Five Features in the Face of Truth

Introduction: Pilate's Question and the Church's Commitment to Truth

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, February 18th, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. In the latter part of the 18th chapter of John, we are given a most interesting account of the interaction of Jesus with Pilate, the Roman governor. Pilate is asking Jesus who he is and what is his identity. And when Pilate says, well, you are a king then, Jesus responds by saying, you say that I am a king and to this end have I been born and to this end am I come into the world

0:44 that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice. To which Pilate replies with a chilling cynicism. He said unto him, what is truth?

1:06 You say that you are here to bear witness to truth. What is truth? And these words of Pilate are words that if not upon the lips, are in the mind and in the hearts of many in our own day. There is a cynicism with respect to the question, can we know anything and identify it as truth?

1:34 Inflexible, unchanging truth. True in this place this morning. True if you were shot to the moon. True if you were able to go to Mars.

1:47 True no matter where you would be in whatever company you would be. Is there anything such as truth? Well in our recent studies of the Biblical principles embodied in our church constitution, we have come to that part which says that, says that as a congregation, we are committed to the proclamation of God's perfect law and his glorious gospel and the defense of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And having opened up what it means to be committed to the enunciation of God's changeless standard of right and wrong,

2:30 that is, his law, and having noted that we are committed to the proclamation of the changeless method of making sinners right with himself, that is, the gospel, we have spent some time examining what it means for us as a church to be committed to the defense of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And that language is taken directly from the epistle of Jude. And I am...

3:00 I ask you to turn there with me again.

Review of the First Two Features of Truth: Scripture-Reverencing and Mind-Boggling

3:04 Jude, and verse 3. Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old, written up beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the...

3:36 grace of our God into lasciviousness. That's an old word for unbridled lust. Anything goes would be the contemporary jargon. And denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

3:55 I sought several Lord's Day mornings ago to open up verse 3. This text which indicates that Jude is deeply concerned that...

4:08 And we saw among other things in this text that there is a faith, that is, a body of revealed truth that has been delivered to the saints once for all. It is a fixed, unchangeable body of truth. And having...

4:37 And having... sought to expound the text, we then noted that every believer is a steward of this truth.

4:45 Jude is not writing to preachers. He's not writing primarily to spiritual leaders. He is writing to all of the people of God described in the opening verse as those that are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Writing to all of God's people, he lays upon them this...

5:08 And after expounding the text, I then said, we as God's people need to have some degree of discernment to ascertain what is the faith and what is the deviation from the faith. And I asserted that, or suggested that the best way to develop skill in detecting the counterfeit...

5:38 is to master the features of the real thing. One who masters all of the distinguishing features of a properly printed by the U.S. Treasury $20 bill is far more likely to discern the counterfeit than the one who spends all of his time examining counterfeits.

5:59 Master the distinctive features of the real, and you will in great measure be able to detect the counterfeit. And so I then...

6:08 I stated that what I wanted to do last Lord's Day and complete it this morning is to set before you under the imagery of a face and its irreducible number and nature of the features, that which I'm calling the five features on the face of the faith. Anything that is an exposition, a statement, an application, a pronouncement of the faith, once for all delivered to the saints, will always have these features.

6:44 And therefore whenever you confront any truth claims, someone or something in your hands claims to be a statement of truth, a statement of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, you must look for these five features. They will always be present if you are exposed to anything like a comprehensive, statement of what is coming before you as a truth claim. Look for these eyes. Look for this nose. Look for this mouth. Look for the two ears. Last week we looked at two of those

7:22 features on the face of the faith. The first, the faith once for all delivered to the saints is always scripture reverencing. It is always scripture reverencing. God's saving truth always comes to us in a manner that deepens our love for and submission to the word of God written. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 15 to Timothy that the scriptures were

7:55 able to make him wise through salvation, which is through faith. Faith in Jesus Christ and that those same God-breathed scriptures were able to make him as the man of God thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Any truth claim that in any way weakens or erodes your confidence in the scriptures, confidence in the scriptures as a clear, self-consistent book of divinely revealed truth, such a claim must be rejected as truth. Coming from the one who said to Eve in Eden, yea, has God said? And after raising a question

8:39 mark over what God said, he then flatly denies its truthfulness, you shall not surely die. Evaluate all truth claims in the light of this feature. Is this claim scripture reverencing? Secondly, this faith will always be mind-boggling. That is, there will be in it, without embarrassment, those things

9:08 which go beyond the capacity of our minds fully to grasp. God never intended that any created mind would have the capacity fully to comprehend himself. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 11, 27, no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Son but the Father but the Son. Only God can fully comprehend himself. And this is why the Apostle Paul,

9:40 after opening up something of the wonder of our salvation in space-time history, a salvation that finds its movement in the very disposition of God with nations, he exclaims in Romans 11, 33, all the depth, both of the wisdom and the riches of God, and the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his ways. They are past tracing out. So any truth claim which sets forth a God and a salvation which your little mass of gray matter can fully and comprehensively grasp ought to be rejected outright. It's

