The Spirit Preaches the Truth Concerning Christ

The transcript is a sermon given by Pastor Jason Booth at Redeemer Church in Piketon, Ohio. He discusses the importance of the Holy Spirit in preaching the truth about Jesus and the role of the Trinity in salvation. He criticizes the idea that the Holy Spirit saves sinners apart from the Gospel and emphasizes the necessity of believing in the true Gospel for salvation. He warns against accepting false Gospels and urges the church to speak out against them. The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. The Spirit preaches the truth concerning Christ. The Spirit preaches the truth concerning Christ. And we're going to consider a few verses of Scripture as our opening text. We're looking at John 16, verses 13 through 15. And we'll read the Word of the Lord. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak. And He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore, I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. The Word of the living God. And we trust that He will add His own blessing to the public reading of His infallible and holy Word today. Heavenly Father, we thank You. We praise You for the opportunity to gather together in this hall to hear the Word of God preached. To sing Your praises. To pray. To comfort one another, Lord God, in all of these ways. In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. To be there for one another. To celebrate and rejoice with one another. Lord, for all of the needs, we bring them to You. And we bring them one to the other that we might hold each other up. And we thank You for the opportunity to gather as a body representing You in this community. We thank You, Lord, for the grace and mercy that You've bestowed upon us. We thank You, Lord, for gathering us together today that we might hear Your Word proclaimed yet again. And we ask, O God, that You would send the Holy Spirit to fill us. To move upon our hearts, O God, that we might, Lord God, yet again be testified of this truth. To be told, Lord, not by the enticing words of man's wisdom, but by the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit of God. Who comes to tell us about Jesus in the preaching of this gospel. We ask, O God, that You would move upon Your people. Stir us unto good works. Stir us, Lord God, unto love. Stir us, I pray, Lord, to do that which would be pleasing to You by faith in Jesus. As He is the only object of our faith and our only source of righteousness and our only condition for full soul salvation. We ask, O God, for these blessings and these glorious, merciful favors. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. There is much confusion today concerning the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Especially as it relates to the Spirit's testimony in the salvation of sinners and what the Spirit does in the salvation of sinners. Remember, over the last few weeks we've been building on this and I hope you've been able to catch at least the hinder parts of what I've attempted to teach. And that is that God calls a people or He elects a people in eternity. Jesus Christ comes to save a people. And the Spirit of God goes forth to call these people unto Christ. So we see the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And we've broken this down in several different ways. Remember, John 3.16, God loves, God sends Jesus, God calls us to Jesus through and by the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Salvation is a Trinitarian work of grace. And if you misapprehend the Trinity, if you don't catch the truth of the Trinity, then you don't understand salvation. You can't possibly. And the Spirit of God has a work to do in salvation. He is the Spirit of Truth, the Bible declares. But errors and gross heresies abound concerning His precious work and witness. But rather than spending the entire message today cataloging every imaginable Holy Spirit heresy, and believe you me, there are many. My heart's desire today is to teach this simple truth concerning the Holy Spirit. And that is, the Spirit preaches the truth about Jesus. Concerning Jesus, the Spirit of God has nothing to tell us but the truth. He is the Holy Spirit. He is God. He is everlasting to everlasting. He is God of very God. And along with God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is one person of the Trinity. A distinct person, eternally comprising the one God. God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, yet three distinct persons. This is the ancient, holy, and apostolic faith. There is no substitute, there is no concession that we will make on this point. To deny the Trinity is to deny the Gospel. It is to deny the revelation of the Scripture. It is to deny God. It is to forsake or deny entire swaths of who God is. And one cannot do that without fundamentally changing the Gospel. The Trinity is essential to Gospel preaching. The Holy Spirit, specifically, is called in the text that we read, the Spirit of Truth. Yet so many are willing to ascribe lies to His name and to His work. Consider this sad reality. Many who claim to believe in the sovereign grace of God in Christ as the biblical Gospel readily, and I might even say gleefully, believe that God, the Holy Spirit, saves sinners apart from the Gospel. Now you might think, what do you mean? Here's what I mean. You claim to believe the sovereign grace Gospel, the only