Come with me, if you would, over
to 1st chapter of Galatians. We're going to read a few verses
there and then we're going to move over and finish the reading
in Acts. It's mainly going to be in Acts, but
Acts chapter 9. But I wanted to start reading
this morning in Galatians Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1. Of course
we know the book of Galatians is a letter that Paul, the apostle,
wrote to the churches there in Galatia. There were more than
one church there in Galatia. to the churches there in Galatia.
And specifically Paul was writing a letter that was to correct
and to exhort the Galatian churches in their walk in faith. had been seduced by the Judaizers
that had come in from Jerusalem and other places to try to encourage
them and to move them away from free grace that we just sang
about. To move them away from free grace which is in Christ
Jesus to back into the law. And Paul is opening this letter
and in some of the parts of the opening here, he begins to talk
about his life before his conversion, or as he was being converted,
what happened in his conversion. Today we hear in popular Christianity,
I should say, quote unquote Christianity, popular churches, modern day
religion. We hear that salvation is something
that Christ has, that he has made possible by his death, that
whenever he died on the cross, he made salvation open and available
for all people. And that there is this offer
of grace to every man, woman, child that ever has lived and
ever will live. and that by this great and wonderful
salvation that Christ has made for everybody, that we all have
the option to either choose Him or to not choose Him. Whether
we are to accept Him as our Lord and Savior, or we are to bow
before Him as our King, as we are to accept Him into our heart and
into our lives, choose him, whatever the phrase you want to use, the
notion is that this salvation is available, but it doesn't
do anything for you unless you do this, that, or the other.
Whether you accept him, whether you believe on him, whether you
pray to him, whether you come to church, whether you're baptized,
whatever the case might be, it's a conditional thing that is available
to all to do whenever they want. Now on the flip side, we believe,
and we believe the Bible teaches this very vehemently, very clearly,
very thoroughly, and in my opinion, to the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ more than anything else, the Bible teaches that Christ's
death actually accomplished salvation. It didn't make salvation possible. And I don't know if people even
understand the difference that what I'm saying if they're even
understanding the meaning of what we're saying whenever we
bring that up. There's a difference in salvation being done and made
possible and available and salvation being finished. As Christ said,
it is finished. That salvation was what we use,
the big term we use is effectual or efficacious. meaning that
Christ's salvation actually did save the people that he died
for. On one hand, you have people that preach salvation is a plan
and a purpose that God had, and Christ came and did everything
for the provision of that plan and purpose by dying on the cross,
but that No actual person was actually saved by that death. The salvation comes later whenever
you trust in Him, believe on Him, accept Him, receive Him,
those things. So salvation is kind of like
something that is there for your taking but is put on hold until
you reach out and come and get it. You've got to come and get
it first. So that means you, for one, have to have your mind
set on, I want that. Second of all, you have to be
determined to do whatever the condition is that you think God
has put down for you to do to receive that. And then, therefore,
you start engaging in that condition so that salvation will be yours. And once you do that, then God
is gracious to you to give you that. That system is completely
and totally contrary to grace. The word grace in and of itself
means unmerited favor. It's getting something that you
do not deserve, something that you did not earn, something that
you did not work for. Grace is something that is freely
given. That's why we just sung that
hymn. The last thing that we're going
to sing whenever we stand before the Lord is praising Him For
free grace, free grace. Free grace is what God has given
to us. And if it is something that is
contractual, that I have done this, you must do that. If I
do that to get this, then that's not grace. That's wages. I've just earned some wages.
And how do you earn wages? How do you earn wages? Work.
Work. Okay. How do you earn wages?
Work. All right. We all earn wages
by working, right? Well, what does the Bible say?
For by grace are you saved, not of works, lest any man should
boast. Salvation doesn't come from any
works. And if I do something to get
something, then that is not grace, that is works. And the Bible
clearly says that if it is of works, it is no longer of grace. And if it is grace, then it is
no longer of works. So it can't be both. It can't
be grace and works. And that's what Paul was trying
to get through to the Galatians about, is that whenever I came
among you, I preached free grace. But now your mind is being moved
away from the truth that is in Christ that you believed and
that you held to and that you love. And now it is being moved
away to a false gospel that is saying, yes, grace, but also
worse. You've got to have both. And
so Paul is clearly saying that this gospel that I have preached
to you is a gospel of free grace alone and it didn't come from
my own understanding or my own thought. Now, what did Paul say
here? Look at Galatians chapter 1 because
I really think that when we look at the conversion of Paul or
Saul of Tarsus, whenever you're reading the Scriptures and you're
reading through, you'll read in Acts, you'll read about Saul
of Tarsus That's who Paul is. Paul's name was Saul of Tarsus,
but after his conversion, the Lord began to call him Paul and
not Saul. So, you can sometimes get confused
and think it's two different people maybe, but it's Saul of
Tarsus who is also the same person as Paul the Apostle. And Paul,
whenever he wrote here to the Galatians, he told them a little
bit about his conversion. And I think when we look at Paul's
conversion, we see clearly the gospel and in that hymn that
I chose for us to sing this morning, or should I say, the Lord led
us to sing this morning, in that hymn, it talked about how God's
grace is irresistible. And whenever we talk about the
doctrines of grace, especially you kids that have heard me in
earlier days, talk about the five points of the doctrines
of grace, or the acronym TULIP. You guys ever heard of the acronym
TULIP? Okay, if you spell out TULIP, T-U-L-I-P, that is an
acronym for the five points of the doctrines of grace. The doctrines
of grace being total depravity, unlimited, or excuse me, unconditional
election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance
of the saints, a preservation of the saints. That's what the
acronym TULIP meant. Now, the I in that, irresistible
grace, that was an issue that I hated, and I've mentioned that
to you guys before, that I hated irresistible grace, the notion
that God causes people to be saved apart from their will. That God makes people save when
they don't want to be saved. And I hated that. I didn't like
that at all. That and limited atonement, those
two were the biggies. I didn't have a problem necessarily
with total depravity. I didn't have a problem with
perseverance of the saints. The unconditional election, I
didn't like that either. So that U, that L, that I, that
was the ones that I hated. Whenever I finally seen what
the Bible taught about irresistible grace, I finally realized that
this right here is something to rejoice in. Because without
irresistible grace, there would be literally no one saved. The only way that we are saved
is by God's overcoming grace upon us. That's the only way
that we're saved. That's the only way, and I should
say saved, it was by His mercy and by His work of atonement
that we were saved. That's the ground of salvation.
