[0:00] Let's take our Bibles and turn this time to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 3. I'll read the first 12 verses in your hearing.
[0:11] In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, a voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
[0:30] John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locust and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.
[0:43] Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
[0:57] Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.
[1:11] The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance.
[1:23] But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
[1:43] Please pray for me. It's my joy and privilege to be in the pulpit this morning, and my only desire is that Jesus Christ be exalted in the preaching of his word and in the building up of his church.
[1:58] At least seven times in the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus gave this simple yet powerful command to drive his teaching home. And it was this, He who has ears, let him hear.
[2:13] Or, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon put it this way, Picture a military officer with his men.
[2:25] He shouts, Attention! Do what I say! Now in a few weeks, Aaron Leydig will verify that for us. Now, we all have ears, made intentionally and wisely by our creator.
[2:41] Some are bigger than others. A few years ago, a missionary and his wife sat at our table as we were fellowshipping together, and we asked her to say something in the language of the people to whom they were ministering.
[2:54] And she did. And so we said, Well, what did you say? And she said, I'm not going to tell you. And we said, Oh, we need to know.
[3:04] And we urged her and pressed her. And finally, very sheepishly, she said, The pastor has big ears. And she was right.
[3:15] And whether your ears are big or small, the ear God gave you is a magnificent organ. For instance, this piano has 88 keys that take up about four feet of space.
[3:26] And most of us can tell the difference between the notes that are struck. Now, I'm going to ask Tom to strike two notes right next to one another on the piano.
[3:37] You listen. Tell me which one is the highest. One at a time. Okay, which one was the highest?
[3:52] The first or the second? The second. All right. Good. Good. Now, pay attention. God has made a keyboard in your ear that has not 88 keys, but almost 15,000 keys.
[4:09] And that's how many different levels of sound you can recognize if you have a healthy ear. Amazing. And that keyboard in your ear is no bigger than the tip of your little finger.
[4:23] That's the God who made you. That's the God who made you for himself to whom you belong. And then he put 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body so that you could live this morning.
[4:39] What an amazing God. And then, so that we can have day and night, he put our earth on an axis that spins right now at 1,000 miles an hour.
[4:50] That's how we're moving right now. And then, so that we can have summer and winter and springtime and fall, he put that spinning axis into orbit around the sun at 66,000 miles an hour at the same time we're spinning at 1,000 miles an hour.
[5:08] And then, just for good measure, he put the whole Milky Way galaxy out into space at 43,000 miles an hour. And some people may wonder, when are we going to hit the wall?
[5:20] Well, there is no wall. Not in God's universe. Space goes on and on and on and on and it never ends. And that's the God who made you.
[5:32] That's the God who has the absolute claim on your life and on mine this morning. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. But we also have another ear, the inner ear.
[5:45] And this is what the Lord Jesus is talking about. The ear of the heart. And we all have one of those too. The ear that hears the word of God and by grace alone and with God's help, it's able to distinguish and to identify that still small voice of the Lord speaking with power and with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction so that we humbly throw down our weapons of lust and pride and deceit and rebellion and embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the only one who can rescue us from the coming wrath.
[6:23] He who has ears, let him hear. Well, our text this morning is Matthew chapter 3 and verse 12. John the Baptist is baptizing one day and here comes a crowd of Pharisees and Sadducees to watch him.
[6:36] They were the Jewish leaders whose religion was really a sham. It was a mile wide but only about a half an inch deep. They knew a lot of scriptures but they didn't live it.
[6:50] Know anybody like that? John saw right through them and he nailed them good in verse 7. He said, You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath. Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
[7:04] In other words, walk your talk. Live your lips. You're not fooling God. He sees right through you. Too many professors who know nothing about possessing the reality of a living Christ.
[7:18] Then John talks to them very seriously about the Lord Jesus and in verse 12 he says this, His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor gathering the wheat into his barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
[7:34] The Lord Jesus is pictured for us as a farmer threshing his grain. In those days they didn't use a combine like farmers today or even a threshing machine.
[7:45] Some of you are old enough to remember the threshing gangs of years ago that would go from farm to farm working long hot hours to bring in the harvest. No, no. In Jesus' day they cut the harvest by hand and then brought it to the threshing floor.