Gospel that saves. Because it is the only Gospel recorded in Holy Scripture. It is the only Gospel that Jesus Christ came and fulfilled. And yet men will say, now I know they don't believe the Gospel the way we do, but I believe that God saved them. What are you saying when you say that? Well, let's compare what we believe to be the Gospel. We believe that Jesus Christ came and Jesus Christ died to save His people from their sin. We believe that for those whom Christ died, those people will be saved. If you have been given to Jesus by the Father, you will come unto Him, and He will raise you up on the last day. We believe that all conditions have been met by Jesus. His perfectly sinless life and His death satisfied God's wrath. The Bible says His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, satisfied God's wrath. He drank damnation dry for the sake of His elect people. Everyone who He would call unto faith in His name, by who? The Spirit of truth. Jesus rose again the third day bodily to justify our faith in Him. And now we believe that everyone for whom Christ died will come to Him because He will lose none of those the Father has given Him. Now, that is the Gospel we preach. And we say to you, if you believe this Gospel, flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, it is the Spirit of God who has revealed this truth to your heart in the preaching of the Gospel. How shall you hear except there be a preacher? Well, good news, there's a preacher. And you just heard the Gospel. And He died to set His people free. Do you believe it? If so, it was the Spirit of God who testified to your heart and gave you faith to believe, regenerating your old dead heart and making you alive and making you willing in the day of God's power. His day of invitation to you, His day of visitation, rather, to you. Let me tell you, the Gospel doesn't fail. The Gospel doesn't lack in any sufficiency. The Gospel is not deficient. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to them that believe it. And who believes but those who've been given to Jesus by the Father. And yet there are people who claim to believe in this precious grace, in this precious truth of the Gospel. They'll say, yes, I believe that. Well, there's a church down the street that's telling people that you have to make a decision for Jesus. That you're only saved if you want to be saved. That you've got to choose it. God's done everything He can do. And now if you don't make that invitation prayer to Him and that sinner's prayer, if you don't tow these lines, if you don't do this, if you don't do that, then you can't be saved. If you do these things and you maintain these things by all the works of your hands, by the free will of the decisions you've made, then you're a Christian. And there are people that believe in the sovereign grace Gospel, or say they do, and then out of the next corner of their mouth, they'll say, yeah, those people are saved too, in spite of what they believe, not because of what they believe. Then I ask you, how can they look at anyone and say, I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. Let me tell you, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, does not pander to dead sinners with lies in order to bring them to Christ. Many believe the Holy Spirit saves sinners in spite of the false Gospels they hear. In other words, they believe the Spirit of God uses means other than the Gospel, or even outright lies about Christ, to bring people to Christ. Now think about how foolish that sounds. When someone says, and I'm going to use some theological terms here for a moment, and if you don't know what these mean, stick around. We're going to teach you what they mean around here. But if you want to know any more than that, just talk to me after church. But there are people who believe the Arminian and free will lies. And then you've got so-called Calvinists, or Reformed people, speaking peace to their lying Gospels by saying, yeah, they're saved in spite of what they believe. Yeah, they're saved. But what are you really saying? How dare you claim to know the Spirit of Truth if you accuse God the Holy Spirit of utilizing lies about Jesus to save people into churches that don't preach the truth of Christ? Is the Spirit of Truth divided? Is the Spirit of Truth divided? Is this a hard message? It's not hard for people that know God's grace and mercy. But it's high time the church realized that if we speak peace to a false Gospel, you may as well be preaching the false Gospel. How can I look at a free will preacher and say, your Gospel's just good enough. Keep on preaching it. Keep on telling people those lies. I may as well tell everybody to join the local Buddhist temple down the street. May as well tell everybody just to stay home and not worry about going to church or reading the Bible or anything of the Spirit. Because if I'm encouraging you to believe a lie, or I'm countenancing a lie, and speaking peace to a false Gospel, then how dare I say that I speak for the Spirit of Truth? The Spirit of Truth becomes the Spirit of convenience. The Spirit of compromise. When a Calvinist or a Reformed fellow will stand in his pulpit and say, yes, God saves apart from all of the theological distinctives of what we preach. Well, then why are you preaching? Just shut up and sit down. For every word that proceeds from the mouth of a preacher is theological. There