GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #536
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
“After The Way Which They Call Heresy…” Acts 24:14-16
Paul
was accused of heresy by all the religious world around him. The
fundamentalists and the liberals, the Jews and the Gentiles, all with one voice
said he was a pestilent thing, a mover of sedition, a cause of strife,
division, and anarchy, and a heretic.
When
he stood before Felix to answer their charge, the apostle Paul boldly and
plainly declared, “After the way which
they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers.” I declare the same
thing to you.
“They” are the entire religious
world which is set in opposition to the gospel of God’s free and sovereign
grace in Christ. It matters not what denominational name they take. Their religion is essentially the same. They all teach that to some degree
salvation depends upon and is determined by man: his will, his works, his
decision, his choice, his baptism, etc.
“THE
WAY” - There are just two ways of religion: the broad way and the
narrow way, the way of Cain and the way of Abel, the way of Babel and the way
of Noah, the way of works and the way of grace, the way of man and THE WAY. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a
man.” It seems right to all men by nature that what a man is and does, by
which he vainly imagines that he distinguishes himself from other men, must
count for something with God. All the religions of this world, all the
religions of “the great whore,”
Babylon, adhere to this way. Arminian, freewill, works religion is the wine of
Babylon’s fornications, by which the nations of the world are intoxicated and
deceived. “But the end thereof are the
ways of death.” It does not matter which of Babylon’s roads you take, all
her ways are the ways of death.
There
is only one way to God, only one way to heaven, only one way to life, only one
way of salvation. The Son of God, our all-glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ says, “I am THE WAY. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Christ is
the way. He alone can put us in the way. And he alone can keep us in the way.
If you would be saved you must be saved in this way. You must trust the Lord
Jesus Christ alone as all your Wisdom before God, all your Righteousness
(imputed and imparted), all your Sanctification, and all your Redemption (by
blood at Calvary, by grace in regeneration, and in resurrection glory). If you
look to yourself, in any way, to any degree, for any of these things, you are
not in THE WAY (Gal. 5:2,4).
“SO
WORSHIP I THE GOD OF MY FATHERS.” I do not worship the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob my physical fathers (Phil. 3:4-8). Flesh and blood have
nothing to do with the knowledge and worship of God. I worship the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, my spiritual fathers. Like them, I bow to, believe,
worship, adore, and praise the one true and living God. “We are the circumcision, (the true Israel of God, his true
covenant people), which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice
in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” AMEN.