Will you turn with me, please, to the
Gospel according to Luke, Luke's Gospel, Chapter 5.
Luke's Gospel, Chapter 5, and I shall begin
the reading at verse 27 and read through
verse 32.
Luke, Chapter 5 and verse 27.
Speaking of our Lord Jesus, Luke writes, And
after these things he went forth, and beheld
a publican, or tax-collector, named Levi, sitting
at the place of Tob, and said unto
him, Follow me.
And he forsook all, and rose up, and
followed him.
And Levi made him, that is, Jesus, a
great feast in his house.
And there was a great multitude of tax
-collectors and of others that were reclining at
table with them.
And the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against
his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and
drink with the tax-collectors and sinners?
And Jesus answering said unto them, They that
are in health have no need of a
doctor, but they that are sick.
I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
Tonight marks the third message in a brief
series that I have entitled Simple Signposts to
the Celestial City.
In John Bunyan's immortal work, Pilgrim's Progress, he
uses the phrase the Celestial City as a
synonym for heaven, that place of eternal blessedness
and glory where the Scriptures tell us God
will dwell in his immediate manifest presence with
all of his children forever and forever.
The Celestial City is the place where there
will be no more crying, no more sorrow,
no more tears, no more death.
And taking John Bunyan's terminology for heaven, namely
the Celestial City, we are considering some simple
signpost to the Celestial City.
Now I'm conscious that in a real sense
the whole of the Bible is one massive
signpost to the Celestial City.
For the Apostle Paul could say to Timothy
in his second letter in chapter 3, Timothy,
from a babe you have known the sacred
writings which are able to make you wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus.
All of the sacred Scriptures point us to
that way of entrance to the Celestial City.
However, within the Bible God has given us
a number of brief statements, those things that
we call texts or verses, which capture in
a few words the very heart of the
whole message of the Bible with respect to
this great and burning question, how can I
attain to the blessedness of the Celestial City?
How can I know the way for certain
to that place of blessedness?
And tonight we focus our attention upon the
third of these simple signposts to the Celestial
City, and it is comprised of the words
of Jesus Himself in Luke 5 and verse
32, where He said, I am not come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
This simple signpost contains three unmistakable assertions.
And if you are serious about attaining heaven,
then listen to the One who came from
heaven to tell us how to go to
heaven.
For it is none other than He who
came out of heaven who is telling us
the way to heaven.
If you are serious about arriving at heaven,
receive with meekness.
Not my words, but the words of Him
who made the only way to heaven, and
who Himself tells us of that way.
What then are the three unmistakable assertions that
we see etched on this simple signpost pointing
us to the Celestial City?
In these words, I am not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, I
have said there are three unmistakable assertions that
constitute the printing on this particular simple signpost
to the Celestial City.
The first assertion is this, that only those
who know and feel their true condition as
sinners will ever be saved by Jesus Christ.
Only those who know and feel their true
condition as sinners will ever be saved by
Jesus Christ.
Listen to His words.
I am not come to call the righteous,
but, the words I am come assumed, I
am come to call sinners to repentance.
I am come to call sinners.
And in those words, Jesus Christ is asserting
that only those who know and feel their
true condition as sinners will ever be saved
by Him.
Now in these words, is Jesus saying that
there are actually some men and women, some
boys and girls who are naturally natively righteous,
or who on their own strength make themselves
righteous?
When He said, I am not come to
call the righteous, is He saying that there
are actually some human beings, boys, girls, men
and women of various ages, from various ethnic
and racial and social and economic backgrounds, who
are inherently righteous and therefore do not need
the saving call of Jesus Christ?
Why, of course, our Lord is not saying
that, and that for two reasons.
First, it would contradict the whole teaching of
the Bible in general, and it would contradict
the teaching of Jesus Himself in particular.
If Jesus were saying that there are some
people who are natively, inherently, naturally righteous, or
who have by their own efforts made themselves
righteous and therefore fit for heaven, it would
contradict the whole teaching of the Bible in
general.
For example, in Romans chapter 5 and verse
12, the Apostle Paul, writing by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, concerning God's saving work
in Jesus Christ, tells us, Romans 5, 12,
Therefore, as through one man, referring to Adam,
sin entered into the world, and death through
sin, and so death passed unto all men,
for that all sinned.
How could language be plainer than this?
Through one man, sin entered into the world,
and through the one man, Adam, that sin
that entered the world did not extend to
and touch some men, many men, most men,
but it says it passed unto all, for
all sinned.
And when did all sin?
All sinned in our first father Adam.
