This morning, beware of dogs.
Beware of dogs.
Will you go with me to Philippians, please?
Third chapter of Philippians.
We'll start with verse 2.
It doesn't take me long to get into
the message here.
The first three words.
Repeat them with me, please.
Beware of dogs.
Alright?
That's enough.
I'll read the rest.
Beware of evil workers.
Beware of the concision.
For we are the circumcision which worship God
in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus
and have no confidence in the flesh.
We have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might also have confidence in the
flesh, if any other man thinketh that he
hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I more.
Circumcised the eighth day, the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee
concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness
which is in the law, blameless.
For what things were gained to me, those
I counted lost for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but
lost for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things and do
count it but done that I may win
Christ.
Be found in him not having my own
righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by him, that
I may know him and the power of
his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings being
made conformable unto his death.
Heavenly Father, teach us this morning your ways.
Teach us what it means to have righteousness
of God by faith and not by works
of man's flesh.
Lord, we pray for the opening of our
eyes and our understanding.
Spirit of the Lord, I yield my body,
mind, soul, and spirit to you.
Control me, possess me that the truth of
the Lord may flow freely.
I honor you, Lord, in giving this word
because you have blessed me with it, and
I pray, Lord, that you do a special
work of changing us to the power of
the gospel.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Paul stands before the whole body of Christ
and he cries out, Beware of dogs.
Now, we know Paul's a kind, tender teacher,
church.
There's not a vicious bone in this man's
body, and he's not given to senseless name
-calling.
But when it comes to defending the faith
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he spared
no words.
He had no qualms about rebuking anyone who
twisted the gospel.
No one in Paul's presence could pervert the
gospel without his rising up and rebuking it.
He withstood Peter to his face and Barnabas
and certain Jews that came from Jerusalem down
to Antioch because he said they dissembled.
He said they were out of order, and
according to Paul, they were separating themselves from
Christian Gentiles refusing to eat to them.
And when Paul saw that, now Peter, when
the Jews from Jerusalem were not there, he
was eating and worshiping with the Gentile Christians.
But when the Jews came down, who still
considered Gentiles dogs, who still wouldn't eat or
worship with him, Paul spoke bluntly because Peter
went off and dissembled with them, and the
Jews ate separately in the same room but
separate tables.
And Paul said bluntly, You are not walking
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.
You're going back to justification by works, is
what he's saying.
You have moved away from justification by faith.
You are frustrating the grace of God.
And he says, Gentlemen, you're in error.
Now, Paul loved Peter.
He loved Barnabas.
He respected his Jewish brethren that had come
from Jerusalem.
But he says there's one issue that the
church cannot compromise on.
He said there is one truth that we
cannot give up on, and he said, I
stake my life on it, and we dare
not give in on this one issue.
And that issue is that the gospel is
simply this, that the unrighteous are justified before
God by faith alone in the victory of
the cross of Jesus.
They are not justified, they are not accepted
by God through any human effort, through the
works of the flesh of the law.
And Paul said, I'm set for the defense
of the gospel.
And it was in this context of his
determination to defend this truth with such passion,
because he said this is the heart of
the gospel.
This is the very heart of it.
You give up on this point, you have
no gospel left.
And he says it was in defense of
the gospel that he said, I will fight
any deviation from the heart of this gospel.
I will stand up against anyone trying to
lure my believers, those who I've taught I
will not allow you to come here in
my territory and lure these new converts into
some fleshly effort to save oneself by your
own abilities, by going back to the law,
doing this and not doing that.
He said you're not going to bring that
gospel here.
I love you, but I tell you, you
cannot bring that gospel in here to Antioch.
Paul added beware of evil workers, beware of
the concision.
Now concision was a contemptuous Hebrew word that
stood for mutilator or cutter.
He said you're mutilators, you're trying to mutilate
the flesh, you're trying to beat it down
with all your rules and regulations, you're trying
to beat down the lust, you're trying to
beat down by your works and your human
effort and your striving, your sweating, you're trying
to mutilate your flesh, you're trying to come
to God after you've cleansed your own flesh.
He said you're trying to work out your
own salvation through your own ability, through your
own laws, your rules and regulations.
And then he says the gospel then is
a gospel of debt and not of grace.
You can come to the Heavenly Father then
and say, why do I need Christ?
Why would I need grace?
I have justified myself.
And then he said it's not by grace.
And then Paul the Apostle said the problem
with this idea of working out your own
salvation, beating down your flesh, mutilating yourself, trying,
trying, trying to be holy, the problem with
that when you do achieve a certain amount
of victory, it's going to turn you into
a proud boaster.
And he said it is by faith that
no man may boast in his presence.