is no middle ground. Stand up. Man up. You know who else the Spirit of God is? He's the Spirit of boldness. It's high time that God's people, in love, in mercy, with humility, stand up and say, oh God, give us the Spirit of boldness yet again. The same Spirit that filled your disciples way back in the day when the Spirit of God gave them boldness to stand up and preach the truth even in the face of those who would find it inconvenient, offensive, even if their lives were on the line. The disciples rejoiced that they were counted worthy to bear the afflictions of Christ in their own flesh when they were beaten for the Gospel's sake. Whoa! The church would be something else if God would give us that same zeal and vigor today. Oh God, revive your people. And let's quit telling people that every old Gospel will do the job. Any old thing will do as long as you slap Jesus on it. Well, what's the difference between the average free will works righteousness and Mormonism? What's the difference between the average works righteousness garbage that is preached in so many churches even in our own county and any other rank pagan works-based religion on the planet? We aren't going to speak peace to a false Gospel. Don't think for a moment that you are my brother just because you name the name of Jesus while you count on all of your works and effort for your righteousness. As much as I desire you to be my brother, you are not my brother if you don't preach the Gospel I preach. If you don't believe the Gospel I believe. Because the Bible says that it is the preaching of the cross to those who perish foolish. But to those who are saved, it is the power of God. If this is the power of God then we've got to be plugged in to the right source. We've got to know the truth because only the truth can set us free. The spirit of truth does not pander about in lies. He does not do his work by telling you fibs about God. The spirit of truth is not the spirit of convenience. He's not the spirit of compromise. And he does not work outside the true Gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Jesus taught us this. He said if a man is casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub that's foolish. A house divided against itself can't stand. Remember when they accused him of being a devil for forgiving sins and casting out devils? I mean there's a that's a crazy thing to do to Christ but that's what they try to do. He's working these miracles by the power of Beelzebub. Well Jesus called it out for what it was. That was stupidity. Do you think that the Lord is saving people Now I love it when people say I got saved and then I started reading the Bible and realized that everything I believed about God was wrong but I was still saved. But what are you trusting in? Why are you trying to hold on to the past? Why are you trying to hold on to some religious pedigree that you thought you had in false religion? Salvation requires repentance from dead works but in so many a church salvation is not repenting of those dead works it's finding new works new dead works to trust in. Oh my church membership my baptism my doing the not doing my doing this, doing that, tasting this, not tasting that not touching this, touching that going and doing this with the preacher saved and prayed up I hear people say that around here all the time I gotta get prayed up. What does that mean? Is that your righteousness? You're prayed up? Like you can fill a container with like prayer points? What is that? It's works righteousness It's drivel It's nonsense God saved us from the bane of compromising gospel haters Believe this beloved to teach a doctrine that separates the spirit of truth from the truth of which he came to testify is a doctrine dreamed up by fallen men and fit only to line the graves of the wicked Christ died to bring the gospel to fulfillment absolutely he did. What did he say on the cross? He said it is finished the bloody work of redemption is complete in his finished work, in his death and now the good news of Christ's completed work that he came to save sinners full and free is proclaimed in the Holy Spirit empowered preaching of this very gospel This is good news but what is news but information and what good is information if it's not truth it's not information if it isn't truth it could be false propaganda it could be wishful thinking but the good news of Jesus must be the truth of what Jesus did what Jesus said and the spirit of God is not going to come to you with a pack of lies to save you down at first church of carnival flesh and works and then you know 20 years later after you really super duper read the book now you realize that you were just a little crooked in so many of your doctrines like all of them but you've always been a Christian now you just know the true meaning of what it means to be a Christian this message is easy enough for a child to understand because to trust in your decision is to trust in works I'm so glad I chose Jesus and I made him the Lord of my life pray for me that I'll make it in that's the template testimony of 99.9% of the so called Christians in this very county and every word I just said was a magnification of me me me me me of my works of my worth and not a bit of that is scriptural not a bit but the spirit of truth isn't going to testify to that mess the spirit preaches the truth of Christ and this truth alone no other