Will you turn in your Bibles,
please, to Paul's letter to the Church of Ephesus as we resume
our studies in what we commonly call the Book of Ephesians, more
properly, the letter to the Ephesian Church. We must never forget
that these epistles are just that, letters sent to real churches
living in a real world with real sin, with a real Savior, and
with very real needs to be instructed and exhorted and admonished in
the truth of God's Word. And so they come with perennial
freshness to real churches, living in the real world, for the objects
of the real influences of the real God, and who seek to bring
praise to that God in their generation. Will you follow as I read Ephesians
2, verses 1 to 10? And you did he make alive when
you were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prints
of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in
the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also once lived in
the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the
rest. But God, being rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ,
by grace have ye been saved, and raised us up with Him, and
made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace
have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, that no man should glory. For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God aforeprepared, that we should walk in them. Convinced of the truth of our
Lord, who said man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, it is our concern
to return to a careful, verse-by-verse, phrase-by-phrase exposition and
application of this portion of the Word, because it is by this
means that the life imparted is developed And it is by this
means that those who have no life will come to life in the
sovereign power and will of God. We began a consideration of this
second chapter of Ephesians back at the beginning of the summer
and then broke into it, awaiting the fall. And so it is necessary
this morning, very briefly, to give a broad overview of what
we have in these first two chapters, and then proceed to our consideration
of verse four. I would remind you that chapter
one is the chapter which has as its focus of concern a hymn
of praise to the Triune God, verses three to fourteen, and
a prayer for spiritual illumination, verse fifteen to the end. Divisions
of thought, praise to God for His great salvation, prayer for
the Spirit's work in illumination that the saints might understand
more of their rich inheritance. And when you find that there
is little praise upon your lips, there is little prayer in your
heart, may I encourage you to take with you into the place
of prayer and praise Ephesians chapter 1. meditate upon the
great truth set forth, and if this, by the blessing of the
Spirit, will not warm your heart to praise and prayer, I doubt
that anything will. As chapter one has two main divisions
of thought, praise and prayer, so chapter two has two main divisions
of thought. If chapter one has as its concern
prayer and praise, chapter two is the chapter of the great contrast. Here in chapter two we have two
great contrasts set before us. Contrast number one is found
in the verses which I read in your hearing. In verses 1 to
10, the apostles contrast what the Ephesians were as individuals
before and after the grace of God came to them. The verse,
the word upon which the whole thought of this paragraph hinges,
is verse 4, verse 1, the first word of verse 4. But, and from
the but onward to the end of verse 10, is the contrast, what
they were, verses 1 to 3, what they became, verses 4 to 10. And then the remainder of the
chapter, verse 11 through verse 22, is a contrast between what
they were as a collective body before and after the grace of
God came to them. Verses 11 and 12 tell what they
were as Gentiles, and then the key word, verse 13, but now. And then there is this wonderful
contrast as he speaks of them incorporated into the body of
Christ. And in both cases, the Apostle
ranges beyond a mere description of the Ephesians, and he includes
himself and all men. who have come under the power
of God's grace and within the orbit of His saving influence
in this chapter of great contrast. Now, why is the Apostle giving
these contrasts? Is he simply theologizing? Is
he simply concerned with giving theological statements? Of course
not. He's a missionary. He's a church
planter. He has the heart of a pastor.
