Please open your Bibles to the
book of Ephesians this morning. I sat there listening to Brother
Tim James and it struck me that the Lord did
not give me a brain like He gave him. I'll just have to do the best
I can with what He gave me. And be like Jonah, just do the
preaching He bid me to preach. I've been trying to talk to you
about the sovereign will of God. And this morning I'd like to
continue in this third message on it, as it pertains to our
assurance and comfort. If you'll look with me in Ephesians
1, beginning in verse 3, the apostle says, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him. So many scholars say that's where
that statement ends and the next two words actually begin the
next statement. In love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in
whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of His grace. wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure,
which he hath purposed in himself. That in the dispensation of the
fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him. who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. And it might be a good thing if we
just highlighted or underlined the last part of that verse. Who works all things after the
counsel of His own will. Now the will of God, the sovereign
will of God, as I said, is the cause of our salvation. And not only that, but it is
that will that Christ came to accomplish and did so. It is that same sovereign will
that is the cause of our regeneration of our own spiritual birth. It all arises from His will. But it is also true And it is
also to be learned and noted that our assurance and our consolation
and our comfort in all things is the sovereign will of God. Because His will toward His elect
and believing people is unchanging and it includes all things. And so the will of God, this
sovereign will of God, as an accomplished thing, as a believed
thing, as a remembered thing, this alone is our assurance. If you look over with me one
more time in the book of Hebrews in chapter 10, if you remember
what it says that the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, long before He came
was prophesied to do, It says in verse 7, Then said I, Lo,
I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to
do thy will, O God. Now as Brother Tim said, that
will being the will of God, the sovereign will of God to be gracious
and merciful and to save His people fully and freely and entirely
and eternally from all their sins. And the question just simply
is this. Did He do it? Did He actually, in all that
He accomplished while He was here on this earth, did He really,
truly, completely, to the satisfaction of God, did He do this sovereign
will of God in grace? Now often times we seem to want
to look for assurance based upon how well we think we do the will
of God. And sadly, so many preachers
are quite willing to point us in that direction so that we
might seek to find in our performance to some measure of the will of
God some kind of assurance which we will never find by doing that. will only find this assurance
through believing that the Lord Jesus Christ did actually and
completely and successfully do what He came to do, which was
the will of the Sovereign God. The will of Him who has sent
me. And so, we find just like when
Peter was there, and they watched as all the multitude of people
who'd been so interested, they'd been so interested in getting
another free meal, or maybe so interested in seeing some kind
of miraculous happening, and yet, when the Lord Jesus Christ
began to talk to them about spiritual things, They all turned and they
walked with Him no more. And so the Lord Jesus, He looked
at those few, that handful of men that were still there surrounding
Him and He said this, He said, Will you also go away? And the
Apostle said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Because you have the words
of life. You have the words of life. You're
not just the words of life. You have the words of life. And
then he said this, and we believe and are sure that you are that You are the Son of God. You are the Messiah who came
to do the will and the purpose of God in grace to His people. And we're not sure, and then
we'll believe, but we're sure based on believing. Because faith Say what men will
when they point you to look at something in your life or something
that you do. Faith is the one evidence of
salvation. We believe God. And we do not. I am so... I'm going to try to be nice here. But I am so sick of being always
pointed to and always told that simply what we're to trust or
who we are to trust is just the person of Jesus Christ. I read recently, one more time,
somebody else, and all that is happening is simply this, an
effort to distinguish and divide and separate something that cannot
be separated, and that is the person of Jesus Christ from the
work of Jesus Christ. What did the apostles say? He
said, we preach Christ crucified. That is inseparably the one person
and the one work that can never be divorced from each other.
