If you would open your Bible
to 1 Timothy chapter 2. We're going to read the first
six verses. Am I loud enough for everybody
all the way back? Okay. The Apostle writes to Timothy,
and of course we're allowed to read it and learn from it ourselves. I exhort, therefore, that first
of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in
authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness
and honesty. For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one
God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Some years ago, theological plaything
gained some prominence among Sovereign Grace Baptists. And
I say a theological plaything. The older I get the more I realize
this. A whole lot of what we argue
about and fuss about and get upset about is theological playthings. By that I mean things that catch
our attention and as it were mesmerize us for a little while
and we get caught up in it. and argue about it, make divisions
over it, and then when we're all done, well, we go off to
something else. Now, thankfully, in all of these
uproars, the Lord preserves his sheep, and even if for a while
they stray, he brings them back to the one message over which
God's sheep do not have any contention whatever, salvation in Christ.
But one of these rose, and it was, the phrase most commonly
associated with it was the exclusivity of the gospel. And there was some truth in what
was being said, as is common, but eventually it became a weapon
used to advance the cause of whoever was advancing it, and
generally at the expense of everybody else. It got so bad, one fellow
actually started a magazine which he would send out, and a good
part of that magazine was devoted to supposedly outing all these
preachers which he called hypo-Calvinists. They weren't quite Calvinistic
enough to suit him. And quite frankly, every preacher
you and I would consider a faithful preacher in our day that we know
personally got on that list, including me, because we weren't Well, we didn't
pass their shibboleth, as they say. We didn't say things exactly
as they thought they ought to be said, and therefore we were
no longer preaching the gospel. Well, you know, there is an exclusivity
in religion. That is, the true religion makes
some exclusive statements. But they're generally speaking
not the exclusive statements that men seem so fond to make.
It's exclusivity is not pressed upon sinners. That is, there
is no one in all of creation whom the gospel, that is the
message of the gospel, excludes. When the gospel is preached,
the door is thrown open, as it were, to anyone who wants what
is in the gospel. There is no fleshly distinction
among men which excludes them from the blessings of the gospel. If there were, none of us would
be able to get in, because there's nothing good in the flesh. Therefore,
if the gospel was ever setting up some kind of standard which
must be met in the flesh in order for the gospel to be effective
in a person, it would be effective in no one. What I'm saying is there's nothing
about you, there's nothing about anybody in this world which would
prevent God from saving them. And there's nothing about any
person in this world which would prevent us from preaching the
gospel to them in the hope that they could be saved by it. There
is no sin which a man can do which will put him outside the
reach of God's grace if God's pleased to reach. There is no denomination from
which God cannot save a man. And that includes the denomination
of Sovereign Grace Baptist. You say, what do you mean? People
grow up in Sovereign Grace Baptist Church thinking that being in
that church is their salvation, and they gotta be saved from
it. We have young kids in this congregation. I'm glad you young
kids are here. For whatever reason here, if you're here simply because
your parents said you had to, I'm still glad you're here. That's
why I went to church as a kid, you know. But you know something? You young
kids, you came into this world dead in trespasses and sins.
And even though you're being raised in a church where the
gospel is preached every time you meet, the mere fact that you're here
doesn't save you. I'll let you know before we're
done what does save. But you need saving. Just like
everybody in here needs saving. Even if they've already experienced
some measure of the salvation of God, if they've been brought
to understand that they're sinners and have called upon the name
of the Lord, we're still in need of saving. You say, why? Well,
I'll tell you this, I don't want to stay like this forever. I'm
in need of more of what God intends to do than what I've already
had. The scriptures say, he that began a good work in you will
continue it, will perfect it until the day of Christ. Thank
God there's more to salvation than what we've already experienced.
I'm still in need of more of the work of God in saving me.