And the great concerns of his pastoral heart break forth beginning
with chapter 4 and verse 1 to the end of the chapter where
he touches on every facet of human experience and interpersonal
relationships And he longs to do so within a thoroughly Christian
perspective. But the apostle knows that the
method of God in stirring up his people to godliness is, first
of all, to bring them to an appreciation of what they have in grace. And
our zeal for godliness will be in direct proportion to our appreciation
of grace. If there is something lacking
in our zeal for godliness, it is because there is something
waning in our appreciation of grace. And the way we are stirred
up afresh to new pursuits of godliness is to discover new
dimensions of grace. And so the apostle who is concerned
that the Ephesians be stirred up to godliness begins by, as
it were, fanning the fires of appreciation for the grace of
God. And few things are more calculated
to increase our appreciation of grace than to set in vivid
contrast what we were by nature, what we now are by the grace
of God. Now then, addressing ourselves
more particularly then to that first paragraph, we have studied
together verses one to three, the before picture. Some of you
have seen advertisements for a certain diet program, and they
show this big fat glubbery woman in the before picture, and this
very svelte, trim, attractive, prim, madam in the second picture. And over the one will be written
before, and over the one will be written the after. Well, the
apostle is giving us a before and an after contrast. The before,
verses 1 to 3, he laid out their true condition. They were dead. Nothing less than the concept
of spiritual death will describe the desperate nature of man's
plight as a sinner. He's sick, he's blind, he's deaf,
yes, but he is dead. And so the apostle describes
the true condition as one of death. Then secondly, he describes
the activity of men who are in that condition. He speaks of
their walking, of their doing, of their fulfilling, and he describes
the sphere of their activity. It's the realm of trespasses
and sins. He describes the standard for
that activity, the world, the spiritual power behind it, the
prince of the powers of the air, the devil himself. He describes
their conscious motive, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind. That's the activity of the spiritually
dead. And then he closes that before
picture by describing their true position before God. They are
children of wrath. Their condition, they are dead. Their activity, they walk according
to the world, the flesh, and the devil, their position before
God, they are under wrath. Now then, we move from this succinct,
this compacted, yet comprehensive statement of man by nature to
this amazing description beginning with verse four of what man is
once the grace of God has come to him. If the apostle had concluded
the letter at the end of verse three, he would have said nothing
that was not true nor just. This is an accurate description
of man dead, bound, guilty, and marked for judgment. And if anything
is to follow, we will have to move into a totally new orbit
of perspective. Up till now, we've been dealing
with the facts of what man has brought upon himself because
of sin. We are dealing with man's condition
as he is by nature. We are dealing with his relationship
to God on the basis of justice. He is a child of wrath. Therefore,
if anything is to usher in a contrast, we will have to move out of the
orbit of nature, out of the realm of justice and into a totally
new sphere. And you will notice when you
begin reading in verse four, the contrast is so vivid, so
marked, that only a fool can miss it. We are now in the orbit
of love, of mercy, of grace, of divine workmanship, and the
mighty work of God in redeeming sinners. And everything hinges
upon that little word, but. That's the door that opens up
a totally new perspective before our spiritual vision. But God,
being rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together
with Christ. The thing that strikes one as
there is meditation upon this verse, that this is not a case
in which you have the darkest night before the beginning of
the dawn, but you move from that darkest night into noonday. There is this bleak, black, dark,
foreboding picture, man in his sin, dead, bound by his lust. The closing note was that of
the wrath of God, and immediately, we're ushered into richness of
mercy, greatness of love, the power of grace, the exceeding
richness of grace and of kindness. From the darkest night with no
ray of hope, nothing but gloom and the foreboding clouds of
divine judgment, suddenly it's high noon without a cloud in
the sky. and the child of God is pictured
as basking in the warm sunlight of divine favor, spread before
him are the trees which grace has planted, loaded with the
luscious fruits of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And the great question that should
come to us is, what makes the difference? How do we move from
verses one to three into the glory of verses four to ten. And so the first thing the apostle
is concerned to do is to show us who is the author of this
great transformation. And he does so in the words,
but God. In the second place, he is concerned
to show us the reason for such action on the part of God. And
he says, rich in mercy, that is what he is in himself, and
then what he acted toward us, for his great love wherewith
he loved us. The author of the change is God.
The reason for that change lies not in man, but in God, what
he is and what he exercised toward us. And then he tells us the
method of effecting this change. How does it come about? And he
says it comes about by quickening us with Christ, by raising us
up with Christ, by seeding us in the heavenlies with Christ.
The change comes about by some strange yet wonderful relationship
established between the dead sinner and the living Christ.
