosen, he wants what kind of thing?
Can you imagine just going to God and saying, all right, I'm going through the motions, I'm here God, and I don't know about you, but sometimes
I walk in this church building and it's Sunday morning and I'm thinking, if it wasn't for duty and if it wasn't for me being the pastor, my heart's not here.
God helped me to make it here. God forgave me for my sins. God, I want to worship you with all my heart, but I just don't feel like it.
You ever feel like that? Maybe you guys are better off than I am, but sometimes I feel like that and I'm the pastor.
No, we all feel like that, but God says, I want your heart. I want inner devotion and he uses these terms, circumcise your heart, get that sin of flesh away.
Don't be stiff necked about it. I want all your devotion and remember last week, he doesn't show any partiality.
Literally, he doesn't lift up faces. When people would go before kings in the old days, what would they do when they enter the king's presence?
I'm here, party on. They would bow.
Just imagine, they would be bowing and God doesn't lift up their face to see who they are.
He doesn't say, oh, yeah, that's Abendroth, yeah, he's on the in crowd, he's fine.
He doesn't show partiality. He doesn't lift up any face to somehow say, oh, I know who you are, therefore, you've kind of already heaped up a bunch of good points today and now you don't have to give me full devotion.
Oh, yeah, it's Abendroth. It's Mark Schaefer, you know, Psalm 37, 37, Mark the righteous man.
I guess that's taken out of context. He doesn't do that. No matter who you are, no matter what kind of brownie points you've accumulated,
God wants all your devotion. He doesn't lift up faces. He doesn't want to have some kind of bribe given.
How do we give bribes? Well, sometimes we give bribes by saying,
God, I'm here in body, but I'm not here in spirit. I'm just going through the motions.
I've been to church today, God. I've served. I've done that. You think you could overlook some of my sin,
God, because I've done a few other things. Question four, found in verses 18 and 19, does
God give us a model to look at? And of course he's given us, as Christians, the perfect model, the incarnate
Christ. But even here, he's given Israel a model in verses 18 and 19. He executes justice for the orphan and widow.
Can you give me one word that would describe orphans and widows, by the way, more than almost any other word? Needy or vulnerable.
Those were the words I was looking for. He takes care of those and shows his love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.
Well, if God's just to the needy, so show your love for the alien, for you are aliens in the land of Egypt.
And I like it that God shows, by example, how to love people. Listen to Isaiah 40, verse 28 and following, great passage.
Do you not know? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired?
His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary. And to him who lacks might, he increases power.
Though you grow weary and tired, and vigorous men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the
Lord will gain new strength. That's the way God treats the needy. Then he says in verse 19, so show your love for the alien, for you are aliens in the land of Egypt.
God condescends with tangible love, and we should too. And now that's all review, let's go to question number five.
And if you're like me, I'm saying to myself, I could never do this. Can you do this? Who can live like that?
The question has to arise, how could I possibly live a life of fearing God, worshiping
God, of walking in his ways, remembering he's the creator, not giving God any lip service.
I can't live that way, and no one can. But God can, and look at question number five, found in verses 20 through 22.
My question is, how can you possibly obey the Lord and his commandments? Look at verse 20, kind of a repeat almost.
You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him and cling to him, you shall swear by his name. Stop there for a second.
Look at these high requirements. Have you ever been on the track team, and have you ever had to do low hurdles and high hurdles?
I don't know about you, but I think to myself, I'm a fairly good athlete, and I don't know if I can really run that well, and I never, confidentially,
I never wanted to be on the track team, because I heard they gave you a hazing on the track team. But the football coach said if you went out for track, that you'd be in his inner circle if you did anyway.
So I thought, do I get hazed and get on the good side of the coach, or not? So I just decided, I'm not going to go out with the team.
But you start going over these hurdles, low hurdles I could do. High hurdles, you're running full blast, and what do you do?
Your leg goes up and over, your leg goes up and over, and pretty soon your leg goes up and over, but your back leg doesn't go up and over, and on your face you go.
That's too high. It's like God's commands. They're way too high.
What do we do? Fear Him, there it is again. Serve Him, there it is again. And here's a new one, cling to Him.
What does cling mean? Anyone? Do you know? Stick to. Okay, great. Hold tight.
Hold tight, excellent. This is good. I don't have to pull up my thesaurus kind of synonym deal.
What's another word? Hold fast. Let me give you a few verses where this word is used elsewhere.
