We kind of talk about a specific
word here, a specific topic. Sometimes I think it's not only
misunderstood, but a lot of times misused. Romans chapter 11, let's look
at verse 6 if you would. And if by grace, then is it no
more of works? Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. Now, I realize that that verse
comes within the context of something that Paul is laying out here
as far as specifically in this context, the salvation of elect
Jews out of the non-elect Jews. But he's also in Romans preaching
the inclusion of the Gentiles, that there is no differentiation
between Jew and Gentile in the Israel of God, okay? The Israel
of God is a spiritual people that is not made up of Jew and
Gentile in their separated distinctive, you know, corners of the world
and ideas and thoughts and religions. But the Israel of God is one
people that is pulled out of every nation, tribe, and tongue. Paul here is making very clear,
matter of fact, the verse in front of that says, even so that
at this present time there is a remnant according to the election
of grace. So grace entails a lot of things,
and that's kind of the word that I would like us to kind of look
at, because I think people have lost sight of, or have been blinded
to the fact of what? grace truly is. If we really
think about what grace is, and we're not talking about grace
over here, we're talking about the act of God's grace being
bestowed upon His people. Whenever we think about grace
in this biblical definition, and as we look and see how the
Bible applies that grace, then we really can't have the notion
of what is being preached in a lot of churches that even call
themselves grace churches. Things that are a common salvation,
a universal salvation, a duty faith, a well-meant offer, See,
those are things that you hear in a lot of churches, even some
sovereign grace churches that preach and teach what we would
call the doctrines of grace. They will preach a duty faith,
that there is a duty that you must keep. There is a law that
you must keep and follow. They will preach that there is
a well-meant offer that we preach to the world without distinction,
and we whenever we preach in that nondistinction,
that there is a true, well-meant offer to each and every person
that we preach on. Now, whenever I come out of the
Southern Baptist, whenever the Lord began to open and reveal
sovereign grace to me, you know, I tried to begin together and
listen to the preaching and teaching and reading books and things
like that that had to do with the doctrines of grace. Well,
for the most part, the stuff that's out there on the market
that you can buy in bookstores, what little bit is in bookstores,
mostly comes from a reformed perspective, which is, I believe,
just as almost as erroneous as the Armenian perspective in a
lot of instances. But I began to gather those around.
Well, as I began to read those things and study those things
alongside of the Bible, I began to see, hey, this isn't right
either. You know, they were touting this
well-meant offer. And to me, what it seemed like is no different
than what the Baptists did in 1689. They compromised with the
Armenians. Well, they compromised then with
the Presbyterians. But they compromised for the
sake of not seeming so way out there. They compromised to make
it more palatable They compromised to make God seem more loving
and more, uh, uh, more, uh, gracious. You know, listen, brother, we
don't have to try to defend God. I believe that we should, the
Bible tells us that we are to, uh, uh, that we are to stand
and we are to, um, uh, defend the words of scripture and we're
to defend the faith and all those things like that, earnestly contend
for the faith. Listen, we don't have to defend
God. God doesn't need defending because God is who He is. It
doesn't matter what anybody thinks about Him. It doesn't matter
what anybody does about what they think about Him. It doesn't
matter what man does because God not only has predestinated
everything that's happened anyway, but God is who He is. He is outside
of us. He is apart from us. He is holy
and separated from sinners. and he is overall, sovereign
overall, and nothing can stay his hand to do whatever he wants
to do, and he will be who he will be, irregardless of what
men want him to be. He doesn't change. So our understanding
of who God is, and trying to make it palatable to sinners
and reprobates, doesn't help God out in any way. Matter of
fact, what it does a lot of times is cloudy the water and make
it more murky to see truly what God has done. And that is exactly
why whenever I read those books and read those commentaries and
followed after the teachings of men, it was cloudy. That God
has made distinction between His people, the elect before
the foundation of the world, and those who are not. And that
God has chosen some. and not others. And that Christ
has died for those that He has chosen and not the whole world.
And that salvation is by grace alone. It's not by works. It's not by law keeping. It's
not by your faithfulness. It's not by your faith at all. Salvation is by grace. Now notice
there's going to be some people going to take offense at that
Ephesians 2 reference and say, yeah, but you're cutting out
what the Bible says is by grace through faith, so there it is.
