Rebuking the Religious, Part 1

You know, the Lord is so good, so good. I got sickness in my family, so, you know, when that happens, then it makes it difficult for my wife to come in on Wednesday nights. And so I said, you know, I don't know what to tell you. And the kids are saying, Daddy, we want to come to church. So I said, okay, I'll drive home and I'll pick you up. That's 35-40 minutes, no traffic, my house. And so with traffic, it's 45 minutes, could be an hour. So I said, I'll drive home and pick you up. If you want to come to church, I'll come home, I'll come back and get you.

And they said, oh, Dad, thank you so much. You know, and you know, I don't know what it's like for you, but when your kids want to come to church and then you don't let them come to church because it's too far to drive, that's on me, not on them. So I got in the car and I made the truck out to Fontucky and picked him up and brought him back so they could be here for church. And I hope your kids love church. I hope they love being at church and being around the people that they're friends with, that they might study God's Word together.

There's nothing like studying God's Word together as a family. We are a family, you know, that's what we do. And so we gather together as a church family, we gather together with one thing in mind, and that is to study the Word of God and to honor His Word. And John said it well, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. That is the greatest joy this side of eternity, to know that your children walk in truth. And so my prayer for you and for your family is that your children would walk in truth, your grandchildren would walk in truth, that they would experience the joy of fellowship with the Living God, that you might in turn reap the benefits of their walking in the truth.

Today we're going to talk about the truth, God's truth, and how the God who is the truth presents the truth. And what you're going to hear might be a little staggering to some of you, maybe even shocking to some of you. But if it is shocking to you, it just goes to show you how far off we are from sharing Christ the way Christ shared the truth. You know, sometimes we run into people say, well I've never heard it that way before. Where have you been? What Bible do you read? Haven't you read what Jesus has said?

Haven't you heard the way He said it? The way He spoke to people? For it to mimic Him, for it to follow Him, then we need to know exactly what He said. And so if it seems strange to you, it just goes to show you how far the Evangelical Church has moved off of the mainstream of the gospel and the importance of speaking the truth. Let me read to you our section.

It's Luke 11. If you've not, if you're not there, it's Luke 11, verses 45 down to the end of the chapter. And not this week, but next week we'll be done with Luke 11, and we'll move on to Luke chapter 12. It's taken us a while to get halfway through this gospel, but there's no hurry. There's a lot of things to cover. So verse 45, and one of the lawyers said to him and replied, teacher, when you say this, you insult us too. But he said, woe to you lawyers as well. For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. Consequently, you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers, because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also, the wisdom of God said, I will send to them prophets, apostles, and some of them they will kill, and some they will persecute. In order that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.

From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God. Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in, you hindered. What a statement. Now let's say you're a religious leader in the days of Jesus, and you live in Jerusalem, and you are a part of the religious establishment there in that land called Israel. And you hear Jesus say to you, a religious leader, one who was supposed to know God, and the way to God, these words, you are hindering people from getting into the kingdom.

You are keeping people from getting to God. You are obstructing the way to glory. How would you respond to that? Can you imagine going into the house of your priest, or going to the house of your spiritual leader, and say to him, you hinder the way to heaven for people who are looking to get there. How would that go over with your spiritual so-called leader? That's exactly what Jesus did. He just simply said to them, there are people looking for the truth. They're looking for the way to heaven, and you're keeping them from that objective.

You're keeping them from learning that truth. Now, we would all admit that truth's important. Would you not agree to that? I would. And we want people to tell us the truth. I want people to tell me the truth. You want me to tell you the truth. We want to know the truth. So if tomorrow morning you have a doctor's appointment, you go to your doctor, and he has the results back from your test. You want him to do what? Shoot straight with you, right? Doctor, tell me the truth. Am I gonna live, or am I gonna die?