Because I don't want to stay like this forever. But this exclusivity
of the gospel, one of the most offensive aspects of the gospel
when it went to the Jews was this, that it did not exclude
anyone. The Jews were under the impression
that the gospel was just for them. And maybe a few especially
righteous Gentiles, and of course, they first had to submit to a
ritual to become Jews in the flesh, even if not genetically. At least the men had been circumcised
and gone through all that and they had to come to the temple
just like every Jewish man. In other words, in every way
possible, they had to become Jews and then, then maybe, They
could be among the righteous and accepted by God. And our
Lord Jesus Christ came, called a dog. A dog which was an unclean
animal to them. And he was good to a Samaritan
woman. And got in trouble for saying
that when there was a famine, the prophet was sent to a Gentile
woman. And it was Naaman, a Gentile
authority, who was healed while many, many lepers and Jews in
the Jewish nation were left unclean. And so the fact that there is
no difference, as Paul says in Romans 3, 22, and here's one
of the unfortunate verse divisions, when it talks about there and
it says that we're all Justified freely by his grace and all this
and it says for there is no difference Jew and Gentile are justified
the same way because there's no difference no difference in
what no difference between Jew and Gentile and The Jews would
hear that and go ballistic There is no difference says Paul
and it forget that verse division right there He says for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God Jew and Gentile
alike have sinned It seems that all are, likewise sinners, all
are saved in the same fashion. When Peter was called to give
an account for his preaching to Gentiles. And I mean, and
understand this, this was such a thing, even honest believers
had a hard time with that, honest Jewish believers. Peter, why
were you in the house of a Gentile? And he described the process,
described what God had told him. and how that God saved this Gentile
man. And then he says, we must be
saved even as they are. Now, you might have thought that
Peter would say, see the Gentiles are saved just like us. No, he
said to those Jewish men, we gotta be saved the same way Gentiles
are, as sinners undeserving. of God's goodness, but freely
given that goodness in Christ Jesus. It was not that Gentiles
had to become Jews and raise themselves to a higher level
whereby God could be good to them. What really had to be done,
these Jews had to get off their high horse and come down and
take the place of a Gentile and be saved just like a filthy Gentile
had to be saved. There is no exclusivity to the
gospel because everybody's just the same. There's no basis by
which to include or exclude anybody. Nothing to be found in man by
which we can make a distinction as to who God will save and who
he will not. Exclusion is based on differences
and the gospel says that there are no differences. The Lord says this, or Paul says
this in verse 4 of our text, speaking of God, who will have
all men to be saved. Now I know what many in Christianity
make of that because they understand the use of the word all, both
in English and in Greek. It doesn't necessarily mean all
without exception. It means all without exclusion. We're all without distinction.
Excuse me, all without distinction. In other words, all kinds of
people. And he makes that clear up here. He said, I exhort, therefore,
that first of all, supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving
of thanks be made for all men. Now, does Paul mean that we're
supposed to sit down and list all seven billion people in the
world and pray for them? No. He goes on, he says, for
kings and for all those that have authority. In other words,
that kind of person. We're to pray for them. We're
to pray for the lonely. We're to pray for those that
are of our race and those that are of other races. In other
words, as was said several times in the scriptures, in Christ
Jesus there is neither bond nor free, male nor female, young
or old, barbarian or civilized. None of that matters. And therefore
we do not withhold our preaching, our praying, or any of this from
anybody. We set the gospel out there to
all men and call upon them to participate in it through faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We humans are exclusive by nature.
We're tribal by nature. We like to gather in groups and
talk about us and them. God is not. From God's viewpoint, there's
Him and there's everybody else. He does not look on the world
and make distinctions based upon anything to be found in the flesh. You say, well he makes distinction
because he chose. No, he didn't make distinctions. He didn't. He chose some and passed the
others by. But that didn't make any difference except in the
destiny of those people. When he chose them, they were
just like everybody else. And when he was done choosing
them, they were still like everybody else until he came and made a
difference in them through the work of the new birth. But there
was no distinction when he chose them. Nothing to be seen any
different in them than in anybody else. But we like to group together. But God has sent forth his gospel. He said to his apostles, Go into
all the world and preach the gospel. And it took them a little
while to get serious about what the Lord said. He said go into
all the world and they stayed in Israel. And so the Lord sent
some strong persecution and scattered the apostles over the face of
the earth. They had to leave or die. And they went out preaching
the gospel. to men and women of every kind. They preached before kings and
they preached in the prisons where the kings had their prisoners.
