Let's start this morning by singing
hymn 185 in the hardback teminal. 185, that's glorious things of
thee are spoken. Okay. Glorious things of Thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God. He whose word cannot be broken,
formed Thee for His own ago. On a rock of ages founded, What
can shake thy sure repose? With salvation's walls surrounded,
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes. See the streams of living waters,
springing from eternal love. Well supply thy sons and daughters,
and all fear of conqu'ry loom. Who can thank while such a river
Ever flows their thirst to swage? Grace which like the Lord, the
giver, Never fails from age to age. Round each habitation covering
See the cloud and fire appear For a glory and a covering Showing
that the Lord is near Glorious things in thee are spoken City of our God, His Word cannot
be broken, Born before His own abode. Thank you, Adam, for leading the song. I'll tell you,
it's, as the Bible says, he calls them
men with hoary hairs. We have some, that means gray
hair, older men. It is always a great blessing
to come here, but for those of us older, it's a great blessing
to have young people. Because we've seen many a gospel
church die because there was no new people, young people coming
in. We pray that God would speak
to us this morning and that he would be glorified. Turn with
me, please, in your Bibles to 1 Timothy. Chapter 1 Timothy
3. And as I was preparing this,
the title of this message is The Church of the Living God. That's what Timothy calls God's
church, The Church of the Living God. And as I was preparing this,
it brought back a memory in my life that has stuck with me for
now a little over 40 something years. A little over 40 years ago, God
blessed Diana and I for our first child. And I was so excited that
I couldn't wait to take him and introduce him to my family, which
was 500 miles away. I wanted his great-grandmother
and his great-great-grandmother to see their grandchild. It was
important to me. And we did after he got old enough. We took him there. I remember
that one of the people we took him to was my grandma Etheridge.
Now, some of you came from a Southern Baptist background. If you can,
you understand what I'm trying to show here. My grandma Etheridge
was the white Bible lady. If you remember that, some of
you, they used to give a white Bible out to some woman that
was honoring them as a faithful servant of the church. And my
grandmother, she was, if the church doors opened, she was
there. She didn't drive, she took a cab if somebody couldn't
take her. And she read her Bible every day. So we were there and
after a little while, she looked at me and she says, Michael,
do you and your family go to church? And I did what I do best, I lied
to her. I said, no grandma, we don't
go. There's no church around us that preaches what we believe.
And her face kind of looked, you could tell on her face, what
did you just say? And I don't remember she said
it, but I know she was thinking it because the first thing in
her mind would have been, don't they have a Baptist church in
Orlando, Florida? She didn't say any more for a
while. And the reason I lied is we didn't go to church because
I didn't want to. And as far as what I believed, I was lost
as could be. I knew some truth, but I didn't
know the truth. So that was a lie. And as we
were leaving, she said to me and to Diane, the baby, Michael,
you need to get you and your family in the church. And she,
I thought about that many years later when God did save me. And
I have to tell you, it troubled my soul because my grandmother
believed what all since Adam have believed and what they believe
today. Because if I had told her, yes, grandma, we go to a
Methodist church, she would have said, well, okay. Or we go to
a Presbyterian church. I can live with that. And maybe even a Lutheran church. Now, if I said Catholic church,
she'd let me know right then. That's not acceptable. But you
see, in her mind is what people believe this very day and always
have is that it really doesn't matter where you go as long as
you go to church. That's what they believe. And
what they don't recognize, there are only but two churches. There
is a church of grace and the church of works. Now works has
as many flavors as Baskin Robbins of works. But when you get down
to it, it's all the same. It's something you do to save
your soul. It's a works church. Where the
grace church is, we depend on the work of God to save us. Years
ago, I heard, I had a best-served preacher said, he said, today,
man-centered, free-will churches, they tell men and women, boys
and girls, God loves you, God wants to save you, and Christ
is in your hands, and you can decide to either accept or reject
his offer of salvation. That works. The only thing different
is what works. But he said, the truth is, we
are in Christ's hands. And his holiness and justice
demand that he either save us or cast us into the pit of hell,
and it's his decision. That's two different churches,
isn't it? And the reason I want us to look this morning, I want
us to look at the word of God is, and hopefully we can answer
this question, am I attending a gospel church? by the word
of God, not by what I say, because they'll all say they have the
gospel. But what does God say? Because I can tell you now, and
I say it on God's word, that if I am not attending a gospel
church, the church of the living God, it really, my grandmother's
right, it really doesn't matter which one you go to. Methodist,
Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, it doesn't matter. If it works,
it doesn't matter. What does matter? Am I attending?