10:21 rationalism. And a God that you can contain is a God you can never worship. God has made a revelation of truths that are not true. God has made a revelation of truths that are not irrational but supra-rational. Your little mass of gray matter can no more contain God

Feature 3: The Faith is Pride-Withering

10:39 than your teacup can contain the Atlantic Ocean. Now we come this morning to the final three of these features on the face of truth. Having sought to demonstrate from the Scripture that this faith is always Scripture reverencing and mind-boggling, number three, this faith is always pride withering, number four, this faith is always pride withering, number five, this faith is always pride withering, number four, it is always sin opposing, and number five, it is always Christ exalting and Christ attaching. Here are the three remaining features on the face of the faith. You have every warrant

11:19 to look for these features when truth claims are before you. First then, this faith is always pride withering. Now what is pride? If you had to write out a definition of pride, what would you write? A standard dictionary defines it this way. Pride is an unduly high

11:44 opinion of oneself. One individual has defined pride as, and I quote, the high opinion that

11:58 a poor little contracted soul entertains of itself. Pride is the high opinion that a poor

12:08 little contracted soul entertains of itself. In more biblical terms, I would suggest that we should understand pride along these lines. Pride is that devilish disposition by which we refuse to own our true identity as creatures and as sinners. Pride is that devilish disposition by which we refuse to own our true identity and place as creatures and as sinners. And in a very

12:47 real sense, you see, we are taken right back to Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. Genesis 1 and 2 giving us our identity as creatures made by God in His image, and chapter 3 as creatures who fell in our first Father. And pride, as many have sought to underscore, was the first sin to enter our universe. If those mysterious passages in Isaiah 14 and in Ezekiel do indeed refer to the fall of that one who

13:25 shared above all other of God's creatures in His glory and majesty and wisdom, then we see that it was pride that was the first moral perversion to enter. God's universe. And pride is indeed that devilish disposition by which we refuse to own our true identity and place as creatures and as sinners. Now let's try to open that up briefly. As creatures,

13:56 all you and I have has been given to us by another. As creatures, all that we are and have been given to us by another. When Paul is preaching to the Athenian philosophers who were idolaters, he is very careful to identify this principle with reference to the one true and living God. He says, I'm making known to you the God whom you ignorantly worship. They had their altar to

14:30 the, quote, unknown God. And notice what he says in Acts 17, 24. The God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God that made the world, the God and all things therein. He being Lord of heaven and earth dwells not in temples made with hands.

14:47 Neither is he served by men's hands as though he needed anything. See, now notice, he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. If God is the one who gives to all life and breath and things, then everything you have as his creature has been given. The life that you now possess,

15:22 the breath that you breathe, and everything has been given. The level of your raw native mental powers, the circumstances of riches or poverty or something in between, there is nothing that you are and you possess that has not been given by another. Therefore, any sense of self-congratulation, any effort to glorify ourselves or what we possess or what we've attained is a manifestation of this devilish disposition of pride. We're

16:04 leaving our place as creatures, acknowledging that all that we are and have is a manifestation of that which has been given by another. Notice how the apostle identifies this in very searching language in 1 Corinthians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6. Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself in Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to go beyond the things which are written, that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other. There is a problem of

16:42 pride in which one brother is being puffed up against another. And he's going to go to the heart of that problem. Verse 7. For who makes you to differ? A rhetorical question.

16:56 The answer to which is obvious. Who makes you to differ? Do you have something that is becoming your platform of preening yourself in the presence of your brethren? Do you have something that is causing you to swell with this devilish disposition that leads its place as creature, all that it is and has? What have you that you did not receive?

17:20 Second question. What have you that you did not receive? Two questions. Who makes you to differ? What do you have that you didn't receive? The answer to both is clear. Who

17:30 makes you to differ? Ultimately it's the God who gives life and breath and all things. And all that we have, we have received. Now notice. But if you received it, why do you

17:42 glory if you have not received it? You see, he's saying that at the root of this being puffed up is the assumption something was spun out of the stuff of myself. And he says no, that's contrary to fact. And the recognition that all that you have and are is given will deflate the balloon of your pride. It will cut off at the knees the strutting in pride

18:11 and self-congratulation. And so in this matter of the faith, once for all delivered to the saints, it comes in the context of fully embracing the biblical doctrine of creation and the creator-creature relationship in which it is true that this God gives us life and breath and all things. And Paul goes on to say in that Acts 17 passage that in him we live and move and have our being. And therefore, anything that tends to cause us to live and move and have our being, we live and have our being. And therefore, anything that tends to cause us to take any other posture

18:45 but that of the dependent creature is not consistent with the faith. Once for all delivered to the saints. Furthermore, as sinners, any acceptance of our persons before God must be based on the work of another. As creatures, all we are and have is given by another. As

19:06 sinners, any acceptance of our persons before God must be based on the work of another. In Romans chapter 5, just one chapter and in a short compass of verses, the apostle tells us what we are by nature as sinners. What are we? What is our true condition as sinners? Well, look at verse 6. For while we were yet weak, some of the translations,

19:40 while we were without strength. We are as sinners weak. And it's not speaking of a physical weakness. It's speaking of moral weakness. It's speaking of the strength needed

19:53 to make ourselves acceptable to God. While we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. So by nature we are without strength. We are ungodly, verse 8. But God

20:09 commended his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, without strength, ungodly, sinners, verse 10. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. Now I know that in this day of thinking that we must have a user-friendly message. You're not going to win popularity contests telling people that God says natively as a sinner fallen in Adam, you are without strength, you are ungodly, you are a sinner, and you are an enemy of God.