I'll hopefully get to that here in just a little bit. But what
we want to focus on here is the word grace. See, here Paul, by
the Holy Spirit, says, if by grace, then it is no more of
works. And what is he relating that
to? He's not relating that to an offer of salvation to you.
A lot of times people think that grace is Jesus dying on the cross. Now I will say, Jesus dying for
his people on the cross surely is a show and act of grace. He is doing something in our
behalf that we don't deserve. We deserve to be on that cross.
But while that in and of itself is a show of grace, Grace in
and of itself is something that God has chosen to do before any
action was ever made. Grace is God Himself. He is grace. He is gracious. God said, I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. Well, if God is gracious to anybody,
then that means that God is fully and rightly and holy, as in W-H-O-L-L-Y,
holy grace. He is the embodiment of grace. If there is grace that comes
as a virtue and a characteristic of God, that is because God is
grace. Just as God is love. If there
is a love that comes from God, that is not only because that
is His disposition towards His people, But that is because that
is His character, that is who He is. He is love. Well, God is grace. Now, being
that God is grace, that does not restrict Him, nor does that
force Him to be gracious to whoever, or to everyone. Because He plainly
says in Scripture, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. So there is a distinction that
God makes. Well, whenever we look here at
what Paul is talking about grace, he's not talking about the grace
of preaching the gospel. He's not talking about the grace
of Christ dying on the cross. He's not talking about the grace
of the Holy Spirit quickening the dead sinner. He's tying this
grace back to verse five that says, even so then at the present
time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. He ties it back to eternity.
We preach this here all the time. I know you guys hear it all the
time. I'm assuming that we are all in agreement on this. But we talk about this all the
time. However, there is castigation from without all the time that
we are placing all of salvation in eternity and denying and neglecting
its importance in time, which we don't. I've never heard Brother
Larry do that. And listen, he supports eternal
salvation just as hard as the rest of us do. And I've heard
him speak about it all the time, but never once have I ever heard
him say that there is no importance in the coming of Christ, the
work of the Holy Spirit, the experience of grace that we go
through in this lifetime, never once heard him or any other solid
grace preacher ever say these things. It's a straw man that
people throw up because you are combating against their reformed
understanding of the doctrines of grace, which says it all comes
down to our faith. God has to see our faith. God
has to wait until we believe before He quickens us. He has
to wait until we believe to justify us. See, they don't look at the
eternal aspect, or they'll go to the cross and say, well, you
know, God couldn't forgive anybody, or God couldn't justify anybody,
or God couldn't do anything until Christ came on the cross. And
they reject the fact that Christ stood as the last sign, and that
in and of itself was the work done from the foundation of the
world. Brethren, Paul here is bringing
everything, as he always does, back to the very beginning. Before
the beginning. The election of grace. If we had been elected in God,
it wasn't an election that took place after Adam fell. That's
what the sublapsarians believe. Okay, there's your 50-cent word
for the day. That's what those who believe that Adam failed
and whenever Adam failed, God in essence said, oops, Adam ruined
my plan and now I must start a new plan. So I elected out
of Adam a certain group of people to save. Brethren, we weren't
elected out of Adam. Not one child of grace was ever
elected out of Adam. We were put into Adam and we
fell in Adam. We sin because we are part of
Adam's seed in the flesh. But brethren, we were not elected
out of Adam. We were elected in Christ Jesus
before the foundation of the world, before Adam ever was brought
forth. We were already elected. The
names were written in the book of life before the foundation
of the world. Not after God said, OK, well,
Adam fell, so let me see. These are all the people that's
going to come out of Adam. Well, I'll take these, and I
won't take these. No, before the foundation of
the world, He chose a group of people to save, and then He put
them in Adam to fall in sin, so that He might redeem them
out of sin, so that Christ might be exalted. so that all of God's
attributes, both His divine grace and mercy and love and compassion
and His divine wrath and justice would be seen. Now, again, like
I said, Paul brings us back though here to the election of grace. He goes back to the very beginning. Where does grace begin? Grace
begins before the beginning. God gives us, and I guess we
probably ought to throw a definition on grace. What is grace? What's
the most common definition of grace that we hear everywhere? Unmerited favor. Grace is unmerited
favor. That means it's something that's
done that you didn't do to get it. It isn't something that you
bought, something that you earned. It's something that was given
to you and you didn't even deserve it, matter of fact. Matter of
fact, we've done everything in the world to not be given this. By all instances, God ought to
give us eternal death, not eternal life. So grace is getting something
that you don't deserve by nothing that you have done. That's what
grace is. And here, Paul is saying, listen,
this election of grace has nothing to do with works whatsoever. Because if it is by works, then
it is no more grace. So let's think about that for
a little bit, brethren. If grace is truly grace, unmerited favor,
If it's something that is given to us that we don't deserve,
nor could we ever earn it, then there is no place at all, anywhere,
for your righteousness. Because your righteousness will
never earn something, because if it's something that you earn
by your righteousness, then that means it's no more grace. Is
that what this says right here? If by grace, then it is no more
of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. If it's by your works of righteousness,
then it is no more of grace. And guess what? The Bible says
that we are saved by grace. I hear them chirping in the background.
