I greatly appreciate the music and the worship
and I greatly appreciate that song.
I, I think I marvel most at how
little I understand the things that I sing.
I don't take that as something that condemns
me.
The Lord knows my heart.
He knows I'll be I'll never be anything
other than a child who plays marbles with
diamonds.
Abraham Kuyper, the famous Dutch reform theologian, I
was reading him, I guess it was last
week or the week before that, and he
was speaking about how Christ was the only
man who truly died destitute and that his
kinesis or his self emptying did not simply
begin and end with the incarnation, but that
as he went through his life, he kept
giving away and he kept emptying himself until
the final day when all loves abandoned him,
when all friendship was gone and finally they
took his garment and he was left to
die naked on a tree, abandoned of men
and forsaken of God.
And it is so amazing to me, the
goodness of God, and it is that goodness
that leads me to repentance.
It is that goodness that humbles me and
makes me want to be a better man
before God, a better friend of God, a
better brother to Christ and to his people.
Let's open up our Bibles to the book
of Jeremiah and we're going to talk about
the new birth as seen in the Old
Testament.
The new covenant promises of the Old Testament
are absolutely fabulous.
If I were to point to one thing
that in the last years has given me
the greatest encouragement, it is looking through the
Old Testament prophets and seeing what God promised
to his new covenant people.
And we are that new covenant people.
And this will be for many people tonight.
This will be for many needs.
If you believe yourself to be a believer
and you are not, it may expose you
in love.
If you are a believer, truly so, it
will encourage you.
At least I hope it will, as these
verses have encouraged me in Jeremiah chapter 31.
Jeremiah 31, verse 31, chapter 31, verse
31, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not like the covenant which I
made with their fathers in the day I
took them by the hand to bring them
out of the land of Egypt, my covenant,
which they broke, although I was a husband
to them, declares the Lord.
But this is the covenant which I will
make with the house of Israel.
After those days, declares the Lord, I will
put my law within them and on their
heart.
I will write it and I will be
their God and they shall be my people.
They will not teach again each man, his
neighbor and each man, his brother saying, know
the Lord, for they will all know me
from the least of them to the greatest
of them, declares the Lord, for I will
forgive their iniquity and their sin.
I will remember no more.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, such wonderful things you have spoken, such
wonderful things you have promised to the most
undeserving.
Lord, there's a bit of sadness in my
heart because I know.
As all men know.
That there's no way to preach this as
it ought to be preached.
That human tongue, that tongues of angels are
not enough to even begin to describe the
wonder of our salvation.
But Lord, I pray that by your good
spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, that you
would open up our eyes and our ears
and our hearts and our minds.
To realize, Lord, that we are that new
covenant people and unto us the end of
the ages has come.
Oh, Lord, help us to be otherworldly.
Help us to be heavenly minded.
Help us to be filled with the joy
of the Lord and that it would be
our strength.
Help us to rejoice in the goodness of
our God.
And Lord, for those who may be here
that do not know you.
Oh, Lord, can these bones live?
Can the dead rise again?
Can the blind see?
Can the deaf hear?
You know, Lord.
By your power, you know.
Oh, Lord, we entrust every one of our
hopes for this evening in you.
And oh, Lord, as Lord, for my own
sake, I want to say before you, you
know, Lord, what I am.
My going in and my coming out, my
lying down and my rising up.
You know, Lord, that I am but dust
and you know that apart from your grace,
I'll be nothing more than a seething demonstration
of flesh.
So, oh, God, help us, help us in
Jesus name.
Amen.
In verse 31, Behold, days are coming, declares
the Lord, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah, not like the covenant
which I made with their fathers in the
day I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt.
My covenant, which they broke, although I was
a husband to them, declares the Lord.
Much of what is being preached about the
church today is.
Well, it's wrong.
Let me give you an example, I have
heard scholars.
I have heard apologists, those who work in
apologetics, I have heard preachers crying with great
sorrow from the pulpit, saying that there is
just as much fornication in the church as
out of the church, just as much sin
in the church as out of the church,
just as much adultery and abortion and so
on and so forth in the church as
outside of the church.
That shows that these men have an Old
Testament understanding of the people of God and
not a New Testament understanding of the people
of God.
I want you to know something, the church
of Jesus Christ has always been beautiful.
The church of Jesus Christ has always been
glorious.
The church of Jesus Christ has always been
broken and contrite.
The church of Jesus Christ has always followed
its master.
And when the church of Jesus Christ has
stumbled, it is quickly rebuked and quickly brought
back in love.
You say, Brother Paul, how can you say
these things in light of church history?
Be very careful what you call church history.
I was flying somewhere and someone wanted to
debate me a bit on the airplane and
they said, well, what about the Inquisition?
I said, what about it?
They said, look what the church did.
I said, no, look what an apostate religious
group did.
Not the church of Jesus Christ.
Or someone will say to me, well, there's
just as much this in the churches out
of it.