message can be ascribed to the Holy Spirit because he testifies only of Christ and his finished work the spirit of truth is the herald of truth the Holy Spirit preaches Christ and his gospel alone there's a few points I want to bring out and we should get to all of them this morning as we make good time here Lord Willie the first thing I want to bring out is this the spirit guides into all truth because he preaches Christ the spirit of God does not the Bible says he does not speak on his own authority and this means that what he speaks is the truth concerning another and this of course is Jesus so the spirit of God doesn't come to toot his own horn he doesn't come to give us a bunch of wacky signs and wonders in our church services for the sake of signs and wonders when he did provide signs and wonders in the apostolic era he did so to authenticate the gospel and to point people to Christ as far back as the day of Pentecost the spirit of God was pointing people to the gospel of Jesus Christ so many churches today have become basically romper rooms where every crazy and wacky thing they could do in church and blame on God they try to pull off but that's not what the spirit of God has come to do he's come to testify of Jesus he's not Christ's rival beloved he's come to preach to testify of Christ and him crucified empowering gospel preachers to effectively preach Christ's work not in their own strength but in a demonstration of power of God and that's why the bible says this in 1 Thessalonians 1, 4, and 5 for we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake so the spirit of God comes to testify of Christ and he accompanies the word preached with his power so he empowers the word that goes far what word? the word preached about Christ so the spirit is only interested in the truth concerning Christ because he is the spirit of truth the spirit teaches us that the Holy Spirit will only speak that which he hears so likewise he takes what is Christ and delivers it unto us so his task is leading people to the truth of Christ the spirit of God's task is to tell you about Christ in the preaching of this gospel a minister will preach to you you will read the word of the Lord you will hear the word of the Lord and it is the spirit of God who applies this truth to your regenerated heart secondly the Holy Spirit is the true comforter don't tell me that your free will I made a decision for God and I can walk away and I can lose my salvation and I have to earn my salvation by doing all this stuff don't tell me that that's the truth that the Holy Spirit told you because that's a lie that's not the gospel the spirit of God is a true comforter and he can't comfort you in lies what lasting comfort can a lie produce certainly a temporary assurance can be drummed up in a pack of lies I can tell you that the bridge that hasn't seen an engineer's certification stamp in a hundred years is perfectly safe and you might take solace in the fact that I told you so but as you walk on that bridge as they say the proof in the pudding is in the eating and as the timbers begin to snap underfoot and the bridge gives way and all you see is a whole lot of river rushing right toward your face you know full well that the words I gave you comforting though they may have been in the moment prior are giving you nothing of which to trust right in that moment the spirit of truth is a true comforter though he's not going to tell you a lie he's not going to put a band-aid on your sinful state and say well that'll be good enough for now I will lead them into more of the truth of the gospel later no the gospel's got to be truth from the very beginning now I'm not suggesting that you've got to memorize the entire bible in order to be saved there's those who would cast this aspersion they would say oh that preacher he's trying to tell you you need special knowledge to be saved he's a gnostic you know he's neo-gnostic calvinism is a word that I've seen fancied about let me tell you something there is nothing secret about what I'm preaching to you you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free that's the word of the living God now tell me that the spirit of God is going to use lies to save you why would he need to use lies when the truth is in his grasp it's right there Jesus hand delivered the sweet smelling sacrifice of eternal redemption to the father the spirit of God now has to resort to using lies to save his people oh no not even John 15 26 and 27 but when the comforter is come whom I will send to you from the father even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the father he shall shall shall testify of me not of the lies of false religion not of the lies of arminianism not of the lies of works righteousness not of the lies of decisional regeneration not of the lies of a come up to the altar and say a sinner's prayer not of the lies of you're going to lose your salvation if you don't toe the line not of the lies of this old world and its man centered theology but the truth of Jesus you can't be comforted by lies how many of you have ever been lied to yeah it's no good is it it's a betrayal it's a betrayal you find out that you've been lied to maybe it's been for a long time because sometimes lies have a way of coming out real slow but when they finally do it could have been 20 years ago and you find out just now you've been lied to the whole time and that's a