20:46 You see, the faith once for all delivered to the saints comes to us and honestly declares our true condition as sinners. And therefore whenever a truth claim is set before us we have every reason to ask of that truth claim, does it press me to take my place as creature and as sinner, utterly dependent upon God for all that I am and have? Utterly dependent upon God's provision in Jesus Christ if my person is to be accepted

21:29 before the living God. There is no delusion greater than the delusion that there is something you can do to fix yourself up and make yourself presentable to God. Jesus thoroughly exposed it in many ways, perhaps none more clearly than in Luke chapter 18. For notice why He spoke this parable. Verse 9, Luke 18, 9 – he spoke this parable unto

21:58 certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and said all others it not. Jesus is telling a parable to expose the horrible delusion that one can trust in himself to make himself acceptable to God. If you can do that, then you've got something to brag about. Bounce to look down your nose at others who have not picked themselves up by their bootstraps and made themselves acceptable to God.

22:27 And look at his parable. Two men went up into the temple to pray. The one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

22:45 I fast twice in the week. I get tithes of all that I get. What's he doing? He's preening himself, saying, God, look what a lovely man I am.

22:56 Look at me. Look at me. See what I don't do. And see what I do.

23:01 And compare me even with this man. And surely, God, if anyone has standing before you, I do. So he engages in his bragging rights in the presence of God. Now there's a contrast.

23:15 Verse 13. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much, as his eyes to heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He has nothing to present to God, but himself as a sinner, going out of himself, trusting in the mercy of God, in the propitiatory work of God. And Jesus said, I say unto you, this man went down to his house justified, accepted before God, rather than the other four.

23:51 Every one that exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. You see, the faith once for all delivered to the saints comes to us with a distinct purpose that we should be blasted out of our bastions and fortresses of pride and own from the heart what we are as preachers and as sinners, that we'll no longer strut around, that we'll no longer strut around, thinking there is something that we owe to ourselves and that there's something we can be and do in ourselves that makes us acceptable to God.

24:35 The practical result of embracing the faith once for all delivered to the saints is beautifully described in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

24:50 The faith once for all delivered to the saints. The demands that we own, our identity, our identity as creatures and as sinners. When we have embraced Christ set before us in that faith, notice the result, verses 30 and 31. But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord.

25:26 When the faith once for all delivered to the saints has been blessed in its proclamation to your heart and to your salvation, you will gladly acknowledge that you are what you are because you are in Christ and that you have gotten into Christ by God's gracious activity, but of him are you in Christ and that it is in Christ that you have saving wisdom manifested in the provision of the Holy Spirit. You are the salvation of a perfect righteousness being set apart unto God, being released from bondage and the state of condemnation and death. And you know that that salvation is all of God and all of grace.

26:09 So you glory only in the Lord. The words of boasting in Christ don't get stuck in your throat. You can sing from the depths of your being, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross. You can sing from the depths of your being, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross.

26:26 You can sing from the depths of your being, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross. I cling foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, 3 says, the true circumcision, the true people of God, those who are the product of the proclamation of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, they glory in Christ Jesus and they put no confidence in the flesh.

26:55 So I say again, any truth claim presented to you must be scrutinized for this indispensable feature. Is it pride withering? In contact with it and in the tentative reception of it, does it move you more and more to own your identity and place as dependent creature and as sinful, hell-deserving sinner? Put that test to truth claim.

27:25 Put that test to truth claim. Put that test to truth claim. Isaiah 57, 15 is a wonderful text that captures what I'm trying to say. Isaiah 57 and verse 15.

27:39 God is speaking and says, Thus saith the High and the Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. Now notice, I dwell in the high and holy place with him. Now he's going to describe the one to whom God commits himself in covenant, communion and fellowship. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite.

28:17 God says I dwell with the humble and the contrite. Who is the humble? The one who owns his identity as a creature. Who is the contrite?

28:29 The one who owns his identity as a creature. Who is the sinner? That's it. God dwells with such, but only with such.

28:37 All others he describes as the proud whom he resists. And if we had time, I'd love to go into Daniel 4. Reading it and rereading it in preparation for this Lord's day struck me again. The last verse of Daniel 4, that whole incident of what God did to Nebuchadnezzar.

