Revelation of Christ, and I was
thinking with a message name like that, folks would think,
oh, he's going to preach on Revelation. No. John 12. John 12. But you'll understand, Lord willing,
at the end of the message why I named it this, the Revelation
of Christ. Actually, from our text right
away. The Revelation of Christ. John 12, verses 37 to 40. Though He had done so many miracles
before them, yet they believed not on Him. That the saying of Isaiah the
prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed
our report? And to whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe,
because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and
harden their heart, that they should not see with their eyes,
nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should
heal them." The revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, I touched
on it this morning. For years, some have promoted
a false gospel which says And it comes in many facets, beloved. It's not just God has done all
he can do, the rest is up to you. It's pray this magic prayer
and now you're saved. No matter how you live, you're
just saved. Now, I believe God saves his
people, I do. And I believe when they're saved,
they are absolutely saved. But they will continue in the
faith. and they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. Nowhere
in this Word do you see a magic prayer that someone's supposed
to pray. It's just not in that book. Now, the believer will
cry out, God be merciful to me, the sinner. He definitely will
do that, but not follow some model prayer or confession that
someone else is saying. Salvation is of the Lord. We
saw that this morning. He's the one who rots the work.
And then we cry out to him. But there's been a false gospel
that's been promoted, and it's not the gospel. It's not. But it's promoted all over the
place. And basically, they say it's
a fire escape from hell, more than anything. And like I said
before, no one wants to go to hell. I don't know anyone who
wants to go there. When you think about it, But
yet man will hold on to their sin and their rebellion and try
anything to save themselves, but there's only salvation in
Christ. And you know, I remember Henry
saying this, and it really stuck with me. It really, really stuck
with me. And I used to be one of these
fellows that preached that way, back when I was in religion.
Always talking about hell and damnation and all this, right?
And that's true, it's going to happen. But you know it's the
mercy of God and the grace of God that leads men to repentance? Think about it. When the Lord
saved you, it was the fact that He died in our place. Brother
Jim, even in your reading tonight, mercy! Obtain mercy! I saw it
again and I was like, there it is again! It's wonderful. We preach the mercy of God in
Christ. And the only way that we are
saved from the judgment of our sins is the mercy of God in Christ. And it's wonderful. This is good
news that Christ has redeemed His people from all their sins. Now, religion will try to persuade
men by saying, just let God Let God and let go. You've probably
heard that before, right? That's an old saying. They used
to say it. It's still used. It's still used. I heard one
guy, I heard one guy one time on TV, and this was a few years
back, and I'll never forget it. That's why I'm bringing it up.
I was shocked. And this is like one of the leading
false prophets out there, and he was on Fox News. He was being
interviewed by someone. And he said this, this actually,
I was shocked, I got so mad I shut the TV off. He said this, he
said, just give God 30 days and if you don't want him, just return
him. He said that. And while I was picking my jaw
up off the floor, this is what he said. Basically, try him out
like you try a new car. And if you don't like them, well,
you can always go back to your old comfortable ways. I got so
mad I shut the TV off. I was just red hot. That's not
my God. That's not my God. And those who teach this message
are willing to try all kinds of persuasive methods. This false
gospel, they promote it with all kinds of things. They get
the entertainment going. They got bands rolling on the
stage. I've seen it. Just all kinds
of stuff, and it becomes a big, do you know what? Vicki's mom's
all caught up in all that stuff. And her brother, who's not saved,
went to one of these churches, and they're not, these folks
are just, it's a goat pen. But he goes there, and you know
what he said? It's a big show. It's a big performance. He even
recognized it, for what it was, just this big show. feeding the
flesh, entertaining the flesh. Now, what I hit on this morning
is true. The gospel offends people. It
offends the flesh. It does. People don't like it. Because what? We tell the truth
about God, we tell the truth about man, we tell the truth
about Christ, and we tell the truth about salvation. And men
hate it. But God's people love it. God's sheep love it. We don't want anything else.
We're sheep. It's like feeding on clover.
And once you eat clover as a sheep, once you eat clover, you don't
want nothing else. You want sheep food. You want
sheep food. Oh my. And these false prophets
hold great crusades and revival meetings. There was, I'm not
even gonna say his name, but a Word of Faith guy down in Detroit
a few months ago. Big, huge. Huge. Just fleecing people. And other
men use elegant words and they're well-versed in the latest soul-winning
techniques and how to, I went on Facebook one day, and I guess
they know I'm a preacher, they must follow all your stuff and
they figure out what you believe, right? This one came up, it said,
how to boost the attendance of your church. Techniques. Well, I just went to the ad and
I went, never see it again. Come on. I don't want to see
that stuff. But this is what folks do, guys.