[8:01] Then the farmer would take his winnowing fork and scoop up a forkful and toss it up into the air and the wind would blow the chaff away and the wheat would fall on the floor at the farmer's feet.
[8:15] Now we have four lessons this morning to learn from this illustration. Number one is this, there are two great classes of people into which the world may be divided.
[8:26] There are two great classes of people into which the world may be divided. And they're both mentioned in our text. Did you see them? There are those people who are called the wheat and there are those people who are called the chaff.
[8:41] Now there are over 200, excuse me, there are over 200 nations in the world with a great diversity of peoples and languages, skills and abilities, colors and cultures. So someone might say, we can put the world into all different kinds of classes and that may be true, but here God says two classes, wheat and chaff.
[9:02] Wheat and chaff. So our big question has to be, who are the wheat and who are the chaff? By working backward from the barn to the threshing floor, we can see that the wheat is valuable.
[9:15] The wheat is useful. The wheat is alive. The wheat has purpose. And so it's easy for us to recognize that the people referred to as wheat, as the Bible would teach us, are all the men and women and all the boys and girls in the whole world who fear God and keep his commandments, who love the Lord with all of their heart and mind and soul, who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior.
[9:44] They have seen themselves as hopeless and helpless sinners, guilty before God who gave them life, hell bound and hell deserving with nothing to offer him but their own wickedness.
[9:57] They have called on God for mercy and for the forgiveness offered in the gospel. They boast in nothing except the cross of Jesus Christ. He's their dearest friend.
[10:09] Sin is their deadliest enemy. The law of God is their guide. Holy living is their purpose. And heaven is their home. And I would ask you, do you fit here? Is that you?
[10:21] Well, that's the wheat God's talking about. And I praise the Lord for every kernel of wheat in this assembly this morning. You are prime evidence of the amazing grace of God that saved a wretch like you and me.
[10:36] We once were lost, but now we're found. We're blind, but now we see. And we see Jesus with the eye of faith, that inner eye.
[10:47] And we hear the word with that ear of faith, that inner ear that brought us deep conviction that came by the Holy Spirit and came with power.
[10:58] Peter put it this way, though you have not seen him with your physical eye, though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him, now you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
[11:14] Praise God. Hallelujah. Now, who are the chaff? Well, let's work backward again from the fire to the threshing floor, and we can see that the chaff is worthless, it's useless, it's dead, it has no purpose.
[11:28] And so we recognize that the people referred to as chaff are all the men and women, the boys and girls in the whole world who love their sin and return to it like dogs return to their vomit, who hate the Lord Jesus Christ and say, we will not have that man to reign over us, who disobey the scriptures and trample the law of God under their feet, who live to satisfy themselves rather than to glorify God.
[11:57] The Bible says their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, their glory is in their shame, they mind earthly things. That's the chaff that God is talking about.
[12:12] Now, here's an interesting truth. Neutrality is impossible. Only two kinds of people. Wheat, chaff. And there's no middle ground of safety and we can be very thankful that the Bible makes it so clear.
[12:25] There are only two kinds of people in Noah's day, those inside the ark and those outside the ark. There are only two kinds of people who built houses in Jesus' story. Those who built on the rock and those who built on the sand.
[12:40] That's right. Jesus said there's only two roads to travel in this life, the narrow way and the broad way. And beloved, there's only two places where all mankind are going to live forever and ever and ever, heaven and hell.
[12:58] So I ask you this morning, are you wheat or are you chaff? Face it. You've got to answer that. When you die, it's too late.
[13:09] Nothing will change. Nothing can change after you die. For it's appointed to man once to die and after this, the judgment. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
[13:23] Second lesson we need to learn this morning, the time is coming when these two great classes of people will be forever separated. The time is coming when these two great classes of people will be forever separated.
[13:37] Today they're all together in the professing church just as the wheat and the chaff were all together on the threshing floor. No separation yet. And so, saved and lost sit together in the same worship service.
[13:51] Saved and lost stand together to pray and to sing hymns together. The wheat and the chaff listen side by side to the same sermons week after week and year after year.
[14:05] Attention. It won't always be that way. The Lord Jesus is coming again and like the farmer who separates the wheat from the chaff, he will separate the saved from the lost once and for all.