28:56 The whole message of it is captured in the last verse where Nebuchadnezzar says those that walk in pride, he is able to abase. How did Nebuchadnezzar's pride manifest itself? He marches through his kingdom and says, look what I've done. Look what I've built.

29:09 Look what I've accomplished. And God gave him a dream that troubled him. And Daniel interpreted and told him what was going to happen to him. And for seven years he has driven out into the field.

29:20 His fingers grow like bird's claws and he's like a beast of the field. And then he says his sanity returned. And what does he say? He says, yes, my kingdom, my influence, all of this.

29:31 But he now understands. He says, yes. He understands. It has been given by God.

29:36 He owns his identity as a creature. God humbled him to bring him to the place where he faced reality. You see, humility is not being cut down to something less than we are. Humility is being cut down to what we really are.

29:55 Not a one of you can secure your next breath. God gives it to you. He gives you all things. But you don't live that way.

30:03 Why? Because you think there's something inherent. Why? There's something in you that is either deserving of what you have or that you foolishly think you are preserving and continuing what you have.

30:15 No. God gives. You and I are creatures, utterly dependent upon our Creator God for all things. And we are sinners.

30:24 And we must take our place as sinners. Take our place as Paul describes us, ungodly, without strength, enemies and sinners whose only acceptance before God is found in the life, the death, the resurrection of another, even the Lord Jesus. Humility is not forcing yourself to take a low view of yourself. It is the result of taking an accurate view of yourself as creature and as sinner.

30:58 Now, you young people going off into higher schools of learning, you've got to remember this. SAT scores, don't reach around and pat yourself on the back or pat yourself on the head. Who makes you to differ? Why were you not born with that little abnormality in the chromosomes that you'd be a Down syndrome child?

31:25 Do you remember speaking to God when you were conceived in your mother's womb saying, Oh God, put me together in such a way that by using what you give me, I'll be able to score high and... No, no.

31:38 You weren't there. You're there. Why didn't you give yourself such a place in the world? You had nothing but a longing to live and to be called as a man.

31:49 And how could you differ? What have you that you did not receive? Why do you glory as though you had not received it? You see taking my place is a creature leaves me no room for pride.

32:04 And then when I take my place as a sinner and I realize that anything other than being in hell is all of God's mercy. What do I have to be proud about? He works in us, so willing to work for His good pleasure. We are filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.

Humility: The Result of an Accurate View of Self

32:23 Put this principle before any truth claim. Ask the question, Do I see the features of the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Is it Scripture reverencing? Is it mind-boggling?

Feature 4: The Faith is Sin-Opposing

32:41 Is it, is it pride withering? Then the fourth feature on the face of faith, the faith. This faith is always sin-opposing. And I struggled, I said, should I put sin-killing, sin-destroying?

32:59 And for what I think are good reasons, I finally ended up sin-opposing. Sin-opposing. The body of truth called the faith, which openly declares God's Savior, the living work in Jesus Christ, is not only a faith that offers and secures a right standing with God, that is, the forgiveness of our sins and the crediting us with a perfect righteousness. That's justification.

33:30 God pardons our sins and treats us as righteous as His Son because He puts to our account, He puts to our credit the very righteousness of His Son. But the faith, not only holds forth to creatures who are sinners that provision of an imputed righteousness, but it both announces and secures that those who embrace it will be delivered from the dominion of sin, from the willful practice of sin, and ultimately from the very presence of sin. The faith, once for all,

34:12 delivered to the saints is always a sin-opposing faith. It promises, provides, and promotes deliverance from the dominion, the power, and the practice of sin. Let's just look at a couple of watershed texts that make this so clear that one must consciously deviate from the truth of Scripture to believe anything other than this. Titus chapter 2.

34:42 Titus chapter 2.

34:45 Paul is going to give a rationale for all of this detailed instruction of the godliness required in spiritual leaders, why the people teaching falsehood must have their mouths stopped, and then he gives specific instruction about different groupings within the church. Older men are to be this, older women this, younger men this, younger women this, slaves this, all the rest. And he said, now I have a reason for all this, detailed instruction in practical godliness. Verse 11.

35:19 For, here's the rationale for it all. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed, open appearing of the glory of the great God in our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works.

36:03 These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. You see what he is saying? Titus, you must not back off or ratchet down, on your emphasis of practical godliness. Descending into specific details, tell the older men, this is how they are to conduct themselves.

36:25 These are the graces that are to be manifested in them. The older women, younger men, younger women. Is this just some kind of moralistic teaching? No.

36:34 He says this brings us to the nerve centers of the very purpose for which Christ died. And if there are people there at Crete who say, yes, we've received the virtue of Christ's dying love. We've embraced his grace to sinners. Paul is saying all who profess to embrace Christ as Savior must manifest that the purpose for which he died is being worked out in their lives.

37:03 Namely, that they are living lives that are marked by what? Sobriety, righteousness, and godliness. Christ died not to have a people who say, we're going to be taken to heaven by Jesus when we die, but we'll live like the world while we live. No.