It's by grace, but through faith. By through faith. By through,
but through faith. You're forgetting faith. You're
forgetting faith. No, I'm not forgetting faith. But I'm going to point out that
your through faith is not what you think it is. The through
faith that those who are chirping in the background are chirping
is a total misunderstanding of what through faith means. It
is by grace, first and foremost. And then that grace provided
a faith that would bring about the salvation of His people.
And that's not you believing, by the way. That is the work
of Christ, His faithfulness. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that faith is not of yourself. So that means it
wasn't anything that I did or I believed or on whom I believed. But it was by the faith and faithfulness
of Jesus Christ, who had done all that the Father had given
Him to do for the salvation of His people to the very extent
that Jesus Christ said, it is finished. There's nothing else
to add to it. You can't take away from it. You can't add to
it. As a matter of fact, we know that the works of God were finished
from the foundation of the world. He had declared all things the
end from the beginning, and no one can put to it, and no one
can take away from it. We can't add to God's salvation
by your faith in Him. Now that doesn't negate faith
in Christ Jesus. God gives us faith so that we
experience and can receive in our minds and in our hearts the
gracious act that God has done and be able to perceive what
has really been done for us. Because the preaching of the
cross and the salvation in Christ alone is foolishness to us until
we have been given that faith. To everyone salvation is foolishness,
the biblical salvation that is. Now the salvation of an offer
and a reception and an action is not foolishness because that
right there is works ingrained and it's self-righteous ingrained
and therefore everything that is made up in the human Adamic
nature longs and yearns for pat me on the back, I walked down
the aisle. Pat me on the back, I went through
the baptistry. I went to church, I did this,
I did that, I did this. I made that decision. I did this. It was by my will. See, that's
ingrained in our human nature. And the Bible says that if it
is by that that you are saved, then it's no more of grace. It's
of works. I know some people say, well,
faith is not a work. The Bible says that faith is
not a work. Ephesians 2 tells you that faith
is not a work. It doesn't say that faith is
not a work there. Matter of fact, the Bible does
say that faith is a work. It's a work of God. Whenever
they said, what must we do to do the works of God? What did
Jesus say? Did Jesus give them a laundry
list? Did Jesus, you know, snap out a piece of paper and say,
all right, here you go. Go do that. You go do that and
you're doing the works of God. Then you say, well, go pray. Go read your Bible. Go to church. Go help the poor. Go help the
needy. Go help the widows and the orphans.