They preached to wealthy men like Philemon. And they preached
to Onesimus, Philemon's slave. They preached to those who were
glad they were there. They preached to those who were
ready to pick up stones, or swords, or whatever, and killed them. So they exercised no exclusivity
whatsoever in terms of going out with the gospel. They did
not make any exclusions. They did not say, now to all
of you who are this, that, or the other, you may come. They
preached the gospel, and as it were, threw open the door to
any man who was willing to come in that door. But, that does not mean that
there is no exclusivity in the gospel. The gospel does exclude
some things. And they're all here in our text
of scripture. And this is what we need to focus on. This is
where the true exclusion is to be found. And in laying down
these exclusions, God will reveal where he has laid down the line
of his inclusion. First of all, the gospel excludes
all gods but one. Verse 5, for there is one God. One God. And so when we go out
and preach the gospel, we are declaring one God. Hear, O Israel,
Jehovah your God is one Jehovah. There's only one, and he is one
in his essence. One God. The gospel excludes
all saviors but one. There's one God. Verse 5, and
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. There are no other saviors. There
is no other way to God. Now, if you preach that, you're
accused of being narrow-minded. Fine. The gate's narrow. The road's narrow. Seems to make
sense that our mind ought to be rather narrow about that.
But all of that really means nothing. Here's what it means.
Whether or not we're narrow-minded, evidently God is. When it comes
to this business of the gospel. One God and only one Savior. One mediator between God and
men. There's only one method of salvation. Who gave himself
a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Jesus Christ gave
himself as a ransom, a redemption price. a sacrifice for all kinds
of people. That's why when we go out to
preach the gospel, we don't look at anybody and think, nah, not
for that guy. It very well may be. You know,
one of the, there on the day of crucifixion, one of the most
powerful testimonies of the power, of the grace of God, is that
on that day there was only one man who realized what was going
on besides the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was a criminal being
executed for his crimes. Not Jesus' mother understood
it, not any of his disciples understood what was going on. Only a man whom everybody would
have written off at that point. Who knows, maybe his mother and
father were what you would call believing Jews. But I imagine
once they got the news, their son's being crucified. I don't
know. Hope is gone. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. And to him, the gospel came. And a miraculous work was done
by God to open his eyes and make him understand what nobody else
in the world understood that day. that Jesus, this one hanging
next to him actually would have gone on the criminal's left because
he was on the Lord's right but this man hanging to the left
of him was not just any man and though he was dying he was coming
into a kingdom which means he's a king and that his hope of being received
in the everlasting kingdom ruled over by this king was the king
himself. Nobody else understood that that
day. Such understanding is a miracle. It's a miracle now. Do you understand
that? It took just as much a work of God's grace to make you understand
it as it made for him to get that thief to understand it. It is a great privilege to be
raised by those who understand the gospel, because that means
you're taught it from youth. It's a good thing to grow up
in a faithful church wherein the gospel is preached. But understand,
for all those things, you're still lost until God makes you
understand it. And when He does, it'll be no
less miraculous a work than when He made that thief understand
it, when He made self-righteous Paul understand it, or anybody
else. There is no difference. The gospel
excludes all gods but one. We don't exclude anyone for there's
only one God and He is God over all. Paul said in another place,
is God the God of Jews only? No, He's the God of Gentiles
too. Consequently, that means that all must relate to Him in
the same way. There's only one God, so God's gospel doesn't exclude
anybody. The truth of God, or the true God, is unknown to most
people. And I fear he's unknown to most
professed Christians. The God of scriptures, the God
as he's revealed here, is not the God you hear from most Christian
pulpits. And you don't have to listen
long to detect that. I'm not saying this out of any
sense of self-righteousness, that's right where you and I'd
be, if that God had not been pleased to reveal himself to
us. But what is this God like? You know, Paul went into Athens
there, and he sees all those idols, and then he sees this
one idol called to the unknown God. Now, we're not in favor
of idols at all, but that was the only honest idol that was
there. And Paul says, the God you don't know, I'm going to
tell you about it. And here's the God nobody knows. You can't
know him. You can't ever come to a knowledge
of him by the standard way that we come to the knowledge of other
things. In fact, you cannot even come
to a knowledge of him, understand what I mean by this, just by
reading this book. Because lots of people read this
book and never come to a knowledge of this God. No one knows the
Father but the Son. and those whom the Son is pleased
to reveal the Father. No one knows the Son but the
Father, and the ones to whom the Father is pleased to reveal
him. But this unknown God, he is so
contrary to man's way of thinking that even when they read this
Bible, they don't see him for what he is. They don't take the
word of God at its word, therefore they have no understanding of
God. The Bible says that the one God is the creator of the
heavens and the earth. I think it's important to note
that when Paul goes to this city of wisdom, the city of Athens,
and finds all these idols, and this idol of the unknown God,
and he starts speaking to the philosophers and all the hoity-toity
intellectuals of that city, as they gathered there on Mars Hill,
And he says, I'm gonna tell you about this God you don't know. And the first thing he said about
him, God who created the heavens and the earth. We live in a day,
now for about 200 years, they've been telling us God didn't make
the heavens and the earth. It got here on its own. Really,
that's basically what it comes down to. They may consent to
say God had something to do with this big bang they talk about. But they simply will not believe
that the scriptures teach us of a God who spoke, and it was,
who commanded, and it stood firm. By faith we believe that the
worlds were created by the Word of God. That means they were
created by Him saying it so. Why is there a sun? Because God
said there's a sun. Why is there a moon? Because
God said there's a moon. God's mind, God's thoughts, God's
word, is the very definition of our reality. He writes our
reality every bit as much as an author writes the reality
of the book, and all the characters in it, and all the things in
it. You say, well, couldn't have
God done it? You know, with the Big Bang and billions of years?