And if we have hope, if we have assurance, God will bring it
to us through not only trusting this person, but the work he
accomplished. Did he do the will of God? Did
He bring forth in all of His work on this earth? Did He actually
accomplish the sovereign will and purpose of God to be gracious
and merciful and have compassion on His people? Absolutely. I'm going to give
you two verses. I want you to turn, first of
all, back over to Isaiah chapter 32. Now we read there in chapter
10 of Hebrews, not only that He came to do the will, but it
says that by one offering, He put away the sins of His people. By that will accomplished in
Jesus Christ, He sanctified them forever and made them safe in
all their dealings with God. But look over in Isaiah, chapter 32. Now, I'm just going to take the
Bible for my assurance. I'm not interested
in some mystical Jesus. I could go out just about everywhere
I live. amongst all the religious people
and all the so-called preachers. I could go out and I could say
to them, I believe in Jesus. They'd say, Amen, I do too. But when you begin to talk about
the very things, the glory, as Brother James has said, when
you begin to talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the accomplishment of God's will, what was God's will? He said, this is the will of
Him that sent me, that of all that He's given me, I should
lose none and raise Him up at the last day. Now you listen
to this verse. Isaiah chapter 32 and verse 17. Now this was not accomplished
separately. This is something that is associated
with one individual. He was the only one who did this.
But what does it say? It says, and the work of righteousness. The work of righteousness. He could have just as well in
one sense said, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming
one. But because you cannot separate
the person from the work, and because it is the work that is
actually accomplished by Him that brings this to pass, He
says, and the work of righteousness shall be peace. The work. The work of righteousness
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness,
and what? Assurance forever. You see, Christ come into this
world as the God-man and doing the will of God, this sovereign
will of God, that's not only our salvation, but the faith
that He gives us and enables us to believe that and to rely
upon that alone, out of that arises this assurance. If we have peace, it'll have
to be by the peace that He made by His blood on the cross. You mark that down. The next
time somebody comes along with this mystical Jesus stuff, and
you could say this to them and they'll say, well now, I'll tell
you this, I preach the person and I preach the work too. But
the farther we get from that, If all we ever hear is that we
preach Jesus, that you just need to believe on the person, those
who might already know something about His work, they'll probably
be alright. But the next generation, brother, they're just going to take some
mystical Jesus without the work that distinguishes Him and that
glorifies Him. Alright? Look over also in Jeremiah
chapter 51. I'm not trying to correct anybody,
I'm just trying to warn us about this notion. In Jeremiah chapter 51, look
down at verse 10. This all has to do with Christ,
His people, the gospel, idolatry, everything. In verse 10 he says
this, the Lord hath brought forth our righteousness, come and let
us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. What do you
think he is talking about there? If it is something that is to
be declared. It is obviously the gospel of
God, the gospel of His grace, the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which involves what? The work of our Lord. He said
that's what you proclaim in Zion. That's what you proclaim, that
Christ not only came into this world, that He not only was this
glorious person God manifest in the flesh, But as that glorious
person, son of the Father, messenger of the covenant, and all these
things that are to be ascribed to Him, He actually did something. What did He do? He did the one
work, the work of righteousness, which distinguishes Him from
every antichrist and saves His people and is their full assurance. You see, the sovereign will of
God accomplished in and through and by the person and the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the basis of our assurance. The
knowledge and the confidence that God gives us if He gives
us faith, that He actually did do the will of Him that sent
me. That's where assurance is. It's
not in some kind of mystical feeling I have about somebody
who I can't see. And it's not that I can see Him in
some mystical sense just by reading this book. It's by what God reveals
to me that He actually did when He came to this earth and died
the death of the cross. So if you ever have any assurance,
it will be in this Word. in this work performed by the
God-man, Jesus Christ, wherein He actually saved His people
from their sin, who actually redeemed, who actually paid the
ransom price for our sins, who actually paid our sin debt, who
actually died the death of the cross, and not some mystical
sins. He is our assurance. and his
accomplishment of the sovereign will of God on the behalf of
his people to the glory of God, that's our assurance. I had to
get that out of my system. But he's not only our assurance.