Is that what he told them to do? He didn't tell them to do
that for righteousness, did he? No, they said, what must we do
to do the works of God? And Jesus said this, this is
the work of God that you believe. Belief is a work, but yet true
belief is a work that only God can do in the sinner. God works
faith in us. So yes, faith is a work. But
it's not a work that we can do whenever we want to do it. Faith
is something that is given by God. It is something that is
exercised in God's power, in God's time, at God's desired
point of time. And listen, it's also withheld
at certain times. Do you not think that Peter's
faith was hindered at some point in time whenever That little
girl said, aren't you one of his followers? And he said, I
don't know the man. Well, where's strong faith Peter
at? What about Peter's faith? The one who just about an hour
before that said, I don't care what you say, Lord. If they come,
they're not taking you. Drew his sword out and cut off
the ear of Malchus whenever they came to arrest Jesus. Jesus kind
of had to put him in his place and rushed out and grabbed that
ear and put that ear back on Malchus, healed it. Can you imagine
how Peter felt, man? Here I am, boy, I got my sword
out. No one's going to take you, Lord. Now, to some people, they
would say, look at that great faith. Look at that mighty faith. And then just an hour later,
a little girl outside the gate, huddled around the fire to stay
warm. He said, you look like one of those guys that followed
after him, don't you? Aren't you one of his followers? And
he denied it three times with cursings, the Bible said. You
see, brethren, we don't control our faith. We don't control our
faith any more than we control our destiny. It's by grace. So faith is not the integral
part, as it pertains to us, that is. It's not the integral part
of our salvation. Faith is definitely an experience
of our salvation, but it's not the integral part of how you
got saved. Matter of fact, it had no part
in how you got saved. People always use that, I got
saved, I got saved, blah, blah, blah, whatever date, or I got
saved whenever I blah, blah, blah. You didn't get saved, you
are saved. You were saved by Christ Jesus. We were saved before we ever
knew about our salvation. But we see here that if it is
by grace, then there's no more of grace. So there can be no mixture of
works and grace in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There's no mixture
of works and grace in the salvation of the sinner And if that's the
case, then brethren, there can be no mixture of works and grace
in the gospel of our salvation. If we're to preach the good news
of our salvation, then we can't mix law and grace, works and
grace, duty and grace, your actions or your righteousness and grace.
We can't mix that. Otherwise, we're not preaching
the gospel because Paul said you can't mix the two. If it's
of one, It's either one or the other. There is no mixture of
that. There's no gray area. It's black
or white. It's grace or it's works. It's
not an infusion of that. That's why we believe that the
Roman Catholic Church is a heretical, anathema church because their
whole basis of salvation is based upon grace infused with works. There is works that you must
do to be saved. It's an anathema, just as any
other religion out there is an anathema, including Armenian Christianity. It's an
anathema. It's a harlot church. It's a unbiblical, non-gospel
preaching church. So look, if you would, with me
at Ephesians chapter 2. I've been quoting that and screaming
that now for 30 minutes. Look at, if you would, at it. Everyone always goes to Ephesians
2.8, right? For by grace are you saved through
faith. But they forget that that phrase had already been said
before we even got to verse 8. Back up in verse 4, if you'll
look there, it says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his
great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in
sins have quickened us together with Christ by grace you are
saved. Now it doesn't include through
faith there. It just says by grace you are saved. So it's
showing here that grace also includes the quickening. So see
quickening had nothing to do with your faith. I mean, all through the scripture,
the Bible likens quickening to like a birth, okay? You know,
at conception, did you do anything to be conceived? You had nothing
to do with your conception. Did any of us choose to be conceived?
I didn't. I just showed up one day. Here
I am. Well, brother, you don't have
anything to do with your spiritual quickening. We don't have anything to do
with our spiritual quickening. It's all of grace. God causes
the sinner to come to life, spiritual life, without His consent, without
His willingness. He causes that sinner to come
alive And that is grace. We call it irresistible grace,
but that's called grace. He's doing something for that
poor sinner who is dead and trespasses and sins, who cannot perceive
the spiritual things of God. He cannot receive and understand
and enjoy the true salvation that is in Christ because he
cannot feel his heart's need for a Savior because he sees
himself not as a true, depraved sinner without God. He sees himself
as somebody that makes mistakes, that sins once in a while, but
my good outweighs my bad. No. The person who truly feels
their sinfulness to the place where they have abased themselves
of not knowing anything that they can do to please God are
those who have been quickened by the Lord. That's the only
way that we come to ourselves that way. And that is a gracious
thing for God to do. We just read, this man was laying with palsy. He couldn't
walk. Was it not gracious for Jesus to heal that man's legs? Do you think that man complained
that Jesus healed his legs without his permission? What about the
blind man that we read about a few weeks ago? Whenever Jesus
went and healed that blind man, do you think that blind man who
was blind from birth had never seen one thing ever in his whole
entire life? Do you think that man complained
to Jesus, I didn't ask you to heal my eyes. Do you think that
was a gracious thing that Jesus did for him? To give that man
sight without his permission? Well, brethren, look at this
on the spiritual side. Do you think a person who is dead and
trespasses in sin, who cannot even see the kingdom of God or
enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor do anything to please God,
God gives him life to be able to see that and then believe
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You not think that's a gracious
thing for him to do? And yet so many people out there
are so against that. They hate it. I have friends
and family who hate that. I used to hate that. I hated
irresistible where there ain't no way God's going to bring me
a kick in the streamer. Well, if God doesn't bring you, You
ain't coming. It says, for by grace ye are
saved. And then in verse 8 it says,
for by grace are you saved. That's not negating what He said
before by adding the through faith. It's just showing you
how that grace was exhibited. For by grace are you saved. How
is it that I was saved by grace? Through faith. When faith came,
Christ Jesus. He put away sin. He put away
the law. He nailed our sin to His cross
and through His flesh condemned sin in the flesh so that we might
be free. That's grace. He did that without
asking us. He did that without any effort
on our part. He didn't say, OK, I've done
this. Now you have to believe on me or believe in me. before I give it to you." No,
the fact that they were seeing it and believing it showed that
God had already given it to them. They were already part of that.
