Romans chapter 1. I'll remind you in case you weren't
here when I announced it earlier, but there's four sets of the
conference back there if you want to pick them up. They're
on CD back there for you. So first come, first serve. All
right. Now the saints of God in this
world are described as called and separated. Called saints. That's what we are. Now the apostle
Paul describes himself that way and he describes those saints
at Rome that way. Look at Romans 1.1. Paul, a servant
of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. Paul was called and he was separated,
called and separated unto the gospel of God. And then he gives
us a description of the gospel of God. which He had promised
to afford by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures." God always
does things by His prophets, don't He? By His messengers.
Which He had promised to afford by His prophets, and He always
does it through the Holy Scriptures, in His Holy Scriptures. Verse
3, what's the Gospel concerning? Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ
our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh, that's the family tree He came through, declared to
be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead. By whom? By Him. We have received grace. Now that's how we relate to Paul.
We have received grace just like he did. And he received apostleship. We received grace and apostleship
for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Now
look at this. He said up there that he was
called and separated unto the gospel. And he says here in verse
6, Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ. To all
that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints. You see that? Saints have in common what Paul
had in common. Called and separated. Called
saints. That word saint means separated,
set apart, sanctified. Separated. And he says, Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I've titled the message Called and Separated. And when we see
how Paul was called by the grace of God and separated, we learn
how all God's saints are called and separated. I want to show
you three things here. If you can remember these three
words, who, from, and unto, show you who calls and separates,
from what are we called and separated, and unto what are we called and
separated. Who calls and separates? From
what are we called and separated? And unto what are we called and
separated? Well, who called and separated
Paul? If we see who called and separated him, we'll know who
calls and separates his saints. Hold your place here. Paul says
there clearly, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God, and then down the page he said, verse 5, by whom, he speaks
of Christ being the subject of the gospel, and he says, by whom
we receive grace and apostleship. This is by whom I was called
and separated. And he says, and the same goes
for the saints. Now let's look over Galatians
chapter 1, and I want you to hold your place in Galatians
1. Same as I told you place in Romans, we'll be back there in
a minute. But in the eternal purpose of God, God in His sovereign
grace by divine election separated Paul. In time before Paul could
be separated for the work that God had foreordained for him,
Paul had to be called and separated by grace. Now Paul tells us that
and that's how all who are going to be saved by God are going
to be chosen of God in Christ and they shall be called through
the gospel of Christ and separated. Now look at Galatians 1.15. Paul
says, when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's
womb. That means from before I was
even born, God had separated me. He separated me. Before I
did anything, good or evil, God already separated me. Separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal
His Son in me. that I might preach him among
the heathen." That was the work he called him to, to preach among
the heathen. He said, immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood. Jeremiah said something like
this. The Lord told him, before I formed thee in the belly, I
knew thee. Before you were ever formed in
the belly, I knew you already. And before you came forth out
of the womb, I sanctified thee, he said. I set you apart. and
I ordain thee a prophet unto the nations." Look over at Acts
26. Acts 26. And we know the apostle
had to be called and separated. to the faith and to this apostleship. And that happened to him at one
and the same time. It happened to him. He was called
by grace, into grace, and he was separated into this apostleship
all at the same time. And that was done by Christ,
and it was personally. Now, Paul's different in that
regard. To be an apostle, you have to
be called personally. So he was called personally. He saw Christ. Literally saw Him. We're going
to be called by Him. And He's going to call us, but
we're not going to see Him. But we're called and separated
the same way. Look at verse 13, Acts 26, 13. At midday, O King, I saw in the
way a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining
round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we
were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto
me, saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? It's hard for thee to kick against
the pricks or the goads. And I said, who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise and
stand upon thy feet. Now notice these words, for I
have appeared unto thee. I have appeared unto thee. For
this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these
things which thou hast seen, which you have seen, and of those
things in which I will appear unto thee. delivering thee from