God who created Adam determined that Adam should
stand as the representative of the entire human
race.
He didn't consult you.
He didn't consult me about this arrangement.
There is no indication He consulted angels and
seraphim and cherubim.
He consulted only Himself.
And He determined that if Adam were to
stand in his integrity and not sin against
God, all those who would come from Adam
would have cashed in on that integrity.
God also determined that if Adam disobeyed and
fell into sin, the entire human race would
fall into sin in him and with him.
And therefore the Scripture says, through the one
man, sin entered into the world, and death
passed unto all men, for that all sinned.
Earlier in this very epistle to the Romans,
Paul declared in Romans 3 and verse 23,
for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God.
The prophet Isaiah, 800 years before, declared it
in the language of Isaiah 53, 6, when
he wrote, all we like sheep have gone
astray.
We have turned every one of us to
His own way.
Now, dear people, could language be plainer?
All we like sheep have gone astray, all
without exception.
We have turned every one of us to
His own way.
And so much is this the overarching teaching
of the Bible, that when John, the great
apostle of love, writes his first epistle, he
is bold enough to say in chapter 1,
anyone who denies his sinfulness is a liar,
and the truth is not in him.
He is out of touch with reality.
If any man says, I have not sinned,
he is a liar, and the truth is
not in him.
So when Jesus said, I have not come
to call the righteous, He was not inferring,
He was not suggesting, He was certainly not
teaching that there are some men and women,
boys and girls, who are inherently, natively righteous,
or who have, by their own power, made
themselves righteous.
That would contradict the whole teaching of the
Bible in general.
It would contradict the teaching of Jesus Himself
in particular.
You'll remember, those of you familiar with Luke's
Gospel chapter 11, where our Lord is giving
a lesson on prayer.
He says in verse 13, If you, being
evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more shall your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask Him?
He says, if you, being evil, He doesn't
say, if you happen to be one of
those who is evil, He assumes that all
to whom He speaks are inherently evil.
If you, being evil, know how to give
good gifts, how much more?
When He gave what we commonly call the
Lord's Prayer, the prayer for His children, those
who have been adopted into God's family, what
does He assume in that prayer?
That even His children sin and sin daily.
He said, when ye pray, say, Our Father
who is in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it
is in heaven.
Then we are taught to pray for what?
Give us this day our daily bread, and
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
He assumes that even His children will sin
daily, and that they are in a community
of others who will sin, and therefore they
both need forgiveness and must extend forgiveness.
No, in this passage, our Lord is not
teaching that there are some men and women,
boys and girls, who are inherently, natively righteous,
or who can make themselves righteous.
Remember the setting of this story?
Jesus spoke these words in response to the
murmuring of a group who are described as
the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were the official religious leaders of
our Lord's day.
And one of the marks of the Pharisees
was their total ignorance of their true spiritual
state.
They thought that if you went to the
right place, i.e. the temple, at the
right time, the special hours of sacrifice and
of prayer, and you did the right thing
in the right way, everything was all right.
And Jesus called them whitewashed sepulchres.
Jesus said they were like sepulchres that had
been freshly whitewashed, and when the sun shone
upon them you were dazzled with their brilliance.
But He said, roll away the stone and
stick your head in, and you'll smell the
rotting flesh, or you may see the bones,
He says, full of dead men's bones and
all uncleanness.
He said, you're like someone who spends all
of his hours polishing and cleaning the outside
of a cup and a platter, but service
after service, week after week, month after month,
you never wash the inside, and it's all
filled with layers of dried soup and tea
leaves, and who knows what else that turns
your stomach.
Jesus said, that's what you Pharisees are like.
You see, it was that crowd that was
disturbed that Jesus was eating in the presence
of notorious sinners.
It was in that setting that He said,
I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
In other words, there will always be people
like the Pharisees, who in their own eyes
are righteous.
Turn please to the 18th chapter of Luke,
for this graphic picture of the mindset of
a Pharisee.
Luke chapter 18 and verse 9.
And He spoke also this parable unto certain,
now notice, who trusted in themselves that they
were righteous, and said all others it not.
Here were people who trusted in themselves.
They thought they were righteous based on what
they were and what they did.
And Jesus is going to expose the foolishness
of such notions.
Two men went up into the temple to
pray.
The one a Pharisee, the other a tax
collector.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.
God, I thank You.
That is a good start.
To start with thanks.
But that is about the only good thing
in His prayer.
I thank You.
Not that You have forgiven me, a hell
deserving sinner.
But He says, I thank You, that I
am not as the rest of men, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
What he is saying is, God, I thank
You, I am not a sinner.