No, my friend, your problem is your bad
understanding of what the church is.
The church is not a membership role.
The church is not a denomination.
The church of Jesus Christ, everyone in that
church is converted, regenerated by the power of
God and walking with God and under God's
jealous and zealous care.
In the Old Testament, he talks about here
in verses 31 through 32.
He said he's going to do something different
under the new covenant that he did not
do under the old covenant.
Under the old covenant, he pulled the people
out of Egypt and he gave them laws
written on tablets of stone.
Laws that they broke so many times that
we cannot even count the extent of their
disobedience.
But look what he says in verse 33.
But this is the covenant which I will
make with the house of Israel after those
days, declares the Lord.
I will put my law within them.
I will put my law within them and
on their heart, I will write it.
One of the greatest demonstrations of true Christianity,
of true conversion, is that there is a
supernatural work regarding the knowledge of God in
that person's life.
And a supernatural work regarding the law of
God written on their heart.
As I said this morning, that when a
person is truly born again, they become a
new creature.
But not simply that.
God takes that new creature.
He was a creature who hated God.
Now he loves God.
He was a creature who loved iniquity and
hated righteousness.
But now he loves righteousness and hates iniquity.
But not only that, God does a supernatural
work.
And with his finger, he writes his law.
Not on a tablet of stone.
Not even on a book of parchment.
But he writes his law on the very
heart of the genuine believer.
It is a true work of God.
Something more supernatural than just simply scripture memorization.
It is a new heart given by God
and on that heart, he writes the laws.
The people of Israel were always told to
build a monument, cover it with plaster, write
the laws upon it.
They were told in Deuteronomy that the law
should be written on doorposts.
And when you come in the house and
out of the house and all such sorts
of things, you should see the law of
God.
But God says, I'll make a new covenant
in which all these things will be written
supernaturally with the finger of God on the
very heart of the true believer.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Is this a reality in your life?
Do you have a real sense that the
laws of God have been written on your
heart?
And those laws are your constant companion.
And they are like a light shining through
your heart and lighting your path.
They are laws that are inescapable.
That if you do, for some reason, choose
to rebel, those laws stand up in front
of you and tell you no.
And then when you are looking for direction,
those laws speak to you.
Is there a reality in your life that
the law of God has been written on
your heart?
That God's will is there.
And not only His will is there, but
the desire to fulfill that will.
Am I describing you?
You see, prior to conversion and here with
the nation of Israel in the old covenant,
these people, their hearts were not changed.
And they looked at this law that God
set upon them.
And the closer the law came to them,
the more they kicked against it.
The more they tried to ignore it.
We see even with the pagans in Romans
chapter 1, verse 18, that the truth of
God, they suppress it.
Are you like that?
I know people, church members, who will come
to church, but as soon as someone starts
preaching biblically, now not fluff, not stories, not
pulpiteering, but as soon as someone gets serious
about the Word of God, you see a
mass exodus from the church.
Why is that?
I always find it funny that when I
preach and people say, I'm never coming back,
I always ask them, what did I say
that was not according to the Word of
God?
And they'll say, well, that's not the point.
I said, that's exactly the point.
I had a young man come up to
me a few weeks ago at a university
and he said, I do not like your
delivery.
And who do you think you are that
you can speak that way?
And I said, well, that's not the point.
I said, if my attitude is wrong, if
I'm proud, if I'm bold to the point
of being rude, then I will receive the
judgment for that.
But young man, the point is this, what
I said, is it true?
Is it true?
Because being against my personality will not defend
you on the day of judgment.
The Word of God, was it true?
What I said, did it conform to the
Word of God?
And if it did, why do you run
so from it?
You see, the genuine Christian, when the Word
of God is preached, it will connect with
them.
It will be something of joy.
It will be like a spark, a well
springing up in their heart.
They will be drawn to it, attracted to
it.
Like attracts like.
They love to hear the Word preached.
And why do they love to hear the
Word preached?
Because that very Word is written with the
finger of God on their heart.
And he goes on, he says, I will
put my law within them.
And on their heart, I will write it.
Now, the one thing you need to understand
about Jewish literature, Hebrew literature, is that whenever
Scripture desires to emphasize something, there's something of
a Hebrew parallelism.
Now, this is not a perfect example, but
it needs to be explained.
For example, let me make one up for
you.
The wicked shall not live in the land.
The wicked shall be destroyed.
I've said the same thing twice.
I've changed it just a little in order
to add emphasis.
That's what he's doing here.
He says, I will put my laws within
them.
Not something external, but something internal.
Something that's the very part of their being.
The law of God is not something outside
of them, but it has become literally a
part of them.
And then he adds emphasis by saying this,
on their heart, I will write it.
I think it's amazing that when we come
to the creation of Adam, the creation of
Eve, we see this intimate working of God.
Almost, I don't want to use a vulgar
expression, but almost a hands-on approach.