great betrayal so many Calvinists and so many reformed theologians would tell people yeah they got saved in a rank arminian church and then 25 years later they finally come to realize that everything was wrong but they were always saved Paul didn't do that imagine if somebody was going to hold on to their pedigree it would have been the apostle Paul here he was trained at the feet of Gamaliel he knew the scriptures better than anybody he was a prodigy he was up and coming he was so zealous for what he thought was the right that he was going out with warrants to arrest and kill Christians he thought he was God's right hand man didn't he he had a pedigree that he could have defended he of all people teach us that we need not hold on to our religious past okay so God didn't save you from the gutter he saved you from the United Methodist Church okay God didn't save you from your house down the street but instead he rescued you from some psychotic free will worshipping independent fundamental Baptist church down the street oh preacher you're naming names yeah why not we need to tell the truth one to the other what pedigree do you have to hold on to some false profession you made that you drummed up in your own flesh because you thought you could partner with God to make you saved do you need to hold on to that do you need to hold on to your pedigree so in order to make nice I need to tell everybody that's still trapped in that works righteous garbage that they're saved already and that I'm just trying to refine and put a finer point on their theological understanding is that all we're doing here today trying to make already saved people more theologically refined is that all sovereign grace is or are we preaching a different gospel than the mess that we heard in all those other churches we're preaching the true gospel now if you don't believe it you're in the wrong church why would you want to go to a church that you didn't think was preaching the gospel you need to go someplace else now preacher are you being harsh I don't think so because I can't wrap my mind around this notion that the spirit of God is going to save, genuinely save people in false gospel churches and then leave them to languish there under continual lies about who Jesus is about his person and his work to continually torture his people with no assurance of their salvation that's what God's going to do to put them in a situation where all they do is hear lies about Jesus in a so called church let me tell you I'm okay with telling you that I haven't been saved near as long as I thought I was saved I'm absolutely okay with telling you that I know it's popular in our Arminian culture to say stuff like I remember the day when the Lord saved me well let me tell you, I don't care when you think you got saved I want to know if you know Jesus right now are you saved? quit trying to count on some pedigree some prayer you prayed 25 years ago when you thought that you were part of the righteousness none of that matters, does it matter? what matters? the Bible says examine yourself to see whether or not you'd be in the faith and how can you examine yourself if you don't know the truth? all preachers, the truth isn't what really matters all that matters is our intentions really? the thoughts and intents of the heart are desperately wicked can't we just say my time in false religion was my time in false religion and move on but thanks be to God He's shown us His sovereign grace in Christ He showed us the truth and I'm not saying that God didn't have in store for you something awesome even when you were in false religion because evidently He did and I'm thankful to be saved I'm thankful to know the truth that has set me free I'm thankful to know that the Spirit of God reached down and did a work in me to make me believe the truth concerning Jesus and now when I see Jesus' words in Scripture all that comes out of this mouth is yes and amen because He's made me willing in the day of His power He's given me a heart to believe and aren't you glad that you believe the true and saving gospel a gospel that's not conditioned upon you but a gospel that is forever settled in heaven by the finished work of Jesus Christ and don't tell me the Spirit of God has come to tell you half-truths about Jesus He came to testify these things to you John 14, 1-3 Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in me in my Father's house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also the Holy Spirit comforts us in this very truth so I'm supposed to believe that everything Jesus says is true but the Holy Spirit operates in lies nonsense the same Spirit of God who comes with divine power to grant us the gift of faith as we are brought to Christ in salvation is the same Comforter who holds us close to Himself as we are girded with the precious truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ what do I know about the Spirit of God? well I know He's the Spirit of Truth but I also know that He helps us in our infirmities and boy, our infirmities are too many to number Romans 1-26, likewise the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses for we do not know what to pray for us we ought but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words He doesn't just testify the truth to us but He holds us in our weakness strengthens us gives us joy for the journey the Bible says that God He literally