This is what these modern churches do. They look for the latest
techniques to try to draw people in. Bruce Crabtree told me about
a church in his area that actually sent out, before it started,
they actually sent out an information saying, what do you want in church? Well, of course it wasn't the
gospel. And he said people flocked there, and they opened the church
based upon what these people had written. That's a goat pen. That's not
a... Oh, my. They're making merchandise of
people's souls. And this has been done for years
to the damning of many souls. These puppeteers and soul merchants
exercise themselves and they woo their listeners with the
latest technology, lights and stages and they're entertaining
the masses all while promoting a damning false gospel. And as I said, many of them are
detailed in techniques of how to win a soul. Now, I used to
go out in the streets and preach, and I'll be honest with you,
it ain't hard to get someone to pray a prayer. It really isn't. You want to go to hell? No. Well, pray this prayer, and you'll
be saved from hell, and nine out of ten of them do it. No
regeneration. It's what's called Decisional
Regeneration. That's what that is. It's not
Holy Spirit Regeneration. The Holy Spirit Regeneration
is being replaced nowadays with Decisional Regeneration. And the Holy Spirit moving and
wooing sinners is being replaced by entertainment. We believe
that God's Holy Spirit makes his people willing in the day
of thy power, in the day of his power. We don't need no fancy
techniques. We preach and proclaim the gospel.
And like I said, what Brother Bill Clark said, and God does
the saving. He does the saving. And he does it all. And then these soul merchants
boast about their converts and how many people they've saved
or led to Christ. And I was one of them. Praise God, He took me out of
that. Praise God. They compass sea and land to
make one proselyte, and when he is made, they make him twofold
the child of hell. Matthew 23, 15. Has it ever occurred to you,
too, that these men were sincere in what they believed? They're sincere in what they
believe. They believe that it's up to them to persuade other
men to come to Christ. And they believe that multitudes
will perish unless they reach them. Now, if that was true,
why are they going to sleep? Why are they going on vacations? Salvation's of the Lord, not
of any preacher's doing or anything like that. It's of the Lord.
It's His doing. It's His work. We proclaim the
message, we put it out on the internet, and God does the saving,
and God does the building up of His saints, and He receives
all the glory, and all the honor, and all the praise. Now, why
don't they hear? Because of what our text talked
about. Let's go back to our text again. And John realized the
same thing. is Isaiah. And Isaiah knew that
it was not within man by nature to know the Lord. But that man
was only able to see and embrace the truth of God as the Lord
saw fit to reveal it. Isaiah knew this, and so did
John. John knew this too. He'd been
taught the same thing, and he realized that the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ could not be seen, nor the way of the Lord
desired even, by man unless it pleased the Lord to open our
eyes. You see, beloved, this just ties
right in with the Scripture in the Old Testament that says salvation
is of the Lord. We preach and we preach with
all our hearts. But I can't save one soul. But
Lord Jesus Christ can. He can save whomever he's pleased.
Let's look at our text again. That the saying of Isaiah the
prophet, and look at this, John plainly says that the Lord blinds
the eyes and hardens the heart of some so that they cannot see. Look at this. That the saying
of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake Lord,
who hath believed our report, that's Isaiah 53, and to whom
hath the arm of the Lord been revealed. Revealed. You see,
there's a key word. Revelation. The Gospel's a revelation. Think of us before the Lord saved
us. We didn't know who he was. And
then he, you know, I often use this, Joseph and his brother,
and Joseph reveals himself. That's what Christ does. That's
a picture of Christ revealing himself to his elect. He reveals
himself. And then we say, oh Lord, oh
my King, my Savior. Who hath believed our report?
And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore
they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again, He hath
blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they should
not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart,
and be converted, and I should heal them. These things say Isaiah,
when he saw His glory, and spake of Him. Now, you never hear these false
preachers ever comment on these kind of verses. They just won't. Because it just destroys their
twisted concept of the will of God. It just unravels it. They constantly take you to the
verse, and I've dealt with this, they constantly take you to the
verse that God doesn't want any to perish. Well, context, context,
context, context. That's to the elect of God. That's
to the elect of God. God's not willing that any of
his people shall perish. Now, we don't have a clue who
God's elect are. I've said this many times, right?