Then in the fourth place he gives us the reason for this great
change, verse 7. that in the ages to come he might
show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus. That's the heart of his argument,
telling us first of all the author of the transformation, the reason
for his action, the method by which he brought about the change
the reason for the change, and then in verses 8 to 10, in case
you've missed the message, he gives a summary and a recapitulation
of the whole. For, this is what I'm teaching
you, he says, by grace have ye been saved through faith in that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created in
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that
we should walk in them. Well, in short, that's the teaching
of the after. We've looked at the before. Man's
condition, dead. His activity, that five-fold
activity that we studied in detail, his position, he's under wrath.
Now, in the after, we have the author of the change. We have
the reasons for the change, we have the method by which the
change was brought about, the goal for which it was brought
about, and then a wonderful summary of the whole. I trust you'll
retain the general structure of his argument in your mind.
Now then, this morning, we shall only have time to deal with the
first of those concerns, the author of this great transformation. And will you look carefully at
your Bibles and engage in a little exercise in English grammar with
me? Because the apostle is concerned
that we should understand at the outset, if we miss everything
else, that the author of this change is God himself, it is
God alone. Notice how he does it. But God,
and then immediately he tells us something about God, not about
us. Being rich in mercy, something
that God did, he loved us. For his great love wherewith
he loved us, God who took full recognition of what we were,
even when we were dead, there was nothing we could contribute
to the activity, we were dead, made us alive together with Christ,
raised us up with Him, made us to sit with Him. Then verse 10,
we are His workmanship. If you'll omit some of those
qualifying, some of those modifying clauses, you would have your
basic sentence this way, But God, leaving out the being rich
in mercy, His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were
dead, and where is your main verb? Made us alive. So the apostle is bringing into
the sharpest of focus possible, it is God who took dead sinners
and made them alive. It is God who took those who
were walking according to the course of the world and brought
them into a new course. It is God who took those who
were the slaves of the devil and liberated them. It is God
who has entered into the picture and wrought the great transaction. It is God because of the richness
of His mercy. It is God because of the greatness
of His love. It is God because of the exceeding
riches of His grace. who has wrought this great transformation,
and so the pervasive emphasis of this entire section, verses
4 to 10, is upon the mighty, the gracious, the powerful, but
the exclusive activity of the mighty God in working this work
of grace. Now, why is the apostle so concerned
at the outset? In the very first strokes of
his pen, as he would draw the picture of the after, we've looked
at the before, we look at the after. Why is he so concerned
that the Ephesians and we understand that the author of this transformation
is God himself and God alone? You'll notice in verses four
to seven, he omits any reference to the means God uses. There's
nothing about the gospel. No one ever is transformed without
the gospel, but he doesn't mention the gospel in verses 4 to 7.
He doesn't mention the human instrument, the preacher. He
doesn't mention the instrumental means, faith. He doesn't mention
anything of man in verses 4 to 7. It's all of God. You won't
find man mentioned there in terms of man's activity. But God, rich
in mercy because of his love, This God has quickened us. This God has raised us up. This
God has seated us. And if you've missed the message,
he says, I'll use a passive verb, by grace ye have been saved. Something has been done to you.
Now why is the apostle so concerned? Is it again that he's simply
being tacky about theological matters? No. The apostle knows. that there are few truths more
calculated to produce genuine godliness than is this truth
of the aloneness of God in our salvation. For you see, as the
Apostle gives this emphasis upon God's activity, he introduces
the word grace. He's teaching us that synonymous
terms are these, all of God, All of grace, all of grace, all
of God. And those two concepts stand
or fall together. The moment you understand grace
as involving something that resides in man, it's no longer grace.