Yeah, He could have, but that's not what He said He did. And
we've got to go with what He said. He said there was nothing
and then God spoke and there was something. He created time
and space. He created, He separated darkness
from light. He created the sun, moon, and
stars. He created the plants. He created the animals. He created
the oceans. He did all these things. And
He created man. He is the absolute, undeniable
creator. of all that is. The scriptures say all the gods
of the nations are just idols, but Jehovah made the heavens
and the earth. Now, why do you think that the
mind of man is so bent on denying that Jehovah made the heavens
and the earth? Because if Jehovah didn't make the heavens and the
earth, he's no different than all the idols of the nations.
Creatorhood is his badge of divinity. It declares him unquestionably
to be God. He spoke and there it was. He commended and stood firm,
unchangeable. Now, if he's the creator, that
leads us to another aspect of God. It leads us there logically,
but we're not left to mere logic. The scriptures declare it plainly
too. If he made the place, he's in charge of it. Now, he didn't just build the
heavens and the earth. That'd be one thing. I can build
a house. And it still belonged to somebody
else and then be in charge of it. I could just be their contractor. That's all I am. God didn't just
build the universe. He made it from nothing. It's
his. And that which you own, you have
the right to control. And so we set forth the one God. who not only made this place,
but is in absolute control of every aspect of it, and nothing's
happening to it or in it, contrary from what he determined would
happen for the glory of his name. After all, you that own houses,
don't you do what you want in those houses? And if you want
to change your room from one color to another, don't you just
do it? You don't call and ask permission from anybody else
to do it, you just do it. When you were having it built
or building it yourself, didn't you decide how big it was going
to be? God's that way. If we can decide those things
about what we own, how come we think it's wrong for him to decide
things about what he owns? The earth is the Lord's and everything
in it. And not just the earth, the whole
universe. It all belongs to him. But as I said, we don't have
to go with mere logic on this, with mere reason. We got the
scriptures. They said, I believe it was to Solomon. Where is your
God? And they asked this question
because they could show you their gods. If you went into one city
and said, well, where's your God? Well, he's down there on
4th and Main. There's a little building there, kind of got a
dome on top of it. You go in there and go a couple
of rooms back, you'll find him. He sits there. There's some candles
around him. He looks like a horse. They can show you their gods.
Jehovah's the invisible God. And so the Gentiles, as they
came among the Jews, they said, well, where's your God? We can't
find him. We've been up and down the streets in Jerusalem. We
can't find him anywhere. Where is he? Our God's in the
heavens. He's done whatever he wants to
do. You know, this is something that everyone who ever met God
face-to-face understood about him. You don't ever find someone
or record of someone in the scriptures meeting God And going away with
an idea of anything other than this God is in control of everything. You never find someone meeting
the God of Scriptures and acting like he's a buddy or a pal. Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah
chapter 6. And where did he see Him? On
a throne. And he saw him with the angels,
the seraphim, crying, holy, holy, holy is Jehovah God Almighty.
