State of what land has favored
of the skies, and yet what land so vile, what land has favored
of the skies, and yet what land so vile have changed the last
our truths divine for error guilt and shame what impious numbers
bold in sin disgrace the name What impious numbers bold in
sin Disgrace the Christian name Regardless of thy smile or frown
Their pleasures they require And sing with gay indifference
down to everlasting fire. And sink with gay indifference
down to everlasting fire. O turn us, turn us, mighty Lord,
by thy resistless grace. Then shall our hearts obey thy
word and humbly seek thy face. Then shall our hearts obey thy
word and humbly seek thy face. Then should insulting foes invade,
we shall not sink in fear. Secure a never failing aid if
God our God is near. Secure a never failing aid if
God our God is near. Well, that's definitely the truth
of the United States and definitely a prayer that we should be praying
that God would turn the hearts of our people back to Him. All right, does anybody have
a hymn that you'd like to sing in any of the hymn books before
we finish our song of service? Can we do 203? 203 in the old
school? 203 in the old school. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand When darkness seems to hide his face I rest
on his unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale My anchor
holds within the veil On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other
ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. His oath, His covenant, His blood
support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When He shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in Him be found, Dressed in His righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Anybody else got one? Why don't you go ahead and be
turning to Genesis chapter two. Genesis chapter two. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Our gracious heavenly father,
we come to you this morning Lord, asking for mercy and for grace,
asking for help today in our worship. Lord, we truly need
your presence among us today. Without your help, all we are
flesh, flesh can profit nothing. So Lord, we need the spirit to
come and to aid us, to give us the enabling, not only to preach,
but to hear, to understand, to learn. Father, we pray that our
worship as you have said in your word, would be in spirit and
in truth, not only from our hearts with the right motives, but Father,
according to your doctrine, according to your word that you've given
us and revealed to us by the spirit, taught us in our heart
by the spirit. Father, Lord, we pray that it
might be edifying to your people. We pray, Lord, today it might
be pleasing to you and glorifying to Christ. Lord, we ask now that
you would aid us in our preaching. Lord, that you might help me
today. Lord, in my infirmities and in my inadequacies, Lord,
I pray that you would just speak to your people. And Lord, I ask,
Lord, that you be with those who are sick today. And we pray
for those that we've been praying for that have surgeries and for
sicknesses. Lord, we just ask that you continue
to minister to their needs as you will Lord, we ask that you
just be with them, comfort them, be with those who are taking
care of them, Lord, that you might also be with them, strengthen
them, Lord. We pray for our members that
are not here. We ask, Lord, that you would just continue to minister
and work in their heart, that you might convict them and you
might draw them back to you and to this church. Father, we pray,
Lord, that you just might be with us now. Christ might be
glorified in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, as I mentioned last week,
we were going to possibly move into continuing in our study
on baptism, the ordinance of baptism. We pretty much finished
what we were going to talk about as far as the ordinance of water
baptism immersion. I had told you that at the end
of that, we are going to look at some misconceptions about
baptism, especially Holy Spirit baptism and how that relates
to water baptism and some passages in the scriptures that a lot
of people use to declare either a second work of grace or a fuller
work of grace, which is erroneous. Or they use these verses to talk
about being born again, about quickening, about being born
from above, the new birth. And they say that this Holy Spirit
baptism is the new birth. That also is erroneous. And I
believe the scriptures bear that out. But I also mentioned to
you that I'm still doing some study on that. by God's providence this week,
I really didn't have a whole lot of time to do any studying.
I was gone away from home last week and this week quite a bit
and my mind just wasn't able to get to a place where I was
ready to begin preaching on the subject. Lord willing, that will
take place next week. I'm pretty close to being done.
There's a few more things that I would like to draw out in our
messages, and I don't want to just kind of be poking at it.
I was telling Laura this morning, I don't want to just kind of
jab at it. You know, I'd like to really thoroughly discuss
it, preach on what the Bible talks about, so that we understand
the biblical understanding of it and not, because I'm sure
you guys, just like me and everybody listening and watching, have
been influenced by theological books by theological men who
take the Word of God from creeds and confessions and things like
that, instead of the Bible itself. And sometimes we find if we look
to the Bible and try to pull ourselves away from those things
that have been written down by men, you know, and I'm not against
these things, and yes, men have confessed what they have believed,
over the years and everything, and there is nothing new under
the sun, but yet we must understand that those who believe the truth
are a very finite group. It's a very small group of people. We are a remnant of people, and
what's taught in the majority, sometimes we need to take a look
at and see whether or not these things be true according to the
scripture. So with that being said, the
baptism of the Holy Spirit is another one of these things that
I think has been influenced, and I use this term, the New Testament church, meaning
those of us who hold to the doctrines of Christ, the sovereign grace,
free grace of God, those who hold to the ordinances, baptism
in the Lord's Supper, according to the pattern of Christ in the
New Testament. Whenever we hold to these things, a lot of
us have come from churches that have been influenced by Protestant
teaching, and this Protestant teaching influenced by Catholic
teaching. A lot of us have been influenced
by Catholic teaching that have come out of the Catholic church.
Some of us may have come from Protestant churches, some of
us come from Baptist churches who continue to mimic or to parrot
what they hear from Protestant teaching. And we got to understand
that while there is a lot of good in some of the Protestant
teaching, there is also a lot of error in the Protestant teaching.
That a lot of that stuff was influenced and came from their
coming out of the Catholic church. And so there's a lot of things
that has infiltrated churches and is even being carried over
into the Lord's churches, that sometimes we have to break that
shell, we have to break that misunderstanding of Scripture
and let the Scripture speak for us and not coming from the creeds
and confessions and the theologians. And so, that's what I hope to
preach on, Lord willing, starting next week. But this morning, and I'll confess
this morning, I was kind of, and yesterday was kind of, you
know, aghast that I wasn't ready. And so here I am this morning,
what am I gonna talk about? I was telling the Lord before
we left the house. You know, I don't know what I'm gonna preach
on. Don't have a clue what I'm gonna preach on, just hope that
the Lord will lead and guide into something this morning.