And when you think of salvation, all of God, you're thinking all
of grace, all of grace, all of God. Now the apostle, I say,
is concerned about this at the outset by the introduction of
these two words, but God, and the rest of the passage is simply
a detailed explanation of what he means. But God, his concern
is practical, and I wish to be practical this morning. Let me
suggest in the first place that there are no people, there is
no people so full of praise as those who understand that salvation
is all of grace and all of God. There is no people so full of
praise as that people, those people, who understand that salvation
is all of grace and all of God. Look at the Pharisees. He knows
nothing of praise to God. He stands, according to our Lord
in Luke 18.11, and says thus to himself, I thank thee, God,
I am not as other men. I fast, I tithe, etc. He is not
giving thanks to God. He is really saying, I thank
me. The scripture says he said, I thank thee. But in reality
he is saying, I thank me. And if I'm speaking to someone
this morning whose whole understanding of Christianity is bound up in
a list of externals, you don't do this, you do that, you perform
the other thing, and you've never seen yourself as one fitting
the description of verses 1 to 3. dead, a slave of the world
and of the devil, bound by your sin, by nature a child of wrath. My friend, you didn't praise
God for a second this morning. If you have the heart of a Pharisee,
you have a heart devoid of true praise. In the second place,
if you have the heart of one who is a poorly instructed Christian,
who thinks that you contributed something to the transformation,
then your praise is crippled. Some who are true Christians,
who in their hearts acknowledge Christ is all, have some kinks
in their head, and they think that their faith was a contribution
to their salvation. They do not recognize that their
faith was a grace given. They think that their repentance
was a contribution to their salvation. It's a problem in their heads.
They have the root of the matter in their hearts, but they've
got some kinks in their head. Well, you see, praise involves
not only the activity of the heart, but of the head. When
you praise God, your mind frames, your tongue frames words that
your mind dictates. And therefore, if a man's mind
is telling him, I can praise God for the gift of His Son,
I can praise God for sending the Gospel to me, but I cannot
really praise Him that it was God's activity that quickened
the dead sinner. It was God that gave me life
that I might believe. You see, his praise is hampered
to the extent that his head has got kinks in it with reference
to his salvation being all of God. But the person who has come
to understand I was dead, I was a slave, I was under wrath, but
now it is no longer true of me. And he asks the question, why,
how come? And he comes to Ephesians 2,
4, but God, and he is content to say in those two words lies
the whole of the answer. I was dead, but God gave me life. I was walking according to the
course of this world, but God brought me into the kingdom of
His own dear Son. I was by nature a child of wrath,
but God has brought me under the canopy of His grace and His
forgiveness. You see, the well-instructed
Christian, when he tries to ask the question, Why am I no longer
in the state described in verses 1 to 3? Why am I a child of God? He finds all the logic of his
answer in God. All the logic of the answer resides
in God. But God, it's because of who
He is and what He has done that I am no longer in that terrible
condition described in verses 1 to 3. He's able to sing without
tongue in cheek the song we sang this morning, Praise My Soul,
the King of Heaven. To His feet thy tribute bring. What tribute? the tribute of
praise, of worship, of adoration, of abandonment, ransom, healed,
restored, forgiven. Who, like me, his praise should
sing? Praise him! Praise him! Praise him! Praise him! The God, the King of everlasting
grace. Do you see the folly then of
trying to pump up praise from God's people by the gestures
and the pressures of the personality of the song leader? Do you see
how utterly stupid it is, let alone to say irreligious? Can
you imagine coming into the Ephesian assembly after an elder had read
this epistle and the saints of God in all probability said,
Elder So-and-so, read that part over again, read that over again.
And he reads carefully the description You being dead, walking according
to the course of His Word, under the power of sin, children of
wrath by nature, but God! Can you imagine someone having
to stand up and say at the end of the reading an explanation
of that, and now everybody, let's really let it rip! And then when
the people sang half-heartedly, say, oh, come on, that's really...