An intimate working.
I think it's quite amazing that the law
of God given to Moses was written by
the very finger of God.
God touched that stone.
But now, in the new covenant.
You know, there are so many phrases that
we use so often that they become common,
they almost become a cliché, and they lose
their meaning.
But God literally reached down and touched your
heart.
With the very finger that carved ten words
in solid rock, He now reaches down, touches
your heart, and writes His law.
It's imprinted upon you, so that when you
hear it, you rejoice.
When you hear it, you identify with it
as something almost a part of you.
Do you do that, church?
Do you do that?
When the pastor is teaching exposition, when he's
hard into the word, when he's doing everything
possible to bring out the meaning of the
text, is there something in your heart that
says, yes, this is right?
When you go to a place and you
hear a man get up and he just
tells stories and fluff and everything else, do
you sit there and go, what am I
doing here?
I have nothing to do with this.
If that's true, that's a sign of conversion
and you ought to be encouraged.
Now, he goes on and he says this,
and I will be their God.
Through regeneration, God becomes your God.
Through salvation, if you are truly converted, God
becomes your God.
This is an amazing thing.
You can't really marvel in this text without
understanding the doctrine of radical depravity.
That's why that doctrine is so important.
We hated God and we hated His Word,
but through a supernatural work of God, through
the preaching of the Gospel, His laws are
written on our hearts, hearts that are new
that He has given to us, new hearts
that love Him and love His law, and
then He writes His law on it, and
then this very God that we hated now
becomes our God.
There's a young man that went to Peru
with me several years ago, and I'm very,
very fond of him.
His testimony is one of the most spectacular
testimonies I have ever heard in my life.
He was God-hating openly.
He was angry.
He was mean.
He was violent.
This fellow actually went to a tool and
dye maker and had a stainless steel battle
axe made.
He would have been voted most likely to
become a serial killer in high school.
He was angry.
He was violent.
He was mad and he hated God.
Anyone who came up to him to witness
to him, he would literally go wild, turn
over desks, anything.
And I asked him, I said, well, how
is it that you came about to be
converted?
And he said, I was driving down a
country road one night in my truck, an
old beat-up pickup truck.
He said, I was driving like this.
I'm hanging out the window of the truck
in the middle of the night, cursing God,
blaspheming his name, using every vulgar word I
could possibly use against him and challenging him
to come down and fight with me.
And I said, well, then what happened?
He said, you will not believe me.
He said, but in a millisecond, I went
from there.
The next thing I knew, my truck was
off the road and I was down in
the floorboard of the truck, on my knees
under the steering wheel, trying to get my
hands up in the air, worshiping God with
tears of joy and gratitude flowing down my
face.
And I said, well, I guess God came
down and fought with you and won.
He said, that's a radical conversion.
No less radical than yours.
If you have been converted.
He went from hating God to a man
who said, this is my God.
This is my God.
Let me give you another example.
Many times I'm asked to preach on the
attributes of God.
And it's a very frightening thing to do
in a lot of churches.
Because you will begin to teach on the
attributes of God.
And when you get to doctrines such as
holiness and justice, and sovereignty, you will have
people who have been church members all their
life, literally grow claws and become fiercely angry
and say things like this.
That's not my God.
And if I could never love a God
like.
The greatest hour of idolatry in America is
Sunday morning.
When people all over this country in fine
evangelical churches gather together and worship a God
that is a figment of their own imagination.
A projection of self.
A God that looks more like Santa Claus
than he does Yahweh of the scriptures.
But when someone truly is converted and they
hear a biblical message about the attributes of
God, immediately in their heart they say, that's
my God.
That's my God.
Now another thing about this great work of
salvation is this, and we'll see this later
in Ezekiel.
We are by nature born idolaters.
We are able to take absolutely anything and
turn it into an idol.
Anything.
But I want you to know something.
When someone is genuinely converted, God comes in
as their God.
For so many years, our evangelism has been
influenced by this thing of Christ in your
life.
Okay, Christ is in your life.
But is he on the throne of your
life?
My friend, if he's not on the throne
of your life, he's not in your life.
He doesn't sit anywhere else.
He comes in as Lord.
Or he doesn't come in.
And so he will be our God.
But in a relationship, not of coercion, not
simply in a relationship of a fiery Mount
Sinai, but it is a pleasant thing.
I can think of nothing more pleasant than
the fact that the God of the Bible
is my God.
And not only my God, but he is
my Father.
And oh, what love, what mercy, what compassion
rolling down in endless waves.
My God, my God, who, because he forsook
his only begotten Son, will not forsake me.
Now he goes on and he says, and
they shall be my people.
What title do you desire?
Let me ask you that.
What title do you desire?
Do you want worldly titles?
Do you want worldly esteem?
Do you want worldly reputation?
Do you want to be known among men
as something among men?
Do you know the one title that I
desire?
This one was born in Zion.
This one is of my people.