But our coming to understand and to know, to come into the
knowledge of our salvation, the being made spiritual, to know
spiritual things, that comes by irresistible grace. And a
lot of people say, well, I don't like that. I don't like the notion
that God can save somebody against their will. That God can make
somebody, you mean God brings them, drags them to Him, kicking
and screaming. Well, no, that's not what we
say when we mean that. Irresistible grace is not that. Irresistible grace just means
that there is nothing that you can do to stop God giving you
grace. That's what irresistible grace
is. His grace is irresistible in the fact that we cannot keep
Him from showing grace to somebody. You know, we think that somebody
is beyond saving. We think somebody is beyond being
redeemed. That someone is beyond salvation. That, oh, they're too bad. They've
done too much stuff. They've done too much wickedness.
They've gone too far, you know. You really don't know that person.
They are so bad. and that God could never save
somebody like that. Well, listen, brethren, it doesn't
matter who you are and what you've done and how much you've done
and how wicked and evil and to the very bottom of the sin bag
you went, that does not stop God from giving you grace and
saving you. Now, we sometimes think that
that's not right. You know, especially whenever
we see some evil person out there that we don't like, for all of
a sudden God to save them and now they become A Christian,
they begin to talk about price and they begin to do all these
things. In the back of our minds, it's like, yeah, we really know
who you are. Yeah, we know what you're capable of. Yeah, we know
all about you. And I don't see how God could
do that. Or they even think, well, that's not fair. Why should
God do that to that person? That person gets to go to heaven
for all the nasty things that they've done. But brethren, that
just comes from the prideful prideful throne of our heart
because every one of us is no different than those other people
that we look at out there or wherever. Because every one of
our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things. They're evil,
though the Bible says that God looked down upon the heart of
every man and they saw wickedness and evil continually. That's
who we are before God. And so every one of us is undeserving
of grace. Every one of us is undeserving
of God's mercy and love. And every one of us is just as
wicked in the eyes of God as anybody else is. Now, we have
our levels of standards where we say, well, that guy's a bit
worse than this guy, but this guy's worse. But when it comes
to Christ's holiness, every person falls short. And therefore, every
person falls guilty before the throne of God, and every person
in that guilty state is deserving of the wrath of God upon them.
Well, Paul is no different than some of those ones that we looked
at and say, well, there is no way that God can save that person.
But if it wasn't for irresistible grace, Paul never would have
been saved. Paul never would have come to
Christ. Paul never would have, and neither would you. If you're
a child of grace, you would never have come to Him and began to
believe on Him and began to love Him and to love His Word and
to love His people. You would never have done that
had the Lord not first intervened and overcome your carnal nature
and gave you spiritual life, and in that spiritual life, give
you the knowledge of your salvation, the love for your Savior, and
the love for your brethren. You would never have had that.
You say, well, I've always had that. I grew up in church. I've
always had that. No, you've had a religious experience
of loving people on your level. You've had a religious experience
of loving a God that is being taught to you. You've had a religious
experience memorizing scriptures and quoting scriptures, most
of the time out of context, if it was like me. But we have never
been able to. And the reason I say that is
not because I know your experience. I don't have to know your experience,
know your heart or know your mind to tell you that you would
never have done that because the Bible says that. There is
none that seeketh after God. The Bible says there is none
that is righteous. The Bible says that we are not
lovers of God. And if we're not lovers of God,
then we're definitely not lovers of the brethren. Because you
have to have a love for God to have a love for the brethren.
So brethren, I can tell you from God's point, none of us would
ever have come to Christ had it not been for God's overcoming
grace. Look with me in Galatians chapter
1 and verse 13. Here Paul is going
to give the account of his conversion to these Galatians. It says,
for ye have heard of my conversation in times past in the Jews' religion. That word conversation oftentimes
doesn't mean verbal talk. It means how we walk, our walk,
our actions. For ye have heard of my conversation
or my walk or my actions in times past in the Jews' religion. Now notice he said in the Jews'
religion. He's making a distinction here. The Jews' religion was not the
religion of Christ. And Christ's gospel and Christ's
kingdom is not the religion of the Jews. So that should tell
you something about a little bit of what's being said and
pushed today and what you see out there in the modern churches
and in this Zionist movement for everybody who's just head
over heels in love with the Jewish nation over in Israel. The Jewish
religion is anti-Christ. The Jewish religion is not Judeo-Christian
religion. It is anti-Christ religion. The Jewish religion of today
is not the religion of the Bible that God had given to Moses.