Is it bad, or is it not so bad? Tell me the truth. If he doesn't tell you the truth, okay, he lies to you. It's gonna hurt you physically, right? Down the road. Maybe not that day, but down the road, it's gonna hurt you physically. If you go to the dentist, and he looks at your teeth, you want him to tell you the truth about your teeth, and what needs to happen. You don't want him to lie to you about it. If he does, and you had this abscess on one of your tooth, teeth, it's gonna really hurt in the in the weeks and months ahead.

You want him to tell you the truth, correct? You go to the mechanic, he needs to tell you the truth about the condition of your car. You go to your accountant, soon it's gonna be IRS time. You want him to tell you the truth about your finances, right? You go to your husband, your wife, you want them to tell you the truth about different things, when you ask them. We want to be told the truth. We don't want to be lied to. Well, if you go to your spiritual leader, if you go to your pastor, you want him to tell you the truth.

If your doctor doesn't tell you the truth, it's gonna hurt you physically. If your wife doesn't tell you the truth, it's gonna hurt you emotionally, mentally. If your accountant doesn't tell you the truth, it's gonna hurt you financially. If your spiritual leader doesn't tell you the truth, it will hurt you for eternity, right? And for all eternity, you'll be in big trouble. It's important to know the truth. So, someone has to speak the truth. Jesus is truth incarnate. He has to speak the truth. And having said that, you need to understand, we talked a little bit about this on Wednesday night.

You know, people say, well, you know, Jesus is love. Yes, He is. But we don't understand love. We don't understand love in the 21st century. They didn't understand love back in the time of Christ, the 1st century. No one really truly understands love unless they understand Christ and the Bible, right? And in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, it says, love never rejoices in unrighteousness, but it always rejoices in the truth. You see, one thing about love, love is always judicial. God is holy. He never accepts unholiness, right?

God is true. He doesn't accept untruthfulness. God is righteous. He doesn't accept unrighteousness. He accepts that which is true. He rejoices in the truth. Those who love the Lord rejoice in the truth. They never rejoice in unrighteousness. And that is the balance in love, right? That's the balance when it comes to the love relationship. Love is unconditional, right? It doesn't, it's not conditioned on your response. It's just unconditional. Love benefits those it loves. Love never seeks its own.

That's the way love, but love is always judicial. That is, it always acts in a judicial manner. It doesn't rejoice in that which is unrighteous. It never accepts that which is evil. That's why the Bible says in Hebrews 12, verse number 6, that the Lord disciplines.

He scourges. He chastises His children who walk in disobedience. He has to, because He's a holy God. He loves them, see? And to prove His love to them, He must deal with their sinfulness, or He would not be the God of love. He rejoices in the truth. Having said that, let me remind you of what John said in 2 John, verse 1.

The elder to the chosen lady and her children whom I love in truth. Do you know that if you don't love someone in truth, you don't love them? Did you know that? Oh, you might think you do, but you don't love them in a biblical way, in the agape kind of love that our Lord speaks of. You must love them in truth, because truth is the number one ingredient to biblical love, see?

And then He says this, and not only I, but also all who know the truth. For the sake of the truth, He's really keen on truth, John is, which abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and love. John's big on the truth. He says, I was very glad to find your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father, and now I ask you, lady, not as writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

That's important, right? And this is love, here it is, you want to know what love is? Here it is. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. Love always is based on truth. If truth is not the key ingredient to your love, it's not biblical love. Truth is crucial, read on. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it, for many deceivers have gone out into the world. Boy, that's an understatement, isn't it? Many deceivers have gone out into the world.

Those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, this is the deceiver and the Antichrist. In other words, they don't believe that Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, came in the flesh. Watch yourselves, that you might not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not even give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

Isn't it interesting that when Jesus was invited for lunch in our text, He never gave a greeting to the Pharisee. He immediately, immediately offended the Pharisee. He offended him by what he did, and then he offended him by what he said, because he spoke the truth. And the Pharisee, the hypocrite, needed to have his veneer ripped away, so that his mask would no longer be effective from hiding that which was on the inside. Christ saw the inside, He knew what was inside, and He wanted to make sure that the truth was known.

