Now, if you would open to 2 Timothy
chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. We'll begin with verse 10. You, however, know all about
my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience,
love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings, what kinds of things
happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, the persecution I
endured. Yet, the Lord rescued me from
all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to
live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil
men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being
deceived. But as for you, continue in what
you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know
those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have
known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every
good work. Let's pray. Our Father, thank you for this
worship hour when we could meet. And I pray that all who have
gathered here will be blessed with the instruction of the Word.
May the Word of God find fruitful soil in our hearts. And Lord,
if our hearts are not such as would bear fruit, then change
them, till them up, make them such as would receive your word
and bear the fruit of faith, bear the fruit of submission
and repentance. In Christ's name we pray it.
Now if you turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4, 1 Timothy chapter
4, We read in verse 16, Paul saying to Timothy, watch
your life and doctrine closely. Strictly it says, watch out for
yourself and your doctrine closely. Persevere in them because if
you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Now we know
that Paul is not using the word save in the same sense he would
mean it if he said that God saves us. We realize that our salvation
is entirely the work of God. Yet God uses instruments in doing
this. And sometimes the work of salvation
is ascribed to them simply Because it's just easier to say it that
way. Paul said, I'm all things to all men that I might by all
means save some. Well, we know that Paul himself
wasn't doing the saving, but salvation was being declared
to these people through the apostle Paul. And he is saying to Timothy
here, be careful. about yourself. And of course,
our translators did get the sense of it, even though not strictly
the words, but the sense of it. In other words, he's saying to
Timothy, be careful how you live. It makes a difference in this
world. As Tim James put it, he said,
our works matter, they just don't count. But they do matter. They matter to those who watch
and who see us. They matter to those who listen
to us, because if what we say we believe, if the doctrine that
we declare does not find at least some resemblance in the way we
live, people are not going to have any respect for what we
believe. If we say, I believe God and
I trust Him, and yet we live our lives in such a way as to
deny that faith, then our testimony will not be helpful. We will
not be saving our hearers because they won't believe what we say.
They would rightly reject it. Reject our confessions is just
so much religious hypocrisy. You say, well, none of us can
be good enough for our testimony. We can't be good enough for God,
but we certainly ought to be good enough for men. That makes
sense to you? It ought to be that people see,
look at the life of a believer and at least be able to say,
well, the way he lives doesn't deny what he believes. So pay attention to yourself,
he says, your conduct. And he says, and to your doctrine.
It not only matters how we live, It matters what we believe and
what we tell people. It's important. Of course, he's
speaking to a preacher here. So he's saying to this preacher,
Timothy, you be careful what you believe, because what you
believe is what you're going to preach. And those that are listening
to you are listening with the idea of believing what you say.
And if you lead them astray, they will be lost. But if you
lead them in truth, they will be saved. James tells us, do not many of
you be teachers, for they shall receive the greater scrutiny,
the greater judgment. There is an awesome responsibility
on anyone who would take up the preaching and teaching of the
truth of God. Now, it's not something that
a man should draw away from if he believes God's calling to
it. Because with that call will come the grace to do it. But
we should be very careful that we do not enter any preaching,
teaching or whatever flippantly, carelessly. Lives are at stake. He says to the prophet, God said
to the prophet, If you warn them, if you tell
them the truth, and they don't listen to you, their blood I
will not require of you. Because that's their fault for
not listening, for not believing. But if you fail to tell them
what I've told them, if you fail to warn them with what I've said,
And then, of course, because there is no warning, they make
no change, they do not repent and turn to God. He said, I will
require their blood at your hands. He's telling Timothy, be careful
of your doctrine. Because it's important what you
say. Henry Mahan once said, be careful
what you say. Somebody is going to believe
it. And I can't remember which man
it was for sure, but Brother Mahan was visiting a fellow that
was near to death. And he said to this man, he said,
well, is all well with your soul? And that man looked at him and