Am I putting me and my family under the hearing of the word
of God? And I pray God this morning would enable me to tell you the
truth about God, about Christ, about salvation and about us. So look in first Timothy. Let
us start in verse 14. Timothy is, Paul's writing Timothy,
these things write I unto you, thee, hoping to come unto you
shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou
oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. That's God's
church. And then he defines God church,
which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
the truth. God's church is a church of a
living God. It's not a church of idols and
monuments and statues or buildings. It's not a church of dead theologians. It's not a church of traditions
and doctrines, statements of, what do they call them? Confessions. It's the church of the living
God. We have a living God, a God that
is not just Didn't just put things into order and let them turn.
No, we have a living God, a God who is active and in control
of all things. All things. And I say that many
times we look, we see the church is up. Christ, this is the book
of Christ. Christ is our life. He's our life. When I hear somebody
say Christ is the most important thing in my life, you don't know
the living God. I can tell you, the gospel church
will say Christ is not the most important thing. He's the only
thing in your life. And if I have Christ, it matters
not what else I have, because I have everything. If I'm, you
won't be because God provides for his people. If I'm sleeping
in a box under the bridge and I have Christ, it's better than
living in a mansion. Christ is my life. We have no
life without Christ. Turn with me to Galatians 2. Right back a couple of chapters.
Galatians 2 verse 20. And this defines what it means
to have a living God. Paul says, I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ, here it
is, Christ liveth in me. That's the church of the living
God. Every one of the people of God, it's Christ living in
them. Not for him, in them. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by faith of the son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. We have a living God. And why
is he living? Because he's living in us. I
didn't ask him to come and live in me. I didn't choose him to
live in me. He came out of his own goodwill
and pleasure and lived in the lives of his people. Christ is
everything to me. He's everything to me. And sometimes
we don't, I know, you know, I'm a pretty simple man. I'm just
going to tell you. I learn often by parables and
stories. And I remember years ago, there
was a man that came here for our conference. Some of you will
recognize him. He's no longer, he's in glory
by the name of Maurice Montgomery. Now, Maurice was from Madisonville,
Kentucky. And I remember Maurice saying,
I live so far back in the woods, only God could have found me.
He said, I didn't even know my name was Maurice till I was in
grade, till they put me in school. But he talked about this subject
of our dependence on Christ. And I never will forget, you
know, he was preaching and All of a sudden, some of you forgive
me if I repeat, and I've told this before, but I love it so,
he leaned forward and he went, I thought, man, he's having a
heart attack up there, is it? What's he doing? He said, you
see what I'm doing? Yeah, you're breathing. And what'd he say next? and I
am depending on the Lord Jesus Christ for the very next one. That's how dependent God's people
are on Christ. If Christ doesn't give me the
next breath, call him, tell him to come take me to Dob's funeral
home. That's how dependent I am on God. Just, you know, everything. Everything I need is in Christ. And my, I'm just this flesh always
wanting different, but I know I can never satisfy the desires
of my flesh. They don't, they don't ever,
they're never satisfied. Always wanting more, but Oh God,
make me content in Christ for him, what he's done for me. Everything
we have is found in Christ. And John six says, and we believe
and are sure that thou art the Christ, the son of the living
God. And John to say, Christ says,
I live in the father and my people live in me. You cannot break
that bond between Christ and his people because Christ is
in us. We have a living God. Now, how
do I know whether it's a living God? He's everything to me. I can't hear enough about him. You know, I'll just hope it's
practical. I think of this every day. What would you give for the salvation
of one of your loved ones? Everything. Everything. Every day I plead for the souls
of the people who come here and remain in unbelief and pray for
my family is lost. And on my grandmother, she died
without Christ. Religious. And she died without
Christ. That weighs, I don't know about,
that weighs heavy on the heart of the believer, doesn't it?
We don't even like to think about it, let alone talk about it.