Our Lord, the God of truth, always spoke the truth. He spoke the truth in love, yes He did, but it would seem that sometimes His words were harsh. In fact, it was Dorothy Sayers who wrote in her book just a few years ago, these words, I believe to be, oh I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it. Seeing that Christ went about the world giving the most violent offense to all kinds of people, it would seem absurd to expect that the doctrine of His person can be so presented as to offend nobody.

We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus, meek and mild, was so stiff in His opinions and so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger.

Whatever His peace was, it was not the peace of an amial indifference. That is correct. Our Lord Jesus went for the jugular. He didn't have time to mince words. He didn't have time to beat around the bush. He was gonna die here soon, just a few months down the road. His ministry was short. He had to make sure that the truth was was made known to all those who heard Him speak. It was imperative to Him. And so He would speak that truth, mainly because the world is filled with lies. Our religions are filled with lies.

That's why they're called isms, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Muhammadism, Scientism. You can go on down the list, and whether it's Mormonism, whatever it is, we told you before that the ism, I-S-M, stands for Incapable of Saving Man. That's what the ism stands for. They would not agree to that, but that's exactly what it stands for. It's Incapable of Saving Man, because it's a works-based system. And these isms are everywhere, simply because the whole world lies in the lap, has gone to sleep in the lap of the evil one, 1 John 5, 19.

The whole world has gone to sleep in the lap of the evil one. In fact, if you read through the scriptures, you realize that in Revelation 12, it says that Satan deceives the whole world. Now, I know that's during the time of the tribulation, but it goes to emphasize his deceptive measures. He is a deceiver, and he deceives the entire world. He's called the Prince of this World in John 16. He's called the Prince of the Power of the Air in Ephesians chapter 2. He's called the God of this Age over in 2nd Corinthians 4, verse number 4.

He is called the Father of Lies in John 8, 44. And this God of the Age, this Prince of the World, this deceiver of man, this one who holds the world in his lap, so much so that he's rocked them to sleep, is called an angel of light. That's how he disguises himself. So it's no wonder that the world has fallen asleep under his deception and bought into his lies. That's why Jesus would say, remember back in Matthew chapter 7, he would conclude his Sermon on the Mount with the great invitation to come to him, but he says it in this way, chapter 7, verse number 13, Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Few are those who find it. And then he says this, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Beware of them. Because they stand at the fork in the road. They stand at the fork of the road between the narrow way and the broad way. And they stand there with signs saying that the broad way leads you to heaven. They don't say, hey, come the broad way, it's going to take you to hell.

They don't do that. That wouldn't be deception. But they held the signs up saying this is the way to heaven, the broad way. And so the person looking for the truth, the person searching for eternity, looking for somehow to know whether or not they would end up in glory or heaven when they died, are looking for answers. And here stand these false prophets. That's why Christ says beware of them, because they are in sheep's clothing.

They look like shepherds. They look like people of truth. But on the inside, they're ravenous wolves. They're spiritual terrorists, which are far worse than any terrorists in our day, because they will blow up your soul. See? And that's why false teachers are such a huge danger to society. They are the worst dangers in all of society. False teachers, false prophets, people who will lead you the wrong way, who will take you, who will obstruct the way to heaven, who will hinder you from getting there, because they're saying this is the way to heaven.

It's the broad road. Come follow me down. This is the way to get there. And that's why Jesus says very few people find the narrow way.

It's hard to find. Just think about all the churches you could go to in Southern California and how hard it would be to find the truth about heaven. It would be very difficult to find in Southern California. It would be difficult to find in most churches in America. What is the way to heaven, and how do I ever enter that gate? How do I get there? See? And especially when you have all these false teachers out there with these big signs, and maybe they're spinning them around like they do on the side of streets today saying, hey, this is the way to go.