You see the profanation of what truth is. How in God's name did
that foolishness ever enter the sanctuary of God? I'll tell you
when it enters. When man began to lose an understanding
of salvation, it's all of God. When these Ephesian Christians
heard and understood by the illumination of the Spirit that it was God
and God alone that had wrought the change, they could not help
but cry out in the words of the hymn we've sung this morning,
Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven. Oh, the tragedy of seeing people
trying to manipulate the mood of a meeting in order to somehow
pump up praise from God's people. True praise is the result of
the great truth of salvation by grace alone, salvation by
God alone, being brought home to the mind with light by the
power of the Spirit, and then being brought home to the heart
in the power of that same Spirit. And that truth then will loosen
the tongue, will fill the lungs with air, And we'll force that
air over the vocal cords to sing praise to the God of grace. And oh dear people, as we face
this coming year of ministry and life together as a congregation,
generally thinking of the fall as the beginning of a new church
year, what does God want from His gathered people in this place
Sunday by Sunday? You've heard it so many times,
maybe you've begun to grow nauseous at the hearing of it again, but
it bears repetition. We are building together, Peter
says, to be an habitation of God through the Spirit. To do
what? To offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable unto God. The Church is not merely a gathering
to hear the exposition of the Word. It is a gathering of God's
people in whose midst God dwells in order to receive praise from
His people. And our praise will be full of
life and vigor and God-honoring content only so far as there
is kept pulsing within our breast the awareness that salvation
is all of grace and all We might do well to read Ephesians 2,
1 to 3 every Lord's Day morning, or at least periodically, and
say, that's what I was, and yet here am I going up to a place
of worship today. Why? Because of verse 4. But God has done something. But in the second place, this
recognition will not only find its blessed fruit in making us
a praising people, there are none so graced with true humility
as those who understand the truth of salvation by grace in their
hearts. Someone has called humility the
queen of all the other graces. In our Lord's teaching in the
Beatitude, it's the first pearl in the necklace of those graces
called the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And what is humility? Is it not
basically the conscious awareness coupled with all the fruits that
that awareness will bring in my walk before God and men? The conscious awareness that
I am a creature utterly dependent upon God for everything. I am
a sinner utterly unworthy of all that has come to me in the
way of grace. Isn't that humility? It doesn't mean a man goes around
like this. It means that he acknowledges, I'm creature, not creator. I'm
not a little dot. I'm a creature. In him I live
and move and have my being. The very breath I draw, I draw
according to his own sovereign good pleasure. He giveth to all
life and breath and all things. Then I realize in addition to
being a creature, I'm a sinner. And if I am no longer under a
canopy of wrath under which I was by nature, if I am no longer
walking according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the powers of the air, the spirit that works in the
sons of disobedience, if I am no longer living simply to gratify
the things willed of the flesh and of the mind, there is one
reason, but God! God has intervened. Not have
I gotten but what I received. Grace has bestowed it and I have
believed. boasting excluded, pride I abase,
I'm only a sinner saved by grace. And isn't it interesting that
the Apostle never lost sight of that practical implication.
Look at chapter 4 and verse 1. When he comes to specific exhortation
of a practical nature, notice where he begins. I therefore
the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthily of the calling
wherewith ye were called And what's the first grace that he
underscores as indicative of a worthy walk? With all loneliness. The first grace he underscores
is the grace of humility. And nothing, I say, is more calculated
to produce the grace of humility than an understanding wrought
of the Spirit and kept alive by the present ministry of the
Spirit. not a mere intellectual perception
and confession, but a present awareness. I could sit here this
morning justly under a canopy of wrath and have no claim upon
God. If I sit here under a canopy
of mercy, it's because of grace and grace alone. I say, dear
people, that awareness clothes the spirit with a Christ-like
humility. And oh, how necessary that is,
for again the Pharisee, he knows nothing of humility. He doesn't
know his place as a man or as a sinner. He thinks because he
had Jewish blood in his veins, he was inherently better as a
man. And because he has no Gentile blood, he thinks he stands above
all others. He is no defiled sinner. If I'm
speaking to someone this morning who in this place is utterly
devoid of the knowledge of your own corruption and sin, you know
nothing of humility. I don't care how diffident you
may appear in your outward demeanor. You're a proud rebel against
Almighty God. And again, the poorly instructed
Christian, he fails to grasp that salvation is all of grace
and therefore he cannot help but in some measure think, oh
I'm so glad that I decided, I'm so glad that I took Christ. Failing to recognize that his
deciding and his taking was what the fruit of God's mighty quickening
