Good morning. I've got a couple of things to
say before I get into my sermon. There's two reasons why at this
time I'm not pastoring. One of them is because of my
health. And the other one is because of y'all. I can't keep
myself away this chapel, and the reason why. This is the only place I know
of, even Sovereign Grace places, that you come and you hear the
truth. And God has really blessed us. We've got two men that preach
the truth. We're a small crowd, and these
big churches would love to have either one of them. But we are
a family in Christ Jesus, and God has really blessed us to
have these men, too, preach the gospel to us. I feel like I don't
need to be here, because there's nothing I can add that they haven't
already said. I mean, that's just facts, you
know. And a man that enjoys the preaching
of the gospel any more than I does. He's just bigger and uglier than
I am. That's just the facts. But this morning, I want to speak
to you on, and there's so many versions, preachers, every preacher
seems like they have a different version of law and grace. And
except those that believe the truth. Law and grace will not
mix. It won't do it. You can't take
the works of man and mix them with the grace of God. These
fruits of the Spirit and these are the gift of grace. And the first one is love. And
the law has no definition, no covering for love. Love is a
Love is a concern for to the extent that it costs you something
and you expect nothing in return. That is love. That's godly love. I'm going to say that again.
It's a concern for to the extent that You love one another. You pray for one another. You're
concerned for one another to the extent it costs you something. It may cost you time. It may
cost you talent. It may cost you monetary value. But let me tell you something.
When you love someone, you don't look at those things. And that's
what God's people do. We can't love like we should.
But I'll tell you one thing. If we have not the love of God
in our heart, we're not one of His. And I can't get no plainer
than that. But law had its purpose. It was given to teach us that
we had to have a needed grace. And grace only comes through
Jesus Christ our Lord. In John 1 and 1, Christ was full. F-U-L-L. He was full of grace
and truth. And that word full means He's
the only one that had any. So if you've been saved by grace,
you've been saved by Christ. But if you've been saved by your
own works or somebody else's works, or depend on somebody
else's works to get you into the Kingdom of God, and I just
take my kids and shake them sometimes. I remember what Roy used to say.
He said, I wish that I could take a drill and drill it right
down through a hole in their head and pour grace in my family. He said, I'd love to be able
to do that. And that we that are saved by
the grace of God, we truly know that without Christ Jesus, there's
no salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. It
is. There's no other name under heaven
in which we can be saved except that name, that man called Jesus
Christ. He is salvation. Salvation is,
Joe, I heard him say yesterday, in a person. It is. And that
person is Jesus Christ. He's God. He's the invisible
God made visible, and He came for one purpose, to save His
people from their sins. I said His people. Not what the
world says, everybody. But He came to save His people,
and He's going to save them. And I just pray, we all pray
that our families is a part of that remnant. That Christ put
their name in the Lamb's book of life. But if it's not so,
they don't deserve it. We don't deserve it. We've got
it, but we don't deserve it. A man that thinks he deserves
salvation and his attitude is that God saved me because I'm
a good person or this or that. He's never been saved. I mean
it's just that plain and simple. He's never been saved. And that's what the law says
this. It says you must keep the letter
of the law in order to be justified by the law. And they wasn't but
one man that walked this earth that done that. And he done it
for a reason. to save His people from their
sins. He is our justification. He's our redemption. Everything
that we have, everything that we have is in Christ Jesus and
Him alone. He is the God-man. There's nothing
greater than a man that lays life down for a friend. That's
what Christ does. He not only made us a friend,
He made us a son and a brother in Jesus Christ. He is our salvation. All of it. Completely. Without
it, we have no salvation. It's only a fixation. They talk about cults, and I've
been called a cult. I guess everybody in here has
been said they belong to a cult. Let me tell you something. Everybody
that's outside of what we preach here at the chapel, is in a cult. I don't care if they call herself
Christians, I don't care what they call herself. They're a
cult. They're just as bad as this bunch that's blowing people
up, killing cops and everything else. There's no difference.
They're in a cult. And let me tell you something. God does not chasten those He
don't love. And the reason we're going through
these things today is because the church is not standing up
for the truth of the gospel. Now that's just as plain and
simple as I can make it. It's not being a good person.
It's not taking care of the poor, which we should do. It's not
giving to flood victims and that. That's a good thing. But it has
nothing to do with your salvation. Salvation is the Lord. And let
me tell you something. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only way you're going to get through the pearly gates.