said, well, if what you said is true, everything's well with my soul. I remember when our sister Bernice
departed this life, it hit me with such solemnity. She left this world believing
what I say. And it made me, I said, I got
to open up this book and make sure I'm telling people what's
in here. And I'm telling people the truth as God has recorded
it. Watch your life and your doctrine closely. Persevere in
them. Our lives should be consistent,
consistent in faithfulness toward God and our doctrine should remain
unchanged. The only change that should ever
come in our doctrine is as we grow in grace and the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are purifying it from
all the fleshly dross that still clings to it. I think that at my age I understand
the gospel better than I did when I was 30. But I'm not understanding a different
gospel. In fact, I have no problem saying
that what I believe now, as near as I can tell, is basically the
same thing that I have believed since I was seven years old and
professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, some information
has been added to what I believed in to clarify things, to make
me understand how these things operate. But I have always been,
and I'm not saying this to boast myself, this is just the way
the grace of God works. When God teaches a man, he stays
with what God teaches him. Yet at the same time, we are
warned. Persevere in it. Don't be turned aside to something
more attractive to the flesh. Paul says that we need to grow
up. We need to be mature so that
we'll not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. It used to be that I would hear
someone challenge some of the truth that we believe. I'm talking about back mostly
in my twenties, thirties. But anyway, I, it would, the
challenge would make me wonder, well, you know, is this right?
Is it, have I missed something? And I'd go to the scriptures,
look it up. Nope. Haven't missed anything. Salvation's
by the grace of God, by the power of God, by the will of God through
Jesus Christ. It is as I have believed it.
And over the years now, I've been through that process so
many times. of having my faith challenged, that the challenges
no longer bother me much. Why? Been there, done that. Been down that road. Searched
it out. What they're saying isn't true. We persevere in the truth. A man may have much truth and
still not be saved. In fact, he can know all the
truth that God revealed and even believe that it's true and not
be saved because salvation is not a theological test. Salvation
is a look to the Lord Jesus Christ. But while a man may have much
truth and not be saved, a man cannot be saved while ignorant
of gospel truth. Turning over to 2 Timothy now,
chapter 2. Verse 24. And this is Paul, he was probably
somewhere, well, somewhere around my age. He was maybe in his mid-60s
when he was martyred. We can't get exact dates because
it's not like they wrote that stuff down. But it is assumed
by most that he was in his mid-60s. So this is near to that time.
And Paul, speaking from the experience, of age and many years in the
ministry. He says in verse 24, and the
Lord's servant must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone,
able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must
gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance.
Now look here. leading them to a knowledge of
the truth and that they will come to their senses and escape
from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do
his will. Now the point I want to make
here is that the goal in ministry, whether it be, shall we say,
an official ministry such as I have behind a pulpit week by
week, regularly ministering to some of the people of God, or
whether your ministry just be some one-time talking to a friend
or co-worker or whatever, here is the goal. It's to bring them
to a knowledge of the truth in the hope that God will bring
them to their senses and they'll repent and acknowledge it indeed
to be the truth. And because truth is the goal,
and the conviction of the truth is the goal, then we have absolutely
no reason to strive with people, to quarrel with them. Why? We're not trying to win arguments,
we're trying to win souls. Now, there's a different difference. Now, I've been on the wrong side of
this exhortation plenty of times. I remember in my youth, you say,
what's your youth? Well, anything before now. I've
always been younger than I am right now, until right now. But I remember in my twenties,
in particular, as I was just beginning to preach, I thought
that there was great benefit to be derived from talking real
strong and doing some yelling. I didn't do much of it because
it's not quite natural to me, but I did some of it. And I thought
that what I should do, speaking figuratively here, is just take
out my sword and hack and cut and swing. And you know something? I don't know that I've ever accomplished
a thing. I know this. The preaching of the Word, no
matter how poorly it's done, if it's the Word, God may use
it if it pleases Him, but He's never going to use our flesh
to bring someone to a knowledge of the Gospel. Us yelling at
them, us intimidating them, us bullying them, is not going to
bring them to an acknowledgement of the truth. What do we do?