By grace alone lest any man boast.
This is the problem with Christians today who
say if I just try a little harder,
if I can just dig down deep into
my innermost and find some kind of inner
strength that I've not yet found, if I
can just go down deep inside my guts
and pull some kind of strength out of
my own being, I can lick this thing.
Even if you can conquer every lust of
your flesh so that you can stand before
a mirror and say I have no lust,
I have no temptation that I have not
been able to conquer, my thoughts are clean,
and you could stand honestly and say I'm
clean.
God would not accept it.
And you would be boasting and you become
very proud and judgmental.
That's what always happens when man wins it
in his own power or thinks he's won
it and sin is still lying at the
door.
You can be sure you're going to fall
again anyhow.
Because son, we've been on that merry-go
-round, sin confess, sin confess, and that little
short victory you got by your own willpower
made you feel great and made you judge
everybody around you.
Why don't you have the power I have?
Paul despised the hypocrisy of this perverted gospel.
The Jews from Judea went everywhere teaching except
you be circumcised after the matter of Moses,
you can't be saved.
They are believers.
They believe in Jesus Christ, but they're saying
you have to add the law, you have
to add circumcision or you can't be saved.
It's Jesus plus circumcision.
They were mostly converted Pharisees, the Bible said,
which believed, and they taught it was necessary
to circumcise and to command them to keep
the law.
And you know with the law, he's not
talking just about the moral law, he's talking
about the ceremonial law of Moses.
The washing of hands you dare not eat.
I'll tell you, you'll grieve God if you
didn't wash your hands before you ate.
You wash every pot, you wash every pan,
over 400 rules and regulations, and they're saying,
yes, you're saved by faith, but then after
you're saved by faith, you have to work
this out.
You come back under the law, and all
these do's, all these don'ts, that you may
please God.
And Paul preached that all believers are purified
one way only, and that is by faith,
that through grace, the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, but not
by the works of the flesh.
And Paul says, you're preaching another gospel.
That is not the gospel of Christ.
He said, I marveled that you're so soon
removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ to this other gospel.
Then he added these words, you have perverted
the gospel of Christ, Galatians 1.7. Believe
me, folks, any gospel that promotes confidence in
the flesh is another gospel.
It's not the gospel of Jesus Christ whatsoever.
Any gospel that yokes you to a burden
of striving to please God is not the
gospel.
It's another gospel.
It's a perversion of the gospel of grace.
Now, Paul looked these Judaizers in the eye,
and in essence, this is what he's saying.
He said, you claim to be born again
by the Spirit of God.
You call Him Lord, you testify that you're
clean in Christ, and still you call the
Gentiles dogs.
He said, your legalism has robbed you of
all love for hurting people.
And folks, that's the problem with legalism.
It is so judgmental.
There's no love to it.
There's no love whatsoever.
And this is the problem with these people,
these Judaizers who are coming from Jerusalem, trying
to conform, trying to glory in the flesh
of these people.
And Paul said, you call my Gentile friends
dogs.
You won't eat with them.
You won't even worship with them.
And yet you're trying to come down here
and conform them to your perverted gospel.
He said, you're like hound dogs, is what
he's saying, because the word in Hebrew is
hound.
He said, you hear of a new convert,
and you take off after him, and you
hound him.
You're trying to bring him under subjection to
all your rules and regulations.
Say, yes, you're saved.
And I'll tell you what, if you sat
and listened to these Pharisees, most of them
were converted Pharisees, and if you listened to
them teach, you would have heard a gospel
of Jesus.
You would have heard about Christ died on
the cross.
They would tell you about his resurrection.
They would tell you about how they walk
with him, about intimacy.
They would tell you all of these things.
They could tell you all about Christ.
But then came the mixture.
Then suddenly came the perversion.
Yes, you're saved by faith, but once you're
saved by faith, then God expects you to
come in now, and you have got to
get victory over your flesh.
This is an incredible thing.
Paul is a loving man.
He's a forgiving man.
In fact, he wrote to the Galatians, brethren,
if a man is overtaken in a fault,
he which is spiritual, restore this man in
the spirit of meekness.
Now, this is a loving man.
He said, I can put up with any
man's fault.
I can put up with any man who
has failed me or even the body.
I can forgive a man who has repented
of adultery, fornication.
He said, I'll restore that man in meekness.
He said, that's what we're called.
That's the gospel.
But he said, on this issue, no, on
this issue of holding fast to justification by
faith alone, and not by human works and
human ability, I will withstand you.
I don't care if your name is Peter.
I don't care if it's Barnabas.
I don't know who it is.
I love you, but your gospel is wrong.
He said, I'm not bent.