the people, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles
unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, that's why I'm
sending you to preach this gospel, to open their eyes and to turn
them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto
God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among
them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Look back
at Acts 13. Now just as Just as God the Father
did this, and Christ the Son did this, the Spirit of God separated
Him and sent Him to the works. that he'd been called to. Look
at Acts 13.1. They were in the church that
was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and
Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manon,
which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
That's Paul, Saul. And they ministered to the Lord
and fasted. The Holy Ghost said, separate me. The Holy Ghost says,
separate me, Barnabas and Saul. Separate them. for the work whereunto
I have called them." So he's called and separated. And when
they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they
sent them away. So they, being sent forth by
the Holy Ghost, by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia from which
they sailed to Cyprus. So you see, here's our first,
here's the answer to our first question. Saints are called and
separated by God the Father, by Jesus Christ the Son, by the
Holy Spirit. It's by divine election of the
Father, it's by the blood purchase accomplished by God the Son,
Christ Jesus, and it's by that effectual, saving, irresistible
call of the Holy Spirit, which works internally. It gets the
job done. That's what it does. That's who
does the calling and the separating. So there's nobody gonna be able
to say, I separated myself. Nobody's gonna be able to say,
I did this. Paul's sitting there saying,
God did all this. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit did this for me. Now, let's look at this
second thing. From what are we called? From
what are we called and separated? Look over Philippians 3. Philippians
3. Paul was a Pharisee. And that
word means separate one. That's what Pharisee means. And
that may be why he used this word separated in Romans 1. Separated. Because before he
was separated by God, Paul had separated himself. He was a Pharisee. He had separated himself. But
it was all a natural and an external and an outward religious separation. All his confidence was in things
outward. Look at Philippians 3, 4. He
says, Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. Somebody
wants to boast in their flesh. He says, If any other man thinketh
that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. He
said, I was circumcised the eighth day. I was of the stock of Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin."
That means he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. And he says, as touching
the law, I was a Pharisee. A Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting
the church. Touching the righteousness which
was in the law, blameless. He said, I kept it outwardly.
I kept the law outwardly. As far as the letter goes, as
far as a man keeps it outward in the flesh, he said, I kept
it that way. Though he tells us in another place that while
he was doing that, his heart was full of covetousness and
lying and stealing and robbing and murder and envy. He was breaking
the whole law of God because he didn't have a new heart. He separated himself through
a lot of study. Look back at Acts 22. Acts 22. He had a lot of outward, external
things to put confidence in, and he had much studied by which
he had separated himself. Look at Acts 22, 3. He said, I am verily a man which
am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in
this city at the feet of Gamaliel." That was a teacher there. You think of somebody in our
day who's popular to study under. Somebody goes somewhere to study
under somebody. Gamaliel was the man. He was
the man to go study under, as far as theology was concerned.
Paul said, not only did I study under him, I was brought up studying
under him, brought up in the city at the feet of Gamaliel.
And I was taught according to the perfect manner of the law
of the fathers and was zealous toward God, as you all are this
day. Paul set himself apart from all others in this religious
zeal he had, in all his works religion. Look back there at
Galatians 1, verse 13. He said, you've heard of my conversation
in time past. in the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it and
profited in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my
own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of
my father." Now, be sure to get this. Be sure to understand this.
While he was in works religion, looking to the things he had
done to separate himself, Paul had not truly separated himself
at all. Now, you that don't believe God
don't have anything to do with religion. You sit there and say,
well, I'm not in works religion, free will religion, or any kind
of religion. I don't have anything to do with it. You're in the
same camp with Paul. Those ones you despise that accuse
you that they're holier than you are, and you despise that
because they act so pious and uppity and don't have anything
to do with you, both of you are in the same camp. Both of you
are one in the same, whether you're in religion or out. He
separated himself from those liberal Sadducees. They were
just too liberal. He was a conservative Pharisee.
They were liberals. and they were very, anything
went with the Sadducees, but he proved he was one with them.
