Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter two. Again, looking at
Ephesians chapter two this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
that you've allowed us to meet together again one more time
and to worship you. to hear your gospel preached,
to open your word, and to read it and study it, and to hear
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray that you would
make this morning a special hour of worship, that you would be
pleased to reveal your mighty, redemptive power, saving your
people, calling out your people, feeding, instructing, and edifying
the hearts of your people. Enable us this morning By faith,
see the Lord Jesus Christ and to cling to him. Father, what
we pray for ourselves, we pray for our children's classes that
you'd take this hour and that you'd bless them in a special
way. Bless our teachers. We're so thankful for them. Father,
bless our children. Use this time to plant the seeds
of faith in their hearts, we pray. Father, we pray for our
country at this time. all the difficult circumstances
of this world, we pray you'd be with our leaders, that you'd
give them wisdom and understanding, that you would direct them, direct
them in a way that is good for the freedoms that we enjoy in
this country, that your people may be able, by thy grace, to
continue worshiping you in freedom without fear of reprisal or interference. Father, all these things we ask
in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. I know we just have one verse
in our text this morning, Ephesians 2 verse 1, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. I want us to see what's
being taught in this verse this morning by breaking it down almost
word by word to see what The Lord is teaching us in this verse.
And the first word is you, you. Now something I want you to know
that when I'm preaching the gospel to you, I'm speaking specifically
to you, to you. I mean, I know there are people
in other places that, that, uh, that hear these recordings, they
listen to them and, uh, You would be surprised how often I hear
from those folks and tell me that they received a blessing.
I'm very, very thankful. And I know that's the Lord's
directing, because I don't even know them. I didn't know they're
listening. I don't know them. But the Lord took that and blessed
it to them. So that's the Lord's doing, not mine. So it's always
just thrilling for me to hear that. But when I'm preparing
messages, I think of you, this congregation. I think of each
of you. every single day. And when I'm preaching, I'm looking
you in the eye, preaching to you. Everything we preach, I
hope that you'll take it and apply it to yourself. That you'll
take these messages and you believe on Christ yourself. This is for
you. Don't ever think that you come
hear the gospel of salvation in Christ and think, well, you
know, I'm just here like a bump on the log and this message is
really meant for somebody else. No sir, no ma'am. The good news
of the gospel, God Almighty has sent it to you. To me, he's given
it to us here in this place. He sent it to us, to you to take
it and apply it to yourself. Listen to the gospel as a message
directly from God to you. That's what it is. Isn't that
a blessing to think? This gospel is a message from
God to you to believe. And when you listen to the gospel,
now this is to you. Listen to the gospel for yourself,
for your own benefit and applying the message to yourself. And
here's what I mean by that. As we hear the gospel preached,
don't think, hmm, I hope old so-and-so hears this because
he really needs to hear this. You know, this will fix his wagon.
Don't think like that. When we hear the word preached,
listen to it thinking, I hope I hear this. because I need to
hear it. The Lord wouldn't have given
it to the preacher to preach if I didn't need to hear it.
I need to hear it. This is to me. And that's good
advice because the gospel will never be a blessing to me until
I hear it for myself. The gospel will never be a blessing
to you until you hear it for yourself. It's a message that
I need to hear. The gospel will never be a blessing
until I hear the gospel as a needy sinner who needs a savior. I
need it. Then the gospel will be a blessing
to you. But not before, this gospel is sent to you, to you,
to hear and believe. But now the second word is dead,
dead. You hath he quickened who were
dead. This is very important. The scriptures teach that every
son of Adam is born spiritually dead. Dead, dead, not just sick. So if you have a little religious
treatment, you know, a little religious physical therapy, you
can get better. You know, your flesh can get,
you know, enough spiritual strength in it to do something for God
and be able to believe God. We're not just sick. So if we
just have enough time and the right religious traditions and
right religious ceremonies and the right religious medicines,
if I just have a little time, I'm just sick. If I just have
a little time, I'll get better. We aren't hurt so that we need
a little religious help, so that we need a religious crutch or
something. If we just, you know, have a
little help, then we have enough strength to do this our own self.
No, my friend, we're dead. Dead. Now, the thing about the
dead is this. Somebody who's dead cannot perform
the functions of life. You and I are born spiritually
dead. We're alive physically, but we're born spiritually dead,
so we cannot perform the functions of spiritual life. We're dead,
so we can't hear the gospel. I mean, we can hear the words,
you know, audibly that the preacher's saying, but we can't hear it
and have it applied to our hearts because our ears don't work.