I'm not going to show mercy on this
one issue, this gospel of grace.
He said, beware of these hounds.
Beware of anybody comes to you trying to
put a burden on you that you have
to do something to get saved other than
believing on Jesus Christ.
They'll come to you and say, well, you
can't be saved if you, if you are
not going to cut your hair a certain
way, and if you're going to wear those
things under your ears, and if you're going
to have some paint on your face, and
if you're going to wear, you're a woman
and you're wearing trousers, they're going to come
in.
Now, I don't, I don't like to see
women all looking like street people.
And I believe that when you have the
Holy Ghost and you really trust Jesus, you
get into the word and the Holy Ghost
begins to teach you.
These things begin to drop off.
But you see, that has nothing to do
with your salvation.
Paul preached, we who worship God in the
spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus, we have
no confidence in the flesh.
No confidence in the flesh.
And Paul goes on and says, no man
tried in the flesh to please God more
than I did.
Nobody.
He said, there's not a man alive today
in my generation that hasn't put forth more
effort in my flesh to try to get
to God than I have.
This man of God could look in the
eye of every circumcised Jew, every converted Hebrew,
every believing Pharisee, every Jewish convert who's struggling
and striving to please God by the deeds
of the law, and he could say, I've
been there, I've done that.
He could say, go ahead and tell me
about your burning desire to please God.
Tell me about all the promises you made
to God that you wouldn't do that evil
thing again and you failed and went back
and did it.
Tell me about your zeal to please God
with your long hours of study, your forced
discipline, your repetitious prayers.
Tell me about the hypocrisy of looking wholly
on the outside, but knowing personally inside that
there's wickedness.
Tell me about all your hopeless efforts, how
you sweat, trying to be righteous and good
on your own power and strength.
Tell me about all the fears, the failures,
the struggles, the useless efforts.
Tell me all about it, Paul says, and
I'll tell you that I've tried harder than
you did.
I've been through the circumcision route, he says.
I've tried to know about it, cut off
my lust, all the evil thoughts.
I've been down the Benjamin Hebrew pride road.
He said, I'm a Benjamite from the root,
Israel.
He said, I'm the real proud thing, I'm
the Benjamite.
I've been down that proud route that I
could do it in my own strength.
He said, I am that proud Hebrew.
I know what independence is and self-pride.
I know what it is to boast.
I can do it.
I can put my mind to it.
I'll change my ways.
He said, I've been down the Pharisee path,
that strict discipline, studying the Scripture to try
to cleanse yourself without trusting in Jesus.
He said, all these things I have done,
I was totally blameless concerning the law and
keeping all the do's and don'ts, but I
missed Christ.
In spite of my efforts, I missed Him.
And no wonder Paul now tells us that
I've determined to know nothing among you, saying,
Jesus Christ did Him crucify.
He said, I've tried it all.
There's nothing as pathetic as the flesh trying
to be holy.
The devil's behind it.
He's back there cheering.
He's saying, try harder.
And when you fail, he said, you know
your problem?
You didn't try hard enough.
Now get back in there, bit your teeth,
go at it again.
And he's back there laughing at your foolishness.
Pathetic.
The devil knows that walking in the Spirit
is walking in total dependence on the Lord,
trusting the Spirit of God to produce the
righteousness of Christ in us.
So he tries to go about and abort
this process.
And he's going to try to get you
to fight your own temptations and the power
of your flesh, independent of the work of
the Holy Spirit.
And he's going to try to tell you
that walking in the Spirit is simply doing
your best not to sin.
And that's not walking in the Spirit.
Paul said, as many as desire to make
a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you to be circumcised.
For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep
the law, but they desire to have you
circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
You know what Paul's saying?
He said, these people who come around and
tell you that you can kill and mortify
your own flesh if you just try hard
enough.
He said, they've tried and tried, and what
they're trying to tell you to do, they
haven't done.
He said, they don't have victory in their
life.
They still have these lusts and sins in
their life.
They've not mortified the flesh.
They've been circumcised in their flesh, but their
hearts have not been circumcised.
He said, they're preaching something they don't practice.
They want you to think they are holy,
but they're fighting a battle you know nothing
about.
Paul gives us his secret to knowing and
winning Christ.
Look at chapter 3 again, Philippians, verse 7
and 8.
But what things were gained to me, those
I counted lost for Christ.
Yea, doubtless I count all things but lost
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the
loss of all things and do count them
but dung that I may win Christ.
He's not talking about boats and ships and
food and houses and lands.
He's not talking about that loss.
No, no, no, no, no.
He said, all these things that are dung,
all these things that I have given up,
it's the striving of the flesh.
I'm giving up my Benjamin pride.