That is what he is saying.
I thank You, the rest of mankind.
That is the rabble.
They are the sinners.
But not this Pharisee.
He brings his feathers in the presence of
deity.
I thank You, I am not as the
rest of men.
Then he goes on to tell God what
he has done.
If there is anything lacking in what he
is, in and of himself, he says, I
make it up by what I do.
I fast twice in the week.
I give tithes of all that I get.
But the tax collector, standing afar off, would
not lift up so much as his eyes
unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying,
God, be merciful, be propitious.
Turn away your wrath from me, not a
sinner.
Remember, in the original there is the definite
article.
Turn away your wrath from me, the sinner.
Now, notice what Jesus says.
I say unto you, this man went down
to his house justified.
He went down to his house with his
sins forgiven.
He went down to his house with a
title to heaven, rather than the other.
That Pharisee came to the temple on his
way to hell.
He prayed his prayer and went down to
his home, still on his way to hell.
Why?
He had no heart, knowledge, and felt experience
of his true condition as a sinner before
God.
And Jesus said, I did not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Only those who know and feel their true
condition, as sinners, will ever be saved by
Jesus Christ.
Now, that's the first assertion on this simple
signpost.
And based upon it, I want to ask
you some very personal questions.
Men, women, boys and girls.
Where?
When?
By what means did God bring you to
see and to feel your true condition as
a sinner?
Was it by means of the gradual impartation
of biblical knowledge in a Christian home, where
as you learned the law of God and
the ways of God, and were carried to
the house of God and heard the truth
of God, your conscience began to feel the
light of the word and the law, and
you became, perhaps at a very early age,
conscious that I am a sinner.
I know I've offended God.
And though people look at me and call
me a nice little boy and a nice
little girl because Mommy and Daddy won't let
me cuss and tell dirty jokes and talk
back and smart mouth the neighbors and run
across the neighbor's lawn and stick my tongue
out at them if they dare to say
anything to me.
Everybody thinks I'm a nice little guy, a
nice little gal.
But I know that in my heart, I've
got a heart that's full of lies, that's
full of deceit, and full of pride and
full of stubbornness.
Maybe God brought you to know and feel
yourself to be a sinner in a gradual
way through the combined influence of a Christian
home and a gospel preaching, Bible preaching church.
It may be that like this Pharisee, you
were religious and moral and upright and your
external life was rocking along in the cursed
spirit of self-deception.
And God used a set of circumstances to
hedge you up and to get you to
think about heaven and hell and am I
ready to meet a holy God.
And maybe through a radio broadcast, through a
tape, through someone handing you a book that
contained the gospel, it was like the bursting
forth of the bright light of a noonday
sun through clouds that had enveloped the heavens.
And suddenly and almost with shock to your
system, you saw that your whole sandcastle of
righteousness was just that in one wave of
the light of Holy Spirit conviction just blew
it all out to sea.
But you see, my concern is not whether
it was gradual in the more ordinary means
of a Christian home and sitting under the
gospel or a sudden and unusual intervention of
God.
My question is this, my friend.
Have you been brought to know and feel
your true condition as a sinner before God?
Do you know yourself to be and do
you own without reservation what God says you
are?
A sinner in Adam.
A sinner by practice.
A sinner in your nature.
A sinner in your practice.
A sinner in your desires.
A guilty sinner.
A bound sinner.
An enslaved sinner.
Yes, the Bible even says you have been
made alive who were dead.
In your trespasses and sins.
On this signpost to the celestial city, Jesus
has forever etched with His own words this
great assertion.
Only those who know and feel their true
condition as sinners will ever be saved by
Jesus Christ.
And we're told in our day that we
must not tell people they are sinners.
That's very damaging to their self-esteem.
My friend, listen to me.
The day of judgment will be very damaging
to self-esteem.
When Almighty God takes in hand every proud,
self-righteous man, woman, boy or girl who
would not own what God said about them
and God convinces them before the whole moral
universe that they are infinitely worthy of hell
and says, depart from me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire.
That's the eternal bruising of self-esteem.
I'd rather have my deceptive self-esteem bruised
by Holy Ghost conviction now than have it
eternally shattered in the day of judgment.
But shattered it will be now by Holy
Spirit conviction or then by eternal rejection.
Don't pride yourself if you can strut about
saying, God, I thank you, I'm not as
others.
Cry to God that He would by His
word show you that indeed you are a
sinner worthy of God's judgment and His wrath.
That you are a sinner in Adam.