And so I was looking back through some notes that I take, you know,
I take my phone, my smartphone with me everywhere. And there's
a lot of times that I'll be studying my Bible whenever I'm at work
and I'm like sitting and waiting for a while or wherever I'm at,
you know, I'll be able to go over that. And sometimes some
thoughts and some things kind of percolate and I'll make some
notes of that and save it in my phone. And so I can go back
and look at that and maybe develop that into sermons and things
like that. Well, I was going back over a bunch of my notes
and everything, and I seen where we had studied on the doctrines
of grace several years ago, a few years ago, I guess it was. And
some things about the inability of man, and as I was reading
through those this morning and everything, it just, the Lord
kind of seemed to move me to talk about that in light of my
unpreparedness of the things that I had planned. But the Lord
had something different, I guess, this morning. So this morning
we are gonna talk about the spiritual inability of men, the spiritual
inability of men, and how the Bible overwhelmingly teaches
that man in his created state of the earth earthy, of flesh,
has no spiritual ability at all, none. You, me, and everyone else
upon the face of this earth does not have the ability to do anything
spiritual towards God. Every one of us, you, me, and
everyone upon the face of this earth, and has ever been on the
face of this earth, is conceived in sin. We are sinners. Guilty before God, having no
ability to keep God's law. Every one of us, man, woman,
and child, are guilty of transgressing a holy God. Every one of us,
man, woman, and child, deserve the full wrath of God in hellfire
and brimstone. The Bible says that God will
not acquit the guilty. God will not give mercy to the
wicked. There is only one way that you
become acquitted or made not guilty, and that is by God's
grace alone. If God chooses to give you grace,
then you will receive pardon and peace and a not guilty account,
and you will not have any wrath upon you. And so we are dependent
upon God for everything. Because we are sinners, because
we have a spiritual inability, the Bible says that we are dead
in trespasses and sins. We're dead, we cannot do anything. You can poke, you can prod, you
can scream, you can yell, you can whisper, you can invite,
you can offer, you can do everything you want to a dead person. That dead person will never ever
respond to you unless that dead person is given life. I mean,
you think about Lazarus in the tomb. His sisters were upset. His friends were upset and sad
that he had died. and they probably around that
tomb cried and weeped, mourning over his death, and probably
just would say, Lazarus, just come back to us, come back. I
mean, you've heard this. I've been at funerals and I've
seen, matter of fact, I've seen family members get up into the
casket and try to get them up out of the casket. You know,
I've seen some pretty odd things at funerals, talking to them as if they were
there. begging them, please come back to me, please come back
to me. But listen, there's nothing that's gonna bring that dead
person alive except someone who can give life. And that person
that gives life doesn't give life by asking you, the dead
person, do you want life? He gives it. Lazarus didn't ask
to be brought back alive. Lazarus didn't ask to be made
whole. Lazarus didn't ask to be brought
back. But God, because of His choice,
because of His purpose, because of His wise decree, because of
His glory, He brought Lazarus to life. The same with any of
us as far as the spiritual aspect is concerned. Not one of us can
do anything of our own to bring ourselves alive. None of us is
even wanting to be made alive. We may want to be religious,
but we don't truly want to be what the Bible says that we are.
Christ doesn't want the the God of the Bible we want what we
kind of this religious nice God that we know have in our head
but we have a spiritual in ability that goes for everyone in here
you do not have the ability to choose to be a Christian when
you want to choose to be a Christian you are either drawn by God and
given that or you're not And so our hope, our plea, our cry
to God is that you would be saved. But in and of ourselves, we don't
have that. And over the face of this earth today, there are
churches all over the place today preaching your ability to come
to God, your ability to choose Christ, your ability to accept
Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But brethren, listen, Our only
hope is in sovereign grace because we do not have the ability to.
Faith is not something that we can do apart from the new birth.
The new birth must be given to you before you could ever have
faith in Christ. There is nothing that you can
do until you are born again to please God. And we'll see that
according to the scriptures. In Genesis chapter two, if you
would this morning, look with me. at verse 16. It says, and the Lord
God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou
mayest eat, free to eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. And here's the
key word, for in the day, not if thou eatest thereof, but for
in the day, Thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So here from the very beginning,
not long after God created all things and made man, he made
man of the dust. He made man of the earth. He
made man flesh. He breathed life into flesh,
not spiritual life, but life. He breathed life. Matter of fact,
if you look at the creation of Adam, you'll see that he was
made a man before God even breathed life into him. He was already
a man, but yet he didn't have life in him. And God breathed
life into him. And what kind of life did God
breathe into Adam? He breathed natural life into
Adam. He didn't breathe spiritual life into Adam, he breathed natural
life. The Bible says in Corinthians
that he was made a natural man. And the Bible says that the natural
man cannot receive the things of the spirit of God for their
foolishness to him. And Adam thought it was foolish
that God would say, don't eat of this tree. And yet at the
later point in time, Adam said, you know what? I want to eat
of that tree. Why? Because he did not have anything
in him to keep him from following after the lust of his heart.
When temptation came, that lust was tickled. He followed after
the lust of his heart. Why? Because he did not have
the spirit of God to keep him from doing that. Could God have
stopped him from doing that? Absolutely he could have. Just
like he stopped Abimelech from laying with Sarah. He could have
done that, but he didn't. Why? Because God's purpose before
anything was ever created, was to create a world so that he
would glorify his son in the death of his son for the people
that God had elected and chosen before the foundation of the
world. So the very fact of that glory being that glory, God had
to create, or I didn't say had to, I guess he had to because
he declared it, but God chose to create a world that would
fall into sin and death because Christ would die for sin. Christ would die for his people
and their sin. And so that is a must. And so we see from the very get-go
that the inability of man was purposed by God for the glory
of God. You cannot choose to be saved. Why? Because God's glory demands
it. Why can you not be the arbiter
of your own fate? Why are you the one that cannot
choose Christ yourself? Because God will not share his
glory with anyone else. And the glory that he purposed
was the salvation of his people by his son, not by your choice,
not by your decision, not by your works. God chose before
the foundation of the world to glorify himself in the work of
Christ in salvation of a unredeemed people, of a people who needed
to be redeemed, of a people who were sinful, of a people who
were fallen, of a people who had an inability to be what God's
holiness and law demanded, and that was how he glorifies himself. And for that to take place, sin
and death has to enter in. And here God says to Adam, the
day that thou eatest thereof, the day that thou transgresseth
in this very thing that I'm telling you not to do, you shall surely
die. And dying he did. Why? Because
the Bible says the wages of sin is death. When Adam sinned against
God, death entered in the world and he began to die physically. And now that sin, is passed upon
that inability to keep God's law is passed on to all of us,
why? Because we are seeds of Adam.