This is the best way. And when you see everybody going that way, what do you think? Well, that must be the way. Everybody else is going that way. I got to get on the bandwagon and go that way too. Only to lead you to a place you don't want to go. Not closer to Christ, but further from Christ. So Jesus shows up on the scene. He has all these false teachers, these Pharisees, these scribes, these lawyers, these Sadducees, these religious leaders telling people how to get on the broad road. What's he going to do?

What's he going to say? Well, you know, maybe we should sit down over lunch and let's try to find a happy medium in terms of what we believe. And we'll go from there. That's not what Jesus did. Because there is no happy medium with that which is false. It's error. You must obliterate that which is false. And that's what Jesus set out to do, to destroy it. Because he wanted people to know the exact truth. Isn't that how Luke began the gospel in Luke chapter one to Otheopolis? He wrote to one man that one man would know the exact truth about Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Luke had no idea that what he would write down would be recorded for all eternity for every person who loves the Lord Jesus Christ to read. But this is the exact truth. These are the words of the God who is the truth. I don't ever think there was a time that Jesus didn't attack false religion. From the day he began in Luke chapter four in our study of Luke's gospel in his own hometown in Nazareth, where they wanted to throw him off of a cliff. We'll be there in just a few weeks. Those of you going to Israel with me will be able to stand exactly on that cliff to know exactly where it is in conjunction with the village of Nazareth and how it is they were so infuriated with them that they wanted to throw him off that cliff.

And you can see why it would be of a supreme danger to anyone who would be thrown off that cliff. It's quite a ways down. And so he would begin to confront them there. And all throughout Luke's gospel till we get to Luke chapter 11, that's what he does. He is truth. He must speak truth because he cannot accept error. He can't accept the falsity of the religious establishment. He must expose it. And so he does. He exposes it because the Pharisees are saying, this is the way to heaven. But they can't lead you there because they're blind.

They're blind guides leading the blind. They can't show you the life because they're dead. They can't show you the way because they can't see. They're blind. They can't give you the truth because they are steeped in lies. They can't do it. They just can't do it. And although they purport to do it, they are incapable of doing it because they have bought into Satan's number one lie.

And that is the lie of deception that leads people away from God. And they would attribute everything that Jesus did to Satan. And they would say he was the Satan. They were saying that they had been so accustomed to the lies that when the truth came, they believed the truth was a lie. They were so into their lies that when the truth stood before them, they thought the truth was Satan. That's how much they bought into their religious system. See? Jesus had to expose it. He had to confront it because they were leading the whole nation into hell.

They were obstructing the way to heaven in order to lead a whole nation to hell. So the section begins with Jesus having lunch with a man who invited him to lunch. And we saw last week where he went to lunch with this man and he didn't ceremonially wash his hands because he was going to offend him at the outset. That's what he did. And so he confronted the ceremonialism of the day with the Pharisees. And then he went from there to confront their externalism. You worry about the outside, but you do nothing about the inside.

And then he confronted their intellectualism. He called them fools. You foolish ones. And they thought themselves to be wise. They thought themselves to be intelligent. They thought they were the smart ones. And he calls them fools. So he confronts their intellectualism. Then he confronts their trivialism, that they would pay tithe on things that did not matter. And that the Mishnah, the Jewish Mishnah said, no, you can't tithe on these things. And then he confronted their elitism because they wanted the chief seats.

They wanted to be recognized. And he pretty much just obliterated that whole, that whole idea of look at me, respect me, honor me kind of thing.

He destroyed it. He didn't respect them. And that's what they wanted. See, they wanted some kind of respect. They're like the old guy says, you disrespected me. Really? Really? Are you that hard up for respect that you can actually verbalize that? You disrespected me. That's what they're saying. But they deserve no respect. Why? Because all they did was lead people away from God. They didn't lead them to God. So he came to obliterate their, their system of religion. He came to destroy it hands down.