I'm giving up my Hebrew efforts.
I'm giving up all of these things that
I've outlined that I did in my flesh.
I have given up on the flesh.
I have once and for all for my
lifetime given up any hope of pleasing God
in my flesh.
I've suffered the loss of that.
I've given up on it.
And folks, that's the beginning.
You cannot know Christ in fullness and intimacy
until you once and for all give up
this concept that you can dig in and
try harder and get the benefit of your
sin.
You can't do it.
It's not in you.
God will not accept your flesh even if
you can accomplish it.
He won't accept it because you said the
flesh cannot please God.
It's enmity toward God.
Oh, praise God.
Paul knew that he'd never know Christ until
he got rid of this hindrance.
And that hindrance that had to go, he
said, all this flesh stuff is going.
I can never know Christ intimately until I
repudiate my human gifts, all my human abilities,
all my self-righteousness, my striving to please
God.
I can't.
All these fleshly things is done.
They're garbage.
Where are you on this matter?
If you suffered the loss of all your
confidence in your flesh, if you come to
this place like Paul came to where you
say, I repudiate, I will no longer try
to work my fingers to the bone to
try to get God's favor.
I'm fighting lust in my own strength.
I'm fighting sin in my own strength.
I'm fighting a battle in my home and
my marriage in my own strength and is
not working.
Until you've come, you have to give up
the hope of ever improving your flesh.
It's impossible to improve your flesh.
It has to be crucified with Christ.
I tell you again, your flesh cannot be
improved.
Flesh will always be flesh.
That's why I told you once, I'm never
surprised by my flesh.
An evil thought comes, that's my flesh.
You've been that way ever since I was
born, ever since I came into Calvary.
You'll be that way till I die.
I'll be 99 years old.
You'll still be talking like that.
Your flesh.
Are you surprised by your flesh?
You shouldn't be.
Oh, I know that it embarrasses you, and
I know it condemns you, but it's still
flesh.
Paul says this hindrance has to go.
I give up trying to improve my flesh,
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, they're
going about to establish their own righteousness, having
not submitted to the righteousness of God.
And the first step to submitting to the
righteousness of God by faith is to quit
trying to produce your own.
I can't produce my own righteousness, and that's
where you begin.
You submit then to the righteousness of God
by faith.
Hallelujah.
Now the apostle can say, now that I've
repudiated my flesh, I have no confidence in
my flesh to please God.
Now I want to be found in Him,
not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through faith
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God
by faith.
Now folks, I want to talk to you
about this, righteousness of God which is by
faith.
Are you tired of sinning?
Confessing?
Sinning, confessing?
The merry-go-round?
Are you tired of it?
Well, we've got a few honest people here.
If you're tired of temporary deliverance, the despair
of always giving in to a besetting sin,
tired of living with fear and guilt and
condemnation, I've got good news for you.
Before I go into that, let me tell
you about some of the battles that people
fight.
Just a couple of letters from the many
thousands that were received.
Dear Pastor Dave, I was once so in
love with Jesus about three and a half
years ago.
God was working in me so wonderfully.
I lived in sweet communion for about a
year.
I got so popular in our church for
being close to God.
He even asked me to preach.
Time after time I preached, and I preached
the love of God, but my service went
unheeded.
Nobody was listening, so I stopped preaching.
But something happened to me.
I lost communion.
I want to seek God so bad now,
and I'm going crazy.
About two years ago, the presence of God
diminished in me.
Ten thousand times I've asked myself why, and
I don't know.
I got tempted by a sex sin, and
I gave in.
I hate it so much, but when I'm
alone, it's like I kind of love it.
Yet often, I do hate it.
I've bawled like a baby when I'm doing
it, asking God to help me not to
do it anymore.
I trust in God to deliver me, just
like Paul says in Romans 7, and I
love God with all my heart.
Yet I feel like somehow I'm doing everything
all wrong.
Maybe I'm not trying hard enough or something.
I've contemplated suicide, but I know that won't
end my torment.
All the while, everybody at the church has
no idea what grace and mercy is about.
They condemn the one who's having a problem,
and they look favorably on people with willpower.
He said, I can't escape the fact that
I, the Holy Ghost, I hate it that
the Holy Ghost doesn't come to me anymore,
and I don't like what's happened to me.
He said, I'm in desperate straits.
Here's a letter from a married woman.
She said, Pastor Wooks, I fell in love
with a man that's been a friend for
years.
We used to go to church together, with
him and his wife and children, and he
backslid when his wife went wild and abandoned
him and his children.
I've always been there for him and helped
him and prayed for him, and his marriage
ended in divorce.
We were shocked and couldn't believe it.
But then it went from shock to an
involvement.