[14:21] Have you ever experienced separation in this life? It's tough, isn't it? It tears at our vitals. It brings tears and it brings loneliness.
[14:34] The separation for eternity is far worse than any of us can imagine. A husband will go one way, his wife will go another. A child will go one way, her parents will go another.
[14:50] Families and friends who have lived together and loved together will one day be parted forever and ever, some to heaven, but many more to hell. What? Well, Jesus said it.
[15:01] Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.
[15:17] Only a few find it. Before Jesus comes again to earth, separation is impossible. No man can tell all the wheat from all the chaff.
[15:29] Your pastors love you all, whether you're wheat or chaff this morning. We love you, but it's not our business to separate you for eternity. The winnowing fork is in Jesus' hand and it's a good thing because man can be so wrong.
[15:44] Let me illustrate. Some people might look at Judas and say, oh, he must be wheat. After all, he's one of the twelve disciples. He walked with Jesus for three years. He lived a life of sacrifice.
[15:55] He was the treasurer of the twelve. He preached the word of God. He healed the sick and cast out demons. But in the end, he turned out to be a traitor. He was chaff.
[16:07] In the time of crisis, he sold the Lord for a paltry thirty pieces of silver and then he went out and hanged himself. So Jesus said it would have been better for that man if he had never been born.
[16:24] Why? Because he's in hell today. He was chaff and Jesus knew it. He who stands firm to the end will be saved.
[16:35] On the other hand, some people might look at Peter and see him openly denying the Lord that he had lived with for three years and label him as chaff.
[16:47] He must be worthy of hell to do that. After all, he boasted so arrogantly to Jesus, even if I have to die with you, I'll never disown you and if all the rest of these fellows disown you, I won't.
[16:59] And then Jesus said, three times, Peter, and then you'll hear a rooster. Just a few hours later, Jesus was on trial and Peter was sitting in the courtyard and this little servant girl approached him and said, you also were with Jesus of Galilee.
[17:16] And the big fisherman snapped at the little servant girl and said, I don't know what you're talking about. And a little while later, another girl came and said, you were with Jesus of Nazareth.
[17:27] I don't know the man. And then a third time, they said, your accent gives you away. And by then, Peter had it. And imagine this, he called down curses on his own head and swore on an oath, I don't know the man.
[17:44] And the rooster crowed. And it did crow because Jesus knew all about Peter's denials and he knew all about when the rooster would crow and he knows all about what's going to happen to you tomorrow and he knows all about what's in your heart today and he knows today if you are wheat or if you are chaff.
[18:08] And he knew that Peter was wheat because Peter went out and wept bitter tears of repentance and he turned around and he served the Lord faithfully all the rest of his life.
[18:20] Peter was wheat. You see, faith sometimes is so weak and feeble that it looks like unbelief and we say, that has to be chaff.
[18:31] But Jesus says, no, it's really wheat because that weak faith is anchored firmly to the rock Christ Jesus and to his perfect life and to his substitutionary death and to his glorious resurrection.
[18:48] It's wheat. And on the other hand, unbelief is sometimes so smooth and moral and religious that it looks like faith. And we say, that's wheat.
[19:01] But Christ says, no, no, it's really chaff because he's trusting in his own goodness and in his own works. And he's not repenting every day and he's not trusting Christ every day and he's not looking to Jesus as his only hope for eternal life.
[19:18] No. Many times we have a hard time telling the difference. Even though it is the God-given responsibility of the church and of the elders of the church to discern true faith so that as best we know how, we can have fellowship with one another as a body of believers, as a body of wheat.
[19:40] And that brings me to this question. Some of you here are trusting Jesus Christ. And some of you are in the habit of repenting every time you sin before the Lord.
[19:53] And so, I would ask you, isn't it time for you to publicly obey and to publicly identify with Jesus and believers' baptism? Isn't it time for you to publicly identify yourself with brothers and sisters in Christ by becoming a member of the local church?
[20:13] Jesus said it, Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But if you don't, I won't.
[20:27] Here's the point. Jesus is omniscient. That means he knows everything about everything all the time. And he knows it before any of it happens. He's not in the dark wondering what's going to happen tomorrow or what's in your heart unless you happen to tell him.
[20:42] No. Here's an exciting passage. Listen to this from Psalm 139. It makes it clear. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise.