within. It's that person who understands
and is taught of God that all is of grace, that realizes how
can I strut How can I take any other posture before the God
of Heaven but that of a creature, looking to Him for all things,
rendering to Him praise for all things? How can I take any other
posture than that of a sinner, constantly aware, and carrying
with me to the end of my days that inward pain at the knowledge
that I have sinned against the God of Heaven? And even though
I'm forgiven, There's never a total eradication of the pain of the
awareness of what I am by nature. And then in our interaction with
one another, you see that's the practical element Paul has in
chapter 4, he says, Oh that you walk worthy with lowliness. Why? That there be no disruption in
the unity of the spirit. A church that confesses its faith
in the doctrines of free and sovereign grace, and yet is marked
by dissension, is a blatant contradiction. Because the scripture says, only
by pride cometh contention. And when does contention and
friction come in a congregation? When someone regards himself
better than another. My opinion is worth more than
yours! My particular inclination in
this issue is worth more than yours. Only by pride cometh contention,
the writer to the Proverbs tells us. And as God has been pleased
to give us so many years of blessed unity and peace and harmony as
a congregation, beloved, that peace and harmony will continue
only so long as the grace of humility pervades our hearts
and what better note on which to start this new year of ministry
and life together than the recognition but God. What is it that levels
us all so that you cannot assert yourself above me nor I above
you? It's the recognition that we
all stood together in verses one to three and by the grace
of God and the grace of God alone we stand together in verses 4
to 10, and if God has been pleased to call us and save us, if He
has freely accepted us in Christ, who are we to reject one another? Who are we to set ourselves up,
one above or against the other? Know the awareness that salvation
is all of God and all of grace is not only calculated to produce
the grace of praise for the grace of humility, and thirdly, none
will be so prayerful as those who understand this truth in
their hearts. These Ephesians were in the midst
of a world still full of people described in verses one to three.
Everywhere they turned in that pagan city of Ephesus, they saw
men whose activity was a monumental testimony to the fact they were
dead in their sins. Men who could see no further
than this world's standards, this world's goods, this world's
praise. Men whose depraved desires and
appetites were a constant monument of the power of the devil. As they think of living amongst
them, of being light and salt, what is their hope? Their hope
is in verse 4. But God! Why are you no longer
walking amongst them? only because God was pleased
to move forward in sovereign and almighty grace to rescue
you. And if He was pleased to do this
and seek you when you did not seek Him, may He not be pleased
to do it to others? You see, that's the logic of
an understanding of the doctrines of grace. They bring us to that
position where we cry mightily to God because we know that it's
God that makes the difference. We refuse merely to sprinkle
on dead men the perfume of a decision and an external religiosity. We refuse to be content with
taking dead sinners and merely trussing them up with the strings
of puppet-like control to make them say the right words in the
right place at the right time while they still are strangers
to God. We'll be content with nothing
less than that same work that God did in the vision with Ezekiel. That when he preached, life came
into dead bodies. Flesh covered them until the
dead stood and marched and walked as a mighty army. Oh dear ones,
as we begin a new year with ministry and witness, as we pray for God's
blessing upon the preaching ministry here in this place, As we plead
for His blessing upon those of you who go out house to house
in witness and in evangelism, what is our hope? We're going
to men who fit the description of verses 1 to 3 and any other
views less than biblical realism. They're dead! They're dead! They're in bondage to the devil!
They're enslaved to their own lust! What's our hope? But God, but God, And if that's
our hope, the proof that we believe it, is to be found in the impression
made upon the rug where we pray. By our knees, frequenting that
place, crying to God that He who alone can give life to the
dead would quicken sinners by His grace. And then last of all,
we'll understand something of this great truth introduced in
verse 4. that God alone is the author
of this transformation. It will not only grace us with
praise, humility, and prayerfulness, but none are so full of unshakable
confidence in the triumphs of grace as those who understand
this truth. You see, the note in Ephesians
2, 4-10 is the note not of the mere offers of grace. There is
a biblical truth involved. in the concept of the overtures
of grace, the appeal that comes to sinners in the gospel, but
verses four to ten are a description of the triumphs of grace, that
God quickly raised up, seated, saved. You see, those are words
of triumphant accomplishment. And so as the Ephesians face
the responsibility they have to their own generation, The
Apostle lays out those responsibilities further on in the Epistle. They
are to be a people marked by unshakable confidence that God's
hands are not tied by what man will do with God. You see, if
a person really believes what some unthinkingly say, God has
done all he can do for the salvation of man, and now it's up to them.