We're dead. We're dead, so we can't see. We can't see our need
of Christ. We can't see how sinful we are,
so we know how much we need Christ. We can't see Christ in his glory,
so we know that he's everything that we need. We can't see. We
can't understand. We're spiritually as blind as
a bat, because we're dead. Our eyes don't work. We're dead,
so we can hear the gospel. We can understand the pillars
of the gospel and understand the message of what the gospel
says. It's very simple, but we can't love it because we're dead. Our heart doesn't work. We're
dead, so we can't smell the sweet smell of the gospel because our
nose doesn't work. It's not a sweet smell to us.
We can't taste that the gospel is sweet as honey. We're dead. Our taste buds don't work. We're
dead, so we don't have the ability to believe on Christ. We don't
have the ability to believe the gospel and come running to Christ
any more than a dead corpse can hear and understand the things
that's being said to him that is there in the casket. The poor
family is there saying goodbye to him and saying things to him,
but he can't hear. That's the way we are spiritually.
We cannot hear. We cannot react. Now we're dead,
we're dead in sin. We cannot perform the functions
of spiritual life. We can't do what it takes to
get spiritual life. We can't obey God's law. We cannot
please God by our works. Since we're dead in sin, but
alive physically, all that physical life does is enable us to commit
more sin. All the motions of our body,
all the thoughts in our head, everything that we can make our
body do physically just produces more sin, more trespasses and
sin. It says we're dead in sin, we
walk in it. That's what Paul says in verse two. Way in a time
past, you walked. This was your walk, the direction
you wanted to go, you walked. You conducted yourself according
to the course of the world. According to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom we all, we also, we all had our
conversation, our conduct in times past. This is what we're
doing in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind. We're fulfilling the desires
of dead flesh and a dead mind. And we're by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. That's how we walked. And that's
how we walk because sin is our nature. Sin is our nature. Do you know sin's not our actions? Sin is our nature. Our actions
are sinful because our nature is sin. See, that's the problem. We're dead in sin. And I can
tell you how we got that way. It's what the theologians call
original sin. Saw a website this week devoted
to the argument between original sin and whatever they call the
opposite of original sin. I thought, what a waste of time. But people, all kinds of people
on there arguing about it, but this is what theologians call
original sin. And here's what that is. When
our first father, Adam, sinned, every last one of us sinned in. See, Adam was our representative,
and we did what our representative did. So when Adam sinned, you
and I sinned. When Adam sinned, you and I became
guilty, guilty of sin before God. And when Adam died, God
told him, Adam, the day you eat that fruit, thou shalt surely
die. Boy, he did, didn't he? When
Adam died, we all died in him. We lost any spiritual life. And the very reason that we come
forth from the womb, speaking lies, is we died in Adam. We didn't do something to die
or sin. We have to be born in sin and oh, break the law. Then
we become sinners. We come forth from the womb speaking
lies because that's what we are, sinners. We died in Adam. We
became sinners in Adam. Now look at Romans chapter five. Now this is not just what Calvinists
teach. This is not a teaching that John
Calvin made up. This is the teaching of scripture.
We died in Adam. Romans 5 verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, by
Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And that should
have been translated, in whom all have sinned. We all sinned
in Adam. That's when we became guilty.
We didn't become guilty the first time we broke one of the Ten
Commandments. We became guilty in Adam. We broke the Ten Commandments
because we became a sinner in Adam. And here's the proof of
that. Do you know people died before
the Ten Commandments were ever given? You didn't have to break
the Ten Commandments. You didn't have to break the
rest of the law in order to become a sinner and die, did you? The
only reason for sin, the only reason for death is sin, right? Well, sin is not when we break
the law because people died before the law was ever given. That's
what Paul says in verse 13. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him which was to come. Here's what Paul's saying there.
Before the law was given, people died. Even babies died who never
had a chance to do something, you know, evil or something.
All that, people died long before the law was ever given to Moses.
It's because we died in Adam. God gave a law to Adam. One,
didn't he? Just one. Don't eat that fruit. Eat everything else. Don't eat
that fruit. And he broke it. Sin is imputed because the law
was broken. God's commandment was broken.
And people died not because we became sinners or we broke the
law, it's because we died in Adam. Look over 1 Corinthians
15. 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 21. For since by man came death. This spiritual death, physical
and spiritual death, came by man, by Adam's sin. By man came
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all died. Every one Adam represented died
when Adam died. Even so, in Christ, shall all
be made alive. So the scriptures are very clear,
aren't they? We became sinners in Adam. We died when Adam died. We spiritually died. Now, like
I told you about that website, You can argue against original
sin all you want to. Now it won't change anything,
but you can argue against it all you want to. But let me ask you this, if it
weren't for original sin, you didn't become guilty in Adam.
You're still guilty, aren't you? We're guilty. We've all committed
enough sin just as we've been here to send 10 worlds to hell. The good news of original sin
is this, if in Adam all die, Christ all can be made alive.