We are of his loins, we are like him. Every seed has a seed in
itself and it reproduces after it's kind. Adam reproduced other
little Adams who had a natural nature. Why are you born with
a natural nature? had a natural nature. He could
not please God. The only thing that overcomes
the natural nature is whenever a nature from above is given
to you, a spiritual nature. That spiritual nature supersedes
the natural nature. It is something that is not of
ourselves. See, that's where a lot of people go wrong whenever
they teach about being born again. They think that we're being born
again, that it's that old nature being made new. No, the old nature
is not made new. The old nature stays that old
nature. You have a new nature. That's why the Bible says that
it is a new birth. That's why it calls it a new
creation. That it is born from above. It's
not born of this earth. The nature that we have here
is born of the earth, just like Adam, born of the earth. He was
brought forth of the earth with the elements of the earth. He'll
return to that. But the child of grace who's
born from above, that's another nature. and that nature has a
body waiting for it that is not of the earth. And it will not
go back to the earth. It will not fade away. It will
not return to dust. Adam returns to dust. And so
we have, from the very outset, an inability given us because
God's glory demands that. And I know that seems to be contradictory
to a lot of people, they say, Wait a minute, if God's holy,
you mean he is authorizing and he is declaring, he's decreeing,
he's predestinating that sin would happen? Absolutely, I am.
That's exactly what I'm saying. And if anybody has any questions
about that, that's it. That is exactly what I'm saying,
is that God predestined sin to take place. Yet God is not a
sinner. Nothing that God does is a sin.
For him to predestinate that sin and for men to be sinners
is not God being sinful. And I believe I have plenty of
scripture to back that up, and we won't go into that today.
But we see here that it was not God giving an ultimatum for Adam. Either don't eat or eat. If you
eat, this is gonna happen to you. No, God was telling, declaring
unto Adam. He was prophesying to Adam. He
was foretelling. Adam, exactly the plan that God
had for Adam. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the Lord
God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make
of him a helpmate. And out of the ground, the Lord
God formed every beast of the field and every fowl there, and
brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And
whosoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to the cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every
beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found
any help made for him. And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of
his ribs and closed up the flesh and stood thereof. And the rib
which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman, and
brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this now is now
bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife,
and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God
had made. And he said unto the woman, yea,
hath God said, ye shall not eat of the tree of the garden. And
the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the
tree of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, God said, ye shall not eat of it,
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now, that was not true.
God didn't say that they couldn't touch it. He said, don't eat
it. Then she said, lest ye die, and
that's not also what God said. He didn't say, Neither shall
ye touch it, lest ye die. He said that in the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the servant said unto
the woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in
the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She took the fruit thereof and
did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened. And they knew that they were
naked. And they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him,
where art thou? And he said, I heard the voice
in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself.
And he said, who told thee thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of
the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not
eat? And the man said, the woman who
thou gavest to me to be with me, she gave me of the tree and
I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
woman, what is that that thou hast done? And the woman said,
the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord said
unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of
thy life. And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman
he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall
rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree which I commanded thee, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
Thorns and thistles shall I bring forth to thee, and thou shalt
eat of the herb of the field, and the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it
was thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife Eve,
because she was the mother of all living. And Adam also, and
to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothed
them. And the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as
one of us, to no good and evil, and now lest he put forth his
hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent
him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from
whence he was taken. And he drove out the man and
he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and
a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of
the tree of life." Now notice, if you would, The consequence
that God made of the man after he disobeyed God was not make
him spiritually dead. The consequence that God made
is that he cursed the earth and he cursed man that he would have
to till the ground and woman that she would have, you know,
strenuous labor and that in sorrow she would conceive and give birth
and that man from there on would have to work hard that the earth
was no more going to just abundantly provide for them, that he was
going to have to till the ground. He's going to have to work the
ground to eat. And so the consequence that God
give them was not spiritual debt. They already had spiritual debt.
They already had no inability, no ability to keep God's law. Otherwise they could have kept
God's law. And that's not the case as we
see in scripture. So every man, every woman, every
child comes from this husband, this wife. Eve is the mother
of all the living. From Adam, from Eve, we all spring
in the natural way. Now there's a lot more to that
in the spiritual understanding of things too, but we'll reserve
that for another day. Look, if you would, at Genesis
chapter six, just not long after this very day. Well, I
say not long, there was quite a few, quite a few hundred years,
I guess it was. But look at Genesis chapter six
and verse five. This is God's estimation of the
people. Okay. You hear all these positive
things, you know, Joel Olsteen getting on TV. and talking about
how wonderful everybody is. Now really, brethren, the people
of God, God loves with an everlasting love. If you don't believe that,
read the Psalm of Solomon. If you don't believe that, read
several places in the Old Testament and in the New. But God loves
us, his people. But as far as the natural man
is concerned, as far as the creation is concerned, this is God's estimate
Verse five, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continued. Listen, if you're one of those
persons who think that there's a little good in everybody, you're
wrong. You're wrong. There is not a
little good in everybody. Matter of fact, apart from the
new birth, there is no good in you at all. None. No matter how, good, humanly
speaking, you might be. You know, a lot of people look
at Mother Teresa and all the good works that she did for orphans
and children and everybody. Guess what? All her deeds are
filthy rags in the sight of God. Look at all the good works that
people do in all these social places around, but yet, All them
deeds are not good in God's sights. Why? Because God isn't looking
at those things. Those things are coming from the flesh. They
profit nothing, absolutely nothing. Every thought, every imagination
of the thoughts of his part was only evil continually. Now, let that sink into you,
brethren, to me. Let us meditate upon that. Natural man, apart from being
born again, you want to think that you can do good works and
you want to think that your good works are going to outweigh your
bad works whenever you get to heaven, before God. You want to think that whenever
the judgment comes, you're going to stand up there and say, well,
I was a good guy. I didn't do this. I obeyed my parents. I,
you know, I did all the things I should do. I didn't drink.
I didn't smoke. I didn't chew. And I didn't go with the girls
that do. You think that that's going to
be what God judges you by? Because God, whenever he judges
you, apart from the work of Christ in you, this is what he sees. That every imagination, that means all your desires,
all your plans, all your want-tos, all your thoughts, are evil. And it doesn't say just evil,
it says only evil. So that means apart from the
new birth, you are only evil. That's how God considers you.
Only evil. Only evil. The natural man is only evil
continually. Now we all know what the word
continually means, right? That means always, every day, all
the time, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month
after month, year after year, your whole entire lifetime, the
natural man that springs from Adam, apart from the child of
grace who is born from above, the natural man is only evil
all the time. So guess what that means? There
is no good works that's going to go in the opposite side of
your scale. See, for those who want to judge, be judged as good
and evil. For those who want to go before
God and say, my good works outweigh my bad works. The thing is, is
in that scale, y'all seen those pictures of those old time scales
of justice, you know, You can see them in a lot of our imagery
in our court system and it shows a lady liberty and she's holding
some scales. Okay, those scales are equally
balanced where they stay equal. You put something in one side
and it goes down, this side goes up. Put something in this side,
this side goes down. If you have something that's
exactly the same, then it balances out like this, right? Well, there's
a lot of people, whenever they're going before God, thinks that
their good works are going to outweigh their bad works. So
all their good works are going to outweigh their bad works.