We got involved.
He told me that he loves me very
much and he's never seen me do anything
wrong and always seen me do right.
And he knows he's going to hell, but
he doesn't want me to go to hell,
because he knows I'm a Christian.
And he knows it bothers me going to
church and then trying to do right, trying
so hard to please God.
I pray for deliverance now.
I've repented over and to go over.
I've asked God for strength, and I've made
vows to God to be strong.
But then when I see him, I fall
right back down to this thing.
She said, I read your newsletters on sex,
sins, and pornography.
It scares me terribly.
And I repent again and again.
I keep rededicating my life to God.
I even prayed, cast out demons that might
be in me because of this sexual thing.
I feel so doomed.
All the scriptures I've heard race through my
head.
You're a reprobate.
People can pray, and then there's no hope.
Once God's spirit leaves you, you backslide, and
then you can't get back.
Willful sin cuts you off.
Because Saul lost God's spirit, didn't he?
Didn't it say that the sword never left
David's house because of the wages of sin
and spiritual death?
Oh, Brother Dave, I brought this on myself.
I'm so full of guilt and fear and
panic and disgust.
I'm so doomed, so alone.
I'm so detached from life.
What you fear does come upon you, doesn't
it?
How people knew God one time, but they
wouldn't retain it.
The Bible says, so God turned over a
reprobate mind.
Maybe that's my problem.
I read my Bible, and I ask God
to help me, and I go to prayer
line to be prayed for.
I desire so much to get to God.
I feel so lost.
I'm so alone.
I'm cut off.
For the past two months, it's like a
bad dream.
My head's in turmoil.
It's in a fog.
People notice I can't even function at home
or with my children.
I'm irritable and scared.
There's nothing left for me.
Brother Dave, please, please help.
I'm desperate.
Oh, the struggles we hear from people all
over the United States and around the world.
Because sin has entered their life, even though
they've loved the Lord, even though they're Christians,
I can't get victory, and I'm so doomed.
And then they'll go to church, and they'll
hear these messages just come thundering down about
sin, and they come under a blanket of
guilt and fear and condemnation.
Folks, I want to take you on a
trip that should absolutely, once and for all,
erase from your mind any idea that when,
as a Christian, you fail God, that He's
going to give up on you.
I want to show you something from the
Scripture today that is really my answer to
these and others who write to us, because
they'll be getting this in the newsletter.
I hear people say, Pastor Dave, yes, you
say it's by faith.
I have made righteousness by faith in the
finished work of Jesus, but I have gone
that route.
I believe the Lord the best I know
how.
I've trusted Him.
I honestly love Him.
I pray.
I seek the Lord at the best of
my ability.
I'm walking by faith, but I'm still failing,
and I feel so doomed because if faith
is the only way, and I've tried faith,
and it didn't work, then what hope is
there?
I'm near giving up because I've tried the
faith route.
Otherwise, faith is so complicated, I don't understand
it.
Folks, I've been that route.
There are times in my past life, especially
when I was a younger man, I've tried
to pump up faith to please God because
it says it's by faith, so I kept
pumping it and pumping it until my pumping
of faith became a more work of the
flesh than if I'd tried to do it
on my own.
Pumping faith became a work of the flesh.
Do you understand that?
You can try so hard to produce a
faith that you think will be pleasing to
God that you've settled back into the Lord
and back into works, and then your effort
to pump up faith becomes a sweating, striving
thing.
I want to give you the key to
understanding righteousness by faith.
I'm going to try to do this in
the next 15, 20 minutes.
Fashion your seatbelts.
Oh, hallelujah.
Thank God for the new covenant.
The old covenant says, if you do what
is right, shall you not be accepted?
If you do what is right, will God
not accept you?
That's the old covenant.
The new covenant is not that new covenant.
God comes to you in your troubles and
trials and sin and says, I will.
I will.
I will do it.
I'm going to show that to you now.
Let me try to explain the new covenant
to you because you and I are under
a new covenant, a new agreement.
I don't know when this happened.
It could have happened from the foundation of
earth.
It could have happened just prior to Christ
agreeing to become mediator and come in the
flesh.
But God and His own Son, Jesus, made
an agreement.
They made a covenant.
And the covenant was made.
In fact, the Scripture makes it clear that
Christ was given as our covenant.
Jesus made an agreement with the Father.
In fact, the Father presented this to His
Son.
He said, if you will go and you
become a mediator, you come in the flesh
and take on human flesh.
God says, I make an agreement with you.
I covenant with you that I will hold
you by the hand and I will carry
you through.
I'll never allow Satan to touch you.
I will deliver you and I will hold
you by the hand and I will keep
you.