The whole earth is filled with his glory. And Isaiah did not respond with,
wow, God, that's really neat. And go up to the throne and put
his arm around him and say, now what are we going to do about all these
sinful Jews? He fell down. He was overwhelmed. He said, woe is me. Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell among a people of unclean lips. I am ruined. If you ever want to be ruined,
just go meet God. It'll ruin you. It'll ruin you. Nebuchadnezzar, an outright unbeliever,
had some personal dealings with God. And when he was done, He
did not talk about how sweet God was. He did not talk about
how he let God make him sane again. He told the story of what God
did to him. How he made him spend seven years as a wild man, acting
like a wild beast. And then after seven years, restored
sanity. God sovereignly took his sanity
away from him, sovereignly gave it back. And he says, therefore
I extol the most high God, who rules. And he does as he wills. Among the armies of heaven, among
the inhabitants of the earth, and nobody can stay his hand.
That means nobody can stop him. But I like the little stinger
he put on the end. And no one can say to him, What in the world
do you think you're doing? Not only can you not stop him,
you don't even have the right to question him. He does not
give an account of his deeds to anybody. He doesn't have to.
He's God. Now such a God as that is kind
of strange to most in religion. Because they've been told for
so long that the purpose of God is the happiness of men. Do you
understand God serves no purpose at all? Wait a minute, thing
has value only if it serves a purpose. We have value only as we serve
a purpose. God doesn't have to serve a purpose.
He is the purpose. He is the ultimate reason for
everything. Everything else serves his purpose. He himself has no purpose other
than himself. Now we say that harshly or we
tend to and we do that because most people reject it and we
think maybe by saying it harshly they'll be more likely to receive
it. The fact of the matter is it only makes sense. But most
people think that God is actually a part of this universe. He may
be the top part but they still think he's part of it. He's not.
He was here before the universe was here. He made the universe and stands
outside of it. The purpose of the universe is
to serve God's glory. The purpose of God, there isn't
one. He just is. There's one God. He's the creator,
He's sovereign, and He's holy. Now we tend to equate the word
holy with moral uprightness or moral purity. There are some
places where that's what it means, but actually it has a much broader
meaning. It just means set apart, different
than. And God is absolutely holy. He's
not like anything in his creation. He's holy indeed in terms of
moral purity, but that simply arises from the fact that he
is the standard of morality. He can't be wrong because right
or rightness is defined by whatever it is he does. So when it says he's holy, it's
just not saying he's separate from sin, though that's a reality. It's a given because he's the
one who defines what righteousness is by his own being. When it's
talking about him being holy, it's talking about, for lack
of a better word, out there. Separate from the universe, above
the universe, unaffected by the universe. Universe is greatly
affected by him, but he's unaffected by it. That's why it doesn't make sense
for people to say that God is all upset that the universe is
not going like he planned. God's not upset. God's not crying. He's not crying now. He won't
be crying at the last day. when he gathers all his elect
to himself and says, you enter into your father's kingdom and
says to all the others, you enter into outer darkness. He's not
gonna weep on that day. He's not, Jesus is not gonna
be saying, you know, I wanted to save all those people, I did
all I could, it just, well at least I got some. God is gonna find perfect satisfaction. in the way this universe went
from the day he called it into existence until the day he calls
it out of existence and creates a new one. He is God. A real God. A God that even though we can
say some things about him, even when we're done saying them,
we don't really understand what it is we've said. Because he
is outside the categories that our mind can get wrapped around.
Have you ever sat and tried to think about God? And no matter what image you
make in your mind of Him, or whatever description you put
in your mind of Him, you realize He's bigger than that description.
We say He is infinite. Do you know what the opposite
of infinite is? People say it's limited, and I understand that,
but really, the opposite of infinite is definite. We define something. We talk
about something being finite. We define it and it becomes definite. What's infinite? You can't define
it. No matter what words you say,
they're going to fall short of the reality of it. Have you ever
noticed that most of the descriptions we make about God are negatives?
Negatives are absolute We say he's omniscient, he knows
everything. We say he's omnipresent, he's
everywhere and all that. But when we say he's infinite,
we're describing him in the negative. He's not finite. You can't put
him in a box. He's bigger than you can think.