This is not only our assurance. This is our comfort. I think I'll probably learn more
in the last year about that last statement in verse 11, than all
my life. He works all things after the
counsel of his own will. Now I'm sure of this. We know
the will of God in our lives by what happens. If it happens, it's the will
of God. We have a kind of 2020 hindsight,
you might say. And if it happened, if it came
to pass, if it took place It was and it is God's will. God's sovereign will. Because when the Apostle writes
here that he worketh, I believe that is the tense in which there
is a continual action. That is, he is always working
all things after the counsel of His will. His will. He's busy. He's always been busy. He's going
to be busy. Things will always be done by
Him. There's no There's no act, there's
no event, there's nothing that takes place in time that is outside
of his active working. But turn over to Romans chapter
8. Romans chapter 8. And look down at that 28th verse
one more time. Because I'm going to tell you
this, if you're his child, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,
but sometime you're going to learn this verse. Paul writes, and we know, that
we here are the believing people of God. This is not some general
principle. No matter how long I heard it
when I was growing up, people, and still to this day, on every
hand, saying, well, you know, everything works together for
good. No. Not for everybody. He said, we
know. Why do we know? Because God has
taught us. We know because He has said this,
He has declared this in His Word. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to His purpose. Now what's his purpose? It's
his will. It's his will. All things he
works after the counsel of his own will or according to his
own purpose and that is actually, literally, truly all things. And I'm going to tell you this,
if this is not comforting and encouraging and consoling to
our hearts, we must not know Him. See, that's the difference. This isn't some kind of fatalistic
view. This is trust in the one who
has saved us and called us and revealed his self to us through
this book. Caused us to know his will. Because his will we know is the
only wise will. Not only is it the only will
that counts. Not only is it the only free
will in the universe, but His will is the only wise will, and
His will is a gracious and a merciful will to His people. You see, we know, because we know Him, that what
He says is right. And therefore what he does is
right. Because his will is bound up
in his love for all of those who are in Christ Jesus. And we only know this because
he said it. We only know it in the greatest
sense because he gives us faith to believe it. And this, like
all things, is to be viewed and understood in the light of Christ
crucified. You say, what do you mean, preacher?
I mean this. What was His will for the Son
of His love? Do you think the Father loved
the Son? I just think He did and does. But his will for the Lord Jesus
Christ was to endure persecution, to suffer hardship of life, to
suffer ill treatment and bodily and mental affliction at the
hands of wicked men and women, and to die the worst death that
has ever been done, the death of the cross. But look what his will of love
did for him. Exalted him. Glorified him. Gave him even greater glory than
that which he possessed even as the eternal son. But even more so, think about
what it did for us. Think about what it did for us. And was it not in the midst of
him doing the will of the sovereign God, was it not in the midst
of him suffering and dying that death that he found comfort and
consolation himself in the very midst of that? He said, nevertheless, not my
will, but thine be done. Now I'm going to try to speak
just a second, not only from this book, but from my experience. And I can tell you this. in the worst time of my life, in the midst of the greatest
loss that I've ever experienced, in the most heartbreaking experience
that I've ever endured. which is this year in the death of my Betty. In the death of my dear wife and my companion for about 54 years. I was to the point I couldn't
even remember life without her. Married her at 17. Begged her to marry me. Always was glad I married her.
Always was thankful to God that she married me. The one that I love more than
life itself. This was and is my only comfort. I'm telling you the truth. This was the only and to this
hour is the only soft pillow that I can lay my poor weeping
head on. And let me just say this. I don't
pretend to understand it. And I don't even in this flesh
pretend to be glad about it. But I know. I know because God declares it
in that very text in Ephesians 1 and verse 11. I know that it is the Lord. I
know it is His will. And I bow to His infinite wisdom. I bow to His immutable and unchanging love. I remembered when Eli received
the news that his two sons had been killed. I'm sure like every parent, they
didn't turn out the way he wanted. But when the news got to him
and the Bible says that the messenger told him everything. And he himself, like me, probably
been a pretty bad failure himself. But he said, it is the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth him good. May not seem good to me. But if it seems good to him,
it must be good. I read one more time about Job
when he received the news concerning his children. The loss of virtually everything
he had. But God, in His mercy, had given
him faith, even in the midst of these things, to trust him.