They were already in Christ when He did it. So God gives grace not only as
unmerited favor, something we don't deserve that was done before
the foundation of the world, before anything ever started
But God gives grace and time to us to be able to receive it
and believe it and to cherish it and to recognize it. Look with me, if you would, back
to Romans chapter 3. I just want to touch a little bit
here on this justification So many people are confused about
justification by faith. And I would say, including Martin
Luther, the guy that everybody holds up as the king of justification. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. And you take that in light of
what the context says and what the Bible teaches overall, we
find out that salvation isn't hinged upon your believing. So
therefore justification, we have to come to justification with
the right understanding of how justification takes place to
be able to put into perspective these passages that talks about
justification by faith and what Abraham did by faith and what
everybody else did by faith. It says here in Romans chapter
3, And verse 20, it says, therefore,
by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. So by the
law, the deeds of the law, the working of the law, by following
the law, keeping the law, doing whatever, trying to keep the
law, it says no flesh shall be justified in his sight. So brethren,
to me that sounds like a very poignant principle that God has
laid out. There will be, at the end of
it all, or throughout time itself, there will be no person whatsoever
justified by doing the deeds of the law. Does that include believe on
me? I think it does. Does that include faith? I believe it does. No man's going
to be justified by faith in Jesus Christ as far as that's going
to be the grounds in which God declares you right before him.
Everybody's going to run to Abraham, run to Abraham, run to Abraham.
But I'm telling you, there's a misunderstanding about what
Abraham did and what was declared to be righteousness then. Keep
with me. Verse 21, But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the Law and
the Prophets, meaning that the Law and the Prophets told about
what this righteousness was. And this righteousness was Christ
himself. Christ was our righteousness.
He's the righteous fulfillment of the law. He's the righteousness
that God requires. He's the righteousness that God
accepts on our behalf, and His righteousness is the righteousness
that's laid to our account. So if Christ's righteousness
is laid to our account, your believing's not. Your faith in
Him is not what God lays to your account for your righteousness
because your faith is not Christ's righteousness. Christ's righteousness
is His fulfillment of the law. His keeping the promises that
were made, yea and amen, in Him. He is the one who is doing it
all and all of it hinges upon Him and His merit is what God
accepts, not ours. whether it be coming to church,
reading the Bible, praying, doing all those good works, or your
faith in Him. He goes on to say in verse 22,
even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ,
and a lot of people say, there you go, it's by faith of Jesus
Christ. We have the faith of Jesus Christ
given to us. Yes, brethren, we have the faith
of Jesus Christ given to us, imputed to us. The faith of Jesus
Christ was imputed to us. Now, thankfully, in quickening,
the faith of God, the faith of Christ, is imparted to us so
that we can believe the account to whom has the arm of the Lord
been extended, right? Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been extended? Well, the
ones who believe the report are the ones to whom the arm of the
Lord has been extended. The power of God to give faith so that
we can believe the report. We won't believe the report because
we are by nature, looking at it as foolishness. So, the faith of Jesus Christ
that's in view here is not your faith in Jesus Christ, but the
actual faith of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God, which
is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe,
for there is no difference. So to the Jew and to the Gentile,
it doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile, whether you've
been under the law as the Jews were, or you've been without
the law as the Gentiles were, because the Gentiles didn't have
the law of God given to them. They never were under the law
of God. God never intended for them to keep the law of Moses
that he gave to Moses in Sinai. It never was given to them. That's
why there was such a disagreement at the Council of Jerusalem whenever
the Jews were trying to get the Gentiles to act like Jews, and
Paul was out there preaching to the Gentiles, hey, you're
free, you have liberty, you don't have to be under the law, and
yet the Jews were coming and saying, you have to be under
the law. That's why Galatians was written. Paul said, listen, this faith
of Jesus Christ is your righteousness. Jesus Christ, in His fullness,
What He is and what He has done is your righteousness. And those
who are Christ are given the faith to believe, He is my righteousness
and that's all I need. He's all I need. He's all I need. Jesus is all I need. He's all we need. We don't need
faith in Him to be accepted of God. We don't need works to be
accepted before God because our works in and of ourselves are
unrighteousness. But it says here, but it only
comes upon those that believe. There you go. You have to believe
or you don't get that. No, brethren, again, that is
just telling us who are the ones who are the recipients of this.
