To speak to us, we're thankful
to God for him, glad that Betty could make this journey with
him. Gary pastors the Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Gary, he's been
a friend for a number of years, and I am thankful to God for
him. You come preach the gospel to
us. When I have the privilege of meeting with the Lord's people and hearing the gospel such as
I've been able to hear in the last few days, I feel like one
of those spiders in king's palaces that the Scripture speaks about.
so out of place, and so undeserving and unworthy, but just so glad
to be here. I thank the Lord for you all,
and I pray that He will get glory in everything that is said and
done. I want you to turn back to Deuteronomy
chapter 13. 32 again this morning, because I want us to once more see if we can find a reason to do what he says in that third
verse, and that is to ascribe greatness
to our God. I have a dear relative that I sometimes see her comments
on Facebook. Now, I know I look old, and I
am old, but I know about Facebook. But she's wrapped up in a godless
religion. And yet a number of times I've
heard her comment about how awesome her God is. Well, greatness can only be ascribed
or attributed to the true God. And I tried to show you from
those verses early in this chapter just why we are to ascribe greatness
to our God because of that which He is and that which He has done
for His people. But I want you to look this morning
and see if we can find reasons to ascribe greatness to our God,
not only for that which He has done for us, but also for that
which He has done to us. And I'll invite you to look with
me Deuteronomy 32 at verse 9 and 10. Because he continues here, and
he says, for the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot
of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land
and in the waste-howling wilderness. He led him about. He instructed
him. He kept him as the apple of his
eye." You see, when the Lord saves
us, and gives us eyes to see not only who he is, but all that
he has done for us as sinners. That's when we are enabled to
ascribe greatness to our God. The scripture says here In that
ninth verse, to me, that he is great simply for choosing us. He says, for the Lord's portion
is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. You see, Jacob is not simply
the name of a man, but it is a name that God has
given to all his elect. And I can rightly say that it
is a name that fits me to a T. Because it is the name that is
used to describe what we all are by nature. What we all are
in our flesh. What we all are in Adam. The name means conniver, and
supplanter, and tricksters. Those who apart from His grace,
from the very moment that we are born into this world, we
seek to trick God with our phony righteousness. Jacob put on that hairy raiment. And he sought to seek the blessing
from his father by tricking him when he didn't know that God
had already, before he was born, determined and purposed to give
him the blessing. Isn't that us? We're tricksters. We're sinners. And yet he says
here that this, a people such as this, this is the Lord's portion,
this is the Lord's inheritance, and he even describes himself
many times as the God of Jacob. You see, the people that he chose
in Christ before the world began, though they have always been
His children, He says that by nature we are, even as others, the children of wrath. That's who He chose. That's who
He chose, and He did so knowing what we seem to have a hard time
finding out, that there was nothing in us and nothing that God saw
that we would do that made us His choice. It was simply His
good pleasure and sovereign choice. He said, You have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you. And this people is His portion
that they might be, as is said there in Ephesians 1, to the
praise of the glory of His grace. Now, if I were to go out As a
man who had great skill in fixing and painting and doing what can
be done with an automobile, I wouldn't go out there to the new car lot
and pick me one like that to fix. I'd go like these men do to a
junkyard somewhere And I would find a rough, old, beaten up,
wrecked automobile and I'd take that into my shop and I would,
from that piece, fix a fine car. That's what the Lord has done. That's what He's done. And he
chose them not for what they were or what they could make
themselves to be, but he chose them for what he would make them
to be in Christ. You see, that's what I had to
find out. That everything is in Christ. What I had to find out, and what
we had to find out, what we even as sometimes confessing Calvinists
have to find out, is that everything from election and predestination,
everything is in Christ. You separate it from Christ and
you've got a damning doctrine. It's in Christ. And you see, as Spurgeon says,
this people, they are his by his choice, they are his by his