It is anti-Christ. I don't know why Christians are
so hot and heavy to hold hands with haters of Christ. They hate
Christ. If you go preach in Israel to
them about Christ being their Messiah, being the Messiah, being
the only way of salvation, you will be persecuted in Israel,
the land of the free, the wonderful people of Israel that everybody
loves. You will be persecuted. They
will kick you. They will throw rocks at you.
They will tear you limb from limb. He says, you have heard of my
conversation in the time past in the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God and wasted
it. So see, he's contrasting the
Jews' religion and the church. There's a difference there. Don't
mix them, okay? But he said how he used to persecute
the church of God. So whenever he was in the Jews
religion, which by the way is a religion of works, okay? So whether it's the Jews religion
or whether it's the Mormons religion or whether it's the Jehovah's
Witnesses religion or whether it's the Buddhist religion or
the New Age religion or the Islam religion or whatever other religion
you want to name off, Everything in all of those religions has
two things in common. Number one, it's all about your
will. And number two, it's all about
your works. The religions out there are all
about works. And I would even say modern Christianity
is in the same exact boat. Modern Christianity today and
what is being preached in modern churches today is nothing different
than old Babylonian works religion, no different than Jew religion,
no different than Islam religion, no different than anything else.
They may have different tenets and doctrines, they may have
different leaders, but the same organization is there. You must
do this to be favored. You must do this to stay in relationship. You must do this to go to heaven. It's all about works. There's
only one true religion that is out there and that is the religion
of Christ Jesus and his religion says there is no work. It's by faith alone that we receive
Christ. Not that that's what saves us.
It's what keeps us from wrong knowledge about Christ, but it
is by faith that we receive Christ, and by faith that we walk. We
walk, not in our faith, getting out there and working, by our
faith, trusting Christ in what He has already done, and living
by that faith, living in that faith, living every day, knowing
that my salvation has nothing to do with what I wake up and
do today. Or what I wake up and don't do
today. Or who I am. Or what I'm not. It has nothing to do with that.
Our salvation has everything to do with the accomplished work
of Jesus Christ. That's what saved us. God elected
before the foundation of the world a people. That people in
Adam fell and became sinners by nature. And we continue to
be sinners by nature as long as we are in this tabernacle
in this temple, this body. And in that tabernacle of sin,
Christ had a people and that people was redeemed on the cross
that he hung on. And by his blood, his forgiveness
of sin, his redemption, his justification and his sanctification were all
grounded right there so that every one of his sinful children
could be saved. That's what saved us. And the
knowledge of that comes whenever God quickens us, gives us spiritual
life, and gives us spiritual understanding, and reveals that
to us. And once that is revealed to
us, we believe in that, we believe on that, and we walk in it. We continue to walk. I don't
get up every morning and say, You know, now surely my conscience
gets to me. The Holy Spirit convicts me of
my sin. The Holy Spirit convicts me of
my downfalling and my unholiness. The Holy Spirit does all that
stuff. I'm not saying I walk around just clueless or cold.
And irregardless of God's Word and irregardless of righteousness
and everything like that and just don't care, live life to
the fullest and just eat, drink and be merry and do whatever
you want to do. It doesn't matter. Go out and sin as much as you
want to sin because you're saved eternally. That's not what I'm
saying at all. And if you think it's what I'm
saying, you just wanted to pick straw men out and cause a debate
or do something. That's not what I'm saying. What
I'm saying is that All the things in our life that we do is not
what saved us, is not what keeps us, is not what's going to get
us to heaven. It's what Jesus did that does that. Now that
that has happened, Jesus' people has His Spirit in them and Jesus
is working in them the works that God ordained from the foundation
of the world. And that too, I can't control.
I can't get up every morning and say, I'm going to do all
the works that God's ordained for me today because I'm going
to determine to do it. I'm going to will to do it. I'm
going to yield myself. I'm going to give up my life.
I'm going to whatever, take up my cross and follow Him. Listen,
all those things are things that we are enabled to do as God works
in us. See, all those exhortations and
admonitions that we see in the scripture, Those are written
to the child of grace that the child of grace might know the
actions and the way that we are to be. However, it is not a rule
book to tell you, now you get out there and try to start doing
that because we can't. God is the one who works in us
to will and to do His good pleasure. God is the one who enables us
to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. He's the
one who is at work in us doing these things. And so Paul, whenever
we look at Paul here. Paul was in the Jews' religion,
and he was zealous in the Jews' religion, and he was going out,
and he was killing those Christians who they thought was against
their God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the great Jehovah, the I Am, the one who delivered them
from Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land, who destroyed
all their enemies before their face, and gave them all this
land and all this promise and all this inheritance. They thought,
hey, this is our God, this is who we are, and those people
are preaching about this Jesus guy, who claims to be God, and
now everybody in the world is starting to believe on that stuff
and go after that stuff, so the Jews began to persecute these
Christians, and Paul was the chief ringleader of them all,
and he was zealous, and he'll even tell us he was zealous more
than anybody else about it, and he was going out and he was rounding
up all these Christians, and they were bringing them back
to Jerusalem, trying them and killing them, throwing them in
prison, taking all their stuff away from them, and Paul said,
I did this and I persecuted and wasted it. Now listen, you can't
get more bad than that. Here was a man that was going
out and killing God's people. Man, I would think that that
guy would be too far to be saved. I would think that that guy was
beyond help, beyond mercy, beyond grace. You can't do nothing to
this guy. Listen, this guy is so steeped in Jewish religion. This guy is so steeped as a Pharisee
in that old covenant law and that old twisted form of the
covenant. This guy is so twisted in all
the father's traditions, or their father's traditions, that this
guy's beyond saving. Look at him. He's so callous
that he's going out and killing Christians. And yet we think just because
this person over here is bad, or doesn't do like we like, or
has done this or done that, listen guys, you can't get much worse
than killing God's people. Persecuting Christ himself, he
said. We'll see here in a minute. But yet God saved him. See, that's
irresistible grace. See, we don't think God should
save somebody like that. It's not really that we don't
think God can save, see. We always will say that, well,
I don't think God can save somebody that bad, when in actuality,
in our heart, we're like, I don't think God should save somebody
bad things that they've done, how horrible of a person they've
done, especially whenever that might have been something personal
to me, that God, that person's done something to me, you know? So you can imagine whenever Paul,
being who he was, came in view of Christ, look at verse 14,
it said, and profited in the Jews religion above many my equals
in my own nation." He said, I was a Jew above every Jew. Listen,
I was the shining boy of the Jews religion. He said, being
more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. Listen,
he wasn't doing it out of spite. He was doing it out of zeal.