You know that they are children of God by their belief. Those who believe the gospel,
the true gospel, we recognize them. Now that's not to say that
those who are not believing the true gospel are not elect and
have yet to be quickened and be brought to conversion and
repentance. They may still be out there.
Listen, there was a time that I hated the true gospel of Jesus
Christ. The gospel of election and predestination. The gospel of particular redemption. The gospel of irresistible grace.
I hated that with a very hot and holy passion. But brother, here I am today
preaching just the opposite. Hot and heavy. Why? Because something happens. I
go from being blinded and foolish to being given the wisdom of
God and being given the revelation of Jesus Christ, the quickening
life that is spiritual, that can see spiritual things and
be able to understand spiritual things and to be given repentance
of wrong thinking and wrong doctrine and wrong gospel. That comes
by grace alone. I didn't deserve that. God didn't
give me that because I come to Him to believe. No, He gave it
to me so that I would come to Him and believe. And so there to all them that
believe is just a category of those who have been given it.
Those who are believing this story, believing this work, believing
this gospel, these are the ones to whom it was given. These are
the ones to whom it was procured. These are the ones to whom it
was predestinated. That's who it's for. Verse 23,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Jew
and Gentile, you've all sinned. Whether it was sin under the
law of Moses or whether it was sin under the law of nature,
you have all sinned. Everyone has sinned and they
fall short of the glory of God. If you are falling short of the
glory of God, how in the world do you think your faith is going
to get you anywhere in salvation? Because your faith is short of
the glory of God. Let me ask you this. Maybe make
it a little more pointed. How many of you can hear honestly
with your heart Raise your hand and say, I have been faithful
100%. Never wavered. How many of y'all, even since
you've been quickened and brought to understanding, how many can
say that my faith in Christ Jesus as my only Savior has never wavered? Well, I'll be the first to tell
y'all. Mine hasn't. Mine hasn't ever been 100%. Listen,
there are times even the very thing that I'm preaching to you
this morning, I have doubts about. When my old flesh want to rise
up and say, is that really true? Is that really true? And I'm
thankful that the Holy Spirit comes in like a flood. But brother,
listen, I can't rely on my faith because my faith lacks. My faith
is lacking. For all sin comes short of the
glory of God. But here's what I want you to
look at. being justified freely by His grace. We're justified freely by His
grace. Now brethren, remember, I know
I keep going back to this. I know people hate what I do,
at least those that don't believe like we do. I keep going back
to this. Grace was something that was
given to us before the foundation of the world. We started there
today. It's eternal. Grace and the giving of grace
to the elect child of grace is something that is done before
anything was ever brought forth and created except for Christ
himself. Christ was brought forth and in Christ, every one of those
elect children was blessed with all spiritual blessings before
the foundation of the world. That means before the beginning
of creation, before time. before anything existed that
exists. And so, it says here, being justified
freely by His grace. We are justified by His grace. You say, well, wait a minute, so
you're denying the cross? No, because it says right there
after that, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, what's
the grounds of my justification? The finished work, the blood,
the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Everything that Christ did, that
is the grounds. That's what God looks at. That's what God accepts. That's
what is laid to my account. His obedience and His death are
laid to my account as my obedience and my death. That's the grounds. That's what brought justification
in. Okay? That's the grounds. But brethren, the grace of justification
was laid to us before the foundation of the world, before Christ came
in time and manifested what was already finished at the beginning
of time. God had already declared that,
decreed that, looked at that. He brought that thing which wasn't
as though it were. And so we are justified freely by
His grace. But if you'll remember in 2 Timothy chapter 1, this grace, again, was before the foundation of
the world. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, Who hath saved us,
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. So
here again we see the differentiation between works
and grace. If it's of works, it can't be
of grace. And if it's of grace, it cannot
be of works. And God said that we've seen
several places here. We have been saved by grace,
justified by grace. It's all by grace, by grace,
by unmerited favor, giving you something you don't deserve by
something you did not do. And here He says, who has saved us,
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, and
that would include our work of faith, but according to his own
purpose and grace. So see, there it is. This is
the eternal grace that we're talking about. Not necessarily
the grace in time of God's quickening, not necessarily the grace in
time of God's bringing us to understanding and growing us
in that grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving
us the understanding of it. But brethren, this is talking
about the grace of election. The grace of God's predestination,
predestinating us to the adoption of sons. The grace of God's overall
complete purpose from beginning to end. He says, but who has saved us
and called us, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us, not just planned
for us, and purpose for it, but it was given to us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. See, brethren, grace is unmerited
favor, and that unmerited favor was given before the world began.