A sinner in nature.
A sinner in practice.
For the Scripture tells us in 1 Timothy
1.15 this is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation Christ Jesus came into
the world sinners to save.
There is no rationale for the coming of
the Son of God apart from real, rotten,
stinking, human sinnerhood.
There is no gospel without owning the reality
of real, rotten, stinking, hell-deserving sinnerhood.
But then there's a second assertion on this
simple signpost.
Not only does it tell us that only
those who know and feel their true condition
as sinners will ever be saved by Jesus
Christ.
But it asserts a second thing.
It tells us that Jesus Christ Himself and
Jesus Christ alone can save sinners from their
sins.
This signpost tells us as its second assertion
that Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus Christ alone
can save sinners from their sin.
Look at the text again.
Luke 5 and verse 32.
I am not come to call the righteous
but again I remind you the words I
am come to call sinners to repentance.
And here are the key words.
Notice He doesn't say, I will give sacraments
that sinners may come to repentance.
I will give priests or ministers that people
may come to repentance.
I will give rituals and institutions and forms
and rituals.
No.
He said, I in my person have come
that I in my person might call sinners
to repentance.
You see, He is speaking of the great
reality that Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus Christ
alone can save sinners from their sin.
And in those little words, I am come
is bound up all of the glorious gospel
mystery of what happened in Mary's womb.
None of us would dare say, I am
come with respect to our entrance into this
world.
We would say, I was born on such
and such a date, and as I grew
up and as I listened to the counsel
of others and sought to know my own
capacities, I chose such and such a calling
in life.
But only if we are demented or under
a demonic spirit of cursed, hellish pride would
we ever dare say, I am come.
For if you trace those words through the
Scriptures, you find at times Jesus adds these
words to them.
I am come down from heaven, not to
do my own will, but the will of
Him that sent me.
I am come down from heaven.
Bound up in these words is His consciousness
of His eternal preexistence as the second person
of the Godhead.
The one described in John 1, 1, in
the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
This Word became flesh.
He didn't cease to be the Word.
The Word was God.
God became flesh.
God takes to Himself something He never had
before, while never ceasing to be what He
had always been.
I am come contains the mystery of what
happened in Mary's womb when by the power
of the Holy Spirit, the second person of
the Godhead took to Himself a true human
soul and body.
And there in the normal nine-month development
until the fullness of the times as it
is described in Galatians 4, in the Gospel
narrative, it tells us that when her time
to bring forth the Child came, she brought
Him forth.
I am come involves the mystery of the
One who is as much God as though
He were never man.
As much a man as though He were
never God.
United in the one person.
Two distinct natures in the one person.
I am come involves not only the mystery
of what happened in Mary's womb, but all
of the marvelous realities of that life that
was so human, so vulnerable, and yet so
utterly, utterly spotless.
The Scripture says He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners.
He could look His most bitter enemies in
the eye and said, which one of you
can convict me of sin?
I do always the things that please My
Father.
I am come.
And in those words is the mystery of
what happened in Mary's womb.
The wonder and the marvel of that holy
life.
The wonder and the marvel of that amazing
ministry.
I am come.
And He opened the eyes of the blind,
unstopped the ears of the deaf.
He raised the dead with one word.
Lazarus, come forth!
And Lazarus came forth.
Death itself could not stand before His omnipotent
voice of power.
I am come.
I am come in all the uniqueness of
My person.
In all the validation of My identity.
I am come points us to the uniqueness
of His work.
For in other passages He said, I did
not come to be ministered unto, but to
minister and to give My life a ransom
for many.
Matthew 20, 28.
I am come to give My life a
payment to buy back slaves to sin at
the price of My own life, the pouring
out of My own precious blood.
None can do it for Me.
There is no proxy ransom available.
I, as we heard this morning in our
reading from John 12, I, Jesus said, as
the Good Shepherd lay down My life for
the sheep, I have power to lay it
down.
I have power to take it again.
No one takes it from Me.
I lay it down of Myself.
You see, packed into these words, I am
come to call sinners to repentance is the
great truth on our signpost that Jesus Christ
Himself and Jesus Christ alone can save sinners
from their sins.
Jesus Christ in all the uniqueness of His
person as the God-Man.
Jesus Christ in all the wonder and marvel
of the validation of His identity as God's
Messiah.
Jesus Christ in the perfection of His work
of a perfect life, a sin-bearing, sin
-atoning death, a glorious, triumphant resurrection.