intercedes for us it's as though He is pulling all the weight thank God He is you know, I didn't carry that cross up Calvary's hill, He did I didn't die for my sin it was Christ who died and rose again the Spirit of the Lord comforts us in His truth because He is described in Scripture, and this is beautiful Isaiah 11-2 says and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord these are all titles for God He is the Spirit of understanding so don't tell me that you can be saved without understanding the gospel He is the Spirit of wisdom how wise would it be for God to send the Holy Spirit to preach lies concerning Jesus, to save souls for the truth now if that doesn't melt your mind the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge don't you see it's the Spirit of knowledge who gives us a sound mind how can you have a sound mind the Bible speaks of this God is not what? God doesn't give us the spirit of fear but the spirit of power and of a sound mind, how can you have a sound mind you've got to know what you believe is sound you've got to teach and listen to sound doctrine, because there's coming a day and it's already here, where men will not endure sound doctrine but would rather heap unto themselves teachers having itching ears, what's that mean? it means the ears don't want to hear the truth they want to hear, oh, God loves everyone, God loves every single man, woman, boy and girl and you've got to choose Him now He loves you so much that He's powerless to save you He loves you so much that He has given you this will that is so powerful that it can even supersede the very power of Almighty God God is so sovereign they say, quote unquote that He has given you complete sovereignty over Him and He loves you so that you can make this choice all your own and He loves you so much that if you fail to make this decision before your heart stops beating that He will then lovingly cast you into a devil's hell for all eternity this, my friends might be a little bit of a caricature but that's pretty much the outline of the average evangelical theology let loose in our lands the pestilence it's a terrible thing, a pestilence in the land John 10, 1-5 truly, truly I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way that man is a thief and a robber you ask me why I'm saved and I say it's because the Holy Spirit gave me a heart to believe and He made me willing He caused me to believe that Jesus is Lord but I'm not saved because I believe Jesus is Lord I believe Jesus is Lord because I'm saved the object of my faith is Christ alone but my faith in and of itself does not save me my faith is the evidence it's the gift of God that He has given me to trust in the work He's completed for me, for He who began a good work in you shall be faithful to complete it under the day of the Lord Jesus now, you juxtapose what I just said with what the average fellow on the street might tell you about Jesus let's say they go to the Vacation Bible School all the little Christian lingos of American churchianity and they'll tell you well I know I'm saved because I believe that I said the sinner's prayer and I trusted the Lord and I gave Jesus the permission to enter my heart and I made Him the Lord of my life and I prayed to be forgiven of all my sins and then Jesus saved me and so long as I do everything the church tells me to do I know that I can have some security in knowing that I might make heaven my home now, how are those two testimonies anywhere near the same? they're not, are they? would you dare say that somebody's trying to enter the sheepfold by a different way other than the door? I would, and what's the Bible call that person? a thief and a robber but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to him the gatekeeper opens the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out God saves His people He's not waiting on some throne like an impotent old man hoping that you'll come and shake His hand hoping that you'll come to visit Him sometime like Grandma in the retirement village maybe the kids will show up this year that's the God of Arminianism that's the God of the free will cults that abound in this land but the spirit of truth will have nothing to do with any of that mess but I'm so thankful that the sheep hear the voice of the shepherd and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out that's the power of God oh, what would happen to this world if our churches would man up and preach the truth oh, that God would send true revival that God would send true revival that God would save some preachers when He has brought out all His own verse 4 He goes before them and the sheep follow Him for they know His voice now verse 5 tells me everything I need to know about the false gospel listen the sheep will not follow but they will flee from Him don't tell me you know Christ in the full pardon of your sins if you're actively sending your family into a hell hole of Arminian false preaching every single Sunday oh, I bring my kids down to First Community Church because, you know, they've got the bell choir and I know they preach all sorts of false doctrines I really believe the truth of the gospel but it's ok, they've got some pretty good they've got a good orchestra program for the kids and I've got one in the hand bells, like I said and I've got the other one doing a whamma and I've got some other ones over there in that upward