And so God's going to accept them because they had more good
works than they had bad works. Well, guess what? According to
what God said, that the natural man is only evil continually. There is absolutely nothing in
this side of the scales. But let's just say, let's just
make pretend, okay? Let's make pretend. And we are
making pretend because there's nothing good in us whatsoever,
right? But let's make pretend. Say you
do have good works. You know what's in the other
side of the scale from your good works? It's not your bad works. See, the judgment is not on good
works versus bad works. The scale of judgment here is,
if you wanna put up your good works, it's your good works versus
Christ's good works. See, Christ is the one in the
scale. His holiness, his righteousness, his justice is in this scale. It's not your bad works. So if
you wanna go to God with balancing scales, the opposite scale from
you is Jesus. So put all your good works you
want in that scale. Guess what? There is none righteous. No, not one. But yet Jesus Christ
is the righteous one. There is none who do good, but
Jesus is the good shepherd. He is the good son. He is the faithful. He is the
true. You, you're unfaithful. There
is no truth in you. You see where that gets you?
The scales are always gonna be this way. You are always gonna
be found in the balance and you are always gonna be found wanting.
You're never gonna have enough good works, even if good works
were accounted. But here's the thing, your good
works aren't counted because you have none. God saw the wickedness of man
was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. From Adam until the resurrection,
when Christ comes again, that is the course, that is the fact
of natural man. Every man, woman, and child that
comes into this world in their natural flesh, that is the case. We're silly to think that we
could do anything to please God or to do anything apart from
God's work in us. Turn with me, if you would, to
Job chapter 14. Job chapter 14. Job chapter 14. Look at verse 1. Man that is born of a woman is
of few days and full of trouble. I want to read you something.
Hold your place there. Ecclesiastes 2, 22. For what
hath man of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart
wherein he hath labored under the sun? For all his days are
sorrows and his travail grief. Yea, his heart taketh no rest
in the night. This is also vanity. There is
nothing better for man that he should eat and drink and that
he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also
I saw that it was from the hand of God. In verse 23, we see what
it's saying here back in Job. That all the days of man are
sorrow, and his travail grief, yea, his heart taketh no rest
in the night, and is all vanity. This is all vanity. Man that
is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh
forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow
and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes
upon such a one and bringest me into judgment with thee? Look,
here it is, verse four. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Not one. What's he saying there? He said, who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean thing? See, we're all made unclean.
Every one of us have been made unclean. Not worthy, not holy,
not righteous. Unable to keep God's law from
Adam on. Every one of us have been made
and we are made born in iniquity and unclean. We are unclean people,
apart from Christ. And he says, who can bring a
clean thing out of an unclean thing? And the answer is none. So do
you think that you can choose to become a Christian? Become
a clean thing? You who are unclean? Well, the
Bible says you can't, because no unclean thing can bring out
a clean thing. You don't have the ability to
better yourself. You don't have the ability to
bring yourself up to God's standard. You don't have the ability to
make yourself right before God. It is a divine ordered thing
that a clean thing cannot be brought from an unclean thing
by the person themselves, by the unclean thing themselves.
And you say, well, I don't know about that. Well, let's think
about it in physical terms, okay? Let's think about it in physical
terms. Say over the course of these
last few weeks, we had all this rain, okay? And I have my phone, or let's
just say my wallet, okay? Let me get my wallet out here. I got a dollar. And for the sake
of argument, let's pretend this dollar's clean, although it's
touched many hands, okay? But this dollar looks pretty
clean. Stiff, crisp, pretty nice, right? Put it in my pocket. There it is. I fall down in the
mud hole. when I get covered in mud. From
the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I am completely covered
in mud. Because the Bible said that the
heart, that man's thoughts of his hearts are only evil, continue,
that means he's full of evil. Everything is covered in evil,
right? So if I fall down, say I fall down in that mud hole,
and I'm completely covered in mud, there's not a dry, clean
spot on me because I'm completely muddy. I reach in and grab a clean thing
and try to pull a clean thing out. Can an unclean thing pull
out something that's clean? No, why? Why is that no longer
clean when I pulled it out? It's not hard. How come that will not be clean
anymore whenever I pull it out of my pocket? Because as soon as I touch it,
It's not dirty, right? Even if there was something clean
in you, you're completely dirty. So there can't be anything clean,
but let's just say there is. Say that you reach down inside
of you to pull out something clean. The moment you touch it,
so I pull it out and I drop that, not touching it other than that
one little bit. Boy, that just about went in my coffee. Then
it would have been dirty, huh? The moment I pull that thing
out and just if I hold it like that and lay it down, that thing
is no longer clean. It's got mud where my fingers
were. It's now not clean. So it's unclean. The Bible says if you're unclean
in one area, you're unclean in all of them. The Bible says that
if you have transgressed God in one command, you've broken
every command of God. So it doesn't matter if you do
a little bit, back to the scales again, it doesn't matter if you've
done a little bit of evil, but mostly good, because the Bible
says, if you've only done one thing wrong, you're guilty of
everything wrong. How many of you in here has ever
lied? Raise your hand if you've ever
lied. Everyone does, right? If you
didn't raise your hand, now you can because you just lied. Every
one of us has lied. How many of us has had bad thoughts?
How many of us in our mind has hated somebody? How many of us has looked at
something that somebody else has had and said, hey, I want
that. I want what they got. I mean, we've not even begun
to scratch the surface of the laws of God, and we've already,
every one of us has broken them. So we've committed four transgressions
of God's law just here among us. And the Bible says that if
you've only done one, you're guilty of every one of them.