In fact, in, in his effort to destroy it, uh, you know, look what he says in Matthew 23, just turn back there with you for a minute. We're going to get to, to Luke 11 here in a second, but you know, we got to always lead into it.

You know what I'm saying? You got to set the groundwork. So in, in Matthew 23, he says that Jesus spoke to the multitude and to his disciples saying the scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. Are you kidding me? Therefore, all that they tell you do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds for they say things and do not do them. In other words, they say things and they do, they do not do them because they can't do them because they're powerless on the inside to accomplish them.

But what they have done is they they've taken Moses off of his seat. Moses was the one who, who gave them the law of the Lord. And what they did was they reinterpreted the law. They came up with all these allegories and all these mystical things about the law to, to make it more acceptable to them, right? They had to make it easier. The law was given to show you your sin. Well, if the law shows you your sin and you like your sin, what do you do? Well, you add to the law or change the law. And so what they did was begin to add on to the law, all of these different things so that they could say to themselves, yes, we keep the law.

We can do these things. We can accomplish these things. We can work toward this end. That was their objective. And so they took Moses, they uplifted Moses. They put him over here. They sat in Moses' seat and they said, this is the law. This is what the law really says. That's why when Jesus came, he said, well, you've heard that it was said, but really this is what the law is. This is what you've been told for years because they uprooted Moses and they would add all these different things to the law so they could say, you know what?

We do keep the law. We do. And all they did was they took the true law of God and they devalued it. They minimized it in the heart of man. And God gave us that law to show us himself, right? He gave us the law to help us understand the character and personality and nature of God. At the same time, by understanding who God is, showing us how far short we fall from him, right? Well, that's the whole essence of salvation. God is great. God is holy. God is pure. We're not, we can't get to him because of our sin.

So somehow we must come to him and plead for his grace and mercy or we'll never get to him. That was the essence of what the law did in people's lives. So they knew that and they had their sin exposed. So what do they do? Well, you know, let's just say it differently. Let's add this to it. Let's take this away. Let's add this to it. Let's put this burden on, let's accomplish this. And then, you know, we can say we keep the law. And that's exactly what they did. And Jesus was furious with them, furious with them.

In fact, in John 7, verse number 40, it says, some of the multitude therefore were, when they heard these words were saying, this certainly is the prophet. They're hearing the words of Christ. This must be the prophet, the prophet that would arise out of Israel, one greater than Moses. This must be the guy. Others were saying, this is the Christ. This is the Messiah. This is the long awaited Messiah. Still others were saying, surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

So see, the Jews knew where the Messiah was to be born, in Bethlehem of Judea. That was not a secret to anybody. That was well publicized in Israel. So there arose a division in the multitude because of him. Oh, by the way, whenever you speak truth, it always divides. Did you know that? Whenever you speak truth, it always divides. It divides truth from error. Always does. So if you're going to be committed to the truth and try to keep that which you are overseeing intact, and there are some there who don't believe in the truth, you're going to divide it.

They'll be divided from what it is you're trying to preach and teach because you're trying to give the truth. And that's exactly what happened. There arose a division in the multitude because of Christ. And some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, why did you not bring him? The officers answered, never did a man speak the way this man speaks. Nobody has ever spoken this way before. See, when you speak the truth with clarity, conviction, courage, people will stand back and hear, and they will say, never did a man ever speak this way before with such authority.

Same thing at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthews 5, 6, and 7. They were astonished because never had anyone ever spoken like this man had spoke. That's the same conclusion here in John chapter 7. The Pharisees therefore answered them, you have not also been led astray, have you? In other words, the words of truth are going to lead you astray. Astray from what? Astray from error. See? No one of the rulers of the Pharisees has believed in him, has he? You mean to tell me that those in our system, they're not believing in this so-called prophet, this self-proclaimed Messiah?