That's why when Joseph was scratching his head
and if he had a beard, stroking his
beard, wondering what to do, when he discovered
that Mary, the woman to whom he was
engaged, was pregnant, wondering what course of action
he should take according to the ancient law
of Moses, an angel appeared to him as
recorded in Matthew 1.21 and said, I
fear not to take unto you Mary your
wife, for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Spirit, and she shall
bring forth a son, and thou shalt call
His name Jesus, for He it is that
shall save His people from their sins.
Now, dear people, could language be plainer?
The angel said, Joseph, Joseph, take her to
be your wife.
She's not pregnant because of some shameful unfaithfulness
behind your back.
The Spirit of God has brooded over her
womb.
She has been marked out by God the
Father to be the human instrument through which
God the Son will come into the world
enfleshed.
And Joseph, this is necessary, for He it
is, His person, not His church, not His
ministers, not His sacraments, not His rituals, He
it is that shall save, rescue His people
from their sins.
Jesus is echoing those words, I am not
come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.
Now, having seen that second assertion on this
simple signpost, let me ask you again a
personal question.
Where, when, by what means did God bring
you to the conviction that Jesus Christ Himself
and Jesus Christ alone can save you from
your sins?
Where, when, by what means were you brought
to the conviction that I need a Savior
who can bring to His savoring work all
of the might and power of the arm
of omnipotence and undiminished deity, while having all
of the vulnerability and all of the weakness
and all of the possibility of suffering both
temptation and even death to give meaning and
worth to His sacrifice?
Where, when, and by what means did you
come to the conviction that your sin is
so bad and your state so hopeless that
nothing less than the God, Man, Christ, Jesus
can answer to your need?
That's true.
That's reality.
And if you've never been brought to that
conviction, you're living in a never-never land
of self-deception.
I don't care if you're 3, 30, or
90.
Because that is reality, my friend.
If there were any other way, would God
have sent His Son to the confines of
a young maiden's womb to have His life
sustained by an umbilical cord?
To have to toddle around a house and
learn His Hebrew alphabet?
And go off to Hebrew school and learn
the books of the Bible?
And be subjected to the dust and to
the dirt and to the foul language of
the village of Nazareth?
And to labor beside His dad in a
carpenter's shop?
And later on, as we read this morning,
to be said that He was demon-possessed?
To have it said of Him, say Me
not well that Thou art a Samaritan and
hast a demon?
And to have His own friends think He
was out of His tree?
For on one occasion, He was so consumed
with zeal to minister to others that He
was skipping His normal mealtimes.
And it says His friends said that He
had a few bricks less than a full
load.
My friends, I ask you, from a reasonable
standpoint, would God subject His Son to all
of that?
If there were another way to rescue you
and me from our sins?
But then go further and behold the Son
of God in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Father holding up the cup of His
wrath against the sins of men.
And the Son of God beholding that cup
falls upon His face in the dampness and
coolness of that night before His crucifixion.
And He wrestles with such agony that He
sweats, as it were, great drops of blood
crying out in agony of soul, O my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from Me.
Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done.
And go on to those scenes where they
spat upon Him, beat Him with their fists,
beat Him with clubs, mocked Him, pressed the
crown of thorns upon His brow, shoved Him,
bloodied Him out to a place called Golgotha,
hung Him upon a cross.
And then God shrouds the heavens in inky
black darkness and gives His Son the horrible
felt experience of all of the withdrawing of
His own felt communion with Him until He
cries in agony, My God, my God, why
have You forsaken Me?
My friends, look, let's take our Bibles and
trash them and just go out and live
like the devil and die and go to
hell.
There's not something more to all of this
than just going to church and going to
rituals and forms and ceremonies.
This was real enfleshment of deity.
This was real suffering in Gethsemane.
This was real agony upon Golgotha.
It was real pangs of forsakenness that He
felt in the depths of His soul.
Why?
Because Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus Christ alone
can save sinners from their sin.
Jesus Christ in the uniqueness of His person.
Jesus Christ in the perfection of His work.
And this is why the Apostle Peter proclaimed
in Acts 4.12, Neither is there salvation
in any other, for there is no other
name under heaven given among men whereby we
must be saved.
You see, that's very narrow.
No more narrow than Christ Himself.
We considered His words in the first signpost
to the celestial city.
I am the way.
Not one of many ways.
I am the way, the truth, and the
light.
No one comes to the Father but by
Me.
And when Peter stood and preached saying neither
is there salvation in any other, he was
merely echoing the words of his Savior.
My friend, we stand by a simple signpost
to the celestial city.
It's made up of these words of Jesus.
I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
And in those words, assertion number one, only
those who know and feel themselves to be
sinners will ever be saved by Jesus Christ.