[20:55] You perceive my thoughts from afar. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
[21:08] What a humbling truth. What a faith-building truth. He who has ears, let him hear. Here's an ugly scene.
[21:20] The Lord Jesus is nailed to a Roman cross between two criminals. They're all suffering the horrible agonies of Caesar's most dreadful death tool, crucifixion, where they may hang for days before they die.
[21:36] One of the criminals mocked our Lord and he hurled insults at him. Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us. And the soldiers came and broke his legs and he died and he went straight to hell because he was chaff, had no use for Jesus.
[21:51] The criminal on the other side of Jesus had rebuked his partner. Don't you fear God since you're under the same sentence? We're punished justly for we're getting what we deserve.
[22:02] But this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And the Lord gave him the sweetest, most amazing words he ever heard in all of his life.
[22:15] Today, you will be with me in paradise. And that shows us what happens to a Christian when he dies. He goes to be with Jesus.
[22:25] He goes to heaven. And the soldiers came and they broke that criminal's legs and he died and he went straight to heaven because he was wheat. He loved Jesus and he trusted him as his Savior.
[22:39] two criminals. Wheat over here, chaff over here, together in life, separated in eternity, separated for all eternity.
[22:52] And who's the great separator? Who's the great divider? The Lord Jesus Christ. And he can't be deceived because he alone is truth. And my friend, on the day of judgment, you won't deceive Christ.
[23:04] If you're not wheat this morning and you know it, you ought to fear and tremble at the thought of his coming. He'll strip you of your sham. He'll uncover your hypocrisy.
[23:15] He'll expose your thoughts and your motives. You'll be speechless before him and with everyone else on the broad road, including the thief and including Judas.
[23:28] you'll head for destruction. He who has ears, let him hear. Now in the third place, what happens to the wheat?
[23:40] What happens to the wheat? Our text makes it clear. When Christ comes again, he separates the wheat from the chaff, gathering the wheat into his barn. That's the picture of heaven.
[23:51] Gathered by Jesus himself, first of all, to a place of eternal safety. No more danger at the hands of Satan. No more tempting. No more deceiving. No more roaring lion.
[24:02] No more ancient serpent. No more wolf in sheep's clothing. The devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and the wheat is eternally safe. There's an old hymn that says, safe in the arms of Jesus.
[24:16] Safe on his gentle breast. Thereby his love persuaded, sweetly my soul shall rest. Eternal safety.
[24:28] But then it's a place of eternal blessing. David said it in Psalm 16. You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
[24:42] Wouldn't we all agree that in this life, our cup is a mixture of blessings and burdens? Joys and sorrows, pleasures and pain. But when the wheat enters the barn, everything changes.
[24:56] No more burdens. No more sorrows. No more pain. No more heartache. No more sin. No more death. Those former things are gone. They're all passed away, and our cup is full of one thing.
[25:08] Eternal pleasures. Eternal blessings from the hand of our God. That's all. So Christian, remember in the midst of your trial, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
[25:23] One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase. So bravely run the race till we see Christ. In the third place, the Lord Jesus will gather his wheat into a place of eternal worship and praise.
[25:38] The book of Revelation pulls back the curtain and gives us a little look into our future worship. There will be loud voices in heaven which said, The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.
[25:53] And again, they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and strength and power be to our God forever and ever.
[26:06] Amen. Yes, they're gathered to heaven. And that's where you'll find the wheat. And that's where you'll find every man and every woman and every boy and every girl who have repented of their sin and trusted the Lord Jesus to save them, who have obeyed him and loved him and served him with glad and humble hearts.
[26:26] Turn to Romans, chapter 8 and verse 30. Here's an amazing thing. Not one will be missing. Not one little grain of wheat will fall to the ground to be left outside the barn.
[26:40] That's his amazing grace. Not one true child of God will fall away and miss the safety and the blessing and the worship of the Lord in heaven. Romans 8, 30. Let's just tear it apart. Those he predestined, that's everyone God chose before the creation of the world.
[26:56] Those he predestined, he also called. He called them. That is, he drew them with the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. And those he called, he also justified. He made them right with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
[27:10] And those he justified, he also glorified. He took them all to heaven. All of them. Every last one. What's God's guarantee for his wheat?