Genesis 2 .24, for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife.
Another example, first one was positive, this one's negative. First Kings 11, one through three, now
King Solomon loved many foreign wives along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women.
From the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away from their gods.
Solomon held fast to these in love. It's amazing. Verse three says, and he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 porcupines, and his wives turned away his heart.
Excuse me, that's concubines. What's worse?
That many in -laws or that many concubines or porcupines? I don't know, but Solomon held fast to these women.
Why? He didn't want to give them up. And the positive side is a husband and wife are super glued together in a love relationship.
He didn't want to sever that relationship with those ladies. And here, to the Lord God Almighty, we're to stick to, we're to hold fast to, we're to have this kind of lockjaw fervency.
I was petrified as a kid, oh, I got to get my tetanus shot. I might get lockjaw. I mean, I've never met anybody that's had lockjaw, but one thing
I love to do is eat, and I didn't want to get lockjaw of all things. You know, if you have your tetanus shot, lockjaw.
I mean, just with that kind of tenacity that people would tell me if a pit bull, I don't that jaw is still kind of clamped on there.
Some people used to say that of a hard -shelled snapping turtle. If you cut, if the thing hooks onto your toe and you cut the neck off, the thing's still stuck to your toe.
That's for free, by the way. Cling to him. And of course, the opposite is we just hold him loosely only when we want to, only when it's convenient.
Or we've got other friends and they think we're really dopey for being worshipers of God. So we're kind of like, yeah, God's kind of good for, you know, when we need him.
And, you know, it's just not too cool to be associated with God. No, this is a close, intimate relationship.
You cleave to him. You hold fast to him, Deuteronomy 11, 22 says. And kind of another new one, too, compared to the first few verses of our text tonight.
Swear by his name. We're swear by his name and no one else. All the worship goes to God and God alone.
How could we do it? Well, we can't do it, so God does it for us. God gives us grace to do it.
Isn't he a good God? Verse 21, he is your praise and he is your
God who has done these great things for you which your eyes have seen.
It doesn't even say praise him, notice. The focus isn't on us doing something to him. It's what he has done and what he deserves.
He is our praise. He does these great wonders. He keeps going and he keeps doing things.
Look at verse 22. Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
Abrahamic covenant is being fulfilled. Let's think about it really personally.
When I evangelize, here's how I like to evangelize. I do this almost all the time when a Holden Christian Academy calls me up and says, will you please come be the chapel speaker?
I ask it every time. If I go to Oana and speak, I need to get signed up, by the way, for that, and secondly, men, if you're a member of the church and you're a
Christian, I guess, hopefully those two things happen. We need Oana teachers, and I just look around at the men.
You need to go teach, figure out some kind of counsel time to teach and talk to Doug. How many more slots do we need?
Every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. We do, and so we need to step up to the plate and teach these young people, but here's what
I would ask them. I would say, it's such a great lead in. I say this to people.
You want to preach the gospel? Here you go. How many people here in this audience think that you have to be perfect to get to heaven, and the kids just are like, you know, especially those little smart aleck kids that aren't going to their buddy.
No way, man. You can spot them a mile off. Why? Because I used to be one of those, and I can see me.
Oh, you don't have to be perfect, and I'd say, how many people want to go to heaven where there's sin up there?
Who wants to go to heaven where there's sin? And then I tell them, do you know the high hurdle that God gives those who need to get to heaven and who want to go to heaven and don't want to go to hell is perfection.
You must be perfect to get into heaven. A, that's true. It needs some explaining, but B, I now have their attention because every kid's going, and this is so different from the society we live in where they say,
I've got some good things, and I've done a few bad things, but the good outweigh the bad, and I'm fine.
Or, here's what we also like to do. You know, there's some pretty bad people in this world, you know, Osama Bin Laden and Hitler and Mussolini and the
Unabomber, that guy down the street, a neighbor. I'm way better than they are, but it doesn't matter.
It's perfection. Can you imagine? I personally don't want to go to heaven if it's not perfect. Do you? Do you want to go worship some kind of marred heaven with a marred
Jesus? And so I tell them, the Bible says in Matthew 5 .48, we're to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
And I ask the kids, just then how perfect is your heavenly father? So now everybody who wants to go to heaven, run out and go be perfect.
And see, we can't do that. And Israel couldn't obey, and we can't obey, so God obeys for us.