Therefore, it doesn't have anything to do with you. Our hands can't
sully it. And listen, our hands can't force it. I can't force
grace upon anybody. So with that being said, let
me go back to what I began to ask at the very beginning. If
grace is what we've just seen the Bible to teach it to be,
can grace be anything but particular? If grace is given universally,
is that really grace? No. That's just common. Right? It's just common. If grace is
universal, then grace is common. It's not particular. It's not
special. Unmerited favor, well that's
not unmerited favor, that's just God's gift to mankind? If God's grace is what we've just
seen it to be, is there any way that it can be a well-meant offer? Can I offer God's grace? Can I offer something that I
don't own? Can I offer something that I
can't bestow? Can I offer something to you that if you accept or
reject it, depends your destiny, therefore it now becomes a work,
that it does you no good because now it's a work? See, if I offer
you something and you have to do something to get it, therefore
it's no more grace, therefore it's not true salvation. See,
all that salvation that those people out there in those other
churches that are preaching a gospel of mixed grace and works, whenever
they offer salvation to you, they are presuming you have to
do something in response to that offer. Well, if that response
to that offer is what causes you to be saved, then you have
now performed a work and God must act in giving you salvation
because of what you responded to, that offer. That transaction is a transaction,
not grace. It's not gift. It's not unmerited
favor. It's merited favor. Well, if
that's the case, then that isn't biblical salvation. That's religious
salvation. And religious salvation doesn't
save anybody because the Bible says that in that day there will
be many that say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not done this and
done this and done this in your name? And he will say, depart
from me, ye workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. See, religious
salvation doesn't save anybody, brethren. But biblical salvation
is a salvation that cannot be obtained by your efforts, by
your faith, by your work or anything like that. So if grace is truly
grace, then that means God has to be sovereign in the operation
of it. If it's a gift that's given outside
of us and we don't do anything to deserve it or do anything
to earn it, then that means God has to give it. That's sovereign
grace. And if God has to give it, He
gives it to whoever He chooses to give it to us. That's sovereign
grace extended. Given. There you are. We call it irresistible
grace. God has given us grace Even though
we didn't ask for it, didn't earn it, didn't work for it,
didn't do anything, God just gives it to us. Well, if God
does that, then that means that grace surely is particular. It
is distinctive. It is a respecter of persons
in the regard that God chooses who gets it. It's not a respecter
of persons as it pertains to Jew and Gentile. That's what
the Bible means when it says God is no respecter of persons.
Now, I used to preach all the time against people like me. Now, well, God says that he's
not a respecter of persons. How can you say he chooses one
and not another? That's God respecting one and not another. That's because
Michael Smith misunderstood the biblical understanding of respecter
of persons. When Paul said that, whenever
he recorded that, he recorded that meaning that it is not a
salvation of the Jews to the detriment of the Gentiles, nor
is it a salvation of the Gentiles to the detriment of the Jews,
because all have been made one in Christ Jesus. That's how he's
no respected person. But, brethren, listen, if grace
is sovereignly bestowed, sovereignly given, and is not an offer, and
is something that is given by no merit of your own, that is
just freely given, And I'm telling you, there are some that get
it and some that don't. And if there's some that get
it and some that don't, someone had to be the one that chose.