My friend, what kind of confidence can you have if your confidence
has to be in a creature described in verses 1 to 3? If the whole
issue of the triumphs or non-triumphs of grace depend upon man, look
at the creature upon which they depend! He's dead! You get a lot of accomplishment
from dead men. In bondage to the devil! A slave
to his own lust! Ah, but you see, when the person
comes to an understanding that it's God who is the author of
the change, he can afford the wonderful luxury of facing men
who are dead, bound, and condemned, and the unshakable conviction
that God will give life to some. But God, but God, when He deems
wise to intervene, Shall the deadness of the sinner tie his
hands? Shall the bondage of the sinner
drive God away in fear that the case is too great for him? No. It is the God who saves the vilest
and saves the most unlikely. It is the God who has great surprises
of grace. And isn't it amazing? that this
doctrine that men say is paralyzing. If you believe God does it all,
that'll paralyze you. My friend, listen, just do a
little reading of history, will you? The most energetic advancements
in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, by and large, almost without
exception, have come from individuals and movements that have believed
and loved and preached. What brought men to the bleak
shores of Indian land, and I'll call it the United States of
America, not knowing what they would find. It was people who
believed in the sense of destiny because they believed in the
God who did as he ruled, in the armies of heaven and earth, and
who held the hearts of all men in his hands. Historically, it can be demonstrated
that the greatest advancements, the most permanent contributions
to the history and life of the Christian Church have come from
those who are absolutely convinced that the difference is in those
two words, but God. My friends, we are not indifferent
to the terrible plight of our nation morally, to some of the
foreboding clouds economically, to the great problems of our
society. We are not indifferent. God doesn't
call us to be stoics, to be some kind of monkish creature that
withdraws from the real world. But oh, my friend, our confidence
for the advancement of the gospel in our generation rests not upon
an affluent American economy, rests not upon any social conditions. I hope they don't in your mind.
Everyone says, well, we'll have the great bust. Some of us were
born in the midst of the last great bust and we're alive to
talk about it. And some of us thank God for
those years of penny pinching and scraping for what it did
in our characters. Things that our affluence had
never done. My friend, the thing you should fear is not a great
economic bust. The thing you should fear is
that God would not be pleased to put forth His eye. The thing
you should fear is shrinking unbelief. the powers and shivers
before every hobgoblin that comes before us. What a denial of God. Oh, what a confident people we
should be. Not confident in ourselves, but
confident in the God who has laid hold of us. A God who has,
in the latter part of this very paragraph, He has works which
He before ordained that we should walk in them, and all hell cannot
keep us from walking in them. Who knows what those lurks may
be for the coming year. Maybe this will be the year when
God will lend the heavens and come down. And you think we have
problems now? Maybe God will just bust Him
so loose that we'll have to have six services a day to accommodate
the people. You say you're a dreamer? Well,
God could do that. Couldn't He? Couldn't He? Oh, what a people we should be
marked by holy confidence. Not in ourselves! You see, if
anything depends upon me, the foundation for confidence is
shattered. But when it all depends upon
the arm of the Almighty, oh, what a ground for confidence.
May God find us in these coming days, a people who understand
what we shall be looking at in great detail in the coming weeks,
this contrast with God. Who is the author of that change?
God alone. God alone. And as we come to
a fuller understanding of it and a more sensitive appropriation
of it to our hearts and minds, let us plead that it may in turn
produce in us those graces of thanksgiving, of praise, of humility,
of prayerfulness, and of unshakable confidence in the purposes of
our God. We have visitors amongst us and
we're so glad to have you, some of you students and others. And
I'm fully aware that many of you have had your minds prejudiced
against certain aspects of God's truth, but I hope they've been
served up in such a way today that you've said, why in the
world would anybody fight such teaching? Salvation, all of grace
that produces such holy graces, oh may God help us all to bow
before the authority of this blessed book and to walk in the
light of His own precious truth. Let us pray.