37:23 He died to have a people who by his grace and power take seriously what it is to be holy men, holy women, old, young, married, unmarried. Holiness not as some ethereal, mystical flight of internal experience in some retreat center, but holiness. All the realities of our interpersonal relationships within the different age brackets that have been described in the preceding context.

37:56 This faith is always a sin-opposing faith. That's why after Paul has opened up the wonderful doctrine that we are justified, that is, in the court of heaven declared righteous, when by faith we embrace Christ. That's the great teaching of Romans 3, 21, all the way through to the end of chapter 5 in Romans. Then he asks a question in Romans 6 in verse 1.

38:20 Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound? Paul, you've just told us, where sin abounds, where human sin builds up a mountain of culpability and guilt and blameworthiness, grace raises up a higher mountain covering that sin. Well then, surely, Paul, if where sin abounds, grace does more abound, let's continue to sin that we'll see more grace. Logical.

38:45 So, he says, no. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? I'm quoting Romans 6, 1. God forbid.

38:54 May it never be. And then he gives the rationale. He said, we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? And as though someone says, you mean we died to sin?

39:06 Christ not only died for our sins, bore the wrath of God, but we died to sin, said Paul. Yes. Are you ignorant that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death? We are buried therefore with Him through baptism into death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.

39:31 I've quoted Romans 6, 1-4. He says, no, it's impossible that embracing the Lord Jesus by faith in order to have a right standing with God will ever lead to the willful, deliberate, careless, practice of sin because the faith which unites us to Christ, making it right for God to declare us righteous in Christ is the faith that so unites us to Christ that in union with Christ, His death for sin becomes our death to sin. His resurrection to newness of life becomes our resurrection spiritually unto life in the direction of righteousness and holiness and conformity to the Lord Jesus.

40:16 And the whole argument of Romans 6 falls into two categories.

40:22 Sin does not exercise dominion because we've been united to Christ in the virtue of His death, burial, and resurrection. And verses 15 to the end of the chapter, when we become Christians, we become the slaves of God and of righteousness and of Christ. And sin is no longer the master to whom we yield allegiance, no longer the master whom we deliberately obey, presenting our minds, our members, instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But we present ourselves unto God as alive from the dead and our members, our hands, our fingers, our eyes, our sexual organs, our feet, all that we are, we present them as instruments of righteousness unto God.

41:06 And one of the characteristics of false teachers highlighted in the New Testament and, well, even in the Old Testament, the great problem that the prophets had was false prophets who said you can still be God's people and live as you please. Look back at the letter of Jude. The first thing Jude says about these who have sneaked in amongst God's people, constraining Jude to write that they would contend earnestly for the faith. Notice their outstanding characteristic, verse 4, that are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old, written, and of beforehand unto this condemnation,

41:51 ungodly men. They themselves do not manifest the transforming power of Christ in their moral demeanor, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, that is, into unbridled lust and loose moral living and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. You see, they don't deny the doctrine of grace. They turn grace into a license for sin.

42:26 Peter gives the same warning in 2 Peter 2 and verse 2 and verse 10. We find Peter sounding the same note, 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 2. He speaks of the false teachers that will bring in destructive heresies. Now notice verse 2.

42:44 Many shall follow, here's our word again, their lascivious doings, their lifestyle of unbridled lust and abandonment to sinful passions by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And the Lord Jesus had to stand in the midst of the churches founded by apostolic labors. And what did he have to say to two of those churches in Revelation chapter 2 and verse 14? He says to the church at Pergamum, I have a few things against you, because you have there some that hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel,

43:27 to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. People within the church promoting that sexual license and immorality was not sin. You find a similar indictment in chapter 2 and verse 20. On the other hand, you had Paul dealing with ascetics in Colossians chapter 2.

43:49 People who said, oh yes, it's wrong to give yourself over to unbridled lust and the way you really mortify the flesh is by denying yourself. Don't eat these foods. Don't touch these beverages. Touch not. Taste not. Handle not.

44:03 And what does Paul say about asceticism? He said it is of no use in really opposing sin in root and branch. Colossians chapter 2. He says that these things, these man-made rules, they show, they have a show of wisdom and will-worship.

44:23 Colossians 2.23 and humility and severity to the body, but they are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh. The faith once for all delivered to the saints does not bring us to the place where we regard ourselves as something less than God's creatures for whom God has provided all things good. 1 Timothy chapter 4.

44:48 It's the doctrine of demons. He says that forbids marriage and food and beverages. No, he said, no, no. When God in grace draws us to himself for the first time, we really embrace what we are as his creatures.

45:02 And we can embrace his gifts as good and give him praise for them. Dealing with sin is not a matter of asceticism, nor is it a matter of saying we'll magnify the grace of God by abandoning ourselves to every passion and lust. The faith once for all delivered to the saints is always a sin-opposing faith. Mark it down and never forget it.

45:31 If any truth claim is presented to you that makes you think wrongly concerning what sin is or tends to make you think lightly of sin, it does not furnish you with motivation and power to deal with sin. It ought to be, Paul says in Titus 1.1 that the truth is according to godliness. Where truth is, godliness will follow in its train.