purchase, and they are his by his conquest. That's his portion. And the scripture
says that God, in his great mercy, he not only describes his people
as this Jacob, but if you remember, also he gave Jacob another name. He said his name is Israel. Prince of God. I cannot fathom there that a Jacob like myself, like
all that I am in myself, could be a prince with God. That's the king's son, the prince. And it says that bless, in Psalm
65, he says, bless is the man whom thou choosest, and cause it to approach unto
thee that he may dwell. These people are not just going
to visit God, they are going to dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. You see, Jacob
is a picture of the Lord's people was highly blessed and highly
favored. He didn't deserve anything like
we don't, but the wrath of God. But he said, this is my portion. I'll have that one. I'll have
this one. I have chosen Him. Blessed, he
says, is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom
He hath chosen for His own inheritance. I look at the Lord's portion,
and humanly speaking, I first want to say He didn't
get much. And then I think, humanly speaking,
he didn't get anything. But he did not choose us. He
did not set his affection upon us, as is the case of Israel,
because we are great, like they were a big, great nation. He
said, no, he said, not because you are a great nation. You are
the smallest of any nation. but because the Lord loved you. Do you ever stop and think about
that? That before you ever were, here you are as nothing more
than a speck of dust floating in the air of eternity. You couldn't even get in the
President's office this morning if you wanted to. But the Lord
loved you. And He chose you. And He set
His affection on you. And He determined, He predestined,
All things concerning you, but all things especially to do you
good." Because He loved you. And you
can stop right now trying to find something in you that's
lovable, because there isn't anything. All that was lovable,
all that He based His love on, was in His Son. For the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus. He says, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. And here are all these folks
in a terrible uproar that cannot understand how God could hate
Esau. That's not the problem. Best be finding out how he could
love a Jacob. How could he love Jacob? How could a man like David, who
was a known and confessed adulterer, How could a man like David, who
prearranged the death, the assassination of a woman's husband in the face
of battle so he could take her to himself, how could he lay
down on his deathbed and face eternity? Face God Almighty
and have peace? Have prospect? He could say simply this, although
my house be not so with God. He just confessed how a king
and a ruler is supposed to be, and that's not the way he's been,
and that's not the way his house has been. He said, although my
house be not so with God. Yet! He hath made with me an
everlasting covenant. And that covenant He ordered
in all things, and He made it sure in His Son, my representative
and Savior and mediator, the covenant head. He made it sure
in Him, and this is all my salvation. I tell you, God is great. Sometimes one of the things that
grieves my heart so is my inability to thank God,
to praise God, to glorify God as I want to. Not even as I ought
to, but as I want to. But when I think about how that
I'm one of these Jacobs, When I have nothing in me or nothing
about me and everything that is just the opposite of God as
He is holy and just and righteous, and yet when I see that He in
sovereign mercy and love set up His affection upon me and
chose this Jacob, I can't do anything but ascribe greatness
to God. But His grace and His goodness
and His self is not only great in choosing us, He is great in
finding us. Look at what it says here in
verse 10. He found him. He found him in a desert land
and in the waste howling Wilderness. That's where he found me. That's where he found me. You
know, and that's where he finds everyone he saves. He finds us in this wilderness
of Adam's race. He finds us in a world that is
under the curse of God. He finds us in the midst of a
people counted as the enemies of God? He finds us amidst a
race of rebels and God-haters? He finds us in the midst of a
people all of whom are vile and corrupt and ungodly? You say, I'm an American. You're a sinner. You're a God-hater by nature.
The carnal mind, the natural mind that you and I are born
with when we come into this world as those who come forth from
our mother's womb speaking lies, that mind is enmity against God. We're in a howling wilderness. We are like Omer Phibosheth.
Where did David find him? Hiding from him. Where was Adam
whenever God called him after the fall? He was hiding from
him. Oh, everybody has got them a hiding place. They'll hide
in their job. They'll hide in their family.
