I've been talking about faith
for many weeks now. No man has faith of himself. Last week I talked with you about
all men have not faith. That is saving faith. Remember
I talked to you about pouring cereal in a bowl. You didn't
question this morning at breakfast whether it was poison or not.
You just got a box out. You had no idea where it was
even made. And by faith you poured that into the bowl and then got
some milk. You had no idea what that cow
ate before that milk was produced. You had faith. You just did it.
You came in and sat in a chair. You had faith. But when the Apostle
Paul says, all men have not faith, he's talking about saving faith.
You don't have the kind of faith that saves you from condemnation
and saves you from your sins and saves from hell and reconciles
you to God. Faith is the gift of God. Faith is not your conniving something
up to believe something. Faith didn't come from you. Faith
came from outside of you. It's the gift of God. That's
how shut up we are to God saving us and we not saving ourselves. We can't do it. We just can't
do it. It's the operation of the Spirit.
And to go a step further, if you have saving faith, it's because
you are the elect of God. I mean, God chose you. God put a difference between
you and actually other people. You ought to be grateful. People
hate that verse in Romans, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I
hated, but you can't erase it out of there. It's there. And
to think about this. Out of all the people in the
world, God chose you. That's a great mystery and a
great wonder that God has set his affections upon you. It's the faith of God's elect. That's what the Bible calls this
saving faith. Christ's sheep, none but his
sheep have this faith. And my question last week to
you was not are you a Baptist, a Catholic or a Methodist? When
I ask you, do you have faith, and you say, I'm of the Catholic
faith, or the Methodist faith, or the Baptist, or the Presbyterian
faith, that's not what I'm talking about. That's religion. I'm talking
about faith that Jesus Christ died in your room, in your stead,
took your place, and bare your sins in His own body on the tree,
and you have trusted Him and Him alone. That's saving faith. It embraces Jesus Christ alone. Now, in the book of Acts, chapter
15, I think I'll begin reading with verse 5. But there rose
up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed. Now,
Pharisees, as you know, were the self-righteous brand of religion
of that day. They had Scripture written on
their sleeves and the hymns of their garments. They were just
a self-righteous sect. Believers of the law. That through law works was the
way you get to God and through circumcision. So, in this little
church that was just springing up, this youthful church of the
Lord Jesus Christ that was springing up, some folks who believed were
still hanging on to Phariseeism, saying that it was needful to
circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
And the apostles and elders came together for to consider this
matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up
and said unto them, Men and brethren, you know how that a good while
ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth,
should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did
unto us Jews, and put no difference between us and them, watch it
now, this is what I want to talk to you about, purifying their
hearts by faith. How's a Jew saved? By grace through
faith. How's a Gentile saved? By grace
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's always been one
way of salvation. The Bible is a hymn book, spelled
H-I-M. People were not saved in the
Old Testament one way, saved in between the Testaments another
way, and then in the New Testament saved another way. It's always
been through the blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. All of those goats, all of those
sheep, all of those bullocks that were offered up in the Old
Testament was an index finger pointing to the Lamb of God that
was to come and die in the sinner's room, stead and place. And it
was faith. Faith is a works killer. Somebody's sitting right here
right now thinking, you know, is he saying that you're not
saved by the Ten Commandments? That's right. And aren't you
glad? Because you don't have memorized. You don't even know
the Ten Commandments by memory and you're hanging on to that
for salvation. Amen. So the apostle Peter said, God
purified their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why tempt ye
God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? In other words, Moses
didn't keep the law. Abraham didn't keep the law.
What is needful for all of us is for a law keeper to come into
the world, a perfect one who's able to keep the law, walk the
Judean acres, One who knows no sin, has no sin, has no sinful
thoughts. A law keeper. And of course,
that was God in the flesh, Emmanuel. God tabernacled among us. Look at verse 11, But we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be
saved, even as they, then all the multitude, kept their silence.