Every one of them. You see how an unclean thing
can't bring forth a clean thing? Because everything that you touch
becomes unclean. If you try to make yourself clean
by religion, guess what you do? You make that which you're trying
to be religious in unclean. It's unclean. If you try to do
good works as an unclean person, guess what? That good work becomes
unclean. Everything that Sister Teresa
done when she put her unclean hands on it became unclean. because the thoughts and the
imaginations of her heart was only evil continually, and in
the course of her life, never did she ever acknowledge or begin
to believe in Jesus alone for her salvation. She thought it
all came down to her good works. So she never evidenced by anything
outwardly, and as far as we know, nothing happened inwardly. I
can't say that for 100%, but just from what we see outwardly,
going down, if that was her case, dying, trusting in those good
works, then she went to her grave unclean still. Who could bring
a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Look, if you would, at
Psalms 51. I'm sure these are very familiar
passages here to you. I've already kind of alluded
to them already this morning. Psalm 51,
5. This 51st Psalm is one that is
a very poignant psalm. It's a psalm
that David wrote. If you remember, David committed
adultery with Bathsheba. And then after he committed adultery
with Bathsheba, he also staged and had part in the killing of
Bathsheba's husband so that he wouldn't get found out. because
whenever he committed adultery with Bathsheba, Bathsheba become
pregnant and was going to have a baby. And so now he tried to
get Uriah killed or got Uriah killed to cover all that up. So there was a lot of bad things
that David did, and Nathan the prophet came to David and confronted
him of his sin. And because David had the spirit
of God in him to convict him of that sin and to draw him into
repentance, this song came from David. But notice what David
notices about himself, knows about himself. He says, verse
one, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my treachery. Notice that he says, have mercy
on me, according to thy loving kindness, not according to my
works. He didn't say have mercy upon
me, O God, according to my confession, according to my decision, according
to my accepting you as Lord and Savior, according to my coming
to you, according to my being baptized, according to my becoming
a member of a church, according to my law keeping. No, he said,
have mercy upon me according to thy loving kindness. according
unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. He realized that he was a transgressor.
Verse two, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse
me from my sin. So he knows that his default
position, that who he is apart from God's word is unclean, full
of iniquity. That's what we read in our other
verses. Only evil continually. that you're completely unclean.
You need to be cleansed. Verse three, for I acknowledge
my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. See, that's
the problem with the person who has not been born again. They
never come to the part where they acknowledge their transgression
and that their sin is ever before them. It's not just a sin, by the way. Yes, did he have a certain sin
in his mind here when Nathan came to him? Yeah, it was the
sin that he laid with Bathsheba when he shouldn't have. The sin
that he had Uriah killed when he shouldn't have. And so probably
a host of other things. But listen, whenever we come
and are born again, the Lord brings to us when he opens up
our mind and our understanding, he lets us see our guilt before
him and that everything that we do is unclean and that everything
we do comes from sin and that we cannot do anything except
transgress God. We always are before us is the
fact that we have an inability to be righteous before God by
anything that we do. The standard is perfect holiness
and we don't have it no matter how good we are. Listen, even
as born again believers, who have the Spirit of God in us,
we still cannot be perfectly holy in our own life. We cannot be perfectly holy.
There are some people that think you can, but they are wrong.
We cannot be holy. Now, it is put to our account
that we are holy. We are judged holy because Christ
imputed his righteousness to our account. He laid that on
our account. When God looks at our account,
He sees a big red stamp there that says, not guilty in the
blood of Jesus Christ. It says justified and sanctified. Even though in our experience,
we are unclean and guilty. And so see, even though we have
justification and sanctification ever before, the child of grace
is given to know their sin and transgression before God and
we only look to Christ for our hope and salvation. We look to
Christ for our acceptance before God. We look to Christ for our
walk in this world. We look for Christ for the resurrection
at the end and our glorification whenever we go to be with Him.
We continue to look to Christ, to Christ, to Christ and not
to the uncleanness and the works of our uncleanness. He says, against thee, thee only
have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou might
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.
See, David knew that he was evil all the time and transgressed
God. And he knew that this was evil
in God's sight. and that God is justified in
judging against him, if that were to be the case. If he would
come before God, he knew that God would be justified to condemn
David and to send David to hell for eternity. He knew that that
was justified by God because God's justice demands perfection,
and David knows, I'm not perfect. He says in verse five, here it
is. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me. I was shapen in iniquity. Whenever
David was conceived in the womb, from the moment that he was conceived
in the womb, he was conceived just like his father, Adam, a
natural man with the inability to do spiritual things. to keep
God's law. He come out of the womb in sin. He was a sinner from birth. He said, Behold, thou desires
truth in the inward part and in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. See, David
realizes that if salvation is gonna happen, it's gotta come
outside of him. That there's nothing that he can do to bring
this salvation to himself. Not one thing. He had a spiritual
inability and he knew it because God had given it to him to know
that. That means he was born again. Because only people who
are born again come to know that. And come to know that there's
nothing outside of themselves. Not their decision, not their
choice, not their studying, not their works or religion. Nothing can make them acceptable
and come to God or make God save them because they did that. Look, if you would, over to chapter
58. Chapter 58. Starting in verse 1. Do ye indeed speak righteousness,
O congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons
of men? Yea, in heart ye work wickedness. Ye weigh the violence of your
minds in the earth. The wicked are estranged from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison
of a serpent. They are like the deaf adder
that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice
of charmers, charming never so wisely. Break their teeth, O
God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of
the young lions, O Lord. Let them melt away as waters
which run continually, which he bendeth his bow to shoot his
arrows. Let them be as cut in pieces."
We'll just stop right there. We'll go on. But notice he says,
the wicked are estranged from the womb. That means that they
go away, that they're not what they ought to be. They're not pure. They're not
holy. They're not righteous. As soon as they come forth, they
come forth speaking lies. Look with me at Proverbs chapter
30. Proverbs chapter 30. Look if you would with me down
at verse 12. There is a generation that are
pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness. Brethren, this was prevalent
in Jesus's time with the Pharisees. They thought they were pure in
their own eyes because they supposedly thought they were keeping the
law, although they didn't realize that in all their law keeping,
they actually broke the law because they weren't able to keep it
completely, totally. And I'll just say, as a side
note, how foolishness it is that we think that we can keep the
law of God and push people to keep the law of God for acceptance
with God or for continuing in a right relationship with God.
We're unable to do that. The Bible says that if you try
to live by the law, that all it's gonna do is condemn you,
that you can't live by it, that actually trying to live by the
law is breaking the law of Christ. The law of Christ is that you
believe, trust in Christ, not trust in your own actions, your
own law keeping. But what does he say here? There
is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is
not washed from their filthiness. That is actually, you think of
that, that's sad also. That's sad that there is a generation
of people, and I would say that this generation is the same in
every generation, by the way. There's a generation of people
that think they're pure. They think they're, just like
Paul. Remember Paul, he thought he was serving God, doing God
rightly by going and persecuting those Christians. He was living
by the standard that those Pharisees had taught him. He was a Pharisee
of the Pharisees. He said, if there's a Pharisee
among us in Jerusalem, I'm him. There's no Pharisee above me. There is no law keeper better
than me. I keep the law, buddy, to a T. You can't accuse me of not keeping
any of them laws. although he did not keep those
laws, but he thought he was doing pure. And guess what? He couldn't see. He couldn't
see that the very thing that he was doing was actually persecuting
Jesus Christ. Can you imagine that? And listen,
now listen, if you hadn't heard anything else, and I hope you
have, I hope you understand that we are unable to do anything
spiritually before God. I hope you've been hearing that.