They'll hide in their hobbies. They'll hide in their works and
their charity endeavors. They'll hide somewhere. But He's going to find His people. I remember reading A number of
times over the years, a poem that was written, I think, by
an individual by the name of Francis Thompson, and the title
of that poem was something like, The Hound of Heaven. And in that poem he depicts how
that he runs, he hears this voice behind him, he knows the footsteps
are behind him, and he runs and he goes and he hides and all
that, but he can't outrun God. Where do you find Rahab? In Jericho, the city under the
curse. We're like Saul of Tarsus in
a howling waste of false religion and self-righteousness, in a
refuge of lies. I want you to notice here who
found whom. You say, I've been seeking the
Lord for 30 years. That's a lie. On the one hand, naturally, he
says, there is none that seeketh after God. If you like universal
statements, there's your one. None. You say, I didn't seek. No. He said, those who are ever
finally brought to seek me, what do they do? They find me. They find me. I was in a pool pit. Boy, was that a howling waste
in the wilderness. Where do you find Saul of Tarsus? Oh, he's a teacher, preacher, moral man. But when the Lord
found him, when Christ revealed Himself to him on that road to
Damascus, he later said this, I was before a blasphemer. No, I didn't just change denominations. I didn't just take on a religious
self-help program or something like that. He said, I was before
a blasphemer. Does that mean that when I stood
before men and women with a sincere heart, doing the best that I
could, and thinking that I was doing right toward God, does
that mean that what I was doing before was blaspheming God? Absolutely. When you don't tell
the truth about God, you blaspheme God. When you don't tell the
truth about men and women and tell them what the real state
of affairs that they're in is sinners, you blaspheme. But the thing was, he didn't
know that until the Lord found him. He found him. And what a description
this is of this world. Where do you find Matthew at?
He's in the tax collecting business. And none of them were seeking
after God. None of them. Where'd Boaz find
Ruth at? She was groveling along on the
ground trying to pick up an occasional piece of grain that the gleaners
had somehow maybe dropped in their work. Where did Hosea find Gomorrah? In the slave market of sin. Where did God find Israel at? Some years ago, I was with Brother
Bill Clark. A lot of you know Brother Bill
Clark. He's dead now. But I was with
Brother Bill Clark, and he is so gracious there in England. to the only parish church where
John Newton preached. Amazing grace, John Newton. Well,
we were there, and I was walking around in the building there,
and it was obvious to me that things had changed since John
Newton died. No gospel there. But we walked
outside, and John Newton's house was there, but it was all locked
up, you know, you couldn't go in at that particular time. But
it just so happened that the caretaker was there. He saw me
and Brother Bill standing there, and he said, would you fellows
like to go in and look? Well, yeah, we'd like to. There
was something I wanted to see if it was there. And so when
we went inside, immediately as soon as I found the stairs, I
went up the stairs because I wanted to see if what I had read was
true, that there was this plaque in his study at one verse of Scripture. And that verse is Deuteronomy
15 and verse 15. It says, And thou shalt remember
that thou wast a bondman, a slave in the land of Egypt, and the
Lord thy God redeemed thee. Don't you ever forget that. Don't
you ever forget that. He said, I found you in a howling
wasteland wilderness. Here is a world. under the curse
of God. Here is a world that is engaged
in open, blatant idolatry and rebellion against the true and
living God. And yet God, in mercy, not only
chose you, but He found you. Newton has another hymn that
is entitled, He Died For Me. One verse says, In evil long
I took delight, Unawed by shame or fear, Till a new object struck
my sight And stopped my wild career. Is that what happened to you? You know, when Paul writes in
1 Corinthians 6, he reminds those Corinthians, he said, you know
that no adulterers or idolaters or effeminate persons or abusers
of themselves with mankind gives this long list of awful things,
adulterers, whatever it is. He said, and you know that none
of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And then he reminds them, and
such were some of you. But you're washed. You're justified. God did it. He did it every bit. When you read in Luke chapter
15 about the shepherd and the sheep, it says that the shepherd
leaves the 99 and he goes after his one lost sheep that he was
lost until he finds it. And I can tell you this, if you're
his sheep, you might as well give up the running. Because He'll find you. He'll
find you out, and He'll find you. That good Samaritan we read
about who's nothing more than a picture of Christ, and here is everybody walking
on the other side of the road, leaving him, he'll have nothing
to do with this man that's been beaten and robbed and left for
dead. It says of the Samaritan, he
came where he was. That's why Christ came into this
world. Because He, as God, could do and did do everything that
needed to be done, that He wanted to be done concerning us as He
sat as God in heaven, except the one thing that was necessary
to save us. And that's to die for us. He said, I found Him. I found
Him. I was thinking about it when
Brother Heller was reading those verses in Proverbs 7 there. We say, well, I never did this
and I never did that. That's us. And mainly the picture in my
mind is of that religious harlot The whore of Babylon, false religion
that is everywhere in this world that most of us are raised up
in, the traditions of men that we find hardly anybody ever escapes
it. And that's where I was laying
in the harlot's arms. I was enjoying it. I was drinking
her wine. I was feeling good about myself. Blind and dead and didn't know
it. And he came into that awful situation. And he came to me in my awful
situation and he found me. He found me. I wasn't looking
for him. He found Paul. He wasn't looking
for him. He found Mephibosheth. You know
where Mephibosheth was? He was in Lodabar. That means a land of no pasture. No pasture. Oh, He's great in
finding us. The hymn writer said, I sought
the Lord, and afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek Him
seeking me. It was not I that found, O Savior,
true. No, I was found of Thee. I didn't find the Lord. He found
me. That's what it says here. He
found Him in a desert land. and in the waste-howling wilderness."