Why don't you turn to 1 Corinthians 15 .45, and let's just talk about this for a minute. And I want to talk about something that's called the active obedience of Christ and how he not only paid for our sins by burying them on his body, but he also lived a life that was fully pleasing to God.
And God, with a great spiritual bank account transaction, gives us his obedience and he gets our sin.
And we, when God sees us, as Ephesians 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 say, we are in Christ.
So when God sees you, the Christian, he doesn't see your sin. You know that? How wonderful is that?
I don't know if you've ever gotten in a fight with somebody or had a disagreement with your spouse or had some kind of disagreement.
And if you ever looked at someone, let's just say it's your spouse, I know it's a hypothetical, but all of a sudden you've gotten a knockdown drag out and you've sinned against them and they've sinned against you.
And it's almost like you can't get that out of your mind, it's just you kind of just remember that. Can you imagine
God with perfect memory, if he looked at you every time and just saw all the closets in your skeleton, all your thoughts, and just looked at you and, you know, we compare each other to each other.
I got my tie on, pretty sophisticated, and you're a sinner, but man, what's everybody laughing about?
Did I say something wrong? Oh, I was wondering.
First half of you were sleeping, now half of you are laughing at me. He sees your... What? Well, that's a good way to get the audience's attention, yikes.
He sees all your closets and your skeletons, boo, Halloween. He sees...
Do people do that to your dad when he preaches? God sees you and sees all the grossness in your life?
No. No, we have been protected by the righteous robes of Christ in his total perfection.
Adam in the garden was responsible to obey, and he was able.
God said, tend the garden, name the animals, be a steward of the world, subdue it. Then Adam fell and Adam sinned, and he lost his ability to obey.
God was still calling Adam to be responsible for his sin, but he could not do it. And I know
Adam's fall was complete, heart, soul, mind, strength, will, everything, why? Because God sent, look at 1
Corinthians 15 .45, God did it for us. The first Adam was responsible, but unable to obey, so God gave a second
Adam, 1 Corinthians 15 .45, so also it is written, the first man,
Adam, became a living soul, hooray. I'm glad, but something even better.
The last Adam became a life -giving spirit. And that's the good news of the gospel.
The good news of the gospel is you must repent, believe, trust, follow, turn from sin, believe on the gospel, and you shall be saved, and the bad news is, even though we call people to do that in and of themselves, they cannot.
God has to grace them. Turn to Matthew chapter three, if you will, and this is another, just an awesome passage about the
Lord, and I want you to remember that we had to be rescued. God had to save us.
We all give lip service to God, it's by grace, but somehow we want to give our two cents in there, and God will not do that.
We are passive in salvation, and God saves us, we certainly respond with faith and love and those things.
I'm not saying we don't do anything, but in salvation, I am saying we don't do anything, it's all God's grace.
And after God has saved us, when a baby is born, the baby comes out, and baby cries, and God makes us born again, and we cry out with the heart of faith.
We are passive when God bears us, if you will. Salvation, in other words, had to be done to you.
And look at how Jesus perfectly obeyed in Matthew chapter three, and again, it's what theologians call the act of obedience of Christ.
Passive, he died on the cross, active, he lived a perfect life that God puts into your bank account. Now, we often go to 2
Corinthians 5, but here let's go to Matthew 3, and let's just back all the way up to chapter three, verse one, and take a look at this.
Now, in those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, what was his message?
What was Peter's first words as he publicly preached? What were Paul's first words as he publicly preached? What were
Jesus' first words as he publicly preached? It's the same word, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and John the
Baptist is a good Jew, if you will, and he understands that the heaven, we say that because we don't like to say the name of God very often, and so the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
What does repent mean? Anyone out loud? Okay. I have a little thing that we practice with our kids, and when we do
Bible time around the dinner table, Sunday night's the only night we don't do Bible time, and there's a few other exceptions here and there, but Sunday nights we don't usually do it, but the kids don't want to go to bed early, and so every
Sunday night I'll tuck them in, even tonight I'll tuck them in, and they'll all lay down in bed, and they'll say, Daddy, you didn't teach
Bible time today. I said, Sunday morning, Sunday night, yes I did, and so we stand there, and I say, everybody stand up, and I said, kids, you don't stop walking until Daddy says repent, and then you turn around, and all the kids, and even
Gracie wants to do it now, but she usually is walking around like that, she doesn't know, and so they're all walking, and I say, repent, and they turn around, and they come back.