46:03 Where error is, ungodliness will follow in its train. And listen carefully to what I'm going to say, especially you young people. Because of our remaining sin, if we are Christians, because of our reigning sin, if we are not Christians, the human heart, the human heart and psyche has a built-in affinity for error. Because error is the mother of ungodliness.

46:33 Truth is the mother of godliness. And our remaining sin that wants to be spared and wants to be coddled will constantly be like a positive polarity and error is like iron filings. We have a predisposition to it because of our remaining sin. Truth will always keep us bound to the holy law of god.

46:58 Bound to Christ in bonds of love and gratitude and determination to please him. Error is always seeking to sever us from Christ, sever us from the inflexible standard of the law. And therefore, any truth claim needs to be evaluated. Do I see on the face of this truth claim that which is patently, unmistakably sin opposing?

47:24 . Arming me with Gospel dynamics. To fight sin. I'm united to Christ, I die with Christ.

47:32 I've risen to newness of life. In Christ. I'm indwelt by the Spirit of Christ and by the Spirit I can put to death the deeds of the flesh. Does this truth claim arm me to oppose sin effectively.

The Danger of Redefining Sin and the Affinity for Error

47:47 Under gospel motives by gospel dynamics. I can't make it play nor we're not talking, about self-help battering of your sins. The faith once for all delivered to the saints sets those realities before us. And while Paul says in Romans 4, 5,

48:09 God justifies the ungodly who believes on Christ. An ungodly believing sinner doesn't remain ungodly.

48:20 Suffused with justifying faith is a disposition of repentance. What the old Puritans called the vomit of the soul. There is no true embrace of Christ in faith without a fundamental rejection of sin as that which we will willfully indulge and whose passions and appetites we will recognize as lords and as masters. Accompanying justifying faith is the gift of the Spirit whose indwelling presence and power delivers us from the realm of the flesh into the realm of the Spirit.

48:54 Romans 8 in verse 9. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

49:04 If we are indwelled by the Spirit, the tyranny of the flesh has been broken. And we are now in the realm of the Spirit. As a result of justifying faith, we are united to Christ. And we enter into the sanctifying virtue of His death, burial, and resurrection.

49:20 Romans 6, 1-14. We are united to Christ by faith and the purpose of God in our salvation begins to be worked out. At the moral and ethical level whom He did foreknow, then He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. That's God's purpose.

49:37 And when He lays hold of us in grace, He begins to accomplish that purpose that will be consummated at the second coming. Look for this clear, this well-defined feature in any truth claim. Does it tend toward the opposition to sin? Or does it?

49:59 Blunt the edges. Give some room. Or as we see in our day, wretchedly redefine sin by something other than the law of God. Do you know that while we've met here this morning, there are places in our country and Canada where hundreds of unashamed Sodomites, male and female, Sodomites, Sodomites,

50:27 and praise your Savior.

50:31 Do you know that? While you're meeting here today, hundreds of them.

50:36 Yes. And they're praising the Lord Jesus that they have been able by His liberating power to throw off the yoke of someone else defining the right and wrong of sexual activity. And now they are rejoicing that they are liberated in Christ to be practicing lesbians and homosexual males with a good conscience.

51:06 And they're being seared in conscience by people professing to be theologians. I could name one. One of them whose influence only God can measure.

51:19 You're going to confront this in some of you where you're going to college.

51:24 You're going to be given all kinds of psychological studies and profiles and already they debunked the news releases that were ready to say they found a, quote, homosexual gene. It doesn't trouble me what people find about what sin has done in working its way into the fabric of the gene pool. Take the man who is genetically predisposed to have a hot temper. Brought up in a home where he was taught no restraints.

51:53 Will he have to fight the tendency to go out and smash somebody in the mouth three times a week? Well, maybe we can find a temper gene.

52:01 Then it's a tough mouth for you if he smashes it. Poor guy's just being true to what he is. You see the logic?

52:09 You see the logic? It's a wretched kind of genetic determinism.

52:14 No, no. Don't let anybody buffalo you with high-sounding terminology and case studies and all the rest. Whatever aberration is in us that causes us to think or walk in any way contrary to the law of God, it is our sin. And in the day of judgment, we'll give account for it if we do not repent and find forgiveness in the blood of Christ.

Feature 5: The Faith is Christ-Exalting and Christ-Attaching

52:38 And the faith once for all delivered to the saints comes to us not only as Scripture-referencing, mind-boggling, pride-wuthering, but sin-opposing. And then I've left the last feature, which is the dominant feature. It's the one that you should be able to discern first of all and find it hard to even take your eyes from it when examining the other features. This faith is Christ-exalting and Christ-attaching.