You know how he did? He would receive a Sadducee and
embrace him when it suited his case sooner than he would, and
he would not embrace those who were truly Christians who had
been called and separated by God. He separated himself from
sinners. He said, come not near me, I'm
holier than you are. But he was one with them, just
exactly one with them. He was lost right there with
them. At the time, as religious as he appeared, this was the
case with Paul, his iniquity separated him between himself
and God. All that his works he was doing
were sins that were hiding God's face from him the whole time.
He was one of those that Jude describes as having separated
themselves and being sensual carnal, loving the things of
the flesh that you can see and hear and touch and taste and
feel, but having not the spirit. That's who Saul was. The Lord
told the Pharisees, in fact, that sinners and publicans would
go into the kingdom of God before they would. And that's what Paul
had done. In all his religious deeds that
he thought commended him to God, he had gone further and further
and further away from God in ungodly rebellion. He'd gone
away from it. Well, he's just like every elect
child of God that's saved. Just like every elect child of
God, we were lost in darkness, in darkness of our depraved hearts
and all our spiritual ignorance. And we may have had a form of
religion and called it worshipping Christ, just like Paul called
it worshipping God. He wasn't worshiping God at all.
He was ignorant of God and he was ignorant of God's providence.
He was ignorant of himself and ignorant of his sin. That's what
we are. Ignorant of the scriptures and
ignorant of the gospel. He was ignorant of Christ. He
was ignorant of righteousness. He was ignorant of salvation.
That's what Paul had to be called and separated from. And that's
what we got to be called and separated from. I have hope though. You know
why? Saul was as deep in that garbage as a man could get. Saul
said, if you think you've got reason to boast, I was far and
far beyond what you have. And yet God called him. God saved
him. I have hope in that because the
Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And
him that cometh to me I'll in no wise cast out. We've got to
be separated from that. Well, unto what are we called
and separated? Unto what are we called and separated? Let's look back at Romans 1.
Back at Romans 1. Paul was called and separated
unto the gospel of God. You see it there in Romans 1.1?
Called and separated unto the gospel of God. Now Paul was separated
to preach the gospel. And he was separated, called
to be an apostle. But just like him, this is how
God separates all his elect unto the message of the gospel. And
this is what Paul was separated unto first. He was separated
unto the message of the gospel, that is, unto Christ himself.
Now look at the description of it here. This gospel of God is
that which God's been promising afore by his prophets in all
the holy scriptures. Everything in these scriptures
have been declaring how God saves sinners. How God saves sinners.
And it's all been declared that it's in Christ. God making himself
one with human flesh, that he might make human flesh one with
God. That's amazing wisdom. There's
never been any wisdom ever conjured up in the mind of a little maggot,
anything near what that wisdom is. That's wisdom far above anything
we have or anything we'll ever possess in this life. That's
wisdom. I wish we could get that and
see if it's wisdom we want. If we're Greek and we love philosophy
and wisdom, I wish we could see there is wisdom in God. God is
the wisdom. And then he says here, verse
3, this gospel is concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh, just like God said He would be. And
He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to
the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Now
before, when Paul was where he was, he was separated unto the
law. He had separated himself unto the law of God. He was trying
to come to God, right here, with what he'd done, with his hands.
That's how he was trying to come to God, what he did and did not
do. Now he's separated to the gospel
of God. Is there a difference? There's
a vast difference in the two. It's called the gospel of God
because God's the author of it. It's called the gospel of God
because it's his free and sovereign grace is the cause by which he
sends it. It's called the Gospel of God
because Christ His Son is the subject of it. He's the author
and finisher of our faith. He's the subject of it, how redemption
is accomplished by Him and the glorification of God's saints,
of God's elect, those He set apart. It's called the gospel
of God because the glorification of them and the glorification
of His holy name is the purpose for which it's sent, to call
them out, to show how God saves by His glorious power, all by
Himself, and how His saints are brought to rejoice that it's
so, and how He'll not lose one of them. That's when a person's
going to be not ashamed of the gospel. Over there in verse 16,
Paul says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Christ for it's
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to
the Jew first and also to the Greek For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed God's not going to save anybody unless it's done
in a righteous manner. That's who God is. He's holy
God. And what He does, He's going
to do in righteousness. That's the message of the book.