That's exactly what repentance is. Technically, it means to change your mind, but it doesn't stop there, it means to change your mind, which will, if your mind truly is changed, you'll change your thinking, and so he says, you're going that way, living for sin, living like there are other gods before you, repent, and live like God's the only
God, and give him allegiance. So here's John the Baptist out in the middle of nowheresville preaching.
Verse three, for this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the
Lord, make his path straight, and as you would have kings and other dignitaries go through different areas, they have to try to make everything right, and make the roads good, and you don't want to have too many bumps and potholes, because you're going to try to make it out smooth, and that's in fact what
John the Baptist was doing for Jesus. Now, John himself had a garment of camel's hair, and a leather belt about his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.
True or false, locusts were kosher. I don't know if they're kosher, because kosher laws today are just made up, they're wrong, but it was according to Levitical law, it's okay to eat locusts,
Leviticus 11 .22. Just can't help but think, and just, you know, locust sushi, locust fried, locust dipped, locust legs only, locust, you know, yeah,
I don't know, what would you do there? Bubba Gump, locusts, every kind of way, shape, and form.
Verse five, then, Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around Jordan. So they're coming to him, and he's powerful,
God's working in his life, and his words, and the people flocked to him. They were being baptized by him in the
Jordan River as they confessed their sins. What kind of baptism was this, and is it significant?
There's all kinds of baptisms going on in the Bible. Which one's which? Does anyone know which kind this is? Well, it's certainly not a
Christian baptism where we get dunked in these waters. It's not the baptism where they place us in Christ, Romans 6.
This is the baptism if you were a Gentile, a Gentile dog, not a dog -dog, but a dog, not a
Jew, and you wanted to become a Jew or a proselytite, a God -fear, you would get baptized, saying your whole life as a
Gentile means nothing, and I'm showing my repentance to get washed clean ceremonially. Now, who's coming out to get baptized by John as a baptism of the
Gentiles? Who? John the Baptist was saying, hear ye, hear ye, you
Jews who think your father, Abraham, is going to get you into heaven do not merit anything before God, and it's time for you
Jews to have a dog baptism, and saying your whole Judeo system,
Jewish system, means nothing because you're not obeying God properly. This was a shock to their system.
Can you imagine? This must have floored them. By the way, it was interesting. Terry was going through a jet tour of Philippians several weeks ago to think that Paul is calling the
Jews dogs, and here, basically, that's what they are. They don't have any clout before God.
Verse 7, but when he saw many of the Pharisees, and they seemed to obey the law on the outside, and Sadducees, they were kind of, hey, let's live for the day, live it up.
When we die, we're not going to have any resurrection. We're not going to be accountable before God. This is kind of the first evolutionist, if you will, lifestyle -wise, and he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
I mean, we've got church growth at its finest there. I mean, he's just, I don't know. Loving them into the kingdom, it's just feel good.
Can you imagine? You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
They knew about the wrath that was going to come in the Old Testament. It was called the what? The day of the Lord. Who's warned you to do this, and you've come out here?
I mean, they just didn't know what to think. Therefore, bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.
Verse 9, don't suppose that you say to yourself, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
And it was weird, because the Jews in those days had some kind of system built up, and it was almost like the imputation of Abraham's righteousness.
Abraham was righteous, he obeyed God, and Abraham has this kind of vault of righteousness, and if they're a child of Abraham, they kind of get some of that righteousness of Abraham, and they're right in God's eyes.
And he's saying, uh -uh, these stones, you can't be saved in Abraham.
And he said, hurry up, verse 10, the axe is already laid at the root of the tree. It's 1159, and the clock is ticking.
Tick, tick, tick. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire.
Judgment. Can you imagine? Look at these three baptisms in chapter 3, verse 11.
As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, that Gentile repentance. But he who is coming after me, who's that?
Jesus, is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove his sandals. He will baptize you, some in a good way, some in a bad way.
With the Holy Spirit, some will get placed into Christ, get saved, and some will be baptized and be immersed with the eternal punishment of flames.
Yikes, verse 12, and his winnowing fork is at hand. Almost looks like, just imagine a big fork, but it's a pitchfork, and it's made of wood, and what would you do?
You'd just scoop up the things, and what would happen? It says right here, he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor, and he will gather his wheat into the barn.
The chaff would fly away in the wind, the good stuff would fall down, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. Well, this is amazing.