To be the people of God.
When we were estranged, when we were God
hating and hating one another, when we were
opposed to the will of God, he made
us his people.
Not dragging us, not coercing us, not manipulating
us, but he made us his people.
And we desire to be his people.
And not only do we desire to be
his people, we desire to be with his
people.
And according to 1 John, that's one of
the greatest evidences of having been born again.
You desire to be with the people of
God.
And he goes on and he says, and
they will not teach again each man his
neighbor and each man his brother saying, know
the Lord, for they will all know me
from the least of them to the greatest
of them.
and each man his brother saying, know the
Lord, for they will all know me from
the least of them to the greatest of
them saying, many, many scholars, many, many theologians,
many, many pastors are constantly railing and constantly
lamenting over the ignorance of God in the
church.
And I have to remind them, according to
the promises of the new covenant, it is
the ignorance of God among church members.
If someone has been truly born again, their
hearts and minds are open to the knowledge
of God.
They recognize the knowledge when they hear it
and they rejoice in it and they desire
more of it.
Rampant ignorance.
In the church today in America is nothing
more than a demonstration of many people in
the church being unregenerate and not knowing God.
I marvel, I literally marvel on the mission
field at men who can't even write their
name, barely can read a text from Scripture,
and yet, and yet possess such genuine, real,
childlike knowledge of who God is and God's
working, that it's amazing.
And yet sit with scholars.
I was on a panel last week discussing
open theism, just over and over, all these
theologians and their ideas of God not being
omnipotent and God not being all-knowing.
And I leaned over and David Miller was
sitting beside me and he leaned over to
me in a way that only he can
and he said, Brother Paul, what do you
think about all this?
And I said, Brother Miller, I think there's
a lot of people here who need to
get saved.
He said, My sentiments exactly, young man, my
sentiments exactly.
I find it so amazing to talk.
I was in Evansville, Indiana a few weeks
ago and I was there during a baptism
and during the baptism everyone has to give
a statement or testimony and to hear these
babes in Christ saying, God took out my
heart of stone and gave me a heart
that now loves Him.
They were saying more theology than I learned
in seminary.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you have enough knowledge and experience of
God and God's working to sit down and
talk with someone?
Do you have the knowledge of God in
you?
Do you desire to speak about that knowledge
and to hear that knowledge being spoken?
Do you desire to learn more about God,
to know Him in greater ways and experience
Him in greater measure?
Is that you?
Or are you sitting there right now saying,
I haven't a clue what that man's talking
about.
Fanaticism, just all fanaticism.
No, my dear friend, it's not fanaticism.
It's Scripture.
It's Scripture that the least of the brethren,
the most simple-minded of the sons and
daughters of Zion will have a genuine knowledge
of God.
I'll never forget several, several years ago when
I was about 23 years old, I was
speaking in a large First Baptist church to
the youth group.
And I found out that after the meeting,
some of the youth leaders were very, very
angry with what I said and they went
to the head pastor and they went and
spoke with him.
Charges of heresy was brought against me.
I was called into the office and I
thought, what have I done?
I kept going back in my mind thinking,
what on earth did I tell these people
that made everyone so mad?
And the pastor sitting there and looked at
the leadership and said, well now, you know,
you've said things about Brother Paul and we
need to get this out in the open.
Just what was it that Brother Paul said
that made you so angry?
And the young student leader leaned over to
the pastor with almost a shock on his
face and said, Pastor, when Brother Paul was
preaching, he said that Jesus Christ was God
in the flesh.
And the pastor said, what?
Yes, that's right.
Can you believe it?
Brother Paul actually said, it's blasphemous.
He said Jesus Christ was God in the
flesh.
And I saw that pastor, he just put
his head down on the table and then
looked up again and said, young man, Jesus
Christ is God.
I heard an apologist a few months ago
saying on the radio, we've got to do
something about the young Christians.
We've got to strengthen them in discipleship because
75% of the young Christians in America
do not believe that it is important that
Jesus resurrected from the dead.
I wasn't astounded about his statistics.
I was astounded about his bad theology that
he couldn't understand that whoever he's talking about
are not Christians.
Another thing that we need to understand, in
the last 20 years, there has been a
resurgence of discipleship, discipleship.
Everybody needs to do discipleship.
And why is that?
Because they've said that just as many people
are coming in the front, going out the
back doors of the church as coming in
the front doors.
Therefore, we need to do discipleship.
My friend, discipleship will not take the place
of a bad gospel.
You can disciple people all day long, but
if they're not saved, they're not going to
stay.
They're going to go out from us because
they never were a part of us.
Now, should we do discipleship?
Of course.
But first of all, they must be born
again.
They must be born again.
Jesus said that His sheep, they'd hear His
voice and they'd follow Him.
They'd obey Him.
They'd follow Him.
They'd hear Him.
I can remember so many times in Peru
as a young missionary with very, very bad
theology.