53:10 Now let me define my words. What do I mean by Christ-exalting? I mean this. The more we grow in our understanding of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the more we will grow in our spirit wrought, Bible-based appreciation of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

53:32 Very simply stated, that's what I mean by Christ-exalting. The faith once for all delivered to the saints when it first confronts a man or woman, boy or girl, in its most rudimentary elements, in what we would call a simple baseline presentation of the gospel. That first presentation of the faith is Christ-exalting. It tells us that the faith is Christ-exalting.

53:54 It tells the person, young person, child, older person, who's never heard the gospel, it tells them that in the person and work of Jesus Christ is all they need to be right with God now, to come through the day of judgment, vindicated, and enter an eternity in the presence of Christ and all of His redeemed ones. But you see, that faith, the more one grows in it, one's appreciation for the person and work of Christ does not take second, while something else comes in to replace it. No, no. It grows and expands until it will flower out when we are brought home in the presence of God and of the Lamb.

54:38 And we will be totally preoccupied with our exalted Savior in the age to come. So when I say this faith, once for all delivered to the saints, is Christ-exalting, that's what I mean. And when I say Christ-attaching, I mean this. The scriptures that set Christ before us in the glory of His person and the sufficiency of His work tell us that if the Spirit of God gives us any appreciation for who He is and for what He is to sinners, that our hearts will be attached to this Christ in faith, in love, and in a passion to know Him and to please Him.

55:21 So that's what I mean by this Christ-attaching faith. And my contention is that when we turn to the pages of the New Testament and ask ourselves what are the dominant motifs of the truth set forth in the New Testament, surely we have to come to this conclusion that the faith set before us in the New Testament is a Christ-exalting and a Christ-attaching faith. I sat at my desk making a list of texts that demonstrate this and tried all different kinds of ways of organizing them into categories until the moment of truth came even late or early this morning when I just said, no, I'm just going to have to serve it up kind of buckshot.

56:06 That this faith is a Christ-exalting faith. Listen to these few texts as I run them by you. What is a comprehensive statement of the gospel? What is the central motif of the gospel?

56:19 Paul tells us in Ephesians 3, verses 7 and 8. He says, as a duly commissioned servant of Christ, it was my privilege, he said, to declare a message. Verse 8, unto me who am less than least of all saints was this grace given to preach unto the Gentiles. Now notice, here's his description of his ministry.

56:42 The unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul, give us in a nutshell what you're all about. He said, I'll tell you. I've been set apart to proclaim wherever I go and especially to the Gentiles, the unsearchable, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

57:00 It was a Christ-exalting proclamation. The irreducible factor in the gospel, according to Colossians 1.28, is preaching Christ. He says in verse 28 of Colossians 1, whom we proclaim.

57:15 And who is the reference of whom? Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we proclaim. We preach Christ. Now he didn't mean by that.

57:24 He simply mentioned the name of Christ like a, a magical thing. No. He opened up who Christ was, what Christ has done, his identity, the perfection of his work. But he said, this is what my message was, proclaiming him.

57:39 And in Ephesians 4.21, he says, Christ is the great repository of truth. He speaks of the truth to which these Ephesians had come. It's described this way.

57:50 If so be you heard him and were taught him as the truth is in Jesus. You want to know where truth is? It's in Jesus. It's in Jesus.

58:00 Here is his Christ-exalting ministry. Colossians chapter 2. He underscores this again, speaking that Christ is the one. Not human philosophy, not human understanding of things, but Christ is called the mystery of God.

58:19 That they may know the mystery of God. Even Christ, verse 3, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, are hidden. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. And the ultimate goal of God's saving purpose is to make us like Christ.

58:38 And the ultimate reward that Christ will have is our being presented to him. Ephesians 5. Wherever you turn in the New Testament, you say this is a Christ-exalting faith. And it's amazing how people can miss it.

58:52 How men can preach for decades and give people a little moral talk about being good and nice or being social activists or something else. And you wouldn't know in hearing them preach for a decade that Christ was central to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. What a wonderful criticism it would be when a man goes to a better world to say, well, you know, his message really at the end of the day was quite simple. Not simplistic, but simple.

59:25 No matter what was being preached, no matter what, what the passage, what the theme, there was some way that he found a road to Christ. And he set Christ before us in all the perfection of his work and in all the beauty of his person. It is indeed a Christ-exalting faith, but it's a Christ-attaching faith. In other words, Christ is set before us in the beauty of his person and the perfection of his work, not primarily to be admired, but to be trusted, to be embraced, to be received.

60:03 Jesus said, him that comes to me I'll in no wise cast out. John 6, 37. Jesus said in John 12, 32, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. This spoke he concerning what manner of death he should die.

60:19 He said, if I'm lifted up upon the cross, the fruit of that will be I will draw men to myself, not primarily to my church, though if they're drawn to Christ, they will be found in his church. Not to my work, detached from my person. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.

60:44 See, the faith is a Christ-attaching faith. Christ intended it should be. That's why all the calls to discipleship, the climactic note, is attachment to Christ. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and what?

60:58 Follow me. A Christian is one who confesses Christ. Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory.

61:13 Attachment to Christ is on the threshold. Growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ is to be our portion as we live. 2 Peter 3, 18 Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Philippians 3, 10 That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.