And I know I find myself when I'm pleading for the souls of
those who sit under the preaching of the gospel and remain in unbelief. You pray for each and every one,
but, and I know this, God is able to save every one of them. and only God is able to save
every one of them. And if they're to be saved, God
must do the saving, because they're never coming. I wouldn't come,
you wouldn't have come. But this is how you get to a
point now, I find myself, Lord, I know you're able to save them
all. Lord, would you be willing to
save just one of them? Just one. Lord, I'd be thrilled
if you'd save just one of them. That's how dependent we are on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Timothy, he says, the
church of the living God, it is the pillar and ground for
the truth. Truth means something. You know
what Pilate said, truth, what's truth? Now we live in a time
and this world, we change the meaning of everything, don't
we? We try to change the words. That's the sin of man. Man wants
to take the word of God and change it to fit them. I'm telling you
on the word of God, his word does not change. And we will
know that in the day of judgment, that his word didn't change.
We try to change it, but it's in vain. You're trying to establish
your own righteousness and it'll never, you'll perish in it. Pillar
and ground for the truth. When we built this building,
some of you, Andrew's not here, I worked in construction for
a little while. The first thing you do when you build a building
is they come out and they drill a core sample, don't they? to
test the soil to make sure that your soil will be, you know,
it's suitable for building the building on, that it don't shift,
it's gonna fall off, because I've seen that happen too. That's
the ground. And the pillar is the upright
that holds the roof, that holds everything together. Christ is
the truth. Christ is the truth. He is our
truth. And everything he says is true. John 14, he says, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but
me. God's church declares the truths,
plural, about the truth, Christ. And I wanna take a few minutes
here. I wanna talk about Six things that every gospel
church declares about Christ. Six truths that every gospel
church declares about Christ. They will declare these six truths
today in Lexington, Kentucky. They'll declare them in, brother,
you said, Jeff, Todd's went to Danville. They declare them in
West Virginia. They all declare the same thing.
And the reason they all declare the same thing is because they've
all been taught with the same teacher. What God says, they
shall all be taught of God. And I will tell you that God
does not teach you something, Donnie, and you something different,
Adam. He teaches all his people the
same thing. And we believe the same thing.
That's why we can have fellowship. People come here from different
church, We have the same teacher. We have the same love. We have
the same Christ living in us. We don't argue with each other
about doctrine and all that because we all believe the same thing.
And that's what unites us together. Our love for Christ. I want us
to look at the six truths here. I want to go back one thing before
I forget. was impressed upon me a few months
ago. The preaching of the gospel is
the center of the church of the living God. That's where it all
centers right there. The works church it does not
center because they don't preach the gospel. You go to uh how
many times have you heard this? I have. It comes a religious
holiday coming up, and I'm sure you've had this, and people know
I go to church, okay? Michael, what's your church doing
for Easter? You doing anything special? Yes. Don't ask me what. I said, yes.
Or people come, said, you know, we kind of been looking, does
your church have children's program? Yes. Do you have senior program? Yes. Mm-hmm. We got it all. We have one program, the Lord
Jesus Christ. We tell our infants the same
thing we tell the eldest member, Christ and him crucified. And
that's what they need to know. And it is the responsibility
of every man that occupies this pulpit. Responsibility to God
is to tell the truth about Christ and salvation and God and the
people. They are responsible to God. Some of you been around long
enough, you ever heard somebody say, you know, I didn't like
what that preacher said. If you hear it everywhere, or
I can, I laugh sometimes, you know, I was sick and the preacher
didn't come and visit me. Or, you know, my third cousin died
and he didn't even come to the funeral. No, the preacher has been, we
understand their responsibility to God is to tell the truth. Now, here's the part they can't
accept. In religion, the preacher tries to preach you in heaven,
don't they? It's not my responsibility this morning. Mine is to tell
you the truth, and whether you believe it or not, it's not my
responsibility. That is between you and God.
Mine is to tell you the truth. And when you hear somebody says,
I don't believe it, I don't like what the preacher said, show
me from the word of God where they was wrong. If not, your
problem's not with the preacher, your problem is with God. The preacher's always said, whether
you believe or not is the work of the Holy Spirit. And in works
religion, They want to take the work out of the Holy Spirit and
do it themselves. We don't. Do we rejoice when
someone says God saved me? Absolutely. One of the things
I get, I'll just say it, the evil that
is done in works religion, Satan couldn't do the evil that they
do. I don't know anything more evil than I look, we got some
new parents in here, rushing our little children up here to
be baptized. Oh yeah, you need to be baptized.