He loved it. He thought it was great. Hey,
I'm doing this for my God. But look what he says in verse
15, and thank God, brother, that this Word is here. But, three
letters, most of the time don't mean much to us, but whenever
you're reading through Scripture and you see what we've just seen
before, how wicked and evil and treacherous and murderous and
conniving and deceived Paul was, Saul was, for there to be this
interjection, but it reminds me, just kind of hold your place
there. I'm going to kind of get off track here just a bit, but
it kind of reminds me of, I believe it's, Oh, here it is. It's in Ephesians
chapter 2. This is what this reminds me
of here. And we see the same word being used. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 says,
And you have he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Listen, if you're dead in trespasses
and sins, there ain't no way for you to get yourself out,
right? Can you raise yourself from the dead? Has anybody raised
themselves from the dead except for Jesus? Has anybody raised
themselves from the dead? Nobody. Huh? Ephesians chapter
2 verse 1. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1.
It said, and you have he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins. That means that was it. You're stuck in trespasses and
sins. If you're dead in trespasses
and sins, there's nothing you can do to get out of it because
you surely can't raise yourself or heal yourself from it. He
says, where in time past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So
we, by nature, are children of disobedience. You say, well, I don't think
I'm a child of disobedience. I try to do what's right. I try
to follow the Ten Commandments. I try to keep the law. I try
to go to church all the time and do this and do that. And
I think you should teach y'all disobedience, because you know
why? You know what obedience is? What does obedience mean? It's kind of like you obey everything,
and you're like perfect, but nobody is perfect. Right. What
do you think it means? It means just to let people do
what? Do what? It means like to do
what the parents say or like to hate. Right. To obey. What
do you think it means? Well, I kind of know what it
means because it's in the Bible. St. John verse 20, it says to
always obey your parents. Right, you're always to obey. Well, so yeah, obedience is to
do what you're told. OK, that's basically it, right? But the Bible says that obedience
or adherence to the law what you're told, that you are to
do everything that you are told, always, and if you ever not do
it one time, then you've broken every law, and you're now a transgressor,
or a trespasser, as it says here, a trespasser, and a sinner. So if you have even done one
sin, you're now guilty before God. And even that one sin, let's
just say it was just one sin. You did it before God. That one
sin now qualifies you for the full wrath of God. Not just the
partial wrath of God, but the full wrath of God. Because you
have missed the standard of righteousness. That's what God requires, is
righteousness. He doesn't require a good try,
good efforts. You're not gonna get an E for
effort A for trying to do the best that you can. No, it's either
you do it all or you don't do it. So that's why I'm saying
we're the children of disobedience because we are trying to keep
the law and we're not keeping it, therefore we are continually
in a state of disobedience because we're trying to keep something
that we never can keep. And instead of trusting in Christ
Jesus and what He has done, we're trying to trust in our own righteousness
to exceed or to do the righteousness that only God looks at. We're
trying to make our righteousness be equal to that of Christ. And
Christ said that's not going to happen. We're trying to let our righteousness
be what God says, well done, good and faithful servant, but
our righteousness can never attain to that because we are corrupt
people. We cannot keep the law 100%,
100% of the time. You have already entered into
this world as sinners and there's nothing you can do about that.
Therefore, you are hopeless and without any kind of help outside
of Christ. You have no hope of being saved
outside of Christ. His righteousness is the only
righteousness that God accepts. Therefore, you continue to be
a child of disobedience unless God intervenes and gives you
salvation. God has to be merciful and gracious
to give it to you, otherwise you can't do anything to get
it. And that's what he's saying here. In times past, we walked
according to the course of this world, according to the lust
of our flesh, as the children of disobedience, verse 3, among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath. meaning that we're wrathful
towards God. We don't like the God of Scripture. Listen, I can tell you right
now, some of y'all may not realize this because you probably, I
don't want to be presumptive, but I can just tell you, you
preach the true gospel, God has before the foundation
of the world predestined everything, or you preach that God has elected
some to salvation and others not to salvation, You preach
that Jesus didn't die for everybody and that God doesn't love everybody.
You preach that, which the Bible does, but you preach that, you
will be hated by church people. You won't be necessarily much
hated by the world. The world don't really care.