But we preach the gospel, knowing that God's saints will be built
up, or that he will use it for the
drawing and saving of his sheep. But again, He gets all the glory. He gets all the honor. If the
Lord saves someone under my preaching, it's not because of me. It's
because the Lord is pleased to save them. And again, we give Him all the
glory. We give Him all the praise. And we who believe the Gospel
are quite certain that the Lord shall accomplish exactly what
He is willing to do, right? what exactly what he wants to
do. We are seeing before our eyes the unfolding of the providence
of God every day. His will being done. He has chosen an exact number
of this human race. We don't know who they are, we
don't know the number, but he does. He has chosen the exact number
of this human race, which by His mercy, He'll be pleased to
reveal Himself to. Now, if you're saved, He's pleased to reveal Himself
to you. Isn't it marvelous? Isn't it wonderful? Because we
know what we are. We know what we were. We know what we are
now. And we know we're not what we're
going to be. Right? But he's been pleased to reveal.
God's been pleased to reveal his son to you. Now think of
the others in your family who don't know him. He's been pleased
to reveal. Now, well, as I said, we don't
know who he's going to save. We pray, right? We pray for our
loved ones. Praying that, oh, Lord, if you're
pleased, please reveal yourself to me, if it's your will, if
it's your will. The believer in Christ sees him
for who he is, God incarnate in the flesh. And the believer
bows before his presence, seeking mercy. Seeking mercy. We're mercy beggars, aren't we?
We really are. I'm a mercy beggar. And he's pleased though. We seek
mercy and we call upon the name of the Lord. Because we know
we can't receive mercy by anything we do. But we receive mercy through
Christ, through our substitute, through our surety, through our
redeemer. Again, he gets all the glory.
All of it. It's incredible. Do you know that our Lord, after
he rose from the dead, you know, Sister Kathy, you brought something
out today that was marvelous. In that scripture, for he shall
save his people, it doesn't say here save the world. That was
a great point. I'm going to use that more often. It doesn't say
here save the world. He says He shall save His people.
His people. Who are they? The ones the Father
gave to Him in eternity. He shall save His people from
their sins. And you know that our Lord Jesus
Christ, when He rose from the dead, had He wished to reveal
Himself to all men, He could have simply appeared in the temple
or in the Sanhedrin on the third day And every day thereafter
while he was upon the earth, he could have gone about the
city and countryside showing men that he was risen from the
dead. Turn with me if you would to Luke. He only showed himself
to who? His disciples. He only showed
himself to his people. He revealed himself to his people. Do you know that even they could
not see him until he revealed himself? Look at Luke, chapter 24. We'll
read a fairly long portion here, but this is just a wonderful
portion of Scripture. Luke 24, verse 13. And do you
see how this ties in with this morning's message too? The gospel
we must preach, right? We must tell the truth about
those four points we looked at. And this is another aspect of
that. Man can't learn the gospel on his own. It must be revealed. And it must be revealed by the
Holy Spirit. Working upon our hearts. Regenerating us. Born
again of the Holy Spirit of God. And then what happens? The sinner
flees to Christ. He's been granted faith and repentance.
Look at this. Look at this marvelous portion
of Scripture. Even they could not see him until he revealed
himself. Luke chapter 24. And behold, two of them went
that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem,
about three score furlands. And they talked together of all
those things which had happened. Now, they were talking about
the crucifixion. And it came to pass that, well, they communed
together and reasoned. Jesus himself drew near and went
with them. Now, here's the king. Here's
the risen king. Here's the risen Lord. But their eyes were holden that
they should not know him. And he said unto them, what manner
of communications are these that ye have one to another as ye
walk and are sad? Now remember, they thought that
he was going to establish a kingdom upon the earth. And one of them, whose name was
Cleopas, answering, said unto him, Art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to
pass there in these days? Oh yeah, he knows what happened. And he said unto them, What things?
And this is not for information. It is not for information, beloved.
And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was
a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people,
and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be
condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted
that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. And beside
all this, today is the third day since all these things were
done. Now remember, he told them, destroy this temple, and we'll
raise it up in three days. Yea, and certain women also of
our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre.