That's the message of the whole book. We're all together unholy,
unrighteous. He's all together holy and righteous.
How are these two going to be brought together? the one that's
holy and righteous is going to have to save us. And He sends
His Son and He saves in righteousness. So when we hear it, we're called
and we're separated into the gospel of God and we become witnesses. Whether we're called to be an
apostle, whether you're called to be a preacher, whether you're
called to be a witness and to tell what you've seen and what
you know. And what we've seen and know is this, we know that
God did the choosing. We know that God did the redeeming. He made atonement for the sins
of His elect through His own blood, the blood of His own Son.
We know that God is the one who does the calling. He gave us
life. He called us. He quickened us.
God does the keeping. How many times have we turned
from Him? How many times have we walked away from God? How
many times would we turn right away from Him right now if He
didn't keep us? And God will get all the glory for bringing
each and every one to Himself, to the praise of the glory of
His grace wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved. And
we're witnesses of this in there. Witnesses of this in there. It's
because He's called us and He's separated us from darkness to
light. I'll just read this to you, but
in 1 Peter 2.9, He says, you're a chosen generation. You're a
royal priesthood. You're a holy nation, a peculiar
people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who
hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." If
we've been called out of darkness into His light, we've been separated
out of darkness into His light, we're not in darkness anymore,
we're in light. Isn't that simple? We're out
of darkness into light. Turn over to 2 Timothy 1.9. You remember there when we read
about Paul, he said, I saw in the way a light from heaven. That's what he saw, a light from
heaven. And he said, and the Lord spake, and the Lord said,
rise and stand upon thy feet, I have appeared unto thee. That's what he said, I have appeared
unto thee. He said, to make thee a witness of these things which
thou hast seen, and of those things into which I will appear
unto thee." See, we learn as we go by experience, and we see
more and more of Him as we go, so we can tell more and more
of Him, because He's appeared to us more and more as we go.
But just like Christ appeared in this earth when the time came,
He appeared in this earth, and He abolished death by the sacrifice
of Himself, and He brought immortality to light by what he did, just
the way he did that in this earth. In the same manner he appeared
to the Apostle Paul and he brought death He abolished death in Paul,
in him. All those things Paul was holding
on to, wherein he would have argued with you tooth and nail
that he had life, that he was worshiping God, that he knew
who God was. He would have argued with anybody.
In fact, that's why he was trying to kill those who had been called
to Christ, because they made him uncomfortable. He didn't
like being around them. But when Christ appeared to him,
he brought death to all that. Paul said, when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. He abolished that death that
Paul was hanging on to, and he brought life and immortality
to light. He showed him, I'm the light,
Paul. I'm the life, Paul. And Paul
laid hold of Christ, and he had eternal life. He had immortality
then when he believed on him. And that was by the appearing
of Christ to him. And Christ spoke that to him.
He's the gospel. He spoke that to him. Now look
at what Paul says here. By the same way He enters in
our heart and Christ the Light abolishes death that we're holding
on to and He brings immortality to light. Look at this. 2 Timothy
1.9. He saved us and called us with
a holy calling. Not an unrighteous calling. Not
a calling that's in falsehood. Not a calling that's in untruth.
Not a calling that's an unholy calling. He's called us with
a holy calling. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest. How? By the appearing of our
Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what's got to happen in
our heart before we're going to be able to see Him in these
scriptures. And he abolished death and brought,
hath brought life and immortality to the light through the gospel.