But you will be hated by religious people. You will be shunned. You will be hated, ridiculed,
made fun of, and he said, We were by nature children of wrath,
even as others, but here it is, verse four, but God, but God, who is rich in mercy
and for his great love where he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, have asked you if he can quicken
you. Is that what it says? You might want to follow along
a little closer. He has quickened. God has quickened, but he didn't
ask you if he can quicken you. He didn't ask you if he could
save you. He didn't give you a choice whether or not he could
save you. He did it. When you were dead
in trespasses and sins and a God-hater rebellious, a child of disobedience,
God looked at you, if you're His child, if you're His little
children, He looked at you through all of the sin, and the evil,
and the rebellion, and the hardness, and the deadness, and the self-righteousness,
in everything that you are in your corrupt nature, and in love
gave you grace and quickened you." Meaning He gave you spiritual
life that you did not have, that you could not earn, that you
could not buy, that you could not find anywhere because it
comes from above. It is not of this world. It is
not of this earth. It is not in natural man. It
is a gift of God and that gift comes down from the Father of
Lights who is the Father of all good gifts. It comes down from
Him and that gift of quickening brings you into the understanding
and the knowledge, not only of your sinfulness and inability
before God for righteousness, but it brings you into the glorious
understanding and knowledge that Christ was your righteousness
for you and He's given it to you You evil person, you sinful
person, you God-hating person, He's given that righteousness
to your account. So when God looks at you, as
evil as you are, as wicked as you are, as depraved as you are,
God only sees Christ's righteousness. That's why those two words are
amazing. But God. See, if it wasn't for
but God, We would still be walking in the course of this world after
the lusts of our flesh and the deadness of our sin and trespasses
in the nature of our first father, Adam. But God, that's irresistible
grace. That's irresistible grace. Whenever
you hear us talk about irresistible grace, it is that there's people
out there that wants to come, but God says, no, you can't come,
because there is nobody that wants to come. That's the problem. It isn't God saying, now, oh,
wait a minute, you're not one of my elect, so I can't let you
come. Even though you want to come, I'm not going to let you
come. That's how some people believe our doctrine, what our
doctrine is preaching. That's not what we're preaching.
We're preaching there is none that wants to come. There is
none that's seeking after God, no, not one. Nobody. Because all of us are dead in
trespasses and sin. Nobody cares. Nobody wants it.
They want religion, but they don't want God. They don't want
Christ. They don't want a righteousness done for them because they feel
that they have a righteousness of their own. They've not been
given to see their inability before God. But then there's
some that say, Will you be able to tell me that there's people
out there that don't want to come to Christ, but he's going
to drag them anyway? Well, let me ask you. Go to any person who you think
is a true child of God and ask them, are you mad that God saved
you? Are you upset that God quickened you without your permission?
Are you upset that God has taken wrath away and giving you heaven against
your will? I don't know one person that
would say, yeah, actually I'm a little tipped about it. Matter
of fact, I'm pretty sad that I'm gonna have to do that. I
don't think anybody's done that. Why? Why is nobody mad because
God saved them against their will? Because God changed their
heart. The Bible says that his children
shall be made willing. People shall be willing in the
day of His power. Whenever His power overcomes
them and exerts upon them and gives them spiritual life, the
power to raise them from spiritual death to spiritual life, whenever
they're given spiritual life, they no longer think, I don't
want that. I do want that. They no longer
see themselves as, hey, I can make it on my own. I cannot make
it. I need Christ. And then they
look to Christ and Christ alone. They trust in Christ. They realize
that God is predestined to everything and working it according to His
purpose for His glory and that it's all about Christ's glory
and not our glory. It's all about Christ and who
He is and not us. See, salvation out in these other
churches is all about making us important. It's all about
you. And don't take my word for it.
Turn on the radio, turn on the TV, open up a book, go to any
Christian bookstore and walk down the aisles and what are
you going to see? It's all about you, you, you, you, you. How
to be a better person, how to do this, how to do that, how
to accomplish this, how to be more spiritual, how to be more
evangelistic, how to be this. It's all about you. And then
you get into the pulpits and you hear everything about, you
need to get out and do this and do this, come to church and give
your time, do this and pray, read your Bible, memorize your
verses, love your brothers and sisters. It's all about do, do,
do, do. All this stuff is about you doing
something. But brethren, the gospel is a
declaration of what Christ has done. And what Christ has done
is the but God part. The but God part is God intervening
in a child who is a child of disobedience and is depraved
and is evil and is wicked and undeserving of God's love or
redemption or heaven and God giving it to him anyway. Not because of anything the children
had done, whether they had done anything good or bad, because
before the children were even born, having done anything good
or bad, God's choice of one and not the other was determined
upon His purpose, which is election. God's purpose for the foundation
of the world, to glorify Himself in showing all of His creation
His grace and mercy, and you can't have great... Listen, if
God gives salvation to everybody, Would that be grace? No, because
everybody has it. If grace is something that is
default before the foundation of the world, then everybody
will have it and then that's not grace, that's just everybody's
already got it. Grace is God showing something
to somebody who doesn't deserve it and giving it to them. But see, for God to glorify himself
We also learn, as the Bible has revealed, God also is a God of
wrath. He is a God of justice. He is
a God of holiness. And how do you show the glory
of His wrath and justice and holiness, if there is not sin,
to judge and to have wrath upon? So therefore, as God has said
in Romans, He has made one vessel for honor, He has made another
vessel for dishonor. One to show His glory in the
salvation and the redemption out of wickedness, and the other
to show for those who are wicked that God is merciless in His
judgment. and His righteousness, that God
doesn't wink at that. He doesn't let it slide. Nobody's
going to slip by. Not one sin is going to go unnoticed. God knows every sin, and every
sin is accounted for. And so Paul here experienced
the but God. Look back in Galatians. It says
in verse 15, But when it pleased God, You notice that? It said, but
when it pleased God. Paul didn't say, but whenever
I made up my mind. Paul didn't say, but whenever
I made a decision. Whenever we say, just as I am,
or, you know, wherever he leads, I'll go. Or whenever we say,
I have decided to follow Jesus. No, he said, but when it pleased
God. My people will be willing in
the day of my power. When will they be made willing?