And when they found not his body, they came saying that they had
also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
And certain of them, which were with us, went to the sepulchre
and found it even as the woman had said. But they saw him not. Then said he unto them, O fools
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Now remember this. There was no New Testament then.
It had not been written. He's talking about the Old Testament.
That's why we preach Christ in the Old Testament. Look what
our Master says to them. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into His glory? and beginning at Moses
and all the prophets he expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. Oh my. He preached himself to them.
He revealed himself to them. And they drew Nihon to the village,
wither they went, and he made as though he would have gone
further. But they constrained him, saying,
Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with
them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he
took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it to them.
And look at this, beloved. Here it is. The revelation of
Jesus Christ. And their eyes were opened. They're
talking spiritual eyes there. Their eyes were opened. And they
knew Him. They gnosked Him. God's people
have an intimate knowledge of Christ. And they knew him, and
he vanished out of their sight. And I love this next verse. And
they said, one to another, did not our hearts burn within us?
Oh my, oh my. While he talked with us by the
way, and while he opened to us the scriptures, he revealed himself. He unveiled himself to them. And this is what God does to
sinners. This is what Christ does to sinners. To His people,
He reveals Himself to us. And their eyes were opened. Oh,
Lord, use the preaching of Your gospel to reveal and open the
eyes of Your lost sheep. Oh, we pray, don't we, for that.
And their eyes were opened and they knew Him. And he vanished
out of their sight. And I love that again. I've got
to read it again. And they said, one to another, did not our hearts
burn within us? Oh, my. Well, he talked with
us by the way. And well, he opened to us the
scriptures. I remember talking. I've said
this before. I'm going to repeat it, though. Talking to Norm Wells.
And I said, oh, to be a fly on the wall, just to hear all that.
And he said, we already have it. We already have it. Oh, my. Right here. Right here. And we just got to mind it, eh?
Yeah. Oh, my. Now, natural men desire
to usurp the glory of God in whatever way they can. And mistaken
men think that they can assist the Lord in the salvation of
souls. And in doing so, in their minds,
they believe that a vital part of salvation is what they do. Well, Psalm 37, 39. But the salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. It's of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. The true sons of God find a great delight in this
fact that the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. It's
of the Lord. We rejoice in that because we
know there's no way we could save ourselves. So we rejoice
in the fact that the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord.
It's the same statement almost as Jonah said when he said salvation
is up from the Lord. Turn if you would over to John
chapter 1. It's very similar to what John said here too. And
I know we've looked at this, but this is a good time to look at this. John chapter 1. Verse 12 and 13, but as many
as received him, there's a good old free grace word, received, because we do receive
him, but it's by the free grace of God in Christ. To them gave
he power, thy people shall be made willing in the day of thy
power to become the sons of God, Even to them that believe on
his name, which were born, not of the blood, so there goes personal
lineage, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, there
goes free will, but of God. Salvation's over the world. In
God's people's aliveness, we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the absolute Savior of his people. The absolute Savior. Think of this. Think of this
of Christ with his people. He has known them from eternity. He has loved them from eternity. At Calvary's cross, he purchased
them with his own precious blood. He has triumphed over death in
the behalf of his people. He has imputed His righteousness
to them, and our sin is imputed to Him. And He is presently revealing
Himself to His lost sheep, and He is presently comforting His
sheep upon this earth. He's calling them, He's calling
His lost sheep, and He has sent His Spirit to regenerate His
people, and to guide us, and to comfort us. And He shall return
again. He shall. To gather to Himself all His
people. And all the glory, and all the
honor, and all the praise goes to Christ. It goes to Him. It doesn't go nowhere else. We don't have any time or interest
in hearing any other message than that which speaks of the
accomplished salvation for the sons of God in the person of
Jesus Christ the righteous. That's the only message we want
to hear. We don't have any time for anything else. None at all. How is the arm of the Lord revealed? Turn, if you would, to Matthew
11, 27. How is the arm of the Lord revealed?
To those whom the Lord is pleased to reveal it. Now, if you're saved, think of
this verse as we read this. That we had nothing in us that
would cause Him to reveal Himself to us. Right? No good in this old sinner that
caused Christ to reveal himself to me. The only reason he did
was because he's loved me from eternity. And I'm so humbled
by that. To think that God chose me. It's
not a doctrine that makes one proud. Not at all. Not at all, does it? It makes
you grateful. It humbles us. Because we know
that it's absolutely nothing we've done. Look at this marvelous verse.