bound basketball camp ok ok so you're willing to sacrifice the truth of the gospel for a few romper room amenities but the Bible says a stranger God's people will not follow but they will flee from Him for they do not know the voice of strangers when God revealed His grace to me the minute I started hearing preaching that didn't line up with this word it made me sick to hear it it made me weary and it made me almost to the point of anger where I'd hear this man preaching these fibs these lies about Jesus and I'd shake my head and say, what is that? it's like trying to force feed somebody trash nobody wants that oh, when you've tasted the truth you don't want the bitter lies of this old world and its false religion you want the sweet honey the manna from heaven the daily bread that comes down from God through His word you don't want a lie you want the truth and so it is as we summarize here the spirit guides us into all truth because He preaches Christ secondly if I can find there in my notes, I want to make sure I read this just the way I wrote it the spirit guides us into all truth because He preaches Christ secondly, the spirit is a true comforter thirdly, the spirit of truth as Christ's preacher will not countenance false gospels He's not going to tell you lies you pray to God to bless you to give you the truth is He going to send a lie? if you ask your own mom or your dad for a fish are they going to give you a stone or a serpent? or if you ask for bread, are they going to give you a stone? if you ask for a fish, are they going to give you a snake? Jesus taught us that He said, no, how much more then will the Father give good gifts? don't think He's going to save you through a pack of lies let's conclude the truth of which the Holy Spirit testifies is this we are dead in our trespasses against the Holy God of heaven and earth left to our own devices we are dead in sin children of wrath, just like the others secondly, Christ came to save His people from sin, taking upon Himself the iniquity of those He came to save He died for His people and everyone for whom Christ died and everyone for whom Christ died will come to faith and will be saved because He saved His people from their sin thirdly, Christ's death accomplished everything He came to accomplish having resurrected from the dead on that third day fourthly God's people will hear and believe in Christ trusting Him alone for all righteousness before God not in their own strength not in their confession not in their confirmation not in their baptism, not in their church membership not in their tithing or giving not in their Christian conduct or unchristian conduct or anything like it they'll look to Christ alone for the righteousness that pleases God and Christ alone fifthly, the Spirit of God testifies to this truth of accomplished redemption how? through the preaching of the gospel through the word and that beloved is what the Spirit of God has been sent to do He comes to tell us the truth about Jesus now perhaps the message was a little harsh, a little stern I'm sorry shall I become your enemy because I speak unto you the truth you know sometimes tough love is the only kind of love there is and if I want to dance around this issue to just be nice so that I'll get invited to the ministerial association so that I'll get all of the community lauds and honors then I've done you a disservice you can't call yourself a pastor or a teacher if you're not willing to guard the flock of God against the lies of the devil but aren't you glad that he's given you the truth of the gospel the freedom that you have to know that your sins are blotted out that your name's written in the Lamb's book of life and no one can take you out of the Father's hand I'm so thankful that I'm incapable of doing anything good on my own I'm thankful that he's given me the ability to confess that freely I'm thankful that the Spirit of God has come down and he has testified of the truth of the cross of Jesus Christ to this old sinner and he's made me alive and he's caused us to sit together in heavenly places I'm thankful that Jesus drank damnation dry on behalf of each and every one of his precious children. I'm thankful that he is the shepherd who guides us through the door and I'm thankful that he's caused us to have a taste for truth that when we hear an error, when someone tries to feed us the hogswill of works righteousness, we taste it and we spit it out and we say, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not following after a stranger I'm not eating hogswill I'm not doing it because I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good May the Spirit of truth comfort us in the truth of the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace and may he give us spirit-empowered boldness to tell people the truth In fact, it's the only thing God's ever going to tell us to tell people because God the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth Lord, I have blessings to your word I pray today for our sake Bless us, Lord God your people cause us to remember that you have given us the truth of this precious gospel and help us to share your love your truth with those who would hear it In Jesus name, amen You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Booth of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio To learn more about the good news of Jesus please visit RedeemerPiketon.org