And if someone chose to do it, it wasn't me or wasn't you, because
we have no hand in that. Because it was done before the
foundation of the world, we just learned. So you see, whenever
you get into the scriptures, you find out that this gospel
is all over the scripture. And this gospel coincides with
itself everywhere you read it. It doesn't contradict itself.
But if I continue to preach that Armenian gospel, it contradicts
itself at every turn. Oh, God is mighty to save. Oh,
is He? So He can save whoever He wants,
whenever He wants? Well, no, you have to first come
to Him. Oh, Jesus is the Savior of the world. Oh, He is? So whenever
He died on the cross and paid the sins for the whole entire
world, then that means nobody's sins are going to be brought
up before God in heaven. Well, no, you have to accept him to
your heart and believe on him, and then you have to live a holy
life. Otherwise, you know, those are
going to be brought up before him. Oh, I thought you said he
was the savior of the world. He just made salvation possible
for the world. He didn't really save anybody.
Jesus never saved anybody, according to that scheme. See how inconsistent
that is? See how blasphemous that is?
You see why, brethren, we are so adamantly and fervently against
the false Gospels and the false churches of this world? Because
they are blasphemies against our Lord. Why does the preacher
stand up here every week? Why does Larry, every morning
and every afternoon and sometimes four or five times a day, I don't
know, it seems like he's always on there, why does he continue
to declare these things? Why does all of our preacher
friends and churches that we fellowship with, why do they
continually preach these things where we are debasing man and
exalting Christ Jesus and giving no provision for the flesh? Because it's blasphemy against
God to say that we can earn His unmerited favor. God's favor
cannot be merited. It's holy. It's righteous. All right, that's all I have
this morning. Does anybody got anything to
add, comments, concerns? All right, 1-10. 1-10 and it's over. I also have
a question. How do you know that you are
giving grace? How do you know that you're giving
grace? Well, the Bible tells us that God gives us the Holy
Spirit, and the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that
we are his. There's nothing that we can do
outwardly that does that. But if someone does believe the
gospel, that's a pretty good sign that they might be saved,
because they only will believe the gospel by the Holy Spirit
of God. But surely the only way that we can truly know that we're
a child of grace is if we've been given a hope by the Holy
Spirit. But I look at Brother Larry and
his family, and they're really good folk, and they do a lot
of good things and stuff, but I can't look at that and say,
well, they're saved because of that. But because of Brother
Larry and his family, they believe the gospel, and they preach the
gospel, and they hold to that, and that's their hope in what
Christ has done. then we have a hope that they
too are brethren in the faith because of that very thing. And so, yeah, the Bible says
that we will know that we are his people by our love for one
another. So there's something that we
can see that's a love for one another. But here again, there's
sometimes that I'm not lovable, Brother Larry and his family's
not lovable, my wife's not lovable, and we're not lovable to other
people. And so sometimes we can't necessarily go off of that because
it doesn't look like it sometimes. So the inner work of the Holy
Spirit is really the only thing that we are given hope in. The fact that you asked the question
is a tremendous thing that you asked the question. Yeah. That's a blessing to me that
you asked the question. Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is made unless the Spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Let us pray that holy manna may
be showered all around. Look and see poor mourners round
you, fearing, trembling as they go. Longing for a consolation,
will you comfort let us tell them of the savior tell them
that he will be found let us pray that holy manna may be showered
all around and filled with fears. Is there here a weeping Mary
pouring forth a flood of tears? Let us join our prayers to help
them. Let our faith and love abound. Let us pray that holy manna may
be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely,
let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for mourners
till their Savior they can view. Then we'll love them still the
better. Father, we thank you for the
day. We thank you for your grace and
mercy that you give us in Christ. We life that we have in and through.
We thank you for this time of fellowship together today. We
thank you for the brethren together. Lord, we just pray that as we
go away today, Lord, that you might continue to watch over
us and care for us, grow us in the grace and knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and that you might bring us together again.
And may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and
that now, may we, through it all, Lord, be given faith to
trust in you as you walk us through this time of life. Jesus, man,
we pray.