I like that. And the audience gave attention
to what the preacher was saying. The Pharisees violently opposed
the gospel. Wherever the apostles went, the
Jews who believed not moved with envy and stirred up the people
against them. They just could not endure to
hear of salvation of the Gentiles by grace through faith. You see,
they, the Pharisees, were children of the bondwoman that's talked
about in the book of Galatians, Hagar. Hagar represented the
law. And she had a son, Ishmael. And he was born in the ordinary
way. His birth was not a miracle is
what I'm saying. Abraham slept with Hagar and she had a son,
Ishmael. Listen, God doesn't need your
help. When you try to help God, it always makes a mess. Sarah
said, you know, old man, you're a hundred years old, you don't
have any power. You're impotent. And God's promised us a baby,
and it doesn't look like it's going to happen, and I'm nearly
a hundred myself. So here's what we need to do
to help God out. And they tried to help God, and
now we have an Ishmael. We're still living with the problems
between the Ishmael and the Isaacs in the Middle East. They still
hate each other. And when Paul tells that story
in the book of Galatians, he says, what needs to happen, and
this is what God said to Abraham, cast out the bondwoman and her
son, because they don't get along. If you're a salvation by grace
person, and you on this side are a salvation by law person,
I guarantee you, you salvation by law people aren't going to
like it in here today. We just don't get along. Because
we say it's by sovereign grace. It's by grace alone. It's not
by words. Right? That's what we say. And
so, I'm ever on guard. I'm ever on guard. When you read
the text, you find out that there were some of these Pharisees
that made a profession of faith in Christ. They got into the
church, and then they started pounding this Pharisee doctrine. And it caused a mess. And they
had this big conference to decide whether salvation was by law
and works, or it was by grace through faith alone. So that's
what's going on here. I'm ever on guard here. I like
things to be kind of out of order. You know what I mean? You don't
know what to expect when you come here. We may sing one song or I may
get up and preach without any singing. I've done that many
times. Some of you have been here. I
just walked in, walked in the pulpit and started preaching.
That kind of throws you off. We're not an Easter Sunday crowd
here. Every day is the Lord's Day. You know, we just don't
celebrate days and fall into that ritualistic, what I call
funeral music stuff. Church ought to be a happy place.
He's alive. And there's no condemnation to
those who are in Christ Jesus. And don't try to put me in bondage
and under law. Don't give me rules and regulations
and all that stuff. I know some of you are thinking
right now about that. And honestly, the young church
would have gone under and the gospel would have been lost had
it not been for God's sovereignty preserving the church, because
all of us are salvation by work, people by nature. We are by nature. I'm not talking
about the new nature now. But when God borns you again,
He gives you a new nature. And that nature loves grace. I mean, it's just received. When
the preacher says we were elected before the foundation of the
world, people go, grace people go like this. That's true. I
know if God hadn't picked me out, I'd still be down in Lodibar. Grace people say that. But self-righteous
people go, that's not right. It's not right for God to, you
know, choose a prostitute using drugs down there in the hood.
And God predetermined to save her. That's exactly what the
Bible says, that God loved us. Before we were formed in our...
I'm about to get happy by myself here. That God loved us before
He started forming us in our mother's belly. You are not an
accident. You say, well, I don't even know
who my real daddy was. Your real daddy is God Almighty. That's God's grace. So here,
we wouldn't have a crowd here if I preached. that you had to
be good enough to be saved, because, I mean, this church is really
one messed up group. We're only sinners saved by the
grace of God here, right? That's what we are. So I guard
against that spirit of legalism. That's what a shepherd should
do. No, no, no, you're not going to teach that here. No, we don't
believe that here. People often say to me, are you
full of gospel? Full and running over. Full and running over. I know
what they're asking. Do you have this gift and that
gift? Listen, I have the gift, which is Jesus Christ. I have
the unspeakable gift. God's unspeakable gift. You see,
here we believe Christ is A-double-L. Christ is all and that we are
Complete in Jesus Christ. So we don't permit a single letter
to be added to His perfect law of liberty. Don't bring me under
bondage. Jesus has set me free. I don't serve Him out of a legalistic
desire to try to get favor. I serve Him because I love Him.
And I love Him because He first loved me. I need to get the order
right. So at the great council in Jerusalem,
they were meeting and having discussions over this thing of
grace and how God saved Cornelius and his household. And the apostle
Peter talks about the God who knows the heart. I love that
verse where it says purifying their hearts by faith, but verse
eight says, and God, which knoweth the heart, bear them witness. In other words, God bear witness
that they had this saving faith, because He gave it to them, and
they received the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. It really probably
should be translated Spirit, because some of you, when you
hear Ghost, you think of Casper. This is not Casper. This is the
third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of Christ. That's the spirit that indwells
the little believer. And by the way, just so you know,
it's the spirit that wrote this book. And he didn't write about
you being saved through law-keeping. The whole Old Testament, it moves
along like this. Somebody's coming. Somebody's
coming. You get over in the New Testament,
somebody's here. Somebody died. Somebody got out
of the grave. Somebody went to heaven to make
intercession for us. Somebody's coming back again.