But if you don't hear anything else today, the religion of this
world, whether it be Buddha, whether it be Hindu, whether
it be New Age and listen, whether it be Christianity. Quote unquote. That whether it be any of those
religious things. That if you think that in those
things, you're going to be pleasing to God, then you've missed everything. See, Paul thought that what he
was doing was not persecuting Christ, was not persecuting Messiah
or God, Jehovah. And see, What people don't understand
is all of this that is not after the doctrine of Christ, that
is not after His teaching, His gospel, His ordinances, all their
works of religion are just like Paul. They're filthy done and
they are persecuting Jesus Christ. All those who believe these things,
they are persecuting Jesus Christ. Do we feel the blunt of that?
Absolutely, we feel the blunt whenever our family denies these
things. When our family and friends,
you know, don't wanna have much to do with us or reject the gospel
of Jesus, it seems like we're being persecuted.
And yes, we're part of that, but ultimately they are persecuting
the Lord Jesus Christ. They are rejecting Him. And that's
how sad this is, is the fact that they think they're pure
in their own eyes, yet they have not even been washed of their
filthiness. They will be the ones on the
day that Jesus judges the quick and the dead, who will say, Lord,
Lord, did we not in your name do all these wonderful works? And he says, depart from me,
I never knew. Why did he not know them? because the ones that
Jesus knows have no works to claim. The ones that Jesus knows
who he has saved, who he has redeemed, quickened, drawn to
himself, resurrected and brought before him at this judgment will
stand there justified because they claim no works of their
own. We didn't do anything. It was all him. But the religious
zealots will say, look at all the good that we have done. And
listen, that's what the religious zealots do. Listen to what they
say. If you ever talk to them about things like this and everything,
what is the first thing they run to? Well, you can't deny
that my life is different now than it was before. I've had
an attitude change. I've had a life adjustment. I've
had a character change. I used to be a drunk. Now I'm
not a drunk. Hey, listen, I know people that are atheists that
used to be drunks and have quit drinking and have been sober
for years now. That doesn't mean that it was
God that did it or it wasn't because they were saved. I know people who were thieves
that quit being thieves. Guess what? It isn't because
God is in them. and they're saved. I know people who were adulterers
and adulteresses and they quit doing that and became faithful
to one spouse. And guess what? They still deny
Christ. That doesn't make them, that
doesn't mean that God is in them because they quit doing those
things. See, it is, outward change and law keeping and character
change is not the outward expression It is not what we look at. What
is it that the Bible says that we look at? It is those who love
God, the God of the Bible, that is, and love the brethren and
the gospel of Jesus Christ. They believe the gospel of free
and sovereign grace. It says here that the people
are pure in their own eyes until we are born again. Brethren,
we think that we're pure, but we're not. We're deceived. Our
heart deceives us. Look over in Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter one. Look at verse two. It says, hear, O heavens, and
give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but
Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful
nation, a people latent with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corruptors, They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel into anger. They are
gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken anymore? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even
unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.
Your land, strangers devour it within your presence, and it
is desolate, is overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of
Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in the
garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city, except the Lord of hosts
had left us a very small remnant We should have been a Sodom and
we should have been like Gomorrah. See, that's the case of all of
us, brother. We, as it said there, that we are a sinful nation.
We are evil doers from the head, from the sole of the foot unto
the head. There is no soundness in it. But God has a remnant and had
it not been for him, except the Lord of hosts had left us a very
small remnant. Had it been not for the Lord
saving a people for himself, we all would stay and be like
Sodom and Gomorrah, and the end would be like Sodom and Gomorrah. See, we don't have anything in
us, brethren, that is worthy or to look at. Look, if you would,
at Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. Verse 6. Isaiah 40 and verse 6. It said
the boy said cry and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is
grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it,
surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion,
that bringeth good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain.
O Jerusalem, that bringeth good tidings, lift up thy voice with
strength. Lift it up, be not afraid. Say
unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God
will come with strong hand and his arm shall rule for them.
Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him. He shall
feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young who have measured the waters in the hollow
of his hand. and meted out heaven with a span,
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath
taught him? With whom took he counsel, and
who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment,
and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? See, God didn't look down the
corridor of time and learn anything from what he saw. If God looked
down the corridor of time, he looked down it because that's
what he decreed to be. He was only seeing the work of his own
hands, not the work of us and our free will choices. No one
can teach God anything. No one can give him knowledge
of anything. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance
Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and Lebanon
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient
for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as
nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. To whom then will ye liken God,
or what likeness will ye compare to him? The workman melteth a
graven image, and the goldsmith spreading it over with gold and
cast the silver chains. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot. He
seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved. Have ye not known? Have ye not
heard? Have it not been told you from the beginning? Have
ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth
upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are
as grasshoppers that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain
and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the
princes to nothing. He maketh the judges of the earth
as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted.
Yea, they shall not be sown. Yea, their stock shall not take
root in the earth, and he shall not blow upon them, and they
shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I equal, saith the Holy
One? Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created these
things, that bringeth out the host by number. He calleth them
all by names by the greatness of his power, or might, for that
he is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayeth thou, O Jacob,
and speaketh, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my
judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known,
hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the
creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.
There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power
to the faint and to them that have no might, he increases strength. Listen, what is that saying?
That saying is no one can rise to the level of being God and
choose their destiny. choose their purpose, choose
what they're gonna do. God has chosen all those things.
He is above everybody else. And listen, He considers everybody
vanity. He considers them as nothing
compared to Him and His greatness. But listen, He says, He giveth
power to the faint and He giveth to them that have no might increased
strength. See, it's only whenever we're
born again do we realize that we have no might. That we become faint. See, until
then, we are religious and we think that we can do it ourselves.
We're self-sufficient. We're self-righteous. We think
that our works are good enough before God. And it isn't until
we become faint and have no strength before God, until our mind and
heart understands that is our Conditioned before God is faint
and without strength. Will not ever have it given to
us. Now we can't make that we cannot come to that understanding
of that until God gives us understanding of it until God gives us the
ability to know that that comes in the new birth. We are made
low whenever we have been made new. Whenever he makes us new,
we are brought low. We no longer think of ourselves
as being religious and no longer think of ourselves as doing enough
for God or making the choice or coming to Him, we see and
begin to realize that all of Scripture is saying that it was
He who sought after us and not we after Him. It was He that
decided and not us. It was He that chose and not
us. It was He that brought salvation and not we who asked for it. Look at Isaiah 64. Isaiah 64. Look at verse 6. But we are all as
an unclean thing, and all our righteousness says... See that
plural at the end of righteousness? All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all
do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us
away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name. There is none that calleth upon
thy name. How many calleth upon the name
of the Lord? None. But you say, wait a minute. The Bible says to call upon the
name of those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now that's a contradiction. The Bible has contradicted itself.