You know, I would spot a family that
I thought, man, this would be a family
that could be used of the Lord.
And I would go after them hard and
heavy.
I'd witness to them.
I'd visit them.
Get them to make a profession of faith.
Get them to the church.
Get them baptized.
And then I'd have to go get them
every Sunday or they wouldn't show up.
And then some stinky old guy from nowhere
who I didn't even really want in the
church would walk in one day, totally uninvited
and get saved.
And you couldn't kick him out.
You could offend him.
You could not shake his hand.
You could do everything.
But he'd just be standing there looking at
you saying, praise the Lord.
Why is it?
He really got saved.
Have you really gotten saved?
He says, from the least of them to
the greatest of them.
And then he declares, for I will forgive
their iniquities and their sin.
I will remember no more.
Now, when I talk about having this knowledge
of God, don't be sitting there right now
thinking, well, I'm not this great theologian.
There are many things I don't understand.
It's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about a real, albeit childlike, knowledge
of who God is and what He has
done for you, particularly with regard to forgiveness.
That the one knowledge that you hold most
dear is that He has, as that beautiful
hymn says, He has shed His own blood
for my soul.
I believe that this idea of forgiving iniquity
and remembering sins no more is directly linked
up with this knowledge that He speaks about.
It is a knowledge of forgiveness.
Now, here is a key, I believe, to
loving God.
Do you remember that woman who came to
Christ?
She caused such a scandal.
And he said, she loves much.
She loves me much because she's been forgiven
much.
Now, look at this text in light of
that.
They have a knowledge of how much they
have been forgiven.
And so they love Him much.
I had a young man come to me
one time and he said, why a little,
I'll never forget it, a reporter.
And he was, oh, that guy was mad.
He said, why are you always preaching on
sin?
Why are you always preaching on sin?
And I said, young man, it's because I
want you to love God.
He said, what do you mean?
I said, have you not read?
She loved much because she's been forgiven much.
Young man, you do not love Christ very
much because you do not realize how much
you have been forgiven.
And you do not realize how much you
have been forgiven because you've been raised on
preaching that doesn't talk enough about sin.
It is only in the context of our
radical depravity and the knowledge of it that
we can truly fall down and worship God
and love Him as He ought to be
loved.
And that is the knowledge here.
It is a knowledge of forgiveness.
I have been forgiven and that is enough.
I will never have the preaching ability of
a Charles Spurgeon.
I'll never have the mind of a Jonathan
Edwards.
I'll never rise and fly with the great
scholars and theologians of my day or days
past.
And I really don't care.
There is one truth that holds my attention,
that mesmerizes me, that is my magnificent obsession.
I am forgiven.
And that is a rebuke to many churches
today.
Why?
When did it happen that forgiveness was no
longer enough to draw people?
We have to turn our churches into six
flags over Jesus with every kind of activity,
every kind of thing in the world.
Why?
They are not there for the right reason
to start off with and so we've got
to do all the wrong things to keep
them there.
But when you are here, sitting and standing
in this pulpit and crying out, forgiven, all
your sins can be forgiven, that will draw
men who will be drawn and whom God
is working.
So, such preciousness.
I have walked with some of the dearest.
I have known some of, I believe, the
most special of the older elder saints of
God, the old preachers, the old line.
And to see all of them at the
end of their days mesmerized by one great
knowledge, Jesus Christ has shed His own blood
for my soul.
And that is the thing that promotes godliness
in the life of a human being.
It is the kindness of God that leads
us to repentance.
Every good and perfect gift comes from this
Father of ours.
Therefore, I want to be holy.
I want to pursue sanctification.
I want to be obedient.
I want to be pleasing.
Why?
These overwhelming demonstrations of love in Christ on
my behalf.
We are literally, there's a kind of southern
gospel sort of song.
And it says, I'll never get over the
hill.
Now, it's quaint and maybe a little cliche,
but it's true.
The true saint of God will be driven
to respond because they are drawn, they are
motivated, they are impulsed by the cross of
Christ.
I know a young man right now from
Alabama.
Good looking fella, about 23 years old.
Graduated from the school he ought to graduate
from.
Getting ready to go to the seminary he
ought to go to.
Dating the girl he ought to date who's
going to become a great contemporary Christian singer.
And one day with tears in his eyes,
he said, I must go, I must go,
I must go.
Sells everything he has and goes into a
foreign land and lives in a tiny apartment
with another Romanian and preaches the gospel every
day.
He said, oh, the love of Christ.
Brother Paul, I've been forgiven, I've been forgiven.
Do you know what I feel, Brother Paul?
I said, yes, young man.
I stood in your shoes several years ago
and walked into a jungle with a backpack
on.
For the same reason.
Forsaking all, everything.
Oh, young Christians, young people, look at me.
You young men are very, very strong.
One day someone will have to help you
go to the bathroom.
Your body will no longer be your friend.
And you girls, some of you are so
beautiful.