Assertion number two, Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus
Christ alone can save sinners from their sins.
Thirdly and finally on that signpost there is
another assertion, and it's this.
Jesus Christ saves sinners by calling them to
repentance.
Look at our text.
I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
This right after He had stated they that
are healthy have no need of a doctor,
but they that are sick.
What is the divine medicine for sin sick
souls?
Jesus says, it is My calling them to
repentance.
The divine remedy for sin sick souls that
Jesus Christ Himself imparts is calling them to
repentance.
You see, He does not save sinners by
making them into Pharisees.
That is, by stroking people and telling, you're
okay, I'm okay, everybody's okay, feel good about
yourself.
My friends, listen, this feel good about yourself
religion that is being propagated in every level
of our society is a damning lie.
Until you feel so bad about yourself that
you're ready to go totally out of yourself
to another, you'll never be saved.
And feeling bad about yourself is not making
up a story.
It's just facing reality.
That's all it is.
And Jesus Christ saves sinners by calling them
to repentance, not by making them into Pharisees
who feel good about themselves and preen themselves
and say, thank you God, I'm not like
other men.
And if there's any deficiency in what I
am, then Lord, look at what I do.
I've been baptized, I've joined the church, I
take the sacrament.
My friends, don't insult God with such trinkets.
He's not impressed.
Remember, this is the God who punished His
Son upon the cross.
What do you think?
You're holding up your little report card of
how many wafers you took and how many
times you went to communion and how many
times you went to Sunday school.
What does that mean in the face of
a God who poured out His wrath upon
His Son upon the cross?
Don't insult God by throwing your little cheap
trinkets in His face when He purchased sinners
at the price of the blood of His
own Son.
Don't try to impress God with your trinkets.
The way Jesus Christ saved sinners is by
calling them to repentance, not making them into
Pharisees, not making them into intellectual adherents who
will subscribe to the tenets of the Christian
faith intellectually.
No.
And not by causing them to just go
through a ritual of decision.
Raise a hand, pray a prayer, I'm alright
forever.
My friend, more people are going to hell
out of decision rooms than probably any other
place other than bar rooms and whorehouses.
They go straight to hell out of decision
rooms where they pray a little prayer that
they parrot, that someone puts in their mouth,
and then they get absolution.
You prayed the prayer?
Yes.
You were sincere?
Or somebody will say, no, I was faking
it.
Of course they're going to say I'm sincere.
Then they pat them on the back and
say, well, now if you meant it, you're
saved.
Don't ever doubt it.
You're fixed up.
And they don't know a thing about repentance.
They don't know a thing about this medicine
that Jesus gives to sick sinners.
What is this thing to which Jesus calls
men?
And in calling them to it, saves them.
I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
Well, the best uninspired definition of repentance I've
ever come across is in the Westminster Shorter
Catechism.
What is repentance unto life?
The answer is this.
Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby
a sinner, out of a true sense of
his sin and apprehension is the old English
word we would say a laying hold of
the mercy of God in Christ does with
grief and hatred of his sin turned from
it unto God with a full purpose of
an endeavor after new obedience.
You see, repentance has several vital elements.
Vital element number one, it is never experienced
except you have a true sense of your
sin.
That's why this signpost says, Only those who
know and feel themselves to be sinners will
ever be saved by Jesus Christ because only
sinners know and feel the need to repent,
to have a change of mind and attitude
and affections and will with regard to their
sins and with regard to the Savior.
Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby
a sinner, out of a true sense of
his sin has the first element of true
repentance but secondly, an apprehension, a laying hold
of the mercy of God in Christ.
In other words, there's no true repentance if
you only see God as a God of
wrath and of judgment, a God of holiness
and righteousness who will punish every sin.
If that's all you know of God, you'll
run from Him and cry as they will
cry in the day of judgment for the
rocks and the mountains to fall upon you
and to hide you from the face of
Him that sits on the throne and from
the wrath of the Lamb.
God in pure justice outside of Christ and
His mercy is a frightening reality.
The Bible says our God is a consuming
fire.
It's a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God.
Ah, but when I see that that living
God who is a consuming fire so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, and I see that in the Lord
Jesus a full atonement has been made for
the sins of all and any who will
come unto God through Christ that when Christ
cried out upon the cross, It is finished!
He meant that shout of triumph.
All that God's justice can ever demand of
the sins of anyone who will believe upon
Christ was fully met in the death of
the Son of God.
There's not the slightest evil thought.