What a great God that is. Then the Scripture shows us here
that He is great in leading us. He led him about. Old Jacob. He was a wretched creature, wasn't
he? My history in a nutshell. I don't know about yours. I think
so if you are one of the Lords. It says, he's to have greatness
ascribed to him in his leading us, because in truth there never
has been a time when the Lord was not leading His people. You know, we had a shepherd before
ever one of the sheep were born in this world. What did he say about the shepherd?
He leads me. He leads me. by the still waters. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. He's always been leading us,
and mysterious as it is to us, it says that He works all things
after the counsel of His own will. Well, when you hear what else
He says, that makes it really wonderful. that He is working
all things after the counsel of His own will, and He works
all things together for good to them that love God, to them
that are called according to His purpose. You say, well, preacher,
I've made a mess of my life. Well, I don't doubt that. Me too. But I'll tell you how
the life of God's elect is. If you can imagine a big funnel,
you know what a funnel is. And you stand at the open end
of that funnel. This is a big funnel, you know.
And you take a tennis ball, and you throw it against the side
of that big funnel, and it bounces to the other side, and it bounces
to the other side, but all the time, that bounce is getting
shorter and shorter, and it's headed to a certain end. That's the way we are. You say,
well, I don't see how this in my life could ever have worked
for good. I don't either. That's what God says. Well, I
don't see how David's fall. He's not excusing sin. But somehow mysteriously, wonderfully,
gloriously, He is leading his people always to Christ. He is always in every detail. Like one writer said, it's like
every particle of dust that was kicked up from the wagon wheel,
God, the eternal God, has charted and determined that course of
that piece of dust. to bring his people to the gospel. You say, does God bring his people
to the gospel, or does he bring the gospel to his people? Yep. That's it. I live by probably
the largest United States Marine Corps base that there is in the
world. the best. Just ask them. And I know of several fellows, I know some women, that God in
His strange providential workings, you know, They did this, and
they did that, and finally they just joined the military, and
they joined up the service, they got into the Marine Corps, and
they happened to do this, they happened to do that, and all
of a sudden, there they are in Jacksonville, North Carolina. They meet somebody in the church.
They meet me, something happens. And you know, the next thing
you know, they're hearing the gospel. And the Lord has revealed
to them His great grace. and showed them that finished
salvation in His Son. He said He leads us. He is always moving them to the
gospel. He is always bringing them to
this revelation of Himself. And it may even be that He has
had me and you, or me and somebody else, or you and one of these
other brethren from all eternity on a collision course. Just so you could hear the good
news of what He has done for you. Why in the world would a man
in his right mind, go to a place that it takes like days to get
to, that the road is so bad that it takes days for him to get
to the place where he lives, what would motivate a fellow
to do something like that? He's either crazy or the Lord
has sent him one. Why? Because he's always leading
his messengers and he's always leading his people because they're
going to come together and they're going to hear the gospel of Christ
and believe. We're not on a fool's errand. Peter said, the Lord's determined that by my mouth, you're going
to hear the gospel and believe. That's how minute and detailed
this is. He's already determined before
the world ever was the very mouthpiece by which you'll hear the gospel. You say, I don't like that preacher.