This is nobody calls upon the name of the Lord, but yet the
Lord tells them that anybody who calls upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. What's going on? Is the Bible
wrong? Did the Holy Spirit make a mistake whenever he had them
write that? Is there really no one that calls upon the name
of the Lord? Absolutely, but you have to look at it in context,
right? There is no one who calleth upon
the name of the Lord except those that are saved. Those who call
upon the name of the Lord shall be, meaning they are in the state
of salvation. They have been, they are, and
shall always be saved. Only the saved ones, call upon
the name of the Lord. There is none that calleth upon
thy name, except those who have been saved. That's when they
call. They don't call to get saved.
They don't call upon the Lord, asking the Lord to save them,
and the Lord says, okay, because you asked, now I'm gonna apply
it to you. No, it was already applied to
them. That's why they asked. Because only those who are saved,
the saved ones, are callers upon him. He says, there is none that
calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. There is none that stirreth up
himself to take hold of thee. There's nothing that we can do
to stir ourselves up to want God, the God of the Bible that
is. Listen, there's plenty of people
that can call upon and stir themselves up to the Jesus of evangelicalism,
But the God and Christ of the Bible, who is the sovereign over
all things, the predestinator of all things, the particular
redeemer of his people, guess what? They don't want that Jesus.
They don't want that God. They don't want that salvation.
And so, yeah, they call upon the name of that fake God and
Jesus. They stir themselves up to want that. Matter of fact,
there's people all over this world stirring themselves up
right now with worship bands, singing songs over and over again
to get the emotions riled up, get them where they can just,
oh, I can feel Jesus is in the house. It's all about emotion. And I'm
not saying that we don't have emotion, brother. We truly have
emotion. But see, we don't ever stir ourselves.
You can't ever stir anybody up to want Jesus. See, I used to
think you could. as a Southern Baptist Armenian,
I used to preach, and I would try to coordinate my sermon to
say things, and especially whenever it come down to the invitation
time, to say things, sing songs, do things that would pull at
the heart, work on the conscience, to get somebody to make a decision
for Jesus Christ. But see, what I was ignorant
of is the Bible says that there's none that calleth upon him, and
none that stirs themselves up to take hold of thee, for thou
hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our
iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our
Father, we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are
the work of thy hand. See, we are what you've made
us to be. If we're calling out to you, you've made us that.
If we're the ones stirred up to you, guess what? You're the
one that did it, not us. But look back, if you would,
at verse six, before we get away from this. I want you to notice,
and I mention this here a lot of times, and you've heard me
say this, notice the word righteous, it's righteousnesses. You notice
that he didn't say all of our unrighteousnesses are his filthy
rags? He said, no, all of our righteousnesses
the very best of what we can do apart from Christ and his
work. Everything that we do of the
very best in the scheme of God's judgment, in the scheme of comparison,
in the scheme of holiness and righteousness and justice are
filthy rags. The word rags there is a Hebrew
word that is the same as a menstrual cloth. All of our righteousnesses are
as a menstrual cloth. That tells you how God views
us trying to work for acceptance with Him. Preservation by Him. Perseverance in Him. He hates
that. He hates that. Why? Because that is His glory alone. It's His glory to save. It's His glory to bring alive.
It's His glory to give understanding. It's His glory to bring us to
repentance. It's His glory to give faith,
to trust, It's His glory to cause us to love Him. It's His glory
to cause us to want to walk in righteousness. It's His glory
to work in us to will and to do His good pleasure. It's His
glory to glorify us at the end. But yet at every turn, the evangelicals
of this world want to make man the arbitrator of every bit of
that. We want man to be the preacher
of the gospel that gets the glory for that person being saved.
We want to give credence to the man who made the decision for
Christ. We want to lay it into their
lap. It's your choice. You can either accept it or reject
it. That's God's glory. It's not yours to give or offer.
It's God's glory. It's not theirs to take up and
be stirred up in themselves because they can't. It's God's glory
that you steal when you preach an Armenian gospel. Whether you
think you are or not, whether it's, well, God knows the intent
of my heart. God knows my heart. He sure does
know your heart. Your heart is desperately wicked.
He knows your heart. It's deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. It's deceiving you. Your heart
is deceiving you and God knows that. Yep, that's what he knows.
He knows that your heart is deceiving you because you're full of iniquity
and sin. He knows that your heart is telling
you you're doing good before God because your heart is deceitful
and it's telling you a lie. Brethren, apart from sovereign
grace, we can never be freed from that. But now, oh Lord, thou art our
father. We are the clay. See, Before
we're born again, we believe that we are the potter, and that
we are the clay, and that as our own potter, we make ourselves
into what we want, what we say. Ain't that what Joel Olsen says? Ain't that how he opens up his
stupid program every time? Get your Bibles and hold them
in the air. This is who I am. I am what this Bible says I am,
and I'm gonna be what I wanna be. You know, it's all a bunch
of junk. If they understood what the Bible
actually said that they are, they wouldn't be claiming all
that junk. Let's look at two more verses
and we'll be done here. Jeremiah 13. Didn't even have time to get into the
New Testament. There's plenty in the New Testament, things we've seen in the Old
Testament. Jeremiah 13. Look with me if you would down
it. Let's look at verse 22. And if thou say in
thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness
of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made
bare. Verse 23, can the Ethiopian change
his skin? Or the leopard his spots? Now I know that sounds silly
to some people. And actually I've used this verse whenever
I've talked to people that say that they can change themselves. you know the Hokey Pokey is an
Armenian hymn, right? Do you know that? You can't turn yourself around. It says, can the Ethiopian change
his skin or the leopard his spots? I've used this in talking with
people that think that. And they say, well, that's kind
of, no, you can't change the color of your skin and you can't
change The leopard can't decide to not have its spots. It is
what God give it to be. Really? Well, what about the
rest of the verse? Then may ye also do good that
are accustomed to doing evil. Is there anything that you can
do that's good? who is evil continually? You can no more start doing good
who are evil continually than the Ethiopian can change the
color of his skin. What's the chance of an Ethiopian
changing the color of his skin? Zip. What's the chances of a
leopard changing its spots? None. What's the chance of you
doing something good who are evil continually? None. Now listen, what Jesus says. This was his purpose. This is
your lot. This is how it is. This is the
facts. This is the hard facts. Therefore
will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind
of the wilderness. This is thy lot, the portion
of thy measures from me, saith the Lord, because thou hast forgotten
me and trusted in falsehood. Therefore will I discover thy
skirts upon thy face that thy shame may appear. I've seen thy
adulteries and thy nines, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and
thine abomination on the heels of the fields. Woe unto thee,
O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once
be? So just a couple of pages over,
chapter 17, verse 9. I just quoted this. I jumped
ahead of myself, but I want you to read it in the Bible. yourself
and not just listen to a preacher saying it, think that he's just
on his high horse about something. Jeremiah 17 verse nine says,
the heart is deceitful above all things. What does that mean?