[27:21] Not a single grain is missing. And this shows us the power and the supremacy of God's work of salvation compared to what man's farm equipment is able to do.
[27:32] Do you know of any farm center that will guarantee that every single kernel of wheat that goes into the combine will make it into the barn? Of course not. But God says, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
[27:51] Guaranteed by God. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Well, finally, what happens to the chaff? What happens to the chaff?
[28:02] And this is the hardest part of this message. What happens to the hypocrite? What happens to every man and woman and every boy and girl in the world who is not trusting in the Lord Jesus, who is not living for the glory and the pleasure of Christ?
[28:17] We see the Lord Jesus coming with his winnowing fork, gathering the wheat into his barn, and then those horrible words burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
[28:31] We really don't have a concept of that. Their punishment will be unending torment. God's justice will finally be served. His righteous wrath will descend in fury and will never, never, never, never stop.
[28:47] The Bible makes it very personal in Romans chapter 2. Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath.
[29:06] The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Revelation 14, 11. Hell is a joke for the chaff.
[29:18] They use it for emphasis in their limited vocabulary. They use it to describe the terrible life that they're living at home or at work. And even if there is a hell, they say, God is love and he would never send anyone there forever and ever.
[29:34] Well, the devil loves to hear that kind of talk and it supports his Garden of Eden theology when he told Eve, you shall not surely die. In other words, a loving God would never do that.
[29:48] But the Bible says, the wicked shall be cast into hell and all nations that forget God. Well, you who are chaff, listen to just a bit of Jonathan Edwards' powerful sermon.
[30:04] He was probably the greatest theologian ever to live in America. and he preached a message entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Here's just a little bit of it.
[30:18] The God that holds you over the pit of hell much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire abhors you and is dreadfully provoked.
[30:30] His wrath toward you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worth nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight.
[30:43] You are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful poisonous serpent is in ours. And yet, it is nothing but His hand that keeps you from falling into the fire this very moment.
[30:57] It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night, that you were allowed to awaken this morning, there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you got up this morning except that God's hand has prevented it and held you up.
[31:19] There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God provoking His pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending His solemn worship.
[31:31] Nothing else that is to be given as a reason except the hand of God. O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and a bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned already in hell.
[31:54] You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing around it ready at any moment to singe it and burn it in two and you have no interest in any mediator, nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you for one moment.
[32:24] He who has ears, let him hear. Now to close, two pertinent observations. And there's good news for everybody that's here.
[32:36] Number one, rejoice in this, fellow Christian. Wheat can never be changed into chaff. Wheat can never be changed into chaff. Every true Christian will persevere in holy living until he meets Christ.
[32:52] He can never be stripped of God's salvation. It's an eternal gift to undeserving, hell-deserving sinners like you and me. So, temptations? Yes.
[33:03] Sins? Yes. Spiritual warfare? Yes. Straying? Yes. But God will always bring him back to the narrow road that leads to heaven.
[33:15] With discipline? Yes. With trials? Yes. With sorrows? Yes. With circumstances that he can't always understand? Yes.
[33:26] But he has been changed. Second Corinthians 5.17 If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.
[33:37] And now he's out of Satan's hand and control and he's in Jesus' hand and control. And that's why we have John chapter 10. Jesus said it. My sheep listen to my voice.
[33:49] I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.
[34:04] The wheat can never be changed into chaff. That's good news. Those he predestined he also glorified. Praise God and worship him and tell others of this amazing grace.
[34:18] Second observation, more good news, chaff can be changed into wheat. Chaff can be changed into wheat. You don't have to stay on the broad road with Satan and his crowd all the way to hell.
[34:32] You don't have to go on loving your sins all the way to hell. You don't have to wonder if God is going to drop you like that ugly spider into the torments of hell this morning. You don't have to suffer the unquenchable fire that God has prepared for those who refuse him.
[34:48] No, there's good news this morning, friends. Chaff can be changed into wheat. God has sent a Savior for sinners, his only son, and his name is Jesus.
[35:00] And here's a trustworthy saying that deserves acceptance, full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And this morning he stands ready and willing and able to totally change your life.
[35:17] To hear your cry for mercy, to take out your hard heart of stone and to replace it with a soft heart of flesh into which he'll put his Holy Spirit and upon which he'll write his law.