That's what the book says. It's really not important for
you to know what's the shortest verse of the Bible, or what's
the middle verse of the Bible, or what's the longest verse of
the Bible. The key to the Bible is Jesus
Christ. That's the key to the Scriptures. Apostle Peter said, Cornelius,
who was a Gentile, his heart was purified by faith. He hadn't
been circumcised. He was not of the circumcision.
It was by faith alone. So my first point is simply this. The agent of this purifying was
by faith. There was nothing but faith in
the case of Cornelius. It was faith born of hearing. Just think about that. Of hearing
and then resting alone on Jesus. Think what could happen today.
You came in here, maybe a Pharisee. Or maybe just a no-good-for-nothing
junkie. Maybe a cast out. I don't know
what your position is. But I do know this. Faith comes
by hearing. And I'm going to scream it out
today. And I pray you hear. hearing by the Word of God. You
see, faith cometh. Faith cometh. You don't have
it. Faith comes. It's a work of God. And what
a miracle it is. Your heart could be purified
today. I mean, just like that, while
I'm speaking right now. Your heart could be purified
instantly. That's why church is so exciting
to me. Right now, somebody could be born of the Spirit of God.
Isn't that something? The person next to you. That person who's wandered in
off the streets. Today, you may never have been in church until
you got over to Grace Centers of Hope, and now here you are
because they made you come in order to keep your bed. But
here you is. You know, many times I've read
about revivals. In the day of Whitfield, some
mischievous boys went in to egg him. They were going to throw
eggs at him when he was preaching in a crowd. It was in the open
air. And Whitfield would preach to thousands of people in the
open field. And these boys were going to
egg him. And they got there for the mischievous purpose. But
before they could egg him, God saved them. You believe stories like that?
I know that happens. Spurgeon went in to test. I read this
while I was on vacation. Spurgeon went in to test an auditorium
that would seat 25,000 people. And he was going to test the
acoustics in there. And he said he didn't know a guy was underneath
some chairs in the balcony fixing them, working on them. And Spurgeon
said, Behold, the Lamb of God, the taker of the way, the Son
of the Word. And just like that, God zapped that guy under that
chair. That was his testimony. I know you're thinking, that's
crazy talk. But I'm telling you, God has a hound dog that's a
good retriever. He'll sniff you out and find
you and bring you to Jesus Christ. What a great thing that is. So
as they preached, as the Apostle Peter preached the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the power of God was present
and the centurion and his family believed the testimony. wrought
by the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't that be wonderful if
that happens today? I hope it happens to 20 of you, or 30 of
you, or 40 of you in here today. That's where we're headed. We're
saved. I believe this. God is not preparing
us to go over there and, you know, have seating for 700 and
we just kind of settle down. Oh no. I hope in a couple of
years here, We have to build a new auditorium because we're
having 5,000. I don't like that three services
thing, but maybe we could have, you know, maybe we could build
a new auditorium or something. That's the way you ought to think.
We haven't come together to absorb information like sponges. We're
here to proclaim the gospel. Somebody get saved. Somebody
hear it in the Holy Spirit, drop on this place and grant saving
faith. Let me just clear this up real
quick. Not baptism. It is not, there is a fountain
filled with water drawn from the city, Maine. It is, there
is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty
stains. How many of you were baptized when you were a baby?
Or you were told that? Look at that. At least a hundred
of you in here. Well, it didn't do any good. Obviously, it didn't take. Because when you got old enough,
you stuck out your tongue at your mother and told her to shut
up. So I wouldn't be counting on
that sprinkling water on your head when you didn't even know
about it. All that did was aggravate you and wake you up and make
you mad and you cried during church. Some of you get that? It's not baptism. Yeah, that's probably right.
In other words, water doesn't cut it. It's not water. It's the blood of Jesus Christ.
Don't be looking for pure hearts within yourselves before you
come to Christ by faith. See, some of you right now are
thinking, I don't know whether I understand what he's saying.
I hope I can make it plain today because If I don't make it plain
today and the Spirit of God is not here, you're going to think
that you have to produce something. If you get your head stuck in
your belly button, you're going to be in trouble. Because there's
nothing inside of you that makes you virtuous or you're going
to find to bring to God. It's not that you're not empty,
you're full of it. And there's none of it good.
Is that right? It's only when you see yourself
full of mess and helpless and hopeless and by faith, lean on
Jesus Christ and Him alone. You know, if you look within
yourself, you look for the blackness. It's alright to see that. See
the disorder. See the loathsomeness of self
and mourn it and then look away to the Lord Jesus.