But John tried to prevent him, why? Why did John the Baptist try to prevent Jesus from being baptized? Jesus, you don't need a
Gentile proselytized baptism saying that you're a sinner. It'd be one thing if Jesus said,
I'd like to have some ceremonial cleansing from Leviticus because I want to make sure I'm ritually clean.
That'd be one thing, but now he's coming out here and he says, I'm going to want to be baptized by you in a
Gentile repentance kind of baptism. John knew that.
John tried to prevent him because he understood the implications, saying, I have need to be baptized by you, and you come to me,
I'm sinful and you're clean. All to our point about Jesus lived a perfect life, and Jesus obeyed the law perfectly, and here we get a little taste of that, verse 15, the active obedience of Christ.
Jesus answering said to him, permitted at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
Then he permitted him. Jesus was going to obey everything perfectly, even though he didn't sin, he publicly identified himself with humanity, with sinful humanity.
Permitted him, and then what happened? Don't believe in the Trinity? I don't know what you do with this verse, and after being baptized,
Jesus went up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon him.
Behold, a voice out of heaven saying, this is my beloved son, he still needs to repent a few times.
This is my beloved son, he's not quite ready to start his ministry, he's got to learn a few more things.
This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. And Christ's ministry, in a sense, was officially started, his public ministry.
Let's look at another passage, James 2 .10, let's take a look at this one for a minute, and again, we're still looking at this, that God has high standards, but God helps his people obey.
And so, even this week, when you say to yourself, I'm to honor my employer as Christ. I can't do it!
My employer is a schemer. My employer isn't even a
Christian. My employer is, and you fill in the blank. Well, God will grant you grace, because he doesn't want you to just do it externally anyway.
But look at this again, where we're seeing the need for God to save us. For whoever keeps the whole law, and you know the verse,
I'm preaching to the choir, maybe this will help you with another verse to preach the gospel, to show the people have a need, and yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.
What does that verse mean to you? Oh, wrong question! What does that verse mean to God? What's happening here?
When you were a kid, did you like BB guns? I remember I graduated with a variety of guns.
This is not a plug for the NRA or anything else, but I did hear that there were some elder meetings that were going to be topped off with a series of target shooting over at Bob Weir's house.
Yes. Make sure we all have our cards, right? Is it FID cards? Oh, okay.
We want to make sure we're law -abiding citizens, and so, to make sure of that. So, I remember
I got first, like it was just a gun that didn't do anything. It had the barrel capped, right, and it'd just make a sound.
Then I started graduating in a Daisy BB gun, and I would go out there and shoot things.
Then I graduated and I got a Crossman BB gun, pellet gun combo.
You could pump that thing up about 15 times. Then I got a 410 shotgun.
Then I don't know what happened. Then I got to shoot my dad's 12 -gauge pump. No, I don't know. It doesn't matter what that story is, but if you take a
BB gun, this is the point, and you shoot it through that window right there, what happens? Does it just shatter the whole thing?
It puts a little hole in the window. I'll never forget, in my life, there's all kinds of drive -by shootings in Los Angeles.
My mom flew in late to LAX, and she said, I'd like something to eat. It's 11 o 'clock at night. I said,
Mom, it's kind of late in a fast food restaurant at 11 o 'clock at night. It's LA. I don't think we should. She's like, please.
All right. She's my mom. What am I going to do? So, we go in there, and all of a sudden, the glass.
I don't think it was a large -gauge gun, but somebody drove by and just shot into the jack -in -box.
I'm like, see, Mom. Drive -by, you know, shooting.
So, that was something bigger, but people have the idea that if they take a law of God and just disobey it, it's just like a little
BB gun going through, and there's kind of a little hole in the back, and it doesn't shatter everything, but this is more like taking a sledgehammer to the mirror in your bathroom.
With all the force, you can just imagine sometimes people just do those, like,
I'm going to just kind of measure it up, and that pendulum swing keeps getting bigger and bigger. Whoever keeps the whole law, can you imagine?
I mean, you can't do this because he's going to say soon in Chapter 3, everybody stumbles in certain ways.
Be careful if you're a teacher, but just for example's sake, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles, what does stumble mean?
Stumbles mean, oh, just even in a careless, inattentive way, just even a little, I didn't really mean to, it was only a white lie, it was only half with my intentions and motives, but even one little thing.
He's violated the law's unity. Just how many sins does it take to keep you out of heaven?
One. Can you imagine? Just one. Listen to Deuteronomy 27, 26.
Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.
All of them. Cursed is the man that does it, then all the people shall say, Amen.