One day you will be terribly, terribly ugly.
Did you know that?
Hair growing out of every part you do
not want it growing.
Your breath will smell.
It will be horrible the life that awaits
you on down the road.
So why give yourself to these things?
Why not be thrown upon this love?
Why not be captivated by this love?
A love so severe and so wonderful that
many people have gone to the stake.
And their body has been consumed by flames.
And the last thing heard coming from their
mouth was this.
Joyfully, he shed his own blood for my
soul.
Now we go on.
I want us to go quickly to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chapter 32, verse 38.
They shall be my people and I will
be their God.
Their hate goes back again.
What is the worth of this thing?
What is Christianity all about?
I know this sounds like a cliche, but
what it is all about is an intimate
relationship with God.
And I hate a Christendom, a churchianity, where
God is not big enough or glorious enough
to draw people.
And so we have to give them other
things.
Because the one thing God says, the one
thing to promote holiness in 2 Corinthians chapter
6 is, they shall be my people and
I will be their God.
I promise to be your father.
Now separate from these things that do not
help you.
Separate yourself from the things of the world
and follow me.
Well, why should I, Lord?
Because I will be your God.
I think most church members would respond, okay,
but what else?
What an offense.
One of the things that most drew me
to my wife, the girl that I married,
was she met me and we knew each
other in Peru.
When I had nothing.
I had nothing.
And I remember going to her and saying,
I have nothing.
I can't buy you an engagement ring.
I can't, I don't even know where we'll
live.
I've got two pairs of pants.
I cannot give you anything.
But I will give you me.
And I remember her saying, tis enough, tis
enough.
Oh, if God were to take this man
that you're looking at right now and take
my family away from me and dash my
body against the rocks and have my tongue
removed and my bones racked with pain to
the point where I rotted into the dust,
he would still be worthy of my last
words being glory, glory, glory to his name.
Because he has been my God and he
has made me his people.
Now look at this 39.
I will give them one heart and one
way.
God is so amazing.
You know, this crosses denominational lines.
This crosses so many things.
It crosses an institutionalized Christianity.
I know that I can go to Africa
tomorrow.
I can get on a plane.
I can fly there.
I can land.
I can meet with a group of brothers
I've never seen before.
And yet we have one heart and one
way.
Sometimes I can go across denominational lines, be
talking to a Mennonite or assemblies of God.
And just like Baptists, many of them are
lost.
But I'll come across some of them.
And immediately we are of one heart.
We are of one heart.
I find myself at times drawn.
I wanted to walk out here rather than
be in the office this evening.
I walked out and I just wanted to
talk to people.
I wanted to fellowship with people.
I got to meet with a few people.
Why?
One heart.
Drawn to one heart.
Wanting to be with them.
My dear friend, do you have one heart?
Do you desire, do you seek out Christian
companionship and fellowship?
And what I mean is fellowship centered around
Christ, talking about your God, talking about being
His people.
I'm not talking about rules.
You can dot every I, cross every T
and not be a spiritual person.
I'm talking about do you desire to be
with other believers in order to talk about
Christ?
He says, I will give them one heart
and one way.
One way.
I have known people, Calvinists, Arminian.
I have found great brothers in Christ on
both sides of those lines.
The Reformed Baptists, the Presbyterian, the Holiness, the
Wesleyan.
And it's amazing how we might differ in
certain things, but when you begin to talk
with them, you begin to see that they
are walking in the very same way.
A real law has been written on their
heart.
They're walking in the same path and they
desire the same things.
And you can sit down and talk about
holiness and sanctification.
You can talk about your failures and need
for forgiveness.
And there's nothing that they don't say that
you don't understand.
There's nothing that they say that you don't
understand.
And there's nothing you can say that they
would balk at.
You've walked in the same way.
You've had many of the similar experiences, although
to degrees.
Is that you?
Are you, let me put it this way,
are you that strange bird?
Are you that one called out by God
in such a fashion that it has changed
your heart and your speech and your passions
and your desires and your innermost being?
And is God and His law pleasant to
you?
And he goes on and he says, and
I will give them one heart and one
way that they may fear me always.
One of the greatest proofs of genuine conversion
of all things divine is fear.
The beginning of all wisdom and knowledge is
the fear of the Lord.
The mark of true discipleship and true Christianity
is fear.
A mighty, strong reverence of the Lord.
Being awestruck by the person and the work
of God.
I fear Him.
And when I pray to Him, I am
not going before some inferior prince.
I am going before the Lord of glory.
And the more I know Him, the more
even I know His gentleness and His tenderness,
His compassion and His undying mercies, the more
I fear Him and am struck with awe
in His presence.
My words are careful now.
I don't just go into praying.
I measure them, not as one afraid, not
as a child who is afraid of a
father who cannot be trusted.
No, but as a child who is standing
before His Abba Father.
But His Abba Father is the God of
glory.
Do you have a sense of the reverence
of God?