Yeah, scripture says, repent, believe and be baptized. And
I hear it from the old seven year olds. Oh, they're safe now. Did they repent? What do you
mean repent? They don't know anything about
Christ and salvation. We damn their soul by our church
works when you do that. Cause they grow up believing
they're children of God and they're children of the devil. I don't
say that. I just, I just say it truthfully
as best I can. That's why I get no, it troubles
me when I hear that it does trouble me. You've lied to them. They
believe the lie and the false gospel works. Religion leads people to hell.
That's as blunt as you can tell. If we're to be saved, God must
do the saving. And he used the preaching of
his gospel to save them. Let us go talk about these six
truths. Six truths. The first truth that God, the
church of the living God declares is, is that God is a sovereign
God. When you see that word sovereign,
S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N, those last letters tell you what sovereign
means. It means God reigns over everything, everything. He reigns in providence, he reigns
in salvation, he reigns in everything. The winds and the seas obey you. If you're not hearing that, you're
not in a gospel church, you're not in a church of the living
God. If you hear from someone that, well, God's done all he
can, the rest is up to you. God is not sovereign. Sovereignty
is an absolute. It's like, I don't wanna be,
best way I can tell you, it's like being pregnant. You either
are or you aren't. There's not no almost pregnant,
you know. Are you, you know, it's one of
the two. Sovereignty, God is a sovereign
God as declared in the church of the living God. And not only
declared, but we rejoice that it's that way. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ said,
it was told there, I think it was John says, all power in heaven
and earth has been given unto me, Christ. If God who is true has given
Christ all power, however, how much power do you have? If you've got any power, then
God's not sovereign. If they, you know, they love
to tell you, well, God's given faith to everybody, you know,
and if, if you, all you have to do is exercise your faith,
they're telling you that you have power and God is not sovereign. He's either completely sovereign
or he's not sovereign at all. We look to Christ. We're glad
he has all sovereign. We take comfort that he is sovereign. That's my comfort. When despair
and difficulties, and they are in all our lives, we can say
God is sovereign. You know, man and religion, and
man himself, when we have a horrific event that happens in this world,
and it happens. I remember when some of you are
older, and remember this, some are too young, but when 9-11
happened, That was a shock to people. I mean, people were shocked.
They didn't know what to think. How could this happen? How could
this happen? And the irreligious says, well,
if there was a God, how did it happen? How would he let this
happen? That's what they accuse our God of, don't they? And what
do the works religions say? Well, that's not really God. That's just the devil. What do God's people say? Just
as Job said, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. What Job say,
shall we not receive from God good and not expect evil? See,
we look at it all wrong. We look at it as a man or woman
when we should see I remember 9-11, what hit me was, you know,
Lord, thank you. Thank you, Lord, for restraining
the evil of those, because it's a miracle of God that it doesn't
happen every day. Man's heart wants to happen every
single day and God restrains it. We don't rejoice in it, but
we know one thing I can say, I can't explain it, but I know
it's true. And the Old Testament says, shall
not the judge of all the earth do, what does he say, Robert? Right. God always does right. And we rejoice in that. We're thankful that God hasn't
consumed us already. When you have difficulties, we
all do. Lord, teach me. caused me to
rest in you, caused me to look to you, caused me to believe
that Christ has all power in the world. The truth is, if Christ
doesn't give me the power to declare Christ this morning,
it won't happen. If he doesn't give you the faith
to hear, you won't hear. If he doesn't give you the faith
to believe, you're not gonna believe. It's just that simple. He has all power, and we rejoice
that it's that way. The second truth declared in
the church of the living God is, we say men and women, but
all, all, all descendants of Adam. We come into this world,
as Robert said this morning, spiritually dead. Scripture says
we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We were born that way. Robert reminded us, David said,
in sin was I conceived. His mother, it wasn't something
his mother, I was born a sinner and I'll die a sinner till Christ
takes me home. Those sin will always be present
with me. But thank God, if I'm in Christ and Christ is in me,
I'll be glad when that sin goes away and dies. That's why you
can, the believer can say, To live is Christ and to die
is gain. Gain. We ask God every day. I ask him
every day. We pray for those. I do. I know
we pray for those who God's touched their body with illness. We ask
him, Lord, if you'd be willing, would you heal their bodies?