In all cases, we set forward the truth to them. Answer any
objections they might have. If we're able to. But if they
just keep bringing up objections, and I've told people this before,
I said, well, listen, the devil is always going to be able to
give you more questions than I got answers because he's smarter
than I am. But before we deal with more of your questions,
what about the truth that has already been told to you? But never need we add the power
of our own anger or the power of our own frustrations or whatever
intimidating abilities we may have. Rather, in gentleness,
teaching, not being resentful. What do you mean by being resentful? Well, I know it's something I
have to put down when I'm reading some of the I have no other way
to describe it, but the foolish and stupid things that people
say, particularly as I'm looking on the internet, you know, and
interacting with those people. They say things that are just
outlandish, and they're so rebellious against the truth, and you want
to give them what for? And I've written a lot of responses
over the years that the internet's been there, a lot of responses.
Fortunately, the Lord made me slow down a little bit, and I
read them again and said, no, that's not the way to do it, and I just
erased it. Why? Full of flesh, full of quarreling. We teach because what we want
is for people to understand the truth. And then in 2 Timothy
chapter 3, verse 7, Paul's talking about in the last
days. Actually, I'm going to start, let's just start reading
at verse 1 because this is instructive to us. He says, mark this, there
will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers
of themselves. Now, that's always been the case. Hasn't it? So I'm assuming what
he's saying that is within the professed church of Christ, this
is what it's going to be like. Because we expect this kind of
conduct in the irreligious ungodly world. But he's saying it's going
to get worse in the last days because this is what you'll see
even in the professed Church of Christ. People will be lovers
of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient
to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving,
slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
treacherous, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying
its power, have nothing to do with them." Now when you see
religious folk acting like this, just stay away from it. Certainly
stay away from any of their worshipping they're doing, but also, Paul
says, anyone, he says this in another place, anyone who holds
himself forth as a brother, yet lives like this, he says, you've
got to separate yourself from them. And that for two reasons. Lest
you be dragged into the same kind of conduct. You say, I'd
never do that. What do you mean you'd never
do that? Paul says, evil companions corrupt
good conduct. That's why it's always best for
us to have our closest friendships and fellowship with those of
the faith. Have nothing to do with them
in their worship, have nothing to do with them outside of worship
as much as is possible. Now you can't just leave the
world. You might have to work with some
of them. You might have a family that acts like this. And I don't know if the scriptures
ever tell us to withdraw from our families. Nonetheless, be
careful. And he goes on, he says, they
are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over
weak-willed women who are loaded down with sins and are swayed
by all kinds of evil desires. I remember back in the late 80s,
remember when the televangelists, all a bunch of scandals began
popping up? And you find out they were exactly like this. I thought it was interesting
when I was an Orkin man. When you're an Orkin man, you see things
in people's homes that you wouldn't normally know about because you're
in every nook and cranny of the house. And I would see people
with Bibles on their nightstand. And I won't tell you what was
in the nightstand. Why? It's this kind of stuff.
And they were all hallelujah. in every place that public could
see. And yet, they were bound up just like these. There were men, there are men
who understand that religion can be used as a way to lead
captive those women who are turned this direction. And we saw it
happen with the televangelists. And the interesting thing, I
say interesting, it's a very sad thing. In our day, there
has been a resurgence in popularity, if that's the
right word, of what we call the doctrines of grace. And there
have been many who became famous preachers
holding forth what we would call the doctrines of grace, and they
became notable Their churches swelled huge, their name was
everywhere, and now they're falling like so much rotten trees when
the scandal behind them is coming in the public eye. But it says, These people are loaded down
with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always
learning, but never able to acknowledge the truth. I have had contact with people
that, oh, they're always reading this book and that book, and
they tell you about, well, such and such a preacher, I read the
book, he's got a book out, and it's just so good, and then they're
over here with this preacher, and it's just, they're over here,
they're over there, they're always learning, always finding out
supposedly new things, yet in all their learning, they never
are able to acknowledge the simple truth of the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Truth is what we need. Often, man's error comes from
imposing human reason on divine truth. But Isaiah says, speaking
for the Lord, His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher
than our thoughts, just as the heavens are higher than the earth.