Do you have a sense of the fear
of the Lord?
Because that will be evidence that He has
truly given you a heart.
Now, this is a great passage here for
parents, for godly parents.
That they may fear me for their own
good and for the good of their children
after them.
This is an amazing passage, one of those
rare jewels, one of those great comforts.
He gives us a fear.
He puts a fear in our heart for
our own God.
Last year, my little boy, we were outside
and we were walking around and there was
a great big chicken snake.
Out back behind the house.
And so I thought, well, this will be
a good lesson.
Chicken snakes, they can bite you, it can
hurt, but they rarely do and they're not
poisonous.
I thought this would be a good lesson
for my boy.
I got him around to the business end
of that snake and was showing him, son,
there are some things you should fear.
Get close enough to see him just strike
a bit, pull back.
You see, son, see what daddy's doing?
There are some things to fear.
I take him down to the backwater where
we hunt and do a lot of things
down there.
Those of us river rats who live on
the bayou, so to speak.
I take him down, I put him out
in the water a little bit, draw him
back.
I let him go a little step too
far and he goes down and I grab
him and I pull him out.
I say, see, son, there are things to
fear.
Why do I do that?
For his own good.
It is the fear of the Lord that
has kept me from so many dangers and
so many perils and so many pitfalls.
The fear of the Lord.
Everything God does toward you, his people, is
for your good.
It is for your good.
When he gives you warnings, when he gives
you commands, when he gives you precepts and
he gives you wisdom, it is for your
good.
When he tells you, don't look at that,
my children, it is for your own good.
When he tells you, do not listen to
that, my children, it is for your own
good.
When he says, don't speak that way, don't
walk that way, don't wear that thing.
It is for your own good and for
the good of your children.
The greatest damage you can do your children,
sir, is take the things of God lightly
and not fear him, not fear him.
There is a promise that God has made
to New Covenant people that gives me great
encouragement.
I do not know what will be the
end of my two boys that I dearly
love.
I do not know what will be their
end, but I do have this promise that
God has taught me to fear him, not
only for my own good, but for the
good of my children.
And that brings me great comfort.
Now, let's go on to the last part.
This is my favorite part.
I will make an everlasting covenant with them
that I will not turn away from them
to do them good.
Now, one of the worst things you can
do in theology is teach a half-truth.
We as Southern Baptists have taught this Scripture
and stood alone on this Scripture.
We will call it the security of the
believer.
Some would more correctly, I believe, call it
the perseverance of the saints.
And it says here, I will make an
everlasting covenant with them that I will not
turn away from them to do them good.
That is true, but we have taken that
and turned it into once saved, always saved,
which basically means pray a little prayer, walk
down an aisle, live like hell and you're
okay.
But let's look at the entire truth.
He says, I will make an everlasting covenant
with them that I will not turn away
from them to do them good and I
will put the fear of me in their
hearts so that they will not turn away
from me.
It is true that once a person has
truly been born again, they are kept by
the power of God and by His power,
they will stand before Him joyfully on that
great day.
But never forget this, it is a supernatural
work of God within this promise.
He promises not to turn away from you
to do you good, but He also promises
that He will put His fear in you
so that you will not turn away from
Him.
And if you can turn away from Him,
it's because you never have turned to Him
to start off with.
And I love this passage, He says again,
He repeats Himself from 39 to 40, He
says, I will not turn away from them
to do them good.
And how can we best define that?
In closing, look in 41.
I will rejoice over them to do them
good and will faithfully plant them in this
land with all my heart and with all
my soul.
He says, I will rejoice over them to
do them good.
Can you just take this picture for a
moment, Saint?
Take this picture, grasp it, pray about it
tonight.
Don't allow Satan to steal this out of
your heart.
This is good stuff.
Memorize this verse.
Paint it on your walls.
He says, I will rejoice over you.
If you are a genuine believer, it's just
like my little boys.
I have one that's two and a half,
one that's five months.
Sometimes I'll get up in the middle of
the night and I'll just go to their
bed and I rejoice over them.
I look at them.
I'm so excited to see them.
I pray about them.
I'm just like a mother hen in a
sense.
I'm just so excited about those boys.
And if I, being evil, can do such
things for my children, how much more?
Do you have a sense of awareness?
Now Saint, if you don't, I don't know
if I should tell you to repent or
what I should tell you on this.
But I can tell you this, you're missing
out.
Do you have a real awareness that God
is rejoicing over you?
And rejoicing over you to do you good.
That is one of the most exciting things
in my life.
That God is rejoicing over me.
Dear Christian, if you are truly Christian, this
is not some pale salvation.
This is not just get your ticket to
heaven and go in.
This is not just count by numbers.
This is not take a tag and wait
in line.
This is not the big guys get closest
to God.
Every one of his children, when you're sleeping
tonight, Saint, he is standing over you rejoicing.
Don't you want to follow a God like
that?