There is not the first twinge of an
envious, dishonest, lustful thought the penalty of which
was not fully paid by Jesus Christ upon
the cross.
And in true repentance there is not only
that sight and sense of our sin but
the hope of mercy in a crucified, risen
Savior.
And in that hope of mercy how do
I now treat my sin?
Listen to the definition.
He does with grief and hatred of it
turn from it unto God.
Turns from His sin unto God.
That's a vital element of repentance.
Acts 20-21 falls as I preach repentance
towards God.
Isaiah the prophet said, Seek ye the Lord
while ye may be found.
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake His way and the
unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return
unto the Lord.
For He will have mercy upon him and
to our God.
For He will abundantly pardon him.
Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1-9, they
themselves report of us, what entering in we
had unto you, how you turned unto God
from your idols to serve the living and
the true God and to wait for His
Son out of the heavens.
Dear people, repentance involves not only owning my
sinnerhood and seeking to cast myself upon the
only Savior of sinners, but it involves turning
from my sin, turning from the disposition to
be my own God and do my own
thing and run my life by my own
standards, live by my own rules.
I turn from my sin with full purpose
of and endeavor after new obedience from henceforth.
My heart's desire will be to serve the
God who made me, the God who could
have cut me off in my sins and
cast me into hell, but spared me until
He brought the message of life and salvation
to me and inclined my heart to embrace
that message.
What can I do in the face of
such mercy but say, Dear Lord, I give
myself away.
Tis all that I can do.
I want to speak a word especially to
you dear young people, some of you that
I have to call young men and women
now.
It seems that just a few months ago,
though it's been years, when you were part
of the crowd that lined up and had
to get your smooch and jumped up and
straddled me and hugged me, and it seems
all too quickly you've become young men, young
women.
I want to speak to you especially at
this point.
You know what will be one of the
surest indications amidst all your struggles, saying, How
much do I know and believe because Mom
and Dad have told me?
What's my faith?
What's just like the clothes in my closet?
They're there.
What's really mine?
You go through that struggle, don't you?
Don't you kids?
Don't you?
Sure you do.
And if you haven't, you will.
Here's one of the most helpful tests.
Listen to me now.
Ask yourself this question.
Cut through all of the matters of when
was I saved or am I saved or
am I not?
Cut through all of that and ask yourself
this question.
Do I see in God, revealed in Christ
through the Bible, a being who is infinitely
worthy of my undivided love, of my unrivaled
allegiance, and is it my deepest purpose of
heart to serve Him all the days of
my life according to His will as revealed
in the Bible?
Kids, if you can say that, you're saved.
If you can say that, you're saved.
Because the Scripture says the carnal mind is
enmity against God.
It is not subject to the law of
God.
Neither indeed can it be.
And in your unsaved state, the more you
learn of God, the more you really get
irritated with what you know of God because
you find He wants to stick His nose
into every aspect of your business.
It was bad enough when you were small
and mom and dad told you God didn't
want you to tell lies and didn't want
you to kick your sister and poke your
brother in the eye and God didn't want
you to cheat at school.
Then you began to get older and began
to feel your hormones and your hemones stirring
throughout all of your humanity.
And then they began to tell you you
didn't have the right to use your sexual
appetites as you chose.
They had to be reined in and harnessed
and kept for God.
And you said, what is this?
And brought up with a God that tells
me I can't do what the other kids
do and I can't be where the other
kids are.
And now I'm told I can't brag about
making it for the first time.
I can't brag about being deflowered and get
together with the gals in the locker room
and talk about how the guys made it
with them.
And down underneath you resent such a God.
That's a mark you're as lost as the
devil.
You can give the Bible, books of the
Bible, Genesis to Revelation, forward and backward, quote
a thousand verses.
But when you hate the law of God,
when it touches you in your sexual appetites,
touches you in your social relationships, touches you
in your relationship to mom and dad, you're
lost as the devil.
I don't care how much you know and
what you profess.
But if you can honestly say, kids, I
love the God I've come to know.
At my mom and dad's feet and in
this church and in my Sunday school class,
I see that God is worthy of a
thousand energies more than I have to give
Him.
I see Him worthy if I had a
thousand hands to serve Him and a thousand
teeth to serve Him and a thousand hearts
to love Him.
I see Him as worthy of all of
that in the light of what He's done
in sending His Son to die for a
hell-deserving sinner like me.
Young person, if that is the honest disposition
of your heart to God, you're a Christian.
You're a Christian.
You've come to repentance.
Jesus has given you the medicine and you've
taken it.
You say, but I don't know when I
took it.
Who cares?