Therefore, we should always expect, as we learn the truth of God,
that we're going to be confronted with things that we can't really
wrap our mind around them. We really can't understand them. There's something in them that
kind of sticks crosswise in our brain. But nonetheless, we've
got to accept them as they come from the Scripture. I want to mention two or three
of those things here in a few minutes. Why? To warn us. I know that God will preserve
His people. If you are His people, He will
preserve you in truth. He will keep you from going astray. It says, all we like sheep have
gone astray, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us
all. Therefore, that shepherd who bore the sin of the sheep,
when he speaks, his sheep follow. I know that to be so. Because
he said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. But one way the shepherd maintains
his sheep, is through the preaching of those he sends to preach,
and through their warning concerning those doctrines that the world
finds popular and attractive. Because let's face it, and let's
just go ahead and admit this about ourselves. In our flesh,
we are just like everybody else. And we can be tempted by false
religion just like everybody else. And if God does not strengthen
us on our inner man to stand against that, we will be drawn
away into all the foolishness that goes on under the name of
Christ and only goes, as we read, from bad to worse. So note these
few things here. Put them in your mind so that
if you do hear something that sounds attractive, you might
be immediately warned that this is contrary to what the scriptures
teach. The first thing that I see going on in modern religion,
popular Christianity, which is very seductive, and that's the
perfect word to use. You know, the Bible refers, in
the book of Revelation, it refers to the great prostitute. Some
say that that is the false church. Certainly it applies to that.
I think it actually applies to all worldly attractions because
of all their seductive ability, but certainly in religion. And
there is a religion which takes upon itself the name of Christ,
but it is nothing more than a spiritual prostitute, and it's very seductive,
and we've got to be careful that we're not taken in by its seductions. And what it is saying today,
What is setting forth today that is attracting so many people
and leading so many people on a broad road that leads to destruction
is this, that the religion of Christ is for the purpose of
making our lives pleasant and prosperous. That's what they're about. They preach this message. Actually,
it was going on back in Paul's day. If you look at 1 Timothy
chapter 6, beginning of verse 3, Paul says to Timothy, if anyone
teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the godly teaching, he is conceited
and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest
in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy,
strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction
between men of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth,
and look here, and who think that godliness is a means to
financial gain. How many preachers are out there
now telling folks that if you just believe God as you should,
you can be healed of your diseases, you can be financially successful,
you can have a happy life. And thousands upon thousands
are flocking to them. Of course, I know why those men
do that. I know why people preach that
message. Because even though they're deceiving the people
that listen to them, the preachers themselves are being fabulously
enriched by their message. Their form of godliness certainly
leads to financial gain, but not for their hearers. And it
amazes me how many times people will fall for that same thing
over and over again. They hear one preacher say, well,
if you'll just do this, you'll have a happy home. And so they
do that, and everything seems to be happy for just a little
while. Because one thing that religious people are good at
is putting on a show for a little while. But it's hard to keep
up the appearances when there's no reality behind it. But they
latch on to some program that a preacher told them to do, and
it's going to give you a happy family, or prosperous kids, or
you'll be prosperous. They do it for a while, and things
go good for a while, and then it starts to slide. Well, once
that doesn't prove to be working out so well, either that same
preacher will come up with something new, Or they'll find another
preacher that's saying something else. Well, if you'll do this!
If you'll do that! And believe me, the devil's got
plenty of preachers out there with plenty of ways for you to
have a happy, healthy, prosperous life. And people go from one to the
other. Remind you just how... Let's
talk about a good illustration right now. Every four years the
politicians come and tell us the same thing. We vote for them
and then they go back and do what they've always done. And that's just what these preachers
are like. Be careful. All be so very careful
of any message that tells you there's anything easy about believing
the gospel and following the Lord Jesus Christ. Look over here at Acts chapter
14. I want to be honest with you. Why? Well, I don't want either
one. I don't want you or me to perish. And I want to be honest with
you even if honesty causes me to preach a message
that will not appeal to your flesh. In verse 21 of Acts 14, it says, they preached the good
news, Paul and his companions, Paul and Barnabas. They preached
the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples.
Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening
the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith,
quote, we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom
of God. Now friends, that's the truth.
No matter what anyone tells you. If you really want to be part
of God's kingdom, then you've become an enemy of the kingdom
of this world. And you're going to go through
trouble. It may not be the kind of trouble
that the world will recognize. There are some whom God has blessed
with saving grace, and also blessed with a rather happy and pleasant
life so far as outward circumstances are concerned. But know this,
if you are a friend of God, you are an enemy to this world. And the more openly and passionately
you pursue the kingdom of God, the more openly and passionately
the world will hate you and cause you trouble. God has never promised an easy
route. The proof of this, I mean, is our Lord Jesus Christ, the
most godly man that ever lived, whose nickname was the man of
sorrows, acquainted with grief. And the more like Christ you
try to be, the more of His experience you will experience. The only route to the Kingdom
of God is through trouble of some kind or another. Your troubles
may be entirely inward. It may be that the trouble you
must go through is not so much your outside circumstances, though
that could be some of it, but it might not so much be outward
circumstances and the persecution of other people, it's simply
the horrible struggle of the soul, as it's continually confronted
with the flesh. Do you remember how Lot lived
in that city? And I don't know why he stayed
there, because it says that the conduct of the people vexed his
righteous soul. And you'd think, well, if there's
something vexing your soul and you can get away from it, well,
then get away from it. Why didn't he move? I don't know. And by the time I get to where
Lot is so that I can ask him, I probably won't care. But I'll
tell you this, if you have a righteous soul,
that is, a soul born again by the Holy Spirit, your own conduct
vexes you. Your own fleshly passions vex
you. And that's something you can't
run away from. As someone once said, everywhere
I go, there I am. Paul said, when I would do good,
evil is present with me. That is a horrible trial. Constant frustration from beginning
to end. Hardship to enter the kingdom
of God. So don't believe any message.
Don't believe any messenger that tells you that following Christ
is a path of ease, prosperity, and pleasantness. It will bring
you trouble, trouble that the world cannot know. Secondly,
here's another popular religious concept, that the gospel is a
declaration of God's universal love for every man, Christ's
universal work of redemption for every man, and the Spirit's
universal attempt to bring everyone to a saving knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They express it plainly sometimes
like that, or in words like, God wants to save you if you
would only let Him. They are setting forth a God,
whose purpose of salvation is contingent upon the sinner. That God has the same affection
for every man and is doing his dead level best to save everybody. They'll say things like, God's
done all He can and the rest is up to you. And how easily
we may be deceived into thinking, oh, what a sweet message that
is. That is a damning message. You say, why? For this simple
reason, if God has done all He can to save you and you're still
lost, you will remain lost forever. What a horrible thing to tell
a man. God's done all He can, the rest is up to you. Well, I don't know what the rest
consists of, but it doesn't matter what it consists of, I'm not
going to be up to doing what the rest is. I find no joy, no good news whatsoever. in a message that says God has
already extended Himself to His full length in an attempt to
save all of humanity, and it's not quite far enough. There's
something that a natural man must do in order to make the
work effective. Brethren, if I believed that,
I would quit preaching. I honestly would. Because I'd
have nothing worth listening to. If that's the message, there
is no good news. We may as well do like Paul says,
eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. And nothing
can be done about it. Nothing. No hope. Jeremiah says, let's look over
at Jeremiah chapter 31. Let's see what the Bible does
say about God's love. Verse three, the Lord appeared to us in the
past saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have
drawn you with loving kindness. Now note the kind of love that
God has for everyone he loves. It's an everlasting love. It's
a love that began before time, lasts throughout time, and when
time shall be no more, it's still there. Now, if that love is on those in hell as well as
those in heaven, then what good is that love? How silly is that
love? Let me ask you, and we're sinful,
aren't we? So I'm asking you as a sinner, would you ever send
anyone you love to a place like hell? There are times, and anyone with
kids knows this, there are times when your kids, it can make you
lose it. And you might shriek and you
might yell. Provided nobody from Child Protective
Services is watching, you might get a belt and warm them up.