Matthew 11, 27. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. Neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son. And he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him. The revelation of Jesus Christ.
Remember the two on the road to Aramais? He opened their eyes. And this is what God does when
he saves the sinner. He opens our eyes. He gives us
eyes to see, to look to him. He gives us ears to hear the
gospel message. And the believer rejoices. Because we don't think we're
holier than now, do we? Like people sometimes accuse
us of? No, no. We know we're worms. Brother Henry used to call us
maggots. But that's the scriptural definition
of it too, when it says worms. God has mercy on his people. So if any man gains the knowledge
of the Lord and salvation, it's all wrought by his hand. It's
all wrought by the hand of God. And He alone can open the eyes
of man. And beloved, let me tell you
this, that He accomplishes whatever He wills. Brother Neil, you are saved because
it was the will of God to save you. According to this Scripture,
He is pleased to reveal Himself to you. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. But
he's pleased to do that. When I think of who I was and
who I am and the fact that he's pleased to reveal himself. And
I'm the only one in my family that's been saved. And I know
it's the same with some of you too. And we just sit there in awe. of the fact that he's been pleased
to reveal himself to us. Like I say, it don't make us
proud. It humbles us. It humbles us. Turn, if you would, to Romans
chapter 9. God is pleased to reveal his Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, to his people and pass by others. And according to Scripture,
again, Scripture is our only reference, right? Scripture's
our only reference. If I stand up here and give you
my opinion, it's not worth nothing. We preach what the Scripture
says. God's preachers preach what the Scriptures say. I remember
Vicki, the first time we heard Grace preach, and Vicki says,
man, I love this. These guys preach what the Word says. They
don't try to twist it. They preach what it says. Amen. That's what God's preachers do. Do you know that He is sovereign
and that He's the potter and we're the clay? And that He can
do absolutely whatsoever He chooses? Look at Romans 9, starting in
verse 17. And this is what the scriptures
say. It says that God's pleased to do whatever He wills. Look at this. Romans 9. Starting
in verse 17. For the Scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, Even for the same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Look at this marvelous verse
in 18. And if you're a believer, my
goodness, this verse just cries out to us. Therefore hath he
mercy on whom he will have mercy. Brother Jim read that text again
tonight. It came out again. We've obtained
mercy? And that's something you're going
to hear me just nail for as long as the Lord allows me to preach.
I've obtained mercy, and so have you, if you're God's people.
You've obtained mercy. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy? And whom he will, he hardeneth.
He just leaves them in their sin. What does God have to do? I remember
Brother Henry saying this, and it stuck like glue with me. What
does God have to do for a man to go to hell? Just leave him
alone. What does God have to do to save a sinner? Everything. Man, that's an amazing statement.
Because it's true. If God had left us alone, we'd
still be doing the same thing that we were doing. And we wouldn't
have known any difference. Praise God, he had mercy on us.
He had mercy on us. Thou wilt say unto me, verse
19, why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Now, men talks a lot about their will, right? This scripture says,
who can resist the will of God? Well, the answer is no one. No
one. There's really only one free
will in all this whole universe and everything, and that's God's
will. He does whatever he pleases. Our will is bound by our nature.
He can do whatever he wants, because he's God. Because he's
God. For who hath resisted his will?
Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Who
are we, clay pots, to say, God, what are you doing? to say, God, that's not fair
that you chose a people. And before the Lord saved me,
I said that. Because I was a full on Armenian. And someone brought
an election up to me and I went crazy. Not crazy, but it wasn't
pretty. But God taught me the gospel.
He revealed, Christ revealed himself to me. Now I rejoice
and proclaim that God does whatever he pleases. Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? And look at
verse 21, we'll tie this in and I'll just say something quick.
Had not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? Now,
when I was a kid in school, we took a pottery class. We took
a pottery class, and I think I was maybe in grade six. I still
remember it, because I loved it. We got a lump of clay, and
it was really neat. They put us on the wheels and
everything, or I can't remember, just the spinning thing, spinning
wheel. And so they put us on that though, and they had the
water linked there so you could, and I'm molding this thing, and
I made a candlestick, and it was a funny looking candlestick,
but it was, you know, it was for my mom, so I thought, and
we got it baked and all that, but not once when I was forming
it did the candlestick say, I want to be a bowl. Or I want to be a cup. No, no,
as I formed that, I made it into whatever I wanted. And though
it was a crude looking candlestick, it was my candlestick. And it
was for my mom. And I formed that thing into
whatever I wanted to form it into. And that clay did never
once say to me, like I said, that I want to be something else.