Where unto I am a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the
Gentiles. How did he become that? Christ
appeared to him and spoke to him and made death to all that
he thought was life and made life all that he thought was
death. And he called him out. The light shined and he saw the
glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. That's how he was called. Now when a sinner is called like
that, you know what happens in the heart? You know what takes
place in the heart? We're given an unction of the Holy Spirit.
and unction. That means we're given discernment,
the mind of Christ, so that we know and understand all things. Now scriptures clearly tell us
that. Let me give you some of them. Proverbs 28 5. This is
what it said. Evil men understand not judgment. They just don't have discernment
at all. But they that seek the Lord understand all things. 1 Corinthians 2.15 He that is
spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no
man. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. 1 John 2.20 You have an unction
from the Holy One, and you know all things. What are these all
things that we know? When this light shines, when
Christ really becomes our wisdom, We don't boast in our wisdom
anymore. We stop boasting. When Christ
really has made wisdom to us, Christ becomes all to us. And we know all things wherein
a sinner is saved are all in Christ. All things are of God
who have reconciled us to himself through Christ Jesus his Son.
When Christ has made wisdom unto us, when we have the mind of
Christ, when we're given this light, this unction, and everything
we once thought was light becomes death and darkness to us, and
we're called out of that into light, then now we know Christ
is all. Christ is all. He is the wisdom
of God, wherein God is is manifest His righteousness, and He's that
righteousness. He's that sanctification. And
when that happens, brethren, true sanctification of the heart,
anywhere Christ entered, when He came, when that Shekinah glory
entered that temple, that temple was sanctified. When Christ enters,
there's sanctification, because His presence is the light, is
the sanctification. And true sanctification of heart,
true setting apart in the heart in righteousness and holiness
of truth is to be purged, is to be separated from vain works
to Christ our righteousness and our holiness and it's accomplished
by the washing of regeneration through the word of this gospel.
It's to have Christ formed in you so that we know all is in
Christ. He becomes all in all. Now, in
Christ our like, and by Christ our like, having the righteousness
of God revealed to us, this is how we discern everything we
hear now. We got new ears to hear things
now. Christ has become, we're channeling everything we hear
through the gospel. It's got to declare God's glory. It's got to declare God righteous.
It's got to make Him to be holy. It's got to make salvation to
be entirely of the Lord. And that's how we're listening
now. Because we know that in Christ is where we're complete.
And we know that all things are in Him. So what we're listening
for is we can discern the difference between grace and works. Sarah
plays this guitar for us up here. If she gets up here, she starts
playing this guitar, and she hits a G chord, Like that, you're going to say,
that's an off note. Something's out of tune. God
gives us spiritual discernment in the heart so that when we
hear somebody preaching the Gospel, or we see the works they're doing
in the name of God, and we're looking to, who's getting the
glory from this? And when it's all to heap glory
upon man, it sounds like that guitar out of tune. And you know
it. You know it. This is not giving glory to my
Savior, to my Redeemer. And you have a discernment between
grace and works. You can discern between free
grace and free will. You can determine between the
voice of Christ and the voice of strangers. Christ said, When
he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the
sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will
they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the
voice of strangers. Now that's what He calls us out
when He calls us out of darkness into light. And when He does
that, He calls us out of bondage into liberty. Let me just read
this to you. Now the Lord is that Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. When Christ
becomes our wisdom, and He becomes our righteousness and our sanctification,
guess what happens? We quit being under the bondage
of trying to make ourselves righteous and holy anymore. Christ becomes
our redemption. And we're free. We're freed. We become free from all of that
bondage that Satan had us under and all of his free will religionists
had us under. Paul said, brethren, you've been
called unto liberty. Now don't use liberty for an
occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. And truly
a saint of God has been called to separate. He's not going to
use his liberty as an occasion to the flesh. He may fall into
that, but he's not going to continue in that. He's going to be kept
by God, and he's going to be made to serve his brethren by
love. We were by nature children of
wrath. That was the bondage we were
in, and we couldn't free ourselves from that. We were like a dog
on a chain, our nature being the chain that had us bound,
and we went around circle and circle, barking and barking and
barking, and telling everybody how free we were. And anybody
that had any spiritual discernment sitting there going, poor, poor
sinner, he's just bound by his nature. We went around telling
everybody how wise we were, how wise we were, how wise we were.