If God ever reveals the truth to you, you'll love him. You say, I don't like him, he's
an old bald-headed southerner and it's obvious he doesn't have
any education and this, that and the other. Let me ask you
this. If you were dying of thirst in the desert, would you take
a drink of water out of a dirty boot? I think so. You see, this is a matter of
need. He said, led him. He led that old Ethiopian eunuch
out in the desert, and he led Philip to him, and he heard the
gospel. He led that woman Lydia. I don't
know whether she was a widow person or just simply a business
person, and in times that were not good, she found herself in
this place, and here she is. And the Lord opens her heart. Paul and those brethren, they
said, well, we're going to go this place. No. The Spirit forbade
it. And they're going to go this
place. No. And then he said, I had a vision
in the night where the Lord of a man of Macedonia said, come
over and help us. Help us. Well, I just imagined
they had Physical needs, don't you? And they needed bread. They
might have needed healing. They might have needed a lot
of things. But Paul said, when I saw that,
when I heard him, he said, I knew right then that God had sent
us to preach the gospel to them. He leads them. Even Christ. says he must need go through
Samaria. Why? Because there was a woman
there. He had an appointment with her from eternity. She had to drink of that well
of living water. And when we find out how God
in grace leads His Jacobs leads them in all the affairs of their
lives, leads them on this course and this encounter with His blessed
truth to make known to them that He has loved them from the foundation
of the world, that He sent His Son to die in their place, that
their dead is counseled, that the redemption is accomplished,
the ransom has been paid, and they are free from their sins. will ascribe greatness to Him. He's great and He's to have greatness
ascribed to Him because of His teaching us. What does it say there? It says He instructed Him. Found Him in a howling waste
and wilderness. He led Him. Led Him about. He instructed Him. He said, they'll all be taught
of God. They're every one, all of God's Jacobs, they'll all be taught of God.
You see, that's why I'm not trying to convince you of something
you don't want to believe. Boy, that's a hard job. But if
I could convince you of something you don't want to believe, Somebody
else could come right along behind me, and they could unconvince
you of something. Not so with those that are instructed
of God. And they'll all be taught of
God. That's the New Testament from
the words of Christ. That was from the prophet also. Every one of them will be taught
of God. He's going to instruct them.
How do we know if we've been taught of God? Well, I've read
so many books by the Puritans, and I've read so many books by
these modern writers. I'm about sick of books, to tell
you the truth. I'll tell you when you know that
you've been taught of God. He said, everyone that's taught
of God, everyone that's learned of the Father comes to Me, Christ. That means that they
leave everything else. They leave that old experience
of religion. They leave that old idolatry. They leave all those dead works
that the Scripture says is every work we've ever done outside
of Christ. They leave all that stuff. And they believe on Christ. That's
it. You say, that's a little bit
too simplistic. It's so simple that if God doesn't
reveal it to you, you'll never know it. He's going to teach His people. They're not just going to come
to the doctrines of grace. They're going to come to Christ.
There is no Christ, by the way, apart from the doctrines of grace, because those are the doctrines
that give Him all the glory. But we come to Christ. We come
to Christ. He teaches us. We leave. We repent of everything else. And we trust Christ. And we rest
everything and plead only His blood and His righteousness as
all our salvation. have come to Christ when we have
peace. Well, you can't really have peace.
Oh, you can't. Listen to what God says in Isaiah
54. And all thy children shall be
taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Are you going to believe yourself,
or somebody else, or are you going to believe Christ? All His children are taught of
the Lord. And when they are taught of the
Lord, they have peace. because they find out that Christ
has already made peace by the blood of his cross. I remember
reading about an old soldier, I think it was like World War
II or World War I, one of the enemy soldiers. He's out on this
island by himself. He doesn't know the war's been
over. And finally somebody gets to
him, and they have to dodge his bullets and all he's got left,
and he's making a final attack, and finally they subdue him.