And I'm going to tell you that to be a fact. If you don't believe
in Him totally and completely, you'll never make it. That was just my opening statement. In Galatians, I think it's the
third chapter, listen to what Paul said. Old foolish Galatians. He's saying, you're making a
fool out of yourself. That's what he's saying. He said,
Old foolish Galatians, that you should not obey the truth before
whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified
among you. This only would I learn of you,
receive you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith. Let me tell you something, the
law concerning every aspect of salvation, it does not. It does
not have one aspect of salvation in it. It was given for a purpose.
And that purpose was, it became a schoolmaster to teach us that
we needed Christ Jesus. We needed His grace. We needed
His gifts, spiritual gifts. We need love. We need faith.
And we will have that in Christ Jesus. But the law don't give
any of that. It never gives any of that. Only
thing it does is teach us just how bad we really are. And that's
what it does. This only would I learn of you,
receive you in the Spirit by works or by the law or by the
hearing of the faith. The law demands perfection. If
you think you're going to make it on the deeds of your works,
you're going to have to live a perfect life. That's why Christ
died for our sins. That's why Christ gave His life
for our sins because He came to seek and save that which was
lost. And I'm so glad that I'm lost. Or I was lost. I'm so glad that
I'm a sinner. But still yet, it hurts me to
know that I sinned against my God. But I'm glad, Walter, I'm
a sinner. If I hadn't been a sinner, He
wouldn't have died for me. Hell is going to be full of people
that He didn't die for because they thought they were too good
to heed and receive. center their faith and their
life on the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me tell you something,
if you have borne the Spirit, He will become the center of
your life. It may take a while, but you've
got to grow. Earl asked me one time, he said, Mac, I want to
ask you one question. I said, what's that? He said, how many
Christians grow into maturity? And I had to think on that for
a while. And then finally I told him, I said, Earl, I don't know
of any. He said, you're right. He said, when you become so smart
that you don't need to hear any more gospel, it's time the Lord
takes you home. But I'm telling you this, salvation
is real. And it's in a person. And it's
in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him and Him alone. Now we work because we have been
saved. We do things and the Lord works
through us to do things according to His will and pleasure, but
that's not for our salvation. That's for our growth. And you
know, tribulation is for our growth. My family's going through
the awful trials now it ever was. But thank God we will be
spiritually strong no matter what happens after all this thing's
over with. And we'll thank God for letting
it happen. No matter what happens, we'll
thank Him for letting it happen. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh
away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I don't care what it is, we will become stronger through the trials
and tribulations that we see in the flesh in this life. Are you so foolish having begun
in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? The flesh has never been perfect.
Never! I don't even think it was perfect
before Adam and Eve fell in the garden. I may be wrong, you know. But that's the way I look at
it. But I'm going to tell you this. There is a perfection. And it is in Christ Jesus. And
one day, one day, we will be perfect like Him. When He come
out of that tomb, one of these days when the trumpet sounds
and we're drawn up to be with Him, or out of the tomb, or whether
we are chained in a moment of twinkling of the eye, we will
be perfect in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone. Now I'm going
to tell you that right now. He is our everything. He's all
in all. That's what the book says. Look
to every one of us. He's all in all. And I'm going to tell you something
right now. If you've begun in the Spirit, you will end in the Spirit. God
don't give you the spirit of truth, and don't save you by
the... See, God declared that there
would be a people. Christ paid the sin debt. The
Holy Spirit administers that salvation to our soul. And let
me tell you something, you won't lose it. And when you die, you're
still going to have it. It's going to carry you right
into the realms of glory. That's what the book says. I believe this book, word for
word, it don't make no difference. If this book could tell me a
cow could bark, a cow can bark. I can't get any plainer than
that. This book cannot lie. You know
why? Because it's God breathed. And when God says something,
it must come to pass. It must. Not that it might, but
it must. It must come to pass because
He is God Almighty. He spoke the worlds into existence. And He gave salvation to those
in whom He pleased to give it to them. Even though we don't
deserve it. But He declared that there would
be a remnant. There would be a people. And
those named as was written in the Lamb's Book of Life will
be His people in eternity. And then them alone. Nobody else. Them alone. Have you suffered so many things
in vain? It be yet in vain? He therefore
that ministers to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you,
doth he, be it by the works of the law or by the hearing of
faith. You know, we can, especially a young Christian, we can be
so easily led astray by somebody's appearance, by somebody's words,
you know. You know, the devil can preach
a soft sermon sometimes, but there ain't no salvation in it.