And then it says, verse 49, but this multitude, which does not know the law is accursed. What law? Not the law of God. The law that the Pharisees and the scribes had purported in Israel, their law. They had taken the seat of Moses. They had reinvented the law. They had reinterpreted the law to fit their lifestyle, that law. And if you don't believe in our law, you're accursed. You don't believe the way we interpret it. You don't believe the way we live it. You are accursed. And that's what they concluded about Christ.

He didn't live their law. He lived his own law. Well, of course, it's his own law. He wrote it. It's the Lord God of Israel. Of course, he wrote the law. And so they were supremely upset. Folks, there are a lot of things out there today. A lot of churches out there today saying they're proclaiming the truth, saying they're preaching the truth. But you need to listen to what they say, because it's not always what they say. It's what they don't say that is absolutely crucial. A lot of people on the radio talk about faith in Jesus.

A lot of people on TV, faith in Jesus, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. We say, well, they must be saved. Really? Really? Just because someone says they believe in Jesus Christ means they're saved. No. Demons believe in Jesus Christ. They're not saved. They know more about Him than anybody else does. Put together. See? So you have to be careful, because it's what they don't say that really tells the true identity of the falsity of their beliefs. We have forgotten that. Remember our study in the book of Jude?

Remember our study in the book of 2 Peter? If you have forgotten those, you might want to go back and see and begin to understand the character and nature of false teachers. It's not what they said, necessarily, that made them so bad. It's what they didn't say that described them as being not from heaven, but from hell. We told you years ago, remember Jim Jones in Jonestown? Do you know how many presidents had him as their spiritual advisor? If you go back and read the history about Jim Jones in Jonestown, before that whole escapade took place, he was the spiritual advisor of men in Washington and presidents.

And they believed in what he said as a man of his word, a man of the cloth. But he was right from the pit of hell, and they bought into his leadership. See? That's how he got all those people to go to Ghana, because they bought into his falsities as truth, but they were truly lies. See? That's why they're so dangerous. That's why Christ speaks so vehemently against them. And that's why he speaks so harshly to them, because they have believed their own lies. And thus, they have caused others to believe those lies.

Thus, they are hindering the way to heaven. They become the ultimate obstructionist. So people don't hear the truth. Folks, that is the most important thing in all the world, right? Whoever your spiritual advisor is, whoever your pastor is, whoever you look to for spiritual leadership, they must be able to explain to you the clear path of truth, so that you might know how to walk after the Lord God and serve him and follow him, so Christ would come against them. So when you come to verse 45, we have three minutes left.

When you come to verse 45, and one of the lawyers said to him, the lawyer is a scribe, and he said, teacher, when you say this, you insult us too. Well, of course he does. Because you see, the scribes were the ones who reinterpreted the law. The Pharisees were the ones who lived out that reinterpretation. You see that? That's why Jesus, when he confronted the Pharisee at lunch. Now, remember, the Pharisees and scribes, they're inseparable. They're always together, because the scribes would interpret the law.

You ever been involved in a lawsuit, and you read the lawyer's rhetoric, you have no idea what it says to you. You don't get it. So you have to have a lawyer interpret the lawyer's rhetoric. Well, same way in Jesus' day, in Judaism. There had to be a lawyer to understand lawyerese. And so the lawyers and the Pharisees, the scribes and the Pharisees were always together. Jesus knew that. So Jesus went, first of all, excuse me, to deal with the external ceremonialism, the ritualism, the externalism, the outside intellectualism, the elitism, deal with all those things, because that is the outworking of the reinterpretation of the law.

So the scribe says, the lawyer says, the guy who was involved in reinventing, taking the place of Moses in his seat, says, well, if you're saying that about what he does, you're offending us too, because we're the ones who told him what to do. And Jesus says, yeah, you're right.