And he says, naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked
shall I return thither the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. It was not fate. It was not chance. It wasn't because of what any
man did. It wasn't because of any second
cause such as cancer or such as leukemia or a doctor's mistake
or any of these second causes that people worry themselves
to death trying to find somebody to blame. God gives His people somebody
to bless. It's the Lord. It's His sovereign,
gracious, merciful, wonderful, wise will. That's my comfort. It is the Lord. His perfect will. We sat in that hospital room, and we would reminisce a little
bit. One day she said, this is not
the way we planned it, is it? I said, no. And then immediately she said,
but it's the way that the Lord planned it. It's all right. It's all right. It may break
your heart, probably will break your heart, bring you to tears,
cause you to hurt like you never have hurt before, cause the flesh
to rise up in rebellion against it, but this is the comfort. It's the Lord. He can't do anything
wrong. He loved her more than I did. He loved her with an everlasting
love. He had already, before the world
began, not only determined to love her, but had appointed both
the instrument and the hour of her departure. It's appointed unto man once
to die. Who makes that appointment? There's
only one who can. The one whose life himself. Turn over and look with me in
in Psalm 96. Psalm 96, and look at what it
says. Not only we're commanded to declare
the work of the Lord and the work of righteousness, but look
at what he says here that we declare in general to this world. He says in Psalm 96.10, say among
the heathen that the Lord reigns. We are preaching that everywhere.
The will of God is going to be done. God Almighty is the Sovereign
who reigns and rules over everything. Whether you believe on Him or
not, it is not going to change it. Look in Psalm 99. Verse 1, the Lord reigneth, let
the people tremble. He sitteth between the cherubims,
let the earth move. We preach that to everybody. That's one good thing about being
a gospel preacher. At home I preach to a much smaller
crowd, I assure you. But I preach the same thing.
Same exact thing. But look over in Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52. And look down at verse 7, because
this is part of what the Apostle Paul quotes in Romans 10. He
is talking there about preaching the gospel. Those who are sent
to preach the gospel. He says, "...how beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth
salvation." But look at that last part. "...that
saith undesigned." Thy God reigneth." You see, that's a message we
declare to everybody, the Lord God Omnipotent reigns. But he
makes that good news to his people. The fact that he does work all
things after the counsel of his own will, He says, you say especially,
not in some general sense, but in this particular sense, you
say this to Zion, that's his church, your God reigns. There's not some abstract being
out there, there's not some kind of fatalistic power and force. Our God reigns. Our God reigns. And this is the will of my Heavenly
Father who loves us and who gave His Son for us, who knows all
things, whose will is one of goodness and grace to us in Christ. Because the One who came to do
the Father's will, the One who did it completely,
The One who accomplished that work of righteousness, the One
who brought in that everlasting righteousness that God imputes
to His people and upon which we stand totally and fully saved
and accepted in His sight. He rose from the dead. The evidence that God accepted
His sacrifice. The witness publicly that all
he came to die for, he accomplished their salvation. But where is he now? The one whose bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh, he sits on the throne as the God-man
and the sovereign. So what do we do? The writer of Hebrews says this,
he says, ìSeeing then that we have a great high priest that
is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.î Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of
grace. It's not just some low place. We come directly to the throne
of grace. What for? We come to the throne
of grace boldly because of Christ's work and his mediatorship whereby
he has opened the way that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. We're going to have time of need. We're going to need help. We're
going to need grace. They used to advertise those
old movies, and they'd say, coming soon to a theater near you. I'm
telling you, trouble and trial. They're coming to our house. The Lord blessed me so long,
gave me such a dear companion for so long, that every time I start to feel
such hurt and such rebellion against what has happened. The thought overwhelmed me. Rather
than complain about not having her, I am to praise him and thank
him that I had her so long, so long. Joseph when he identified himself
to his brethren, and they were really afraid. They had sold him into slavery.