[35:31] He'll give you true repentance. He will. Turning away from every sin, a hatred for every wicked thought, every wicked word and action, a change of mind regarding the things that God despises.
[35:43] He'll give you that gift of repentance. Not only that, but because Jesus delights to change chaff into wheat, he'll give you faith. He'll give you saving faith, not just intellectual faith or emotional faith, he'll give you saving faith, his gift to you so that you can never boast about yourself, your good deeds, or your religious activities, a faith that prizes Jesus above everything else in the world, so that if you're stripped of everything that is earthly, your family, your finances, your friends, your home, whatever, you're still rich.
[36:18] Christ in you, the hope of glory, as McShane says it, a heart ravaging sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in him. That's the kind of faith he'll give you.
[36:31] And more than that he'll give you a faith that cheerfully obeys God. By faith Abraham obeyed. And a whole new world opened up before him and it will before you.
[36:44] Satan has a lot of knowledge about God but he doesn't obey God and that's what makes him a devil. And then he'll give you not only a faith that prizes Jesus and cheerfully obeys but he'll give you a faith that grows and living things grow.
[37:01] Remember now a weak faith can receive a strong Christ and that weak faith will grow when the word of God is a top priority in your life.
[37:12] You're done fiddling around there's no compromise you're reading and you're memorizing and you're meditating on God's holy word and that weak faith will grow and that weak faith will grow your whole day not just at meals or at bedtime and I trust you're doing that but your whole day is a time of prayer to the Lord adoring him and confessing to him and thanking him and begging him your weak faith will grow when worship with God's people is a must at every opportunity attention to baptism and the Lord's supper when we remember that Jesus took what we deserved eternal hell and gave us what we didn't deserve eternal life attention chaff can be changed into wheat this morning by Jesus Christ alone he's the friend of sinners he's the good shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep he's the author and perfecter of our faith he is the way to
[38:20] God for Christ died for sins once for all the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God do you know God how do you get to God through Jesus Christ there's no other way no other way for the chaff no other way to heaven no other way to be right with God some years ago in the city of Chicago there was a horrible fire in an elementary school and 90 children perished in the flames the most heart rending story involved a family that lived close by the father saw the flames and rushed over to the school calling and crying out for his son they wouldn't let him in the school of course because the heat was too intense so he ran around the building finally spotting his little boy up in a second story window and he said jump Johnny I'll catch you jump I'm right then he stopped and he said
[39:22] I can't daddy I can't twice it happened while his father begged him to jump and Johnny's last words were don't worry daddy I'll find another way that's the last he saw of him he died in the flames because there was no other way there was no other way Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to me Acts 4 12 neither is there salvation in any other for there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved Jesus the apostle Paul said I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus chaff can be changed into wheat and that's exactly why Jesus came and it's why he lived a perfect life and why he died an awful death and that's why he rose again in power over the grave and over hell
[40:28] Jesus Jesus Jesus pray to him sing to him think about him ask him to save you today chaff can be changed into wheat by the power of Jesus Christ he he he he he was a wicked cheating money grabbing tax collector he was hated by his fellow men he was chaff and Jesus came to his house and before the day was over Zacchaeus was wheat how do we know because Jesus tells us read it in Luke chapter 19 he was wheat Zacchaeus proved his faith and his repentance by giving half of his money to the poor and paying back four times the amount to anybody that he cheated he woke up chaff that morning and he went to bed wheat that night the power of Jesus Christ you may recognize this morning that you are chaff if you're honest with yourself you recognize that and you say but
[41:38] I want to be wheat I must be wheat I need to be wheat I woke up this morning chaff I want to go to bed tonight wheat and I understand that Jesus Christ is ready and willing and able to change me this morning the word of God is true so let's pray right now let's pray right now you ask Jesus to save you you ask him to change you you ask him to change you from chaff into wheat and Christian ask Jesus to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask or imagine in our lives in the lives of the chaff around us in the lives of this church and community in the life of our nation in the life of our world let's pray to him merciful God God of the wheat and of the chaff God of the saved and of the lost hear us we pray accomplish your will and your work in every life in this room for Jesus sake amen now unto him who is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise
[43:01] God the glory and majesty dominion and power both now and forever more amen amen