Not a bit of salvation in it. I remember one time I asked Henry, he was
in a class I was in, I asked him, He said, how do you know you're
saved? He said, he believed the Scriptures.
He said, a man asked me one time, he said, Henry said he couldn't
read. And he couldn't write. And Henry asked him, he was sick. And Henry went to see him in
the hospital. He said, How is it with your soul? He said, Brother
Henry, if you've preached the truth,
it is well with my soul. That's how important it is for
us to preach the truth. Lying to someone, even our kids
or anyone, don't help a bit. It takes the truth. Even as Abraham believed God,
it was accounted to him for righteousness. Our God imputed to us righteousness
that we could not earn. We could not earn ourselves.
We could not earn by trying to keep the law or being a good
person or anything else. Our righteousness had to be imputed
to us because we were seeing through and through. It's just
that plain and simple. You know, the law, you know,
these things that the law plainly states that, you know, The difference in law
and grace, I'm going to quit. I've got to be in Charleston
at 2 o'clock. But the law demands holiness
for the law to be effective for a person's salvation. It does.
Grace gives holiness through Jesus Christ our Lord. It does. The law curseth everyone that
continueth not in the things which are written in the book
of the law, to do them. That's what the Revelation 20
says. You must do it all. Grace says, blessed is the man
whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. The law says, Thou shalt love
thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Can we do it? No. It demands we do it. The law does. Grace says here is love. Not
that we love God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be our
propitiation for our sins. He gives love. Let me tell you
something. We love Him because He first
loved us. And we realize what He done for
us. We cannot love God unless we realize what He has done for
us on Calvary's tree. That's the only way. That's the
only way we can love God. crucified, the law crucified
the offerings every day and burned them on the Sinai. Grace, one man offered his blood
one time for the sins of a people And that's all it took. Why?
Because He fulfilled the law for us. He was a perfect man. He was the God-man. Perfect. In every way, shape, or form.
He fulfilled 600... What is it? How many laws are
there in Exodus? 600 and some? He fulfilled every
one of them for us. And we broke them all. Because
if you broke one, you broke them all. We're guilty. He took that guilt and He cast
it as far as the east is from the west. You know, the greatest
tribute of grace is mercy. You're forgiven. You were guilty,
but you're forgiven. You know you were guilty, but
you were forgiven. I mean, we couldn't lie because
we're guilty. We come out of our mother's womb
screaming and hollering. But grace offered one sacrifice
for sin forever. By one offering hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. The law declares that as many
have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. Grace said there's no condemnation. Judgment for sin for those who
are in Christ Jesus because it's been paid for on Calvary's tree. Our sins have been paid for in
full, past, present, and future. Henry Mahan. I found this article
this morning. It was written by Henry July
the 3rd. If I can find it. I've got so much
junk in my Bible. I still can't see. I'm done with it. But anyhow, I get Tim James'
church bulletin. He sends me every one of them.
I was reading one this morning. Henry wrote an article in there.
He said, the wretched man that we are, not worthy of anything
concerning the salvation of the soul. That's what he wrote. He
said, but still yet, God loved us. And He justified us. And He sanctified us. He redeemed
us. All these things concerning the
salvation of the soul, and we didn't deserve a thing. And if
that don't make us see that we need Christ Jesus, then His blood
wasn't sacrificed for us. That's what Henry wrote. And you know here, a man that's
blind, I can't hear. I'm getting about the same way.
But anyhow, what a blessing to see that He sees through faith
all these things that takes place in Christ Jesus. He is all in
all. He's our Savior. He's our Lord. What did Paul Thomas say when
he seen the scarred hands and the side? My Lord and my God. And that's who he becomes when
you are saved by the grace of God. The law can't do that. No way. No way, shape, or form. Can't do it. And I must close. Father, we thank you so much. for the love that You've given
us in Christ Jesus. We thank You for saving us. We
thank You for keeping us saved. We thank You for the growth that
You apply to our life through the gifts of grace that You give
us to strengthen us daily. We ask Thee for Your guidance
in everything we say and do. And Heavenly Father, we ask Thee
to forgive us of our sins because We realize that, no, without
You, we are nothing. With You, we're everything in
Christ Jesus. In Him we pray. Amen. God bless
you.