Don't you want to be holy when you
hear these things?
Don't you want to separate yourself from the
world and from all that defiles?
When you hear about a God who rejoices
over you and not only rejoices over you,
but rejoices over you to do you good.
The other day I bought my son Ian
a Snoopy fishing pole.
Went to Walmart.
I bought him a Snoopy fishing pole.
I'd been preaching.
I was coming home.
I wanted to get him a Snoopy fishing
pole because he likes Snoopy.
And I couldn't wait in that car.
I just couldn't wait to get home.
And I couldn't wait to go.
I got you surprised because that's the one
where he knows what that means.
And he will get, what did you get
me?
What, what, what?
What is it?
And he just jumps around and I can't
wait to open up that thing and just
give it to him.
And if I, being evil, can feel these
things, then how much does your Father?
You know, talk to the charismatics and forgive
me for going a little long.
Charismatics, I have a lot of dear friends
that are charismatic.
For a charismatic, the biggest thing in the
world is to raise the dead.
You raise the dead, that shows you've really
got faith.
They were talking one day and I said,
Raising the dead, that's nothing for a Southern
Baptist.
I mean, you can't even join one of
our churches unless you do that.
I said, do you want to know what
really requires the greatest of faith, the greatest
act of faith?
And they said, well, yes, what is it?
For me to look in the mirror of
God's Word, see all my failure, all my
flaws, the lack of passion, the ingratitude and
everything else, and realize that God stands there
at that very moment rejoicing over me to
do me good.
That requires faith.
And why does it require faith?
Because we've never seen anything like this before.
Do you realize that?
We've not seen this in men.
We've not seen this in history.
We don't know about this.
No one can paint this picture for us.
We live in a world of condition, condition,
condition, condition.
But if you're a saint of God, you
finally have come to a place where the
question of whether or not you deserve something
has been thrown out the door.
That it is all based upon the merit
and the worth of Jesus Christ.
And because of Him, God looks at you,
dear saint.
He looks at you and He rejoices over
you to do you good.
And even when you're in the pit of
despair, He stands there rejoicing over you to
do you good.
And then it says, I will faithfully plant
them in this land.
Dear saint, let me tell you something.
He will faithfully bring you home.
He who began a good work in you,
if He has, will bring you into the
land.
He will do it.
And look at this last part.
This is a very unusual statement.
Extremely, you have to search far and wide
to find this anyplace else.
When I read this every time, I am
amazed.
When you study theology as long as I
have, sometimes you lose some amazement.
But this passage is one of those that's
just shocking.
He says, I will faithfully plant them in
this land.
I will faithfully bring them home.
I will faithfully do them good.
And I will do it, now this is
God speaking, with all my heart and with
all my soul.
Now listen to me.
This sermon did not at all go in
the direction that I had planned.
But I have to sense that God has
really done something tonight.
It's not so much evangelistic, even though maybe
God has convicted you of your sins and
you know you need Christ and you need
to come tonight.
But this has turned out to be a
comfort for God's people.
For people to realize that God is rejoicing
over you.
You know you have never done anything with
all your heart and all your soul.
That's one of the greatest sins, is that
we just do not have passion.
We're like empty husks sometimes.
We're like shells that feel nothing.
God is saying, with the very, the full
depth of all that is God, with the
full measure of all that I am, with
the full measure of deity, infinite Godness, I
rejoice over you to do you good.
And a lost man who's carnal will take
that and say, well then, let us sin
that grace may abound.
But a genuine child of God will hear
that and say, oh how I want to
please Him.
Oh how I want to serve Him.
Oh how I want to bless Him.
Oh, listen to me, oh how I want
to turn away from all those little foxes
that are destroying the vineyard.
Oh how I want to turn away from
all those other little trinkets that have caught
my eye.
I want to throw them in the dirt.
I want to step on them and squash
them.
I want them away from my eyes.
Oh, a love like this that God has
moved with such love to bring such of
a salvation to me.
Oh how it motivates me.
Oh how I want to be a better
husband.
I want to be a better wife.
I want to be a better son, a
better daughter, a better father, a better brother,
a better sister, a better mother.
I want to be a better servant of
God in the local church with the community
of God's people.
I want to turn away from all that
is wicked and I want to turn to
all that God has.
And above all things, I want His face.
I'm very consistent, I guess you could say,
in disciplining my son.
But I was speaking with a rather important
man a few months ago.
And I had my little boy here in
my arms.
And he hadn't seen me in a while.
And I was talking to him as we
walked in the building.
When this man came towards me, I began
talking to him.
And my little boy kept reaching up, grabbing
my face and turning my face toward his.
Daddy?
Look at me, Daddy.
Daddy?
I just couldn't tell him no.
That's the way I want to be with
God.
Dad?
Daddy?
Father?
Father, I appreciate your gifts.
I appreciate the land in which you're going
to bring me.
But Father, it is enough.
Let me see your face.
Pastor?