Jesus, on the other hand, said, I will
go, Father.
And this was His side of the agreement
or the covenant.
I will go, Heavenly Father.
And I will not do anything except what
I see and hear from you.
I will not do anything in my own
human flesh.
I will obey you exclusively.
I will put my life, I will come,
I'll take on human nature, but then I'm
going to give that human nature back to
you.
And I'm going to put every confidence.
I won't do anything.
I'll go anywhere, including the cross, if you
lead me.
I will not do anything except what I
see and hear you do.
But Jesus said, as a part of this
agreement, I'm going to obey you fully.
I'm going to fulfill the law, every command
of the law.
I'm going to obey you perfectly.
And I can only do that if you
are holding my hand.
And if you have, I have in me
this promise from you, Heavenly Father.
This covenant agreement that you will be with
me and you will hold my hand.
He said, the only condition, and this is
the condition by which Christ accepted this, that
not only do you hold my hand, not
only do you carry me through all the
powers of hell and darkness, but my seed
goes with me.
All my children get the same privilege.
My obedience is going to be their obedience,
not their own.
My obedience will be offered you for my
whole seed.
You understand why Jesus said to his disciples,
I can do nothing on my own.
He's under covenant.
Folks, when you begin to see what the
cross is about, when you understand this new
covenant, you can never again be afraid of
the devil.
You can never again be afraid of sin.
This covenant, I hear many Bible teachers say
that started the cross.
No, no, no.
It started in the manger because it had
to do with his obedience.
This had to do with his whole life.
It was in the very manger itself when
he came, born in human flesh.
Now you say, I find that hard to
believe.
All right, let's go to it.
Here's the exact wording of God's agreement with
his son.
Go to Isaiah 42.
I want you, we're going to go to
the scripture now, and I want to prove
this to you.
And if you, if you can't leave this
church this morning absolutely changed by the word,
your ears are closed.
Ask God to give you an open ear
now and an open heart and give you
eyes to see.
Isaiah 42, verse 6, I
the Lord have called thee in righteousness, this
is speaking of Christ, and will hold thy
hand and I will keep you.
This is the covenant God is making with
his own son.
He said, if you go in human flesh,
you become the mediator for man.
He said, I the Lord will hold thee
in righteousness.
I'm going to call you in righteousness.
I'll hold your hand.
I will keep thee and give thee for
a covenant of the people for a light
of the Gentiles to open blind eyes, bring
out the prisoners from the prison, them that
sit in darkness and out of the prison
house.
Hallelujah to God.
This is the covenant God made with his
son.
You go, I'll hold you.
I'll keep you.
Glory be to God.
He said, God said to his son, if
you go, I'll be responsible for you, to
keep you and bring you back to glory.
The whole time you're gone, I'm responsible for
you.
I'll take full responsibility.
No power in heaven or hell can touch
you.
And then he says, I'll do the same
for your seed.
You don't believe that?
Folks, do you know what the seed is?
The children of faith.
You are the seed.
I am the seed by faith in Christ
Jesus.
You told everybody you belong to Jesus, didn't
you?
You sit here saying and believing in your
heart, I'm a child of God.
I am the seed.
Oh, hallelujah.
Turn to Psalm 89, starting verse 27.
I'll wait till the leaves stop rustling.
You have it?
Psalms 89, verse 27, begin to read, also
I will make him my firstborn higher than
the kings of the earth.
That's the father.
I'm going to make you higher than all
the kings of the earth when you take
on this call.
My mercy will I keep for him forevermore,
and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
His seed also will I make to endure
forever.
And his throne is the deeds of heaven.
If his children forsake my law and walk
not in my judgments, if they break my
statutes and keep not my commandments, I will
visit their transgression with the rod, their iniquity
with stripes.
Nevertheless, this is for you and me.
This is the promise to the seed.
He's making this to his son.
He's saying to his son, nevertheless, my loving
kindness will I not utterly take from him,
nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
My covenant I will not break, nor all
other things gone out of my lips.
Glory be to God.
Folks, the Bible says we're to lay hold
of the covenant, lay hold of the promises
of God, whereby we're made partakers of his
divine nature.
Let this jump into the stream and flow
as it right now, because this is the
word of the living God.
God said to his own son, I make
a covenant with you.
I will make you higher than all the
kings of the earth.
If my children sin against me, I will,
I'll put the rod through them.
I'll chasten them.
And that's what happens.
Even Paul introduces the concept of destruction to
the flesh, that the soul may be saved.
Oh, yes, Christian, when you sin, you'll be
chastened to be the rod of God, that
it'll be a rod of love.
He said, I will never, no matter what
you've done, if you will trust me, if
you'll come back to my love, I will
never cast you away.