I know how. I got my tail end warmed up a
few times. You do all that, you'd never send them to hell, would
you? Why? Because you love them. You love
them. You'd never banish them from
your presence. Why? Because you love them. Do
you think God is going to look at this Huge mass of humanity
whom he supposedly loves with an everlasting love and says,
I love you, but I've got to send you to hell? No! He said, look
at this, I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn
you, drawn you with loving kindness.
He doesn't mean I've just drawn and some kind of, you know, pled
with you, like a guy calling up a girl trying to get a date.
He's talking about like when a horse draws a cart or any other load. He drags it
along if necessary. I'll tell you this, if you love
somebody, you will stretch yourself to your full length in order
to do them good, won't you? Now, you might come up short
because your full length might not be long enough. to do what
they need. But God has no limitations upon
His power and authority, and His love moves Him to do whatever
is necessary to bring His people to Himself. And I love this.
He says, verse 4, I will build you again. He doesn't say, will
you let me build you again? He says, I will. Oh, I love the
I wills of Scripture when God's talking. My I wills never amounted
to anything. God's I wills always result in
its done. I will build you up again and
you will be rebuilt. That's love, friends. And love
from God, anything less than that is not love from God. You will take up your tambourines
and go out and dance with the joyful. If God loves a person, there
will come a day when He will draw them irresistibly to Himself. He will rebuild them. He will
renew their spiritual life. And they will be filled with
joy. They will see their sins forgiven
in Christ Jesus. They will call upon His name
and rejoice in Christ Jesus. If God loves them, that will
happen. People think it's a good thing
to tell folks that Christ died for everybody. Well, what would
that mean? Well, it would mean that Christ's
death doesn't save anybody. It's not what actually does the
saving. If Christ dies for everyone,
and yet some are lost anyway, what good is the death of Christ? If Christ died for Judas, just
like he did Peter, what good was the death of Christ
in separating between Judas and Peter? None. Why does the death of Christ
mean something? Look at Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. God presented Him, that is the
Lord Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in
His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice because in His forbearance
He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did
it to demonstrate His justice at the present time so as to
be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
In the Bible class, we talked a little bit about one reason
that folks don't understand the Scriptures is because they're
not asking the questions that the Scriptures are answering.
And people ask the question, how can God send anyone to hell? Brethren, that's not what the
Scriptures are answering. What the Scriptures are answering
is, how can God send anyone to heaven? How can God, the just, bless
a sinner like me?" Here's the answer. Through Christ Jesus.
Through Christ, justice is fully satisfied with regard to their
sin. Through the sacrifice of Christ, through His death. That's
why it was done. Brother Mahan used to say before
God can do anything for the sinner, He's got to do something for
Himself. And what must He do? He satisfies His own sense of
justice and righteousness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
And that enables Him then to forgive sinners like you and
me and bless us with the blessings of the righteous for Christ's
sake. But here's the thing, that same sacrifice that justifies
God in justifying us would condemn Him if He were ever to condemn
anyone for whom that sacrifice was offered. You see, justice
doesn't recognize possibilities. Jesus' death was not a potential
payment. It was a payment. Jesus Christ's death is not something
that's offered to us like a rich man just putting out a pot of
money and says, you poor people can come get some if you want
and go pay your debt. That's not the way it works.