You can't convince me of none of that stuff you're saying.
And we were bound with a chain the whole time. We went around
talking about all that we had that commended us, and we were
on a chain. We were bound by that nature.
But when God gives a new nature, when He gives a new nature, we're
now Christ's own. We're freed from the curse and
the condemnation of the law of God. We were slaves, dominated
under that bondage, that chain of sin. Now in Christ, we become
the servants of righteousness. And it's a whole different surface.
We have a new nature now and we're bound by that nature. Your
will's never going to be free. Your will's going to be bound
either to your sinful nature or it's gonna be, and it's still
under the dominion of God, he's still gonna turn you whichever
way he'd have you to go to glorify his self and save his saints
from you, or from us. But then when he calls and gives
a new nature, now we're bound by his grace. We're constrained
by his love for us, and we got a nature to follow him and walk
after him and love him and rejoice in him. But we're never free.
You're never gonna be free. You're a created being. I hate
to break it to you. But you're a created being, and
I am too. We're never going to be free from God. You're never
going to be free from God. Well, we were under the prince,
the power, the heir, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. Now we're Christ's free men.
And all those old things are passed away. We've become new.
Paul said, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ
has made you free. And don't be entangled again
with that yoke of bondage. That'd be foolish, wouldn't it?
Wouldn't that be foolish to be set free and to know the Lord
and to have all the free forgiveness God's given us and said, I fulfilled
everything for you and to say, oh, but I'm going to go back
now and I'm going to start washing and observing everything in the
law and try to make myself holier than what you've made me. Do
you not hear the law? That'd be bondage. Bondage. Well, and when He does that,
this is the most important thing right here. Look over at Deuteronomy
7. When He calls us, He separates
us out of this world and fellowship with this world unto the fellowship. First Corinthians 1.9 said, God
is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of
his son Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel of love and grace,
the gospel I'm preaching to you now, the gospel of the love and
the grace of God always tells the one who's called and separated
to leave your former idolatry, leave your former land, leave
your former companions, leave your former family and friends,
leave them and follow Christ. That's the gospel of love and
grace. That's the gospel that whereby
we're called unto the fellowship of Jesus Christ. That was the
case with Abraham. At no time ever in these scriptures,
at no time has God ever called his people and told them to be
joined with this world and to the religion of this world. Never
one time. But God calls and He separates
His children from falsehood and He effectually commands them
to no longer join with it anymore. Look at Deuteronomy 7 verse 2.
When the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, that's those
nations, seven nations greater than Israel was, He says, thou
shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make
no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them, neither shalt
thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son,
for they will turn away thy son from following me. that they
may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord
be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall
you deal with them. You shall destroy their altars
and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn
their graven images with fire. You know how we do that, brethren?
This gospel we have is a sword that cuts it down. And this gospel
is a fire that burns it all up. preach the word, declare the
word, declare the truth. It'll cut to the quick and it'll
burn up all the images. We don't go out and burn down
churches. We don't go out and try to kill people and persecute
people. God's people are peaceable people. But this is, we don't
join with them. We don't unite with them. We've
been called out. We've been called unto the fellowship
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 6. For thou art
a holy people. That means separate. That means
separated. Sanctified. Thou art a holy people
unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that
are upon the face of the earth. Look down at verse 26. Neither
shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be
a cursed thing just like it. But thou shalt utterly detest
it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing."