Never.
I can say to this woman who wrote
this letter, with all of your problems, her
17-year-old daughter's been raped.
Her 16-year-old daughter's run off with
a married man.
She has all kinds of problems.
Her own husband's a drug addict.
And I can say, hold on, sister, he'll
never take away his loving kindness from you.
Never.
You see, you win the victory over the
devil when you get rid of the fear.
It's the fear that has the torment.
Not only will I hold your hand, my
son, as long as you're in human flesh,
not only will keep you from Satan and
all of his devices, I make the same
promise to every believer who trusts in you.
I will count them as one party to
this covenant.
And, folks, he doesn't make the covenant with
me except as I am in Christ.
It's a covenant between two partners only, between
God and his son.
And when I'm in his son, this is
a corporate body.
Then I am in the covenant.
I am in the covenant because I'm in
Christ.
He made it with Christ.
He didn't make it with me.
He made it with Christ, but he made
it with me because I am now in
Christ.
And everything in the covenant is now mine.
I am in the covenant.
Boy, I'll get chastened with a rod, and
so you've been chastened now.
I've known some young Christian young men and
women who fell back into homosexuality, and they
picked up AIDS.
And I have buried a few in this
church.
Fine young men, loving Jesus, went out, repented,
but went out in victory because they came
back to the lovingkindness of Jesus Christ, but
they paid the price because the wages of
sin is death.
It doesn't say the wages of sin is
hell alone because, you see, when you come
back to the covenant, you come back to
the mercy and the grace of God and
repent before Him, you find out He's never
left you.
He's always there.
For His part, Christ promised the Father perfect
obedience, first on His own behalf.
I want you to go to Psalms 40
now.
Turn left to Psalms 40.
Now, it gets even better.
Psalms 40.
Folks, look this way, please.
I want to show you now that Jesus
says, first of all, I am going to
be obedient to you.
Father, I'm going to be obedient.
He's talking now here in this passage about
His own personal obedience to the Heavenly Father.
Verses 7 and 8 of Psalm 40.
Then said I, Lo, I come in the
bond of the book that is written of
Me.
I delight to do Thy will.
O my God, yea, Thy law is within
my heart.
A preacher writes this.
This is a great congregation.
Do not refrain my lips.
Then said I, Lo, I come in the
bond of the book that is written.
I delight to do Thy will, O God.
Now, look at me, please.
This is God's pledge.
This is Christ's pledge.
This is His part of the covenant.
His part of the agreement.
He said, I pledge to you, Father, my
Father, I.
Then promised I.
It is written of Me.
He's talking about Himself.
Now, I am going to be totally obedient.
Now, folks, this is exactly what happened.
Jesus totally obeyed His Father's will.
It always has to do with the heart
and the will.
He said, I have completely surrendered My will.
It's written of Me.
I am going to obey You, Heavenly Father.
And He gave the Father perfect obedience.
In fact, in John.
Let's hold up there for just a minute.
But then, here's the wonderful part.
When God began to open this to me
and I saw it, I just broke down
and wept.
And I've had this inner weeping with joy
ever since.
Folks, it's only the revelation of His Word
that can hold you in these days.
I want you to get a hold of
it.
I want you to stop for just a
minute and ask the Holy Ghost to open
your eyes on this.
Because it can't be done except by the
Holy Spirit.
You have to see it by the Spirit
of God.
Folks, I've been praying since I was 22
years old that God would show me the
covenant.
It's taken years.
And I'm only beginning to see glimpses of
it now.
But I want you to have to see
this.
That the Lord Jesus makes a pledge of
total, absolute obedience.
This fulfills the law.
Every command has been fulfilled.
Everything that God required of His law, that's
all fulfilled now in Christ Jesus.
But then He goes on to cover you
and I our whole lifetime.
He makes such an incredible deal for you
and me.
What an agreement He made on our behalf.
What a deal.
What a covenant.
It's a better covenant than the old covenant.
Made on better promises.
And here's that better promise.
Psalm 16.
Are you turning?
Listen to me.
I'm going to make a statement now.
On the first hearing, you'll think it's error.
It's too good to be true.
I can't believe it.
Folks, when Jesus was born in the manger,
what did they sing?
Glad tidings.
This is glad tidings.
God says, not only, Father, am I going
to obey, but I'm going to engage not
only for my obedience, but for the obedience
of all my seed.
All my seed.
I'm engaging myself not only to fulfill obedience.
Not only will I be totally obedient to
you, but I am going to engage now
for all my children.
Look at chapter 16, verses 2 and 3.
O my soul, thou hast said unto the
Lord, Thou art my Lord, my goodness extended
not to thee.