When will they come to the understanding? When will they love Christ? When
will they love the gospel? When will they repent of their
wrong thinking about my righteousness comes from me trying to do all
this stuff? When will they repent of sin? When will they hate themselves
and bury themselves in dusted ashes and mourn over their own
rebelliousness and know their inability? When will they know
that? In the day of my power. And here, Paul uses the phrase,
but when it pleased God. See, there was a specific time,
there was a specific point So that tells me that from the time
that Paul was born until the time that Paul was coming to
this conversion experience on the road to Damascus, that this
point was a point that was set by God. It was determined by
God that this point would be the point in which God would
do something for Paul that Paul didn't deserve, but would do
something for Paul that would change the whole course of Paul's
life, that would change the whole course of Paul, everything. And
it was his pleasure, not Paul's. Paul didn't volunteer for this.
He didn't go to seminary to learn how to do it. Paul didn't have
a mother and a father that raised him up and told him this is how
you need to be or influenced him enough to make him do that.
They didn't have no influence on him. No, it was whenever it
pleased God. So that also tells me that from
the time that Paul was born until the time that this happened,
God had predestined that Paul walked through everything that
he'd walked through. God had ordained that Paul grow
up in a household under Jewish traditions. God ordained that
Paul would walk in false religion and zealousness to the Father's
traditions. God ordained that he would become
zealous in killing the Christians. God ordained that Paul would
experience and walk through everything that Paul walked through clear
up to this point. and beyond, but up to this point
was God's specific purpose for Paul. And I look back on a lot
of us and the testimonies that we have, like mine, I grew up
under an Arminian system of teaching that teaches that we have a free
will and a free choice, and that God loves everybody and that
Christ died for everybody, and that it's up to us to choose
whether or not we want to accept Christ or deny him, and that's
up to our free choice. I grew up underneath a system
that taught that. But God had purpose and design
for me to come through the family that I came up under, the church
that I came up under, the denomination that I was in, the influence
that I had around me, and to even put me into a quote-unquote
ministry that was going out and spreading that false gospel.
God had a purpose in it. And listen, I was zealous. I
can say just like Paul, I was zealous in what I was doing.
I really thought that I was serving that God. But I was serving the
God of my own imagination. I was serving the God, not of
the Scriptures, but of a God of the Southern Baptists. I was
serving a God that is not the God of Scripture, who is a God
that is predestined to all things. He has sent His Son to save His
people, and saved His people He did, And not one of them will
be lost. And that grace is free grace. Paul said this came whenever
it pleased God at a specific time. Listen, the stuff I preach
and teach right now, I did not love. I did not hate. And listen,
my family doesn't love it. They don't love it. They hate
it. They kick against it. They defend against it. But listen,
I hated it too. Probably a lot of it was because
I heard what my family said about it. But whenever the time came
that God was pleased to show something to me, to show His
Son in me, there wasn't nothing that I could do about it. I couldn't
change what God had put in my heart. I couldn't change what
God had caused me to believe. I can't change what God... I can change my mind about a
lot of things, but I cannot change the inherent person that I am
on the inside that God has shown something. I can't change that. And Paul was the same way. He
said, listen, I was so zealous for all that other stuff, but
when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb. That
right there is an important phrase. I could preach on that for a
long time. God separated Paul before his womb. Listen, Paul
didn't have a choice in all this. God had already done this before
Paul was even born. Had chosen this route for Paul
before he was even born. Did Paul have a say-so in it?
No. Just like you don't have a say-so
in your salvation either. It's by grace. But when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace, to reveal His Son in me." See, He revealed Christ
in Paul. When Christ is revealed in us,
it's whenever that makes the difference. "...to reveal His
Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen. Immediately
I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem
to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and
returned again unto Damascus, Then after three years I went
up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him 15 days. And so here we see the account
of Paul. Now, turn if you would to Acts chapter 8, because I
want you to see, excuse me, Acts chapter 9. I want you to see
a couple more things here before I conclude. Now this is the account of the
Apostle Paul. Luke is writing this in the book
of the Acts. This is what happened. Saul. That's Paul, remember, before
he was converted. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. Acts chapter 9,
verse 1. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings
and slaughters against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high
priest and desired of him letters to demand to the synagogue that
if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women,
He might bring them bound unto Jerusalem." Now, look, He's bringing
them bound unto Jerusalem, but look at verse 1. He said, "...breathing
out threatenings and slaughter." So yes, Paul was killing these.
Matter of fact, just, I think it was the chapter before, chapter
7, the Apostle Stephen, or excuse me, the Deacon Stephen, the Evangelist
Stephen, was stoned to death. And the Bible says that they
all laid their coats as they went to stone Stephen to death. They all laid their coats at
the feet of the apostle Paul or Saul of Tarsus. It was Saul
who had sent them there and brought him out, tried him in front of
the people, and they all stoned Stephen to death, killed him.