Wait a minute! The war's over. That's what I've come to tell
you today. The war's over. Christ established righteousness. He said the kingdom of God is
not meat and drink, it's not these external things, but it's
righteousness that results in peace, which results in joy in
the Holy Spirit. He teaches us by His Spirit,
taking the Word of God. Don't take a man's word. Now,
I'm just going to tell you this. The only thing that you really
believe is what God says Himself. True God-given faith does not
believe Even a true thing simply because a man said it. Not even a good man, not even
a faithful preacher. You've got to believe this for
yourself. I'm afraid there's a whole lot, way too much of
preacher worship in our day. But the Bible says that those
noble Bereans that even when the great Apostle Paul preached,
and we know he preached the truth, but it says that they searched
the Scriptures to see if what he preached was true. I don't want you swallowing what
I say hook, line, and sinker because I said it, because maybe
you like me. I don't think I've got to worry
about that too much. But there are preachers that
are charismatic. I hope they preach the truth. But don't believe it because
you like them. I like Tim James. I like Jim Burr. There's a lot
of me. But don't you believe it because God has to instruct
us. And when we're taught of God,
We'll quit talking about preachers anyway, and we'll ascribe all
the glory to God. Well, quickly, look at
that last part. He's great also for this reason.
It says, and he kept Him as the apple of His eye. That's what the Lord does to
His people. That's the only way a Jacob can
be saved. He's great in his keeping us. He kept him as the apple of his
eye. Can you even think about yourself
as such? The apple of God's eye. I've got my first grandchild. Humanly speaking, I've entered
in maybe into what that means. She just turned 19 months. If
you've got a few hours, I'll tell you about her sometime.
But she's the apple of my eye. Does God look at me, a Jacob, and regard me as such? Well, the Lord doesn't care nothing
about me. If you're His child, I assure
you, He does. As a matter of fact, in Zechariah,
it says, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, After the glory hath
He sent me into the nations which spoiled you, for He that toucheth
you toucheth the apple of His eye. You can say what you want
about me. You can call me this and you
can call me that, but I'm going to tell you something. You touch me, you touch the apple
of His eye. I'm not going to say about preachers
what I've heard them say about others. I'm just not going to
do it. I hadn't done it and I'm not going to do it. Because simply,
not only that, but every one of God's children, He said, it's
better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be
cast into the depths of the sea than to say anything or do anything
against one of these My little ones. He keeps every one of them. You
say, but we fall. Oh, we do. I fall a thousand
times a day. I get sometimes so full of despair
and so wracked with unbelief, I do my dead-level best to convince
myself that there is no way under heaven I could be one of His
children. But He won't let me believe that.
All the time I'm saying it. All the time I'm trying to convince
myself of it based on what I see in my own flesh, in my own heart,
the things that come into my mind and my own failures in every
aspect of my life and ministry. And all the time he says, yes,
you are. Yes, you are. He says, we are kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time. We are kept believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ. We say sometimes, well, I don't
The reason I'm so down, when I look at myself, I just can't
hardly bear the thought of it. If you ever do find a reason
in you for believing that you're the Lord's child, you get away
from Him as quick as you can. He keeps His people. He keeps them believing. And on their darkest day and
their dirtiest day, he looks at his bride and he says, you
are all fair. There is no spot in you. No spot. You say, well, I see
it. You're not the one that counts. I tell you, we ought to ascribe
greatness to him. You go over to Ezekiel chapter
16, you'll see the history of everyone that God saves. We're
this putrefied, dried, blooded, aborted infant cast out in the
field. Dead. Helpless. But you look at all the I's in
that chapter. It's never what you did. It's
always God saying, I saw you there out there in that field.
Nobody pitied you. I saw you there in your deadness
and your vileness and your corruption and your sin. I saw you there.
And I passed by you. It was a time of love. I washed you. I loved you. I cleaned you up. Oh, and I started putting on
you all these lovely garments, and I decked you out in the finest. I put jewels in your ear, and
I adorned you with all these beautiful things, and your beauty was a renowned beauty. You were
known amongst the unbelieving world for your beauty. He said, I put that on you. You were perfect through my comeliness,
which I have put on you. Oh, I couldn't know what I was
saying as a child. I couldn't even as an adult.
I couldn't even as a preacher at the first. But I can say it
now. God is great. He really is awesome.