We sang, Lord, this obedience, this goodness, it's
coming to you not just on my behalf
alone.
It's not just for me that I'm obedient.
Next verse.
But to the saints that are in the
earth and to the excellent in whom is
all my delight.
Jesus said, I sanctify myself that they may
be sanctified.
He's saying from now on, Lord, I am
providing for the obedience of all my family.
Now, hold still, folks.
Don't get excited about, or don't get upset
that I'm preaching error.
Not at all.
Remember what Jesus said to you and to
me and to all His disciples?
You can do nothing on your own.
He said, without me, you can't do anything.
But with me, you can do all things.
He said, get into the covenant.
Depend wholly on me.
You just trust in me and you trust
in my obedience that I've given to the
Father with a perfect obedience.
You can never present to Him a perfect
obedience in your own.
Come simply by faith now and say, Jesus,
You have promised no matter what I'm going
through, I'm under covenant.
You said you would take me by the
hand.
Father, I'm in trouble.
Father, I've got a lust I can't handle.
Father, I've got problems in my home.
The Lord said, reach out your hand.
Put out your hand.
I'll hold your hand.
He said, I will put my fear into
your hearts that you shall not depart from
me because you're under covenant.
I'll put my fear in your heart.
Don't try to produce it.
You just put your hand in mine.
You trust my obedience.
You trust my righteousness.
You just believe.
Accept my promise.
Reach out your hand.
Lay hold of the covenant.
He said, I'll put my fear in your
hearts.
I will remember your sin no more.
I'll write my law in your hearts.
I will make you to know me as
from the greatest even unto the least.
God said, I know what you're going through,
but I'm in agreement to be responsible for
you.
He said, and my son ratified that covenant
with his own blood.
He can't break it because the one who
made the covenant with the Father is already
at the right hand of the Father.
It's all finished.
He can't lie.
Can't you get a hold of this now
in your spirit and hold this up before
all the forces of hell and say, devil,
I am in covenant.
I have not yet arrived.
I am still working.
I know that if I sin, I'm going
to be held responsible because he's going to
put a rod to my back.
He's going to do it in love, though.
Many, many times I spanked my children, but
then I hugged them and I spanked them
because I loved them.
Your very best obedience to the flesh is
not acceptable to God, but faith gets you
into the covenant.
And once you're in covenant, you obey God
not to be accepted, but because you're accepted.
And then the obedience you offer to him
is a gift of love because you're in
covenant.
He said, if you love me, you'll obey
me.
How can you not love a father who
looks at your failure and your sin and
your battle and doesn't come to beat you
down or cast you under the law?
He said, I've made an agreement.
It's everlasting.
I cannot lie.
I made an oath to my son.
And when you're in Christ, I can no
more cast you aside than I could cast
my own son aside who sits at my
right hand.
It's that sure.
Now you go to him and say, This
is what my despair brought me to in
the first place.
I just gave up and said, you see,
you need to give up and run back
to the old life because trying is going
to get you into despair.
You're going to give up.
But folks, that's where Lord was.
He wants you to give up instead of
running.
He said, just reach out your hand.
Now take me, take my eye.
He said, I will hold you by your
hand and I will keep you.
I will be responsible for you.
And that's why Jesus died.
And he went into hell.
And Lord said, it's covenant time.
I made my son a promise that no
devil, no demon, nothing of sin or lust
can destroy him.
And he sent the Holy Ghost in and
the Holy Ghost pulled him out of hell,
out of the grave.
God kept covenant with his son.
And you know, when you come by faith,
you see, Jesus is in glory now.
The covenant has been fulfilled.
He's fulfilled his part of the covenant.
But now you and I are seated with
Christ in heavenly places.
That means clearly that he is keeping covenant
with you and me, the seat of Christ.
I thank God.
He's not going to let you go.
I don't care what you're going through.
Saul?
Murderer?
Persecutor?
The Lord says, no, I'm not going to
let you go.
I'm going to get a hold of you.
And once I get a hold of you,
Paul, I'll never let go.
Folks, I'll tell you what you do.
You know we don't sell, we don't promote
stuff from this pulpit.
But if you didn't fully get this, in
a week or so, the tape will be
out there.
Get the tape called Beware of Dogs.
In other words, Paul said, beware if anybody
comes and takes this covenant truth away from
you.
Don't let anybody try to come and get
you back under flesh.
You stand strong now with faith in Jesus
Christ and lay hold of the covenant and
beware of the dogs.
And get the tape and listen to it.
Get your Bible out.
And if you'll study those scriptures, God will
start making it real to you.
And in the forthcoming weeks, God will make
it much more clear.
We'll go step by step into the glory
of the new covenant.