They knew, and without God helping us, we could never do it. I found some examples, not one of these is original, maybe the stupid
Daisy BB gun example is original, but how about this one? How many holes will make a tire flat?
How many leaks will sink a boat? Suspend a man over a precipice by a chain with 10 links, how many of those need to snap to plunge him into the abyss below?
A vandal attacks Rembrandt's famous painting, The Night Watch, in an Amsterdam museum.
He slashed only a portion of the painting. Is the whole painting damaged?
The robbers before the judge, Your Honor, I'm not a bad man, I only broke one law. The judge would reply,
You are not being tried for your good deeds, nor the laws that you did not break. You are guilty of breaking one of the laws, and you must go to jail.
A chorus is ruined by one voice being out of tune, except the BBC, of course. James puts this verse here for many reasons, but one of the reasons is we just live in a tally sheet informational age where we say,
I've done more good than I've done bad. It can't be minimized like this. That's why we need
Christ. You know how I like to think of Christ's rescue mission for us?
I mean, I love John 3 .16, don't get me wrong, it's one of my all -time favorite verses. But I love
John 3 .17 almost just as much. Does anybody here have it memorized? Do you want it, kids? John 3 .17?
Oh, I think that's 15. 17, for God did not send the
Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. It was a rescue mission. I get an email every week, every day,
Terry turned me on to it, that you get a different word for the day. Kind of a vocabulary builder, if you will.
People who have bigger vocabularies have more power. I can't believe
I said that. I must really feel comfortable today. First this morning, I'm up here. I'm not sure if you don't serve, you're sinning, you know, and all these other things.
And now tonight, it's the power. So this is the one I got and I thought, this is
Christ's work. And He had to do it because we couldn't. Because we were lawbreakers, not just with one, but many, many, many.
And the word was Dunkirk. D -U -N -K -I -R -K.
Lewis knows what happened at Dunkirk. What happened at Dunkirk? And how were they taken off?
And what do we call that? It starts with an E. That's exactly right, and that's what
Jesus did, did you hear that? It was an evacuation. And now we've got that word in the vocabulary, it has come to mean, there's two definitions, a desperate evacuation or retreat, to a crisis situation requiring drastic measures to avoid total disaster.
That's really the gospel, isn't it? God the Father has it done, Kirk, because why?
There's a desperate evacuation that takes place when Christ dies for his people, and the drastic measures, can you imagine?
I've got to send my son, these people can't get it. I've tried to send my prophets,
I've sent all them, they've killed them all, and finally I'm at the end of my rope, of course I'm speaking, don't take it too far, but God is saying it has to be drastic, and there must be a done,
Kirk, and if it was great that these 343 ,000 were rescued and evacuated by these ally troops when they were fighting by the sea, can you imagine the great done,
Kirk, of the Savior? Deuteronomy 10 basically is the positive way of saying you should have no other gods before you, and how should we live?
The Bible gives us those answers, but you know what? We can't live it, so somebody else lived it for us, and does
God just keep giving and giving and giving? Yes he does, and so we have hope not only because Jesus died for our sins, but also he has lived the perfect life that I preach as many times as I can.
Well I was going to talk about worldliness and those kind of things, but we'll just have to wait another day. Alright, let's pray.
Father, thank you for this time together tonight, and how great it is to think of rescue missions, people stuck in the
North Pole, and doctors stuck in the South Pole, and have to operate on themselves because they can't get any help until it's summertime, and yet we have the greatest rescue story in all the
Bible, better than reading about people getting rescued off of Mount Everest or anything else, but you rescued us from wrath, and we deserved it, and Father we out of all the people in the world deserve it just as much as the next, and yet you had mercy on us, you had grace on us, and you sent your
Son on that great rescue mission, and Father we praise your name tonight that what your Son did, he did completely, and he did wholly, and he has reconciled us, and made us friends with you, he's redeemed us, we're bought out of that slave pit of sin, and Father he's also made propitiation for your wrath, so now we can come to you as our
Father, and you have open arms, and we can stand in your presence, and we have great joy, and Father I think you have great joy too, that we are able to stand, and Father we had asked tonight that you'd help us obey the commands of scripture by your grace, and also help us to preach the gospel, that people need to be saved, not only from their foolish thinking, with evolution and other things, but also saved from their sins, help us to be your ambassadors of the perfect Jesus Christ, help us to be like John the
Baptist, so our ministries might decrease as Jesus Christ increases, in his name we pray,