They had lied to their father that a wild beast had killed
him. They'd abused him and everything
else, and now they're standing before him, and they really need
him just for a handful of grain to make bread. They were afraid. He said, don't
be afraid. As for you, you thought evil
against me. But God meant it under good to
bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. I told my dear wife, I said,
I wish it was me instead of you. She said, no, no. She said, God would have you
to preach the gospel. You've got to tell somebody about
the sovereign will of God's grace and mercy in saving us through
the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Lord. If it happens,
it's the Lord. And the comfort comes in submission
to that glorious truth. Let him do what seems him good. Everywhere I go these days, Here
are all these people worried about the coming election. I
don't know why. The powers that be are ordained
of God. Worried about what's going on
in this world? Worried about the open, blatant
wickedness of this world? I'll tell you, this is a time
to be cautious. This is really a time to be cautious,
but maybe not like you think. It's a really dangerous time
to feel self-righteous. Oh, look at what's going on in
the home. Look what's going on in religion. Look what's going on in morality
and all these various things. If you're not real careful, you'll
get to feeling real good about yourself. And you'll forget. that that
is you, but for the grace of God. We'll get to be fearful for our
children and fearful of what's going to happen and fearful for
the things that men might do. But the Bible says that this
sovereign God, He said, I kill and I make alive. I bring up, I bring down. I do all these things. Can there
be evil in the streets and the Lord hasn't done it? You see,
there are a lot of people who are afraid to attribute to God
what He's already attributed to Himself. But the peace and
the comfort and the consolation arises out of agreeing with Him
and being thankful that that's the case. It's His sovereign will. And
He said, No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Sounds
like some might be formed against us, but they're not going to
be successful. And every tongue that shall rise
against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage
of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
Me, saith the Lord. They said, well, you don't look
like you got much of a righteousness. Oh, I got one. But my righteousness
is of the Lord. It's in Jesus Christ, the Lord,
our righteousness. And when they say, well, you
don't look like much to me, or you don't look like much of a
preacher to me, or you don't even look like much of a human
being to me. I said, that's fine. I look perfect to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Perfect. We look at all these false religionists
and we can get on our high horse and we can spend all our time
condemning them. That's what I was. A lying preacher. A lost religionist in a pulpit. That's what Paul said, I was
before a blasphemer. Why am I not now? Because of
the will of God, the will of grace, and the work of Christ
in performing and accomplishing that will. He said, say, and design. Who
is that? That's all that are in Christ.
That's all of God's elect. That's all of His redeemed. That's
those who've been made the righteousness of God in Him. But it's His will. Not your work. Not your will. Not your stamina. Not your dragging yourself up
by the bootstraps. Not your strength as a Christian. I hear all these people talking
about somebody being a real strong Christian. There's no such thing. There's just no such thing. They're
all weak. And the Lord's their strength. I have a dear brother that in
all this flooding in the state that I live in, the recent days
from the hurricane and such, He's lost a good deal. And I was concerned about it,
and I sent him a text just to kind of check on him, make sure
he's doing okay, and maybe to remind him of a promise from
God's Word. And he sent me a text back. I
was trying to be a blessing to him. He was a blessing to me. He said, I prayed last night
for our Lord to take all that He's given me on this earth, but not His mercy and love for
me, because that's all that sustains me. It could have all washed
away, and a lot did, but God sees my Savior, and then He sees
me. And it can all go away as long
as that doesn't. May take it all. But don't take his son from me.
Don't take his salvation from me. Don't take his righteousness
from me. That's my only hope. You read the book of Revelation
and the Lord Jesus who's the very chief character and figure
of that book. When John is seeing a group of
people, and one of the elders says to him, who are these arrayed
in white robes? Who are they? John said, you know. I don't
know. You see, we don't know anything
until the Lord reveals it to us. You know. He says, these are they that
came out of great tribulation. I read that this morning and
two words really stood out to me. Came out. It wasn't that they didn't have
tribulation. As a matter of fact, it says that great tribulation.
He is not talking about a rapture or a rupture here, or anything
such as that that men have invented. His people are not delivered
from tribulation, they are delivered through tribulation. They came
out. They are going to come out, every
one of them. Every one of them came out of
it. Because it says, And the person
of the Lamb leads them. The last thing it says in that
chapter is, and God shall wipe away their tears. All their tears. It may break my heart. It has
broken my heart. But my comfort is that God has given faith to
believe what he says, that he works all things after the counsel
of his own will. And he makes whatever that will
is to his people a will of grace and mercy. I just pray he gives
me eyes and understanding to see that more completely and
to believe it more wholeheartedly. It is the Lord. You say, Preacher,
you don't know what happened to me. I know this. You're God's
children. It's the Lord. Don't be looking
for second causes. Don't be trying to blame somebody. You just be miserable. Just rest
in the bosom of sovereign grace and mercy in Christ. It's the
Lord. And I am so glad he is.