So yes, Paul did kill the Christians. He wasn't just rounding them
up, throwing them in jail. They were killing them. And he
says here, he said, and as he journeyed, he came near to Damascus,
and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Now, Paul is hearing a voice. And obviously, he's probably
realizing if this voice is coming out of heaven, this must be God.
This is the person that I've been serving. This is the person
I'm going to round up the people that are against him. I'm going
to kill him. At least that's what Paul's thinking, right?
And all of a sudden, this voice says, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Paul said, who art
thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus
whom thou persecutest. Whenever Paul was killing those
Christians, he was persecuting Christ. He said, and it is hard
for thee to kick against the pricks. Now, that's the kind
of terminology we don't hardly use today, at least in the vernacular
that is used here. This word here is this word pricks
here. It's talking about those things
kind of like spurs, but it's the things that you have on ox
Never, whenever you're working cattle and stuff and they're
just little spikes, whenever those cattle get a little rumbuxious,
you can pull on those spikes and those goats would keep them,
they would keep them walking and keep them going just like
on a horse. You're walking on, getting a horse and you're wanting
that horse to go a little bit faster, you got them spurs and kick them
spurs in that thing, getting it to go. It's to cause something
to get to going really fast or to, head in the direction that
you wanted to head in. And so that's what that is. Another term for that you might
hear is the word goads. That's what those little spikes
are called, the goads. He said, it is hard for thee
to kick against the pricks. That was a common saying. Whenever
an ox would start kicking against the pricks or the goads that
was coming against it, all he was doing whenever he was kicking
against that was causing it to shove into him even more. It
was even more making him do what he was being told to do. And
here the Lord is saying, why persecuteth thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecuteth. He said, it is hard for thee
to kick against the prairie. He said, you keep coming and
persecuting me and it's just making it more tough on you. It's making it rougher for you.
And he trembling, astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have
me to do? And the Lord said unto him, arise
and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do."
Now, here, not one time did the Lord ask Paul, what do you want
to do? Would you like to be a preacher, Paul? Would you like to be an
apostle? Hey, I got an opening for a Gentile apostle. Would
you like to fill that position? Well, if you would, send in your
resume to me. Let me know what seminary you went to and let
me know what training you've had and how many hours of service
you've had, and we'll consider your thing. And then once we
consider your resume, then, We'll discuss your salary." No, that's
not going to happen, right? It said, And the man which journeyed
with him stood speechless, hearing no voice, but seeing no man.
And Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened,
he saw no man, but they led him by the hand and brought him into
Damascus. And he was three days without
sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain
disciple at Damascus named Ananias, And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here,
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the street
which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul of Tarsus. And behold, he prayeth, and hath
seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting
his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias
answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man How much
evil he hath done to thy saints, said Jerusalem. So Ananias is
saying, wait a minute, Lord. You want me to go pray over this
man? This man, we've heard all about this guy. This guy's been
coming down and killing all of us. Rounding us up, taking us
to Jerusalem and killing us. And you want me to go? He'll
end, make him sin. Verse 14. And here he hath authority
from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But
the Lord said unto him, now pay close attention to what he says
here. Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me. See, God was the one who did
the choosing. Paul didn't choose this line of ministry. Paul didn't
choose to be saved. Paul didn't choose to be converted. Paul didn't choose to be put
into the apostleship or to be put on the evangelistic trail
to go out to all these Gentile nations. Paul wasn't the one
who signed up to go get persecuted. Beat. The Bible says that he
was beat many times with a cat of nine tails. Y'all know what
a cat of nine tails is? It's the same thing that they
beat Jesus with before they put him on the cross. It's a whip. It's got nine leather leather
straps that come down on it, and on the ends of those straps,
they either have glass or sharp bones on that, and they slash
your back and around your gut, and it just rips your flesh off.
And they beat you to that 40 times. They give you 40 lashes.
So basically, whenever you're done, you're dead. It's ripped
all your meat off, you can see bones. Well, Paul had that happen
to him, I think, three times, he said, he was beaten with a
catamount of it. The Bible says that he was shipwrecked
and was in the sea for several days. In the ocean. The Bible
says that he was thrown in prison multiple times. Did Paul sign
up for that? Did Paul say, hey, sign me up
for that one, I want that one. I want that job. You know? No. Paul was a chosen vessel. God
chose that. See, it's not about your will.
It's not about your decision. It's God. He said, go thy way
for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the
Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. See, that was determined
all beforehand. Listen, God is telling Ananias
this before he even tells Saul this. Saul don't even know this,
but he's telling Ananias, hey, you're gonna go tell this guy
who's been trying to kill you, by the way. You're gonna tell
him that he's a chosen vessel unto me and he's gonna be my
preacher to the Gentiles and he's gonna stand before kings
and the children of Israel. It don't sound like as much the
children of Israel part because he's a child of Israel, right?
But remember, he was their darling boy going out to persecute the
Christians. Now he's about to switch sides
and go out and preach Jesus to the Gentiles. He's preaching
Jesus. That's one strike. He's preaching
to the Gentiles. That's two strikes. And three,
he's denied the faith. according to them. So now he's
going to stand not only before kings, but he's going to stand
before his own people that in their eyes is a betrayer, is
a traitor, is a blasphemer. So yeah, Paul didn't sign up
for this, brother. It was chosen for him. He said,
for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my
name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered into the
house and putting his hands on him said, brother Saul, The Lord,
even Jesus, that's who he was talking to on the road, that's
who Ananias heard from whenever the voice came from heaven. Even
Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath
sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with
the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes, Paul's
eyes, as it had been, scales, and he received sight forthwith
and arose and was baptized. And when he had received me,
he was strengthened. Then was solved certain days
with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway
he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God." And straightway, that means immediately.