Look at Revelation 18.4. Revelation 18.4. It says here, And I heard another
voice, from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, that you
be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not her
plagues. Now Paul was in works religion. He was in free will, self-righteous
works religion. That's where he was. But he wasn't
saved by it and he wasn't left in it. God saved him by Christ
himself calling him out of it and separating him from it. And
he does the same in our day through the gospel of God. I've never,
I've never, and this will be a test for you, and you determine
this, you'll catch on to this, but I've never personally heard
anybody that said they were saved by free will religion also say
they were saved from it. Never heard it. Not once. I've heard many who said they
were saved from free will religion. I've never heard one of them
say they were saved by it. There's a difference there. There's
a difference there. It's the difference grace makes.
It's the difference grace makes. But what sweet fellowship he
gives us when he calls us, it's better than anything we had before.
Look, We have access to His throne of grace. We've got fellowship
with Christ. We've got fellowship with His
people. Those here, and it says we've been called to Mount Zion,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to the Almighty God. And even the spirits
of just men made perfect. You realize those that are called
on this earth right now, are in fellowship with those saints
that are already justified in glory and perfected in glory.
We're in fellowship with them. Believe the same gospel. Worship
the same Lord. Give praise and honor to the
same Master. That's sweet fellowship. And
the more and more we hear this gospel, the more and more sweet
it becomes, and the more and more united we become. because
He continues to appear unto us. When He appears unto us, He's
not showing us some new novel thing that we never had before. You know what He's showing us?
He's showing us slightly varied aspects of how He's our wisdom
and our righteousness and our sanctification and our redemption.
And we don't ever get past that. You know you can take a diamond
ring and you never get tired of looking at a diamond. You
could take that diamond and in light and sit there and just
turn it and it just will, it'll just, you just sit and look at
it and just, it's, you see different things about it every way you
turn the thing. You just, you just sit there
and look at it. It's just amazing to look at
one. That's what the gospel is. It's like all those little faces
on a diamond. And we're just turning that diamond
around and around. Every time we come in here, we're
just looking at a little different face on it. But we know all things. We're not learning something
new in the respect that we're going to find out there's something
in addition to Christ or anything like that. We know Christ is
all because He's called us. And we're learning more and more
how truly Christ is our all. You see? You understand that?
So, let's listen to the Lord. Look at 2 Corinthians 6.4. I didn't come up with this. The
Lord did. This is what the Lord said. 6.14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers? What fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? What concord hath Christ with
Belial? What part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? There's a verse in the Old Testament,
I'm thinking it's Deuteronomy, but he says, even our enemies
testify and say that our rock is not like their rock. They
testify to it and say, your God is not like my God. Your Christ
is not like my Christ. What agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? You're the temple of the living
God. As God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore,
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean thing.
The unclean thing is the unbeliever. It's the synagogue of Satan.
It's free will works religion. It's anti-Christ. That's the
thing God hates. And he says, and I will receive
you and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons
and my daughters, saith the Lord. Having therefore these promises,
dearly beloved, let's cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
We've got promises. I realize the gospel does two
things. Those that have been called and separated by God's
grace, when you hear the gospel, that gospel is continually convincing
you and persuading you more and more that you're saved by grace
and you're complete in Christ. And it makes you more and more
see that, you know, everything I once thought was my salvation
is not salvation. And you more and more just drop
those grave clothes and drop those bags, that religious baggage,
and more and more see, He is really my all. You press toward
the mark. of Christ, you follow the author
and finisher of faith, and you don't look back anymore. And
you begin to see, I renounce that. What things were gained
to me, now I count them lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ. Everything I thought was gained is nothing but done
to me. I want to be found in Him, not having a righteousness
of my own that I've done by obedience to the law. I want to have that
righteousness which is of God, that righteousness which is by
the faithfulness of Christ Jesus, who's called me and separated
me unto Him. That's where I want to be found. And you hear it