And no matter how much you try to expand your mind to understand
him, he's bigger than that. He is the Creator, He is the
Sovereign, He is holy and unapproachable by us. He dwells in a light to
which no man can approach. So the gospel excludes all gods
but one, it excludes all saviors but the Lord Jesus Christ. Years
ago, for some reason or another, I was watching the Phil Donahue
show and I have no idea why because I don't like it. Maybe I was
just going through the channels and saw something that caught
my ear, caught my eye. But there was the president of
one of the more notable Christian colleges, not one with which
I agree, but nonetheless, it's a notable one. And he was on
there and he had made the statement that there's no way of salvation
except through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this, of course,
you know, Phil Donahue doesn't have any standards. or any beliefs
that I know of, he got all upset by that. And of course they take
questions from the audience. And this woman stood up and she
said to him, says, when my mother got old and senile, I brought
her into my home and I took care of her for years until the day
she died. And you're telling me that that
doesn't count for anything? And this preacher, like I said,
he says a lot of things I don't agree with, but he got this one
spot on. He says, I'm not saying it, the Lord Jesus Christ said
it. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes
to the Father except by me. There is only one Savior, and
the Gospel is very exclusive about that. Now any man may come
to God through that Savior, but nobody may come to God through
any other Savior, because there isn't any other. There's one
God and there's only one mediator, one go-between. Between God and
men. The man Christ Jesus. We need someone to come between
us and God. And if you ever saw God, you'd
agree with that point. The Jews, ignorant as they were
when they came out of Egypt, they understood one thing. They
said to Moses, you go talk to him for us. We don't ever want
to see him. We don't want to meet with Him. He's too much
for us. We need somebody to appear in
God's presence for us. We need somebody to talk to God
for us. And we need somebody to speak
to us for God because we don't want to hear His voice. It's
too much for us. And that mediator is the Lord
Jesus Christ. We come to God through Him. And if we try to come to God
by any other means, we die. You know, people aren't going
to perish in hell for the most part. They're not going to perish
in hell because they wouldn't come to God. They'll perish in
hell because they tried to come to God by some other means than
Christ. Everybody's trying to get to God. They may not understand
who the true God is, but everybody's got a sense there is a God, and
they're trying to make peace with Him. Because they know there's
going to be a judgment after they die, and it's not going
to come out good. Unless they do something in their
opinion. So they're trying to come to God. And they perish
not because they didn't try to come to God, because they didn't
come to God through Christ. The only mediator between God
and men. They tried to come to God through
a baptistry or through their church. Let me emphasize this
once again. You all are blessed to be part
of a church where the gospel is preached, but this church
is not the gate to heaven. It's not the way to God. Christ
is the way to God. You say, we believe the doctrines
of free and sovereign grace. Good, because they happen to
be true. And it's good to believe true things. But the doctrines
of free and sovereign grace are not the way to God. Christ is
the way to God. Nor is the doctrine of Christ
the way to God. Christ himself, the person, is
the way to God. He is the way to God. Because God said so. God designed
it that way. And if you want to be in the
good graces of someone, it's only wise to come to him by the
way he designed. If you are on the outs with the
king, but you hear a message from the king that if you come
to me in such and such a way, you will be received, then it's
the better part of wisdom. You better come the way he said
to come. It would be foolish of you to say, I think I could
go through this door just as well. Well, maybe you could go
through that door, but you're going to be on the wrong side
of the king when you do so. One way in. One safe way in to
the presence of God. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our mediator in all three offices of mediatorship, which
is included in the word Messiah or Christ. He is our prophet. He's the one who speaks to us
in behalf of God. I don't want to hear from anybody
else. I certainly don't want to hear from God directly. I
need a mediator who can take the word of God and make it intelligible
to me. He is the mediator in that he
represents us to God. I don't want to go and face God
on my own. Do you? Do you realize most people
As near as I can tell, most people, that's just how they're going
to face Him. On their own. I don't want to do that. I want
somebody to go in for me. Certainly ahead of me. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ is. He went in by the offering of Himself into the
presence of God, and we follow in right behind Him. And then, we need someone to
rule everything. in order to ensure that our salvation
comes to pass. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the King. And blessed be His name. This
is an amazing thing. He is ruling all things to bring
about the good of His people. He's not at all like the kings
of the earth, is He? Who rule all things simply for
the good of themselves. whether or not it works out for