If one representative man can make us sinners by his disobedience,
second representative man can make us righteous by his obedience. See, that's the good news of
the gospel, and that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ has
done for his people. He made them to live by his obedience. And I've spent some time on this
point, because we've got to get this, we're dead. We need God
to do something for us we cannot do for ourselves. There's no
point in going on preaching the gospel until we understand this,
I'm dead. I've got to understand my need
before the gospel will be any benefit to me. The good news
of life in Christ won't be good news to me unless I'm dead. See, the good news of salvation
by grace in Christ won't do any good to me. It won't be good
news to me until I know I'm guilty. And I need somebody to forgive
me of my sin. I can't be saved by my works.
I need to be saved by grace. I need Christ to do it for me. Here's something else about preaching
to the lost, preaching to those who are dead. You won't do any good to yell
at a dead man. I feel very intense when when
I'm preaching, and I try not to use that intensity and try
to just bring this down your throat for this reason. It won't
do any good to yell at that man. I mean, suppose you had a loved
one that did something that offended you, and before they could apologize
for you to work out, they died. It's not going to do you any
good to go down to their funeral home and start yelling at him. It's just
not gonna do anything. He's not gonna respond. It doesn't
do any good to threaten a dead man with the law. He's not afraid
of it. He's unaffected by it. It doesn't
do any good to yell at a dead man, because he can't hear you,
he can't feel you, and he can't fear you. The only thing that
will help us is the preaching of Christ, because that's the
gospel that God uses to save sinners. And that brings me to
the third word, he. Now this is the, all of the gospel
is summed up in that two letter word, he. It's all Christ. Now you'll notice that that... Brother Henry, there was a bug
there in case you didn't know that. Brother Henry said one
time, he's the fellows of God preaching, they come back and
he said, everybody keeps talking about liberty. I felt like I
had some good liberty. And Henry said, well, liberty
is good. He said, but now truth is better. He said, a bug flying
through the air can mess up your liberty. That's what happened
to me. Just a bug. That's something. Get back where I was. He, he,
he, the gospel is all And you'll notice that that hath he quickened
is in italics. The translators have added that
to try to help us understand the meaning of the verse. But
this is what Paul actually wrote. And you who were dead in trespasses
and sins. Now it's okay. So that, I mean,
that was the point. That's why I did the word dead
next because we got, you're dead. I'm dead. We're dead. But it's
all right that the translators added this phrase, hath he quickened. They didn't do any harm at all
to the scriptures, because that's exactly what Paul says in verse
five. Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ. So here's what Paul's
saying. Every one of us, we're born dead
in sin. And if we were dead, but now
we have spiritual life, it's because God gave it to us. God
gave it to us. We didn't earn it. We didn't
deserve it. God gave it to us as a free gift
of his grace. And this is the very reason we
don't try to beg people to make a decision or walk an aisle or
do something for God or make some sort of public commitment
in order to be saved. It's because we can't do it.
I mean, I could probably talk you into doing some things, but
you wouldn't do your soul any good. There's no point in begging
somebody to do something that they can't do. There's no point
telling somebody you gotta keep the law in order for God to be
happy with you, because we can't keep it. I mean, you see what
I'm saying? Only God can do something for a sinner. Only God. Salvation is of the Lord. You and I are born spiritually
dead, and the only one who has the power to give us life is
God. Salvation is all in Christ. It's by what God has purposed
and what God has done. Isn't that what we studied in
chapter one? It's God who blessed us. He's the one who decided
to bless us of his own free will. He decided to bless us. God's
the one who chose us. God's the one who predestinated
us to be made like Christ. God's the one who made us holy
and without blame before him in love. God's the one who accepts
us in Christ. It's in Christ, not what we've
done. It's all in Christ. We need to be redeemed. God is
the one who redeemed us by the blood of his son. God is the
one who is pleased to reveal himself to us. We never would
have seen him unless he was pleased to reveal himself to us. God
did that, didn't he? God's the one who did everything
necessary. He even gave us the faith to
believe on Christ. He did everything that was necessary
to save the souls of the people he saved. That's what he said.
Let's read that. Ephesians 1 verse 3. Blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who hath blessed
us? He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings and heavenly places in Christ, in Him, according
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. To the
praise of the glory of His grace when he hath made us accepted
in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood.
Now that his there is the same he in verse two. We have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom
and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will,
according to his good pleasure with which he hath purposed in
himself. Salvations of the Lord, God did
everything. Where is what you did in that?