But if not your will, Lord, would you give them the faith to believe,
to live as Christ, and to die as gain? If God gives you the faith to
believe that, death has no hold or fear from you. Shoot me, kill me, fine. Like I said, I can't speak for everybody. We've had some incidents in our
lives, but I made very sure when God delivered me out of death
that I don't want man interfering next time. When I go see my cardiologist,
he looks at me, I said, look, Maurice told this too, he told
me, I'm more concerned about quality than I am quantity of
life. Yeah, you want me to take radiation
again? No, thank you. We're doctor's worst nightmare
because we understand that to die is gain. We know that man
is spiritually dead. Henry used to call it graveyard
dead. It's like if you would take your Bible and we'd walk
out here to a cemetery and walk up to one of them tombstones
and start telling them about Christ. What's the response of
that person in the ground? Nothing. Why? Well, they're dead.
Yes. That's how we are. We're spiritually.
Unless Christ quicken us to life. That's what it says in Ephesians.
Ye who were dead in your trespasses and sins, whom he quickened,
Christ quickened us to life. It was the power of Christ to
give us life and faith to believe and to rest on him. Man is spiritually
dead. The third thing we know is God
has an elect people. God has an elect people. The Bible mentioned election,
I think something like, I don't know, I thought I wrote it down
here, but like 58 times, 58 times it talks about God's elect, God's
elect. And chosen, it's over a hundred
times, but there's other things for chosen, but God has an elect
people. Now all are under the power and
authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, but everything in this world
exists for the salvation of God's elect people. I'm telling you. If there's no, you know, there
was, I think Don Fortin one time said, people said, oh, the crops
were dying and thankfully it rained. He said, you can, well,
you're welcome. It rained because of God's elect
people. If there'd been no elect people in there, it would never
have rained. God always has and always will have elect people.
Look at 2 Thessalonians. If not, I can read this right
here. 2 Thessalonians chapter two. Well. Verse 10, with all deceivableness of unrighteous
in them that perish because they received not the love of the
truth. I didn't want Christ. You know,
the gospel is the centerpiece of the church of the living God.
But just sitting there will do. It's better than not. But that
won't save your soul. God has to give you the faith,
not only to believe it, but also the faith to love it. And here's one. This is one I
struggle with. God give me the faith to defend
it. We live in a time, we call it
charity, right? And we see people blaspheme our
God. And we sit there in silence.
I feel guilty about that. God, give me wisdom of when to
speak and when to be silent. But don't let us just sit there
and let him blaspheme our God. You love it. And for this cause,
he shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
That's the worst gospel. That they might be damned who
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Here's verse 13. Let me see. But we are bound
to give thanks all the way to God for you, beloved, brethren,
beloved of the Lord. Here's what we know. Because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. When God the Father Christ
the Son and God the Holy Spirit in the covenant of grace before
this world was ever formed, God the Father determined to save
a people and elect people. Not everybody, because if God
determined to save everybody, everybody would have been saved.
And Christ Christ, it was God coveting with God. God committed
to God. Christ, that he would do everything
necessary for the salvation of their souls. And God's spirit
at the appointed time would come and give them faith and make
them willing to come to Christ and to believe on Christ and
in Christ. Faith and belief of the truth. He's going to teach them the
same thing he teaches every one of his children. has elect. No election, no salvation. I need to get moving here. Okay. Fourth thing that is declared
in every church of the living God. Did Christ either save the people
or did he just make salvation possible? That's works religion in it.
He made it possible. The church of the living God
declares Christ has saved his people. When he told, as he said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. We sing that song, the blood
of Christ, the power of the atonement. We preach that Christ has all
the power. He has the power to save everyone
that God the father gave him. Not one more, not one less. We don't know how many it is,
but we know every one of them will be saved. And nothing is
more glorious than the people of God that when the Lord Jesus
Christ said, it is finished. It's finished. This is one of the great blasphemies
of reformed religion. Many of us came from reformed
religion. I'll just, and I'll say this again, if you haven't
heard it, one of the greatest definitions of reformed religion
I ever heard, a lady that sat under a reformed church said
they were doctrinally sound, Christless messages. Boy, that's it. You could have
an hour and a half of preaching and Christ is never mentioned. Doctrinally sound, Christless
message. Reformed religion likes to hold to the teaching of progressive
sanctification. For those who don't know, what
they say is, yes, God does all the saving, but, as soon as you
hear but, you know I'm now in a false church. You have to go
back to the law and start doing better. You know, sanctification is just
like sovereignty. It's an absolute, I can't get
any holier than Christ. And for me to try to do that,
that is a sin against God. No, Christ is our salvation.