There is nothing more deceitful in all the world above your heart. Have you ever thought of that? There's nothing more deceitful
in all the world than your own heart. Well, the Democrats are
pretty deceitful. Guess what? Your heart's more
deceitful than they are. Well, the Russians are more communist. The communists are deceitful.
Well, guess what? Your heart's more deceitful than
they are. And this is something to think
about. I need to study it more myself. I'll be honest with you.
I need to study this more myself because I don't know, but guess
what? He says the heart is deceitful above all things. What about
Satan? What about the devil? The devil
is the father of all lies. That's deception. But here it
says the heart is deceitful above all things. And it says, and desperately
wicked. That means it desires wickedness all the time. It's
desperate for it. It's desperate for wickedness. Who can know it? See, you think
you know your own heart. No, you don't. Well, I know my
heart. No, you don't. The Bible says
you don't. You don't know your heart. You
think you know your heart. We get glimpses of our heart.
But the Bible says that our heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. And who can know it? Who can
know that? It says, I, the Lord, search
the heart. I try the reins even to give
every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of
his doings. You say, well, there you go.
He gives according to every man, according to his ways and according
to the fruit of his doings. So there you go. We do have good
works that we can put before God, and he was going to reward
us according to the fruit of our doings. Well, wait a minute.
Don't you remember that we just read a few minutes ago that all
of our righteousness is our filthy rags? If that's the fruit of
your doings that you're putting forth to God, he's going to judge
them all right. He's going to give every man
according to his ways. And what does your ways get?
The fruit of your ways is evil continually. it's going to get
judgment. The fruit of the righteousness
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever we stand before Him
as His people, we're not going to claim the fruit of our deeds,
the fruit of our works. We're not going to claim our
faith, our repentance. We're not going to claim our
choosing, our coming, our studying the Bible, our memory verses. We're not going to claim our
good deeds, our giving, We're not going to claim our widow
helping, our orphan helping. We're not going to claim our
church going. We're not going to claim our
hymn singing. We're not going to claim our
loving our brother. We're not going to claim any
of that stuff whenever we stand before judgment. And as it were,
God say, who are you and why do I need to let you in? He's
already going to know that, by the way, I'm just saying. The
only thing that the child of grace will say is I've come by
the way of the cross. I come because it was given to
me. I come because mercy was given to me. I come before because
that man right there, he saved me. I didn't do anything. I couldn't do anything. He did
it all. And that's when God will say,
enter in by good and faithful servant. The faithful servant
is the one that kept the law. The faithful servant is the one
that kept believing that it was Christ alone who did it. That's
the faithful servant. Enter in by good and faithful
servant isn't you who kept going to church, you kept giving your
money, you who kept reading your Bible and kept being at peace
with everybody and not cursing, not stealing, not doing drugs. It's not that. That's not who
the faithful servant is. The faithful servant is the one
who continually give the glory to Jesus Christ for the one as
the one who did all of your salvation from start to finish. That's
the faithful servant. You have faithfully served him
and not only trusting in him alone, which was given to you
by the way in your new birth, but you declared it. You preached
it. You give no credence to yourself,
but only to Christ, which also was given to you in the new birth.
You have nothing to claim. Nothing in my hands I bring,
only to the cross I bring. There's nothing good that I can
do. You have a spiritual inability,
brethren, and except for God save you, you will die in your
spiritual inability and you will be judged for your spiritual
inability. your wickedness, your sinfulness,
your deceitfulness, your hatred to the real God, your transgression
of all His law, you will be found guilty. And rightly so, because
He is God and is worthy to be praised. But yet you praise Him
not. And at that point, there will
be a separation of the sheep and the goats. Those who have
been saved will be put on his right hand, right hand. Those who are not on his left
hand and those who are up on his left hand will be removed
and will be cast into the lake of fire where there is weeping
and gnashing of teeth, where there is complete and utter darkness. There is no end to your torture
and persecution. There will be no relief given
to you. It will never, ever end. And there will be none there
that can say, it's not my fault. It's God, because he didn't choose
me. Because God said that there's no man without excuse. God is
the potter, we are the clay. He has every right to do with
the clay as he decides. And everyone in hell will know
that he is God and that they deserve everything
that they get. We have a spiritual inability,
brethren. I pray that God's grace will be given to all of us, that
we all might come to know his salvation. Any questions or any
comments? All right, let's have a word
prayer. Heavenly Father, we come once
again. We are very humbled at the things that we've heard today,
things that we've seen today. Father, we are humbled that we
are no, no righteousness, no holiness,
no ability. That just is against our human
nature. to think that we cannot do that.
And so often our human nature makes us think that we're OK
and that we have enough. But Father, we know that the
Word of God says otherwise. And so we are beholden to your
mercy alone. God, give us your mercy, please.
We ask. We know that we are sinners.
We know that we are deserving of God's eternal damnation. We
know that we are unclean vessels. We know that we are enemies of
God. We know that we are enemies of righteousness. And without
your blood. Without your imputed righteousness.
We have no hope and so father, our hope is only in you to give
that to us by grace. Father, I pray for all that are
in here. I pray for my children, my family, my friends. Loved
ones, those that are around us that we know Lord that you brought
us into contact with many religious folks who continue week after
week following in their religion, but yet not trust in your gospel.
We pray, Father, that you'd give them life, give them hearing
ears, that you'd give them understanding and that you'd draw them to you,
that you'd let them see themselves before you as they really are,
that they might know their sin, and that they might have been
the dust repent of their self-righteousness before you and look to Christ
alone for their salvation. Father, may you give them humility
before you, a fear of God in their hearts to reverence you
for who you are. Father, Lord, we just we need
your spirit to come and do this work. Without it, Lord, we're
hopeless. and we'll find ourselves to our
just end. So God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for the salvation in
Christ. May you be honored and glorified
in what's been said today, for it's in Jesus' name that we pray.