And then I made her a bowl out of another lump. See the picture? God can do whatever
he pleases. And the clay will never say to
him, why did you do that? Why did you do that? What if
God willed him to show his wrath and to make his power known,
endured with much longsuffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction? And that he might make known
the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which is what
we are. If you're a believer, you're
a vessel of mercy. You're a vessel of mercy. It's
beautiful. Why? Because I've obtained mercy. And there's still some vessels
of mercies out there. The Lord's going to bring them
in as He sees fit. As He sees fit. that he might make known the
riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared
unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only,
but also of the Gentiles. As he say in Osi, I will call
them my people which were not my people. That was us before
we were saved. Now he, now think of this, this
is something, I heard Gary Shepard bring this out as I was duplicating
the old, the old, boy there's some nuggets in those. Oh my
gosh, what great preaching you guys were blessed to have through
the years. It's just incredible. And he
said, he bought out something that I had to stop and I actually
texted Norm. And Norm said, oh man, what great
truth, he said that, He said that God's relationship to his
people wasn't broken, it was our relationship to him. We needed
to be reconciled back to him. He's always loved his people
with an everlasting love, but we needed to be reconciled back
to him. And we are through the precious
blood of Christ. Oh my! Do you see how even when
we were dead and trespassed as a sin, he still loves his people. He watched over us all through
those times of rebellion. And when the time of love was
come, He drew us and revealed the Gospel. Gave us eyes to see. Oh, what mercy! What mercy! And it shall come to pass that
in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people,
they shall be called the children of the living God. God's elect
are saved according to the time appointed by Him. Turn, if you
would, to Galatians chapter 1, and we'll end with this. Galatians
chapter 1. And here Paul states what we've
been looking at, that God must reveal Himself. He must. He must. Or we'll never know
Him. Think of this, Brother Neal,
I'm going to use you again as an example, though. When the
Lord saved you, it was the appointed time for you to hear the gospel.
It was the time that God was pleased to reveal the gospel
to you, and to you, Brother John, too, and Sister Ruth. When God
saved you, it was the appointed time. It's marvelous! When the Lord revealed to me,
Through Brother Henry Mahan's preaching, the gospel, that was
the appointed time that I'd hear the gospel of God's free grace
in Christ. It's absolutely amazing. Amazing. Look at this in Galatians
1, 15, and 16. But when it pleased God. So there's
a time in every believer's life when it pleased God. To what?
Who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace
to reveal his son in me. God's people have Christ revealed
to them when it pleases God. Spurgeon has a sermon, if you
ever want to look it up, it's called When It Pleases God. It's
marvelous. It's on this text and it's wonderful
because when it pleases God, he reveals himself to his people.
See, this is why we don't get caught up in all the numbers
and stuff, right? And all the, we don't do gun notch convert,
you know, converts and stuff. Oh, I got 150 converts, so I
got all these notches. No, we don't do that kind of
stuff. That's just nonsense. Because when are God's people
saved? When it pleases God to reveal
himself to them. You see, if a preacher keeps
gun notches, then they're getting all the glory, aren't they? Don't
do that foolishness. God gets all the glory. Why?
Because it pleased Him to reveal Himself to the sinner, to His
people. So therefore, He gets all the
glory, and all the honor, and all the praise, to reveal His
Son to me, that I might preach Him among the brethren. And immediately
I conferred not with flesh and blood. Beloved, this is the God
of the Bible. This is our sovereign King. And
we say, praise His mighty name. Gracious Heavenly Father, We
come before Thy throne. All we who believe come before
Thy throne, praising You and thanking You for revealing Your
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to us. And we are so thankful, Lord
Jesus, that You revealed Yourself to us. We would never have known
You. We would have continued in our
way. if You hadn't revealed Yourself to us. We pray that You take
this message for Your glory and for Your honor. and use it to
build up your saints, and if you're so pleased to reveal yourself
to one of your lost sheep, we praise your mighty name. We love
you and praise you. We pray you be with God's people
through this week. Strengthen them. Give us the
grace and strength we need to get through this week. Oh, we
love thee, and we praise your name. In Jesus' name, amen.