Jesus Christ's death was His actual approach to the Father
by His own blood, paying the debt. And the Father accepted
it. What's that mean? If the debt's paid, I don't owe
it. And if Jesus Christ actually
did die for every man, woman, and child that ever came into
this world, then every man, woman, and child in this world is going
to be saved. Because the debt has been paid,
and justice cannot payment twice to man. First at my bleeding
surety's hand, and then again at mine. God can't exact the
penalty of my sin from the Lord Jesus Christ, and then turn around
and exact it from me too. That wouldn't be just, would
it? Justice prevents him from blessing
me apart from Christ. But justice demands that he bless
me if Christ died for me. So no matter how sweet it sounds,
don't ever believe that doctrine that says Jesus Christ died in
an attempt to put away the sins of every man. He came for those
he loved from the foundation of the world. This is the loving
kindness by which he drew them, and this is the work by which
he rebuilds them. And the Spirit of God is set
forth to us as the omnipotent to God. who goes where he pleases,
does what he pleases. To set forth the Spirit of God
as someone who's going around trying to beg sinners to make
a decision for Jesus, that's an insult to the Spirit of God
Himself. It's an insult to Christ. If I can use this illustration,
you take an unattractive man, somebody might have to beg some
woman to go on a date with him. Because he just got nothing to
offer. He's poor and ugly. But nobody has to beg a woman to go out on a date with an attractive,
wealthy, virtuous, loving man. Why? Because he's attractive. And if anyone is ever given eyes
to see the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, You don't have
to beg them to do anything. You could not hold them back.
If the Spirit of God ever takes the things of Christ and shows
them to you, no one's going to have to plead with you to believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. No one's going to have to threaten
you with hell to get you to believe. Nobody's going to have to bribe
you with a colonnaded mansion and a golden street to get you
to take Jesus as the price you kind of have to pay in order
to get to heaven. If the Spirit of God and the omnipotent power
of God reveals to you the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ, you
will run to Him whom you once opposed. He's beautiful. He's rich. He's kind. He's loving. He's everything anybody could
want. Like that woman in the Song of Solomon said, He's all
together lovely. Nothing wrong with Him. Every
part's good, and all the parts put together are even better. I had one more point. I don't
have time to expand it, but I want to tell you what it is. Do not fall for any message that
tells you that because God is sovereign in the disposition
of His grace, that there is no value in seeking the Lord. Now that's more like what many
of you came from. Well, you know, you can believe
the gospel, but you've got to wait until the end to see whether
or not you're one of God's elect. Here's what the Lord says. Don't
try to use your own human reasoning upon the doctrine of God's sovereign
grace and come to some conclusion because it's all been decided
and purposed by God, there's no use you doing anything. Here's
what the Lord says, You will seek me and you will find me
when you seek me with all your heart. The word of His sovereignty humbles
us. and makes us realize this thing
is out of our hand. But all the blessedness of the
word of his promise, for it is the promise of the sovereign
God. Seek me with all your heart, you will find me. Now, if he doesn't mean enough
to you to seek him with all your heart, what that means is he's
not done anything for you, or he's certainly not revealed to
you what he has done for you. But in that time of love that
the prophet speaks of, when he reveals his goodness
to you, if he does, you will seek him and you will find him
because you will seek him with all your heart. Why? Because
the Spirit of God is powerful enough to make you do it. I say that, and that brings up
one other thing that was in my mind to mention. Also, do not
ever fall for that message that tells you to be forever looking
to see if God's done a work of grace in your heart. God never
told us to look at our heart. Certainly not our natural heart. Do you know where you should
look? There is one object which the scriptures always turn our
attention to. Christ and Him crucified. Don't
bother yourself over whether God has done a work of grace
in your heart. Look to Christ and see He did a marvelous work
of grace in Christ. And that's where your hope is. So don't look for any fleshly
happiness in this world. God may let you have some, He
might not. But it's irrelevant in eternal things. What your
life is like in this world says nothing about what your life
will be like in the world to come. Don't fall for the idea
that God's waiting on you. He's sovereign. He's in control. He'll save every object of his
love. And thirdly, never despair of the openness and freeness
of his gospel promise. Are you a sinner that needs a
Savior? Here's one, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He says, all that the Father
gives to me will come to me. There's His sovereignty. But
here's His promise. And He that comes to me, I'll
never send Him away. May the Lord God give us all
grace. Stay with this truth. And just stick to it, whether
or not we can put all the pieces together in our mind or not.
Believe Him in every aspect.