61:34 Fruitfulness comes as we abide in Christ. John 15, Colossians 2, 6 and 7 As you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him. The longing for heaven above all else is a longing to be with Christ. I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.

61:59 Everywhere you turn, you open up this book and say, what is the flavor? What's the ethos of the faith set forth in this book? And if you're reading even every third line, you'll come to the persuasion. It's a Christ-exalting faith.

62:14 And it is a Christ-attaching faith. So any truth claim, you must meet with this question. What place does it give to the Lord Jesus Christ? Does it make him secondary?

62:27 Tertiary? Does it make him tangential? Or is he central? Take him out!

62:31 And there's nothing. Nothing left.

62:34 The faith once for all delivered to the saints is such a faith. That's why John the Apostle of Love writes such a vigorous polemic in his epistles about the person of Christ. The first heresies did not attack his deity, but his humanity. And he said, if any spirit does not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh, this is the spirit of Antichrist.

62:59 Passionate about defending the reality of who he is. Paul in the book of Galatians, defending the truth of his work if anyone adds to Christ as the one ground of the sinner's acceptance. That's another gospel. The anathema of God is pronounced upon him.

63:16 Why this tremendously vigorous disposition to maintain truth, doctrinal truth about the person and work of Christ? Because truth alone is the mother of godliness. Truth alone is the means by which we come to a saving acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,

Conclusion: Applying the Five Features to Truth Claims

63:37 those are the five features on the face of truth. Have you got them? A truth claim is before you. You're going to look at it and say, is this what a face should be?

63:47 So have the two eyes with a nose set between and below and a mouth with two lips and two ears. Ask yourself the question, is this truth claim such as to make me love my Bible more? Is it scripture reverencing? Does this truth claim cause me to recognize that my little pea brain was never intended to encompass God?

64:15 When I'm confronted with the reality of the being of God, one God, existing in three persons, yet the three are one and the one are three, am I prepared to bow my mind before that which is clearly revealed but which I cannot fully comprehend? And when I'm told that my Savior is as much Goded as though he was God, as though he were never man, as much a man, as though he were not God, and that in my Savior's person are two distinct natures joined in one person forever, am I prepared to say, oh God, I cannot fathom, I cannot grasp, I cannot feel, I have a handle on the mystery, but I bow before the reality

64:58 knowing that only such a Savior can meet my need. My state as a sinner is such that anything less than a divine arm cannot reach long enough and is not strong enough to extricate me. But I need one of my kind who comes to where I am and in my room instead lives that perfect life and dies that horrific death. Jesus is the God-man, is a Savior perfectly suited to what I am as a sinner.

65:29 And Lord, I live with the mystery. I live with the mystery of how I can be fully accountable and yet you are utterly and totally sovereign. Lord, I am prepared to live with realities that go beyond my comprehension before which I bow in wonder, in love, and in humility. That faith that is mind-boggling as we've seen this morning, that faith that is pride-withering.

65:57 And again, I come back to you young people. This is one of the most telling marks of every kind of human philosophy except perhaps some of the prevailing philosophies that leads to despair. It doesn't so much lead to pride as it does to the destruction of humanity itself. That the only thing we can know for certain is that we can know nothing.

66:20 But think of the arrogance of saying that. For someone to say, I know that we can know nothing assumes that this person already knows everything to make that conclusion. It's arrogant. Ask yourself, is this faith claim pride-withering?

66:36 Is it sin-opposing? Or does it give me some lead to indulge some remaining lust, some sinful passion in me as a child of God? Or does it call me to a strict life of the mortification of sin? Does it call me to deal as ruthlessly with my sins in my thought life, in my motives, in my heart, in my tongue?

66:58 Does it call me to deal as ruthlessly with my sins as I would deal with them if I knew that my measure of holiness by my effort would earn heaven?

67:10 Or have I said since Christ has come, since Christ has earned my heaven, I can be a little less strict in dealing with my sins on the way to heaven? No, no. Truth will never lead you there. Never.

67:19 Never. Never lead you there. And then is it Christ-exalting and Christ-attaching? My friend, if you know nothing else this morning, I hope you know you missed Christ, you've missed it all.

67:31 Whatever else you've got, religion, church activity, church membership, it's of no account when you stand before the living God. May God grant that in that day Christ will confess you as His because you've embraced Him as He is so freely offered in the Gospel. May the Lord help us as His people to give ourselves to this noble stewardship of defending the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Let's pray.

Prayer

68:04 Our Father, we are so thankful for Your Word that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And we pray that You would write upon our hearts these principles of Your truth that we may that we would be armed against the onslaught of error whether it comes thundering before us or whether it comes whispering behind us. We ask, O Lord, that as a people we may be discerning that we may love and seek to defend Your truth and that we may have a passion to propagate that truth that others may know its blessed fruit in their lives. Seal then Your Word to our hearts and dismiss us with Your blessing.

68:45 We ask in Jesus' name Amen.