more and more, and it unites us together more and more, and
it unites you with your brethren more and more, and you delight
in Him more and more. But that gospel, that same gospel, also
makes others feel lost. Others that thought they might
have been saved, it begins to make them feel lost. It begins
to make them feel undone. I'll give you an example. I was
preaching one time in a place, and I preached this message,
and I hadn't even noticed this person, really, that was in the
audience. I was just preaching to everybody alike, you know,
and just preaching the gospel. And I stepped out of the pulpit,
and this little woman, she was an older woman, she came up to
me and got in my face, and she said, are you saying I'm going
to hell? And I just, I thought, I just
was preaching the gospel. I wasn't saying anything to you
directly. I was just, the general call was going out, but she heard
it. She heard it. And she lashed out at the messenger,
because she thought I was picking on her specifically. Well, that's
what the gospel does. And if the gospel makes you feel
lost, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, if you think it's stripping you
of something you have confidence in other than Christ, And that's
how you know you got confidence in something other than Christ
is you won't let that thing go, whatever it is. Might have been
some decision you made, whatever religious work you did or what
something you did, but you won't let that go and say, this is
true. If you won't let it go, you know
you're holding on to something, thing, and something that won't
help you. But when you feel that way, don't
ignore it. Don't blame other people about
it. Hear it. Hear and consider, maybe the
Lord is saving me. Maybe the Lord is calling me.
Maybe the Lord is stripping me of all vain confidence and really
giving me eternal life. Maybe the Lord is bringing me
to see Christ in whom I've been called and separated. So don't
suppress it. But then believer, you remember
this too. Until God has done the calling
and separating, Sinners may very well depart from the gospel.
They may very well separate you from them because of it. And
the Master told us this. He said, Blessed are you when
men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their
company and shall reproach you and cast your name as evil for
the son of man's sake. But He said, and that's going
to cause sorrow, and that's going to cause, and it may come from
your dearest companion. It might be an unbelieving husband
or an unbelieving wife. But look at 1 Corinthians 7.15.
1 Corinthians 7.15. God has called us and separated
us unto holiness, not uncleanness. And so when the unbelieving depart,
don't let it bring you back into bondage. Don't let it bring you
back into turmoil. Don't let it bring you back into
unrest. Remember, God's called us to peace. Look at 1 Corinthians
7.15. He's speaking here about a departing
husband or a departing wife from a believing husband or a believing
wife. And he says there in verse 15, But if the unbelieving depart,
let him depart. A brother or sister is not under
bondage in such cases, But God's called us to peace. He's called
us to peace. He's called us in peace. Let
the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you call in one
body, He said. Peace that passes all understanding.
Peace that He gives in the midst of all tribulation that this
world causes, but which this world can't take away and they
can't prevent it, they can't give it, they can't take it away.
Peace in believing that we're one with God because Christ's
blood has made us one with Him. Now, I want you to turn to Romans
8, one last scripture. One last scripture, Romans 8.
Now, this is what we've seen here. We've seen who does the
calling and who does the separating. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. It's an effectual, internal,
saving call. We've seen from what God calls
and separates. from the old things that have
passed away, from self-self and from self-salvation, from darkness
of sin and ignorance, from all that separated us from Him. And
we've seen to what God calls His people. He calls us from
darkness to light, from bondage to liberty, from the world into
the fellowship of Christ, from uncleanness to holiness, from
turmoil to peace, into His grace, into His kingdom. I have one
last question. Shall those that He's called
and separated unto Him, shall they ever be separated again
from Him? Ever. Look at Romans 8.35. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress
or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written,
for thy sake we're killed all the day long. We are counted
as sheep for the slaughter. But know, in all these things,
we're more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded."
Are you persuaded of this? I'm persuaded of this. Neither
death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now that's what
it is to be called and separated. I've yet to meet a person who's
been called and separated through the lights in that message. Never
met a one. They may appear to for a while,
but eventually it gets old and they load this library. But when
God Saints are called and separated, they can't ever be separated
from God. They can't ever be separated from that love of God
that kept right there and they rejoice in him from evermore.
Amen.