Christ is our sanctification. And I know that he has saved
his people and we take great comfort in that. The next fifth thing that every
gospel church declares is that the Holy Spirit bring us to Christ
or does it not? When I hear someone saying, I
came to Christ works I came, I did this, I came, I did this,
I did that. It's, you know, you deal with
it all the time, don't we? We deal with our families and
I, I, my grandmother, I did this, I do that. No. If God's spirit
doesn't come and fetch me, there's a fetching grace from Henry,
fetch me and take me to Christ. I'll never come. I'll never come. That's what he said. No man can
come to me except the father which has sent me. And literally
means, when it says drag, it means he has to drag us because
we're not able to come. Like Mephibosheth, we're lame.
We have no strength, no power to come. But the Holy Spirit
brings us to Christ. And the last point I'll make
is the sixth one. Does God keep his people until
the end or does he not? The answer is 1 Corinthians says,
he will keep us until the end. Christ did not fail. If there
is a single person whom Christ died for and is not in glory,
then the blood of Christ failed. Failed and God's power is not
sovereign. He wasn't able to get it done.
I can tell you as a believer, Remember the church of the living
God, we rejoice. The salvation is all, all of
the Lord. That's my comfort. If I look
at myself, if you're honest with yourself, I won't make it to
the end, Lord, because I know the minute you leave me to myself,
I'm going to fail. If you took your hand off me,
Lord, there's not a sin I wouldn't go after with everything I have
to try to satisfy my lusty flesh. and it can't be satisfied. I
can't keep your law. Your law's holy and it's good,
but I can't keep it. These six things are declared
by every gospel church. Jotaro declares these things
in his church there. You know, I feel bad for these
people. I don't feel bad for you. I'm thankful for you because
we're not hearing anything new, are we? We're thankful that there's
places that God's got a living church, a living church of the
living God of places around. Because it's heartbreaking when
you have loved ones and there's no gospel church anywhere around.
Church of works is all there is. I'll close with this because
thank you for your patience with me. But years and years ago,
I was a small boy. I was about four years old. Some
of you may know this or not. There was a gospel church in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a man by the name of Don E. W. Johnson. Brings a smile to
your face. Oh man, he'd preach for hours
at a time. You'd think, is he ever going to stop? But Pine
Bluff wasn't a big town and it was a smaller church. I don't
remember they had 40, 50 people, but I remember they used to have
conferences. This is in the 1950s. You'd go
there because I remember sleeping in the school classroom. E.W. Johnson. Well, that town hated
E.W. Johnson and the people of that
church because he preached five things, at least six things he
preached. And they hated him. And we don't
know it today, but they'd done everything they could to run
him out of town. They figured if they got rid
of him, the others would probably fall back in line. And they made
things very difficult for him and his people. You know how
you've been in a small town. People didn't talk to him. People,
you know, they told the people, don't talk to them, don't you
do anything. Couldn't get a loan, couldn't, you know what I'm saying?
It was hard to exist. And then one day E.W. said he
had had enough. So he marched in that day, opened the door
and marched into the office of the largest Southern Baptist
church in that town, and most of them were Southern Baptists,
and headed straight for the pastor's office. And the secretary said,
wait, wait, wait, you can't go in there. He said, I'll be right
out in just two minutes. He walked in and the man of course
was shocked. He said, listen, he said, you
give me, you answer three questions and I'm going to leave and you
don't ever have to see my face again. He said, my first question to
you is did God save you or did you save yourself? What do you think he said? Well,
God saved me. He said, question number two,
did he do it by accident or did he do it on purpose? He said,
well, he did it on purpose. Last question, did he do it when
you made a decision or did he do it before the foundations
of the world? And the man, of course, would
not answer him. And he said, that's what we're
preaching. That's the word of God. leave us alone. And turn
around and walk back. That's what we believe, isn't
it? God saved us. He did it on purpose and he did
it before the foundation. He did it out of his own will
and power. Nothing in us. And we are kept
by Christ being in us. And I pray that God enable us
to continue on. That's my prayer for this church
every day. Lord, keep us faithful to Christ and his gospel and
make us a pillar and ground for the truth for our sakes, for
the sakes of our Children. Thank you very much for your
time. Thank you.