After all this transpired, Paul went and Ananias healed his side,
fed him, And then he stayed there a certain number of days with
the disciples in Damascus, and then straightway he preached
Christ in the synagogue, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
He was killing everybody who said Jesus was the Son of God.
He was now preaching to those people that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God. It didn't take him long. He didn't
have to go to school. He didn't have to sit under a
tutor. He didn't have to sit under another preacher. to tell
him what to believe. How in the world did Paul go
from being a hater and a despiser and ignorant of the things of
God to all of a sudden standing up before his own peers and saying,
we had this all wrong, that is the Son of God, and begin to
preach Christ in these synagogues. Remember the synagogue, this
was the place where they went to worship and to be taught,
to be preached. He went before the teachers of
the law and to tell them Jesus is the Son of God. And He did that within a short
time. He didn't have to have, you know, a degree or Master's
of Theology or anything like that. No. What was it? Would
it please God to reveal His Son in me? That's what changed everything. That's how we know anything.
That's how we understand everything. But Saul, excuse me, but all
that heard him were amazed and said, Is not this He that destroyed
them which called on His name in Jerusalem and came hither
for the intent that He might bring them bound unto the chief
priests? But Saul increased them more in strength and confounded
the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving this is very Christ."
Brethren, listen. Grace is irresistible. It cannot
be stopped, and whenever it does, come to a child of grace, they
don't need anybody or anything to tell them the truth. They
don't need somebody to preach to them all the time and they
have to get it all down in their mind. No, if it's something that
you've got to get all down in your mind and it hasn't really
been taught to you, you've only just memorized it. You're parroting it. I used to
parrot things all the time. All the preachers that I used
to love to listen to, I parroted all their little slogans, all
their little things, all their little theologies, you know. I used to parrot that. It made me sound smart when I
wasn't smart. It made me sound studious when
I wasn't studious. It made me sound sanctimonious
when I wasn't sanctimonious. It made me sound like I knew
something when I didn't know something. But whenever a child of grace
is revealed Christ, and Christ is his teacher, and the Holy
Spirit is revealing Christ, more and more as we grow in the grace
and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we begin to learn
truth in the inner man and not in the outward wisdom of man.
But so much of the wisdom of man in the outward way is being
preached today And that's why we have these differences in
doctrine and why we have some people saying, oh yeah, I'm preaching
out of the Bible. I'm preaching the gospel. Jesus
died, was buried, and was resurrected on the third day. I believe in
the Lord. I believe in the resurrection. I believe that He's coming again.
But what does that mean? What's intended
in all that? How did it happen? See, that's
where we get off track in some cases. People begin to say, well,
Jesus died for everybody. God loves everybody. Because
they're taking the things of the wisdom of man and the knowledge
of man, and they're looking at the Scriptures, which are spiritual
words for spiritual people. And they're trying to apply carnal
reasoning, carnal knowledge to it. But brother, whenever the
Lord is revealed unto us, it's an irresistible thing. He begins
to teach His children. He begins to show His children.
They begin to believe on Him. They begin to walk in faith,
trusting Him, and it's something that they cannot stop and they
cannot do, nor would they want to, because they've been made
willing in the day of His power. All right, everybody got any
questions? Come in. Yes, sir. So about the thing about the
grace. About the what? The thing about
the grace. When He said, if everybody has
it, it's not really grace, but if not many people have it, it's
grace. So it's like, you chose either
everybody's chosen or a few people's chosen. And for a few people
it's chosen, that's great, but when everybody's chosen, it's
just like everybody has it. It doesn't really mean anything.
It's like a few people have it, it's rare. Everybody have it,
it's like common. Exactly. That's exactly right,
Andrew. Out of the mouth, babe. Sorry it took me so long to say.
It's alright. It's alright. Alright, anybody
else got anything? Father, we come to you again
thanking you for all that you are and all that you've done.
Lord, we pray that you'd be with the Phillips this morning and
that you might heal them and their sickness. We thank you,
Lord, for the way that you've taken care of all of us here
through all the sicknesses that we've had coming through our
house. Lord, thank you for all the time that you've given us
the opportunity to meet. We're glad today that the weather
that came in last night wasn't so bad that we couldn't get out
this morning. We pray, Lord, that you would
guide us and direct us throughout this week. We know that you've
got a lot of snow and ice that's supposed to be coming in this
week. May you keep everybody safe. And Lord, we ask that more
than anything, though, that you help us to grow in the grace
and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray
that you'd be with us in those things that are spiritual, because
these things that are carnal or temporal are going to soon
vanish away. But Lord, we do thank you for
all the spiritual things that you've given to us in Christ
Jesus. Thank you again for this day.
Lord, we cannot say thank you enough for the grace and the
mercy that's in Christ Jesus, salvation that comes through
him. We thank you, Father, that despite the fact that we are
no different than anybody else and deserve everything that the
wicked will receive. Father, you have given us your
mercy and your grace and your salvation through Christ. And
Lord, we just want to praise you, glorify you. And we know
that it's nothing within us that deserves that, but you've given
it to us freely. So thank you once again, and
may we never be I'm tired of hearing that message of the finished
work of Christ on our behalf. In Jesus Christ's name, we pray
these things. Amen.