He's called you to repentance.
And the medicine has worked.
I tell you, I go to bed one
night with a fever and a sore throat,
take some antibiotic and wake up the next
morning and feel good.
I'm not going to say I won't believe
I'm feeling good unless I know at the
precise hour the antibiotics kicked in and killed
the little bad guys in my system and
the good guys are in.
I just know I feel better.
Say, thank You, Lord, for blessing the medicine.
Whether it kicked in at 2 o'clock,
3 o'clock, 11, I could care less.
Sore throat's gone, feel good.
That's all that matters.
Dear young people, children, do you see what
I'm saying to you?
This is one of the great stumbling blocks
that kids brought up as you are.
But can you say that the God Mom
and Dad served, the God of the Bible,
is the God you love and you want
to serve Him with all your heart?
There is, you see, what the old catechism
describes the full purpose of an endeavor after
new obedience.
Christ has called you to repentance.
And if He's called you, that disposition will
not fade away, that disposition you won't relinquish
for the face and for the body of
a young woman that catches your fancy or
a young man that is not godly, that
is not a Christian, that you cannot court
his or her interest with the approval of
spiritually minded parents and elders and Christian friends.
No, no, no!
You will not sell your Savior for the
form of a woman or the face of
a young man.
And when career opportunities come, you won't sell
your Savior for big bucks so you can
drive big cars and have a big house
and a big name and strut around like
a big shot.
You'll say, for me to live is Christ
and nothing is worth selling my Savior for.
That's the attitude of your heart.
You're a Christian.
You're a Christian!
Christ has saved you by calling you to
repentance.
Well, we've looked at this very simple signpost
to the celestial city etched in the very
words of Jesus, I am not come to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
And in that signpost, three simple assertions, only
those who feel and know themselves to be
sinners will ever be saved by Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus Christ alone can
save sinners.
Jesus Christ saved sinners by calling them to
repentance.
Dear people, I have labored with every measure
of strength and grace God has given me
to preach with all my heart, to preach
simply, to preach plainly, to preach with illustrations
and applications that scratch where you itch.
And yet I'm reluctant to close the service.
You know why?
Because I fear, as has happened so many
other times, there'll be more than a handful
who go out and say, so what's new?
I haven't told you anything new.
It's been simple, basic gospel preaching.
But my friend, if that does not become
to you the power of God to salvation,
it would be better that you've never been
born.
And if you're ready to go out now
and say, so what's new?
God have mercy on you.
And know that while you go out to
try to drive out of your mind what
you heard tonight, not a few of us,
before we pillow our heads, will pray that
you won't be able to sleep until what
you've heard takes hold of your heart.
And for those of us who by the
grace of God could face those three assertions
on this simple signpost, what a wonderful thing
to be a Christian.
Isn't it a wonderful thing to be a
Christian?
Let the world pity us for this is
a bunch of weak-headed, weak-willed people
who've got to lean on a book and
who've got to lean on a Savior who
aren't self-sufficient and self-important.
Let them pity us.
Someday their mouths will open with wonder when
the Lord Jesus bursts through the skies and
the Scripture says an amazing statement.
My wife and I were discussing it last
week.
He comes to be glorified in His saints.
Think of it.
He's going to be glorified in me.
For me to be glorified in Him, I
can understand.
But for Him to be glorified in me?
Yes.
When He's done with me, angels are going
to go, Look what God did for Albert
N.
Martin.
Look what God did for Vincent Bach.
Look what God did.
Look at them.
Look what God did.
And God will be glorified in His saints.
Oh, dear sinner friend, don't pity us.
Pity your poor, impoverished state.
And give yourself no rest till in Christ
you have what is ours in Him.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we thank You for Your holy
Word.
We thank You for Your holy Gospel.
We thank You for Your holy Son.
We thank You for Your holy Spirit.
We thank You for Your holy Word.
And we pray that the Word and the
Spirit would so work through the Word that
Your Son would by the mighty working of
Your own power come to sinners this night,
effectually calling them to repentance.
We pray especially for our dear young people,
children and grandchildren, some of whom are deeply
distressed about whether or not they are ready
to die, whether they would enter the celestial
city.
Lord, use the preaching tonight to help them.
Where they ought to be encouraged, may they
be encouraged.
Where they ought to be convicted, Lord, convict
them and give them no rest until they
cry out like blind Bartimaeus, Son of David,
have mercy upon me.
Bless the preaching of Your Word to refresh
the hearts of Your saints and to draw
sinners to Yourself.
We commit Your Word to Your care and
to the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.