the good of the people. They live off the people. They
keep the people in poverty to keep them under their thumb. Our Lord Jesus Christ is at this
present moment working everything in one beautiful symphony of
eternal salvation for his people. And there's not one thing happening
right now that can prove to be the least threat to any of his
people. No eternal threat. Now that's the kind of king I
need. I don't want to be left to my will. I mess everything
up. I want my salvation put in the
hands of one who is both God and man. and rules the universe
with absolute authority and limitless power. And I'll come to God through
him. And he's able to save the outermost of them that come to
God through him. One God, one mediator, and the
gospel excludes only one method of saving sinners, but one. this
man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all. How in the world can someone
describe this? We can't. We do the best we can. But you know when the high priest
went into the holy place once a year, he's the only one who
went in there. And every Jewish man or a woman
who had access to the scrolls and could read it or could listen
to someone who could read it. They could read about what went
on behind there, but there's only one man in all of Israel
who actually knew what goes on behind the veil, and that was
the high priest. And I'll say this, there's some
things we know about Christ and his sacrifice, but the only one
who really knows what happened on that day on Calvary is our
high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Things went on that you and I
dare not look into. Things that we certainly dare
not experience. And things that we cannot know
and thank God will never be called on to know. You and I who are in Him will
never know the wrath of God. We'll never know what it is to
pour out our souls unto death. We will never know what it is
to be on the wrong side of God. We will never face the judge. Because Jesus Christ, the one
mediator between God and man, faced God. And when he did so,
he faced God with the sin of all of God's people charged to
his account. He freely received it. And he received within himself
everything that God does to anyone who comes before him with sin
upon him. He died the righteous one for
unrighteous ones to bring us to God, says the scriptures. There was no deceit found in
his mouth, no wrong, They could be charged to Him according to
the things that He had done. Yet God laid upon Him the iniquity
of all His wandering sheep, and dealt with them there. And God
who is just, God who is holy, as the Holy One, could never
do anything contrary to justice. If He punished my sins there,
He's not going to punish them here. One Sunday morning at 13th Street,
I realize I'm going long, so I'll wrap this up. 13th Street Baptist Church, and
I'm doing as is common with me, my mind wanders a lot. Even,
I mean, I love gospel preaching, but it wanders during gospel
preaching. And so I'm sitting there in church one Sunday morning,
I believe it was a spring morning as I recall it, bright sun coming
through the windows, you know, and Henry's preaching away, and
my mind's in the message, then out of it, and then all at once
he said something, and it caught me, and it's been with me ever
since. And it's been used by God to
settle so many doubts and fears in my heart. Brother Mahan said,
if Christ paid my debt, I don't owe it. I said, that's the most sensible
thing I've ever heard. If Christ paid my debt, I don't owe it. He gave himself a ransom. He
paid the debt for all kinds of people. For some kings and for
some slaves. For some criminals and for some
of the policemen that caught them. And for some of their victims. For what the world would call
good and what the world would call bad. He gave himself a ransom for
Jews. and for Gentiles, for some white
folk and some black folk, and some yellow and some red, for
some old and for some young. He gave himself for all kinds
of people. He did not exclude anyone because
of what kind of person they are. Because if he had done so, He
would have excluded me. All of us deserve to be excluded,
and all of us, quite frankly, excluded ourselves. But God in divine election included
some who had excluded themselves. And He has sent forth a message,
and that's, we could say this is one more of those exclusive
things, the manner in which this Salvation is spread abroad. He gave himself a ransom for
all to be testified about in due time. We don't use any method
of finding God's sheep other than testifying that there's
one God and there's one mediator between God and me. And there's
only one method by which that mediator has made reconciliation
And that was through the offering of himself as a sacrifice and
paying the debt of our sin. And we just go out and tell people
about it. And we say the door's open. You young children, I hope
you're still being taught this in school, the difference between
can and may. They used to drill that into
us as very important. There's times when you're supposed to
say, can I do this? And other times you should say,
may I do this? But can talks about whether you're able. May
talks about whether you have permission. And if you had real
strict teachers, such as I did once a while, you know, you'd
say, if you say, teacher, can I sharpen my pencil? And she'd
look and say, well, can you? And all, may I sharpen my pencil?
Yes, you may. Let me tell you, nobody can come
to God. But anybody may. And if you want
to, you may. And if you want to, you can. Because it's the want that's
the problem. And if you want God's salvation
on His terms, you may have it. Well, God bless His Word.