Where's what I did in that? Not there, is it? Salvation is
all what God has done for his people. And if you and I have
life, it's because God gave it to us. He had to do it. Now,
the fourth word is quickened. That word quicken means to give
life, to make alive. And only God has the power to
do that, to give life to a dead sinner. to make a dead sinner,
an enemy, a natural born enemy of God to live, spiritually live. Only God has the power to do
that. Now you notice he quickens. He doesn't renovate. He doesn't
change. He doesn't knock out a wall and
add a wall and do some things, you know, take what's already
there and renovate it into something different. He quickens. He gives
brand new life that was not there before. Only God has the power
to do. Only God can give life where
there was none before. And you know how God creates
that life? With the very same power that it took for him to
say, let there be light. The power that it took for God
to create this universe from nothing, just a black hole. God created the universe just
by speaking. It takes that very same power for God to speak. put life in our heart, spiritual
life in our heart. See, if I'm going to live, it's
going to take the life-giving, life-creating power of God to
do it. God quickens his people. Scripture
tells us that God, because he's sovereign, because he's God,
quickens whom he will. Isn't that what he told Nicodemus
in John chapter three? The wind bloweth where it listeth. The Spirit just moves where He
will and gives life where He will. God Almighty gives life. He quickens whom He will. That our cry should be, Lord,
give me life. You have the power to give me
life. You're the only one that can do it. Lord, give me life. Oh, I'm begging you, give me
life. And the life that God gives is spiritual, eternal life. It's a brand new person, brand
new nature that never existed before. This nature is a holy
nature. It's a nature that can never
see it because it's born from sin, from sinless seed, the preaching
of the word of God, that the Holy Spirit plants in the hearts
of God's people. That's the seed that produces
life. And the life that seed produces is just like the seed.
It's holy and righteous. Now, when God gives his people
life, he doesn't just do it by just issuing a royal decree.
When God gives his people life, it's going to cost him something. If I'm going to live, if you're
going to live, something's got to be done with our sin. See,
it's sin that causes death, isn't it? Wherever there's sin, there
must be death. We cannot live if we're still
in our sin, unless our sin's been paid for. My sin has to
be taken away before I can live. And that's what Christ our Savior's
done. That's how He has quickened His people. The way God gives
life to His people is by His Son dying in our place. I hope that we don't hear that
statement so often, that we lose the awe of it. The son of God,
the son of God, the father gave his son, the father sacrificed
his son so that sinners could live. You think of that. This
is how God gives his people life. He takes their sin away and makes
them righteous so that they must live. For he made him the son,
him, the same him, the same he here in our verse one. For He, the Father, hath made
Him, God the Son, sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He's made us righteous. He's
taken our sin away. We must live. That's how He quickens
His people. All right, now that's the good
news of the gospel. That's how God makes sinners live. Now I'm
gonna circle back to my first word again, you. Now remember,
I'm preaching to you. What I'm saying is God's message
to you this morning. Don't listen to the gospel and
think, well, there's no hope for me. Don't ever listen to
the gospel and think, well, there's no good news in the gospel for
me. You know, this gospel is for these other people. And I'm telling you that, I know
people think that because I grew up thinking that. I grew up hearing
the gospel preach and look around the room and saw what to me appeared
to be absolute giants in the faith. I thought, well, Henry's
preaching to me. He's preaching to you. No, no,
no, no. I'm preaching to you. To you. If the Lord saved others, he
certainly can save you. Can he? How about the writer
of this letter? The Lord took Saul of Tarsus,
could be the most self-righteous man who ever lived, who really
thought he had never outwardly broken the law. I mean, he wasn't
just making that up. He wasn't just saying that even
though he knew it wasn't true. I really think Saul of Tarsus
really genuinely thought, I have never broken God's law. He hated the gospel. He hated
the way of Christ. He hated salvation by grace.
He hated it so much, he'd throw people in jail and let them rot
there if they believed it. The Lord took old self-righteous
Saul of Tarsus and turned him into Paul the Apostle. He wrote
this glorious letter. The Lord went down there to the
wharf one day and saw a bunch of fishermen, uneducated. Saul
of Tarsus was educated, the most educated man of his time. The
Lord went down there to the wharf and saw some fishermen who were
probably barely literate. He turned them into fishers of
men. He turned the world upside down by what they preached. The Lord took a slave ship captain.
He's a slave trader. He invested in slave trading. Made a living by trading human
beings as slaves. Became a slave himself for a
while. That captain's name's John Newton. The Lord turned
him into a great preacher of God's grace, who could write
the song Amazing Grace. The Lord took a tinkerer, nobody
ever heard of him. You know what a tinkerer is? He'd sell old
pots and pans on a cart. He'd push that cart down the
road and them pans would ride on it. I mean, is there any money
in that? I mean, this is Tinker. Nobody
knew. Had very little education. He did have some. Served in the
military. Very unimpressive. There's no
record of anything he ever did in the military. Just somebody
nobody ever heard named John Bunyan. Lord turned him into
a great preacher of Christ who wrote Pilgrim's Progress. Lord
put him in jail so he'd write Pilgrim's Progress. Are you a nobody? Well, the Lord has the power
to do that for you too. And my strongest advice to you
is come to Him, begging Him to give you. I hope the Lord will
bless that too.