He didn't say, oh, I'm so sorry to have offended you. I'm so, would you please forgive me for offending you too? I didn't mean to offend you. It's not what Jesus said. He said, woe to you too. A declaration of damnation is a woe. It's a curse. You're cursed too. Really? Really? I'm cursed too? Yeah, you're cursed too. Why? Because you are the one who has become the author of keeping people out of heaven, because you have believed the lie by Satan. That's what he does. And so he tells them simply this, the problem is you are adding burdens to others and you can't do anything to help them.

That's his first indictment. You are adding burdens to everybody around you, and you can't even do those things yourself, which tells you about false religion. It tells you about false religion, doesn't it? False religion can't accomplish what it purports because there's no power on the inside to accomplish it. You know, a few years ago, when that scandal broke out in the Catholic church about the priest and the pedophilia and all that kind of stuff that took place, I wasn't surprised, were you? You make these men take a vow of celibacy, right?

You make them take a vow of celibacy because they are devoted to God and they're set aside for God, and then you put them in a little box to listen to someone else talk about all their sexual lusts and enticements and sexual sins. And they listen to that all day as people go to confession. They listen to people talk about all their sexual escapades throughout the week or throughout the month, and they listen to it all day. And they get out of that little dark box, what do you expect them to do? There's nothing to restrain the flesh.

There's nothing there to help them through the temptation. There's nothing on the inside. There has been no heart change. There's no indwelling spirit of God to enable them to accomplish victory over temptation. There's not. So they are left to their system, and all that system does is proliferate all kinds of immoral thoughts that lead to immoral, what? Actions. Because Jesus said, it's not that which is on the outside of a man that defiles a man. It's that which is on the inside of a man, Mark chapter 7.

Because out of the heart of the man comes what? Adulteries, fornications, idolatries, murders, sorcery, all that. It comes from the inside of a man. See, it's all there. It's already there. And once it begins to be stimulated all day, every day, there's nothing you can do to control it. You're out of control. And that's what took place in the Catholic church. Just in case you're wondering how all that happened, there you go. That's it. And that's why, listen to this. In the book of Acts, the Jerusalem council, they said these words.

Verse 10, Acts 15. Now therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? Here are these new disciples, these Gentile converts, and they're coming to faith. And then these Judaizers, they wanted to put the same kind of ceremonial restraints on these Gentile converts as they themselves had. They said, wait, hold on a second.

Our fathers couldn't keep all that, neither could we. Those were burdens we were unable to bear. Why should we even hint at putting it on these new converts? And then comes this telltale verse. But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are. We're saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord, right? That's how we come to saving grace. We see the law of God. We understand the greatness of that law, the perfections of that law. And we are held to that standard.

We can't keep that standard. We can't do it. What are we going to do? We either reinvent the law, reinterpret the law, remake the law in our own image, in our own way so we can keep it or at least strive to, or throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and beg His forgiveness because we have nothing in us that will allow us to gain entrance into His glory. So we go to Him and say, oh God, be merciful unto us who are sinners. Save us from our sin. And the glorious gospel comes and saves us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and allows us to be partakers of His glorious kingdom.

And His spirit comes and indwells us and empowers us and enables us to live for His glory, for His honor from that day forth. That's the gospel. That's the gospel that needs to be preached. The gospel needs to be lived, the truth, as Jesus Christ, the God of truth would speak it. Let's pray. Father God, we thank You for today. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word. It's so clear. You've made it so clear to us that we are grateful. You are a great God. We thank You for the way of salvation that also, although it's a narrow way, is very clearly given to us in Scripture.

Jesus Christ is that door. He is that gate. He is the only way to His Father in heaven. We pray that those who are here today, they would all know that and they would enter through the narrow way. They would embrace the gospel of Christ, come to a place of true biblical repentance and follow Christ forever and ever. For they would have denied themselves. They would have taken up the cross and said, Lord Jesus, where You go, I will go. Where You lead, I will follow because You are my God. We pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen.