Tonight we're gonna be in the
book of Proverbs, if you'd like to turn to chapter eight. Proverbs
chapter eight. Here we have a specific declaration.
First four words says, doth not wisdom cry. Does not wisdom cry? We have a very specific declaration
of what wisdom cries, but crying doesn't mean to beg. That's not
what crying means. Crying doesn't mean to plead.
Crying literally means to call out, to proclaim, and to declare. To call out. What does wisdom
call out? What does wisdom proclaim? What
does wisdom declare? This is not a desperate plea
for the likes of men. This is a general call that's
made effectual to the Lord's people. It's a general call that
goes out to everyone, but only the Lord's people are unable
to hear it. Only the Lord's people are able to receive it and believe
it only the Lord's people. It's spoken to by grace. It's received by grace. Let's
read this together. I'm going to read the first six
verses. Doth not wisdom cry in understanding put forth her voice?
She standeth in the top of the high places by the way in the
places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, the
entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O
men, I call in my voices to the sons of man. O ye simple, Understand
wisdom and you fools be of an understanding heart Here for
I will speak of excellent things and the opening of my lips shall
be right things What does wisdom? Declare I've titled this Message
the cry of wisdom the cry of wisdom. What does wisdom declare? I have one simple declaration
tonight I started with three And the more I studied, the more
I realized we could probably do all three one at a time. But
if I was to do all three, we might have been here till 8.30
and I didn't want to do that. So I have one declaration that wisdom
declares tonight. One, the Lord Jesus said, come
unto me in Matthew. We just read that a few moments
ago. It's come to Christ. That's the declaration tonight.
Come to Christ. This is what wisdom cries. Come
to Christ. The Lord be our teacher, we'll
see with this proclamation, Christ, who is the wisdom of God, is
clearly declaring that which is required for eternal salvation. What's required? You must come
to Christ. Now there's, I must be mentioned
that you and I are unable to come unless we are made to come. You and I are incapable of coming
unless the Lord equips us and makes us Well, everybody else,
I hope your cell phones are off because I just might as well
just acknowledge it. I'm sorry. I have been the pastor here for
almost three years, and that is the first time I think maybe
the first time it's ever happened. I apologize. Wisdom cries come
to Christ. Come to Christ. It's not complicated.
If the Lord be our teacher, if the Lord be our teacher, not
me, but the Lord. then we would see that the call
that's going forth, the command that's going forth, the declaration
that's going forth, come to Christ, that is the requirement for salvation.
But you and I are unable to come to Christ on our own. You and
I are unable to make a decision on our own because we're in the
flesh, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. It's not something
that I can just choose to do, okay? I'm gonna come to Christ
today. Well, where is he? Where is he? He's high, lifted up. He's in
the heavens. He's far above our ability to
get to. He's a spiritual being. And so we're gonna have to have
spiritual life in order to do anything spiritually, because
we're born spiritually dead. The scripture says we're born
dead in trespasses and in sin. That's pretty simple, isn't it?
We're dead. You heard me say many times we're dead dog sinners.
That's what we are. We're dogs by nature. I mean,
what does dogs do? Well, they're very needy. They
eat. They're very dependent of their
master. We're dogs, aren't we? We're dogs. And dogs, whenever
they go and they vomit, they'll return back to it, won't they?
That's what we do with our sin. We have sin that we do, and the
things that we would not, that which we do, that's what Paul
was talking about there. That's the dog returning to the vomit.
That's why he said, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? The only way that we can believe
this is if God gives faith to believe it. The Lord holds all
the keys. The Lord has all the power. Now,
some men preach that God has some of the power and man has
some of the power, where I have to do something in order to make
God's work effectual, to make salvation effectual, or to make
the blood effectual, and that's not true. Christ accomplished
everything he purposed on the cross of Calvary. Everything
given to him of the father, every person that was elected before
time, Christ died for those individuals. And the Lord Jesus Christ put
away their sin. Lord Jesus Christ saved his people
from their sin. That was his whole purpose of
coming. That was the pronouncement. That was the announcement. Call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.
Not whenever we let him, but he shall. And he did, didn't
he? He did, he accomplished that. The declaration is clear all
throughout scripture. From Genesis, we have pictures
in Genesis, all through Revelation. Revelation is the revelation
of Jesus Christ. It's not a revelation of future
matters. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. That is what
wisdom cries. That's the cry of wisdom. We
know who wisdom is, it's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The
scripture says the spirit and the bride say come. Well, who's
the bride? That's the church, that's why it says she right
here. This is what goes forth in the church, the gospel. And
the gospel says come to Christ. Can't bring any of your works
with you. You can't bring any of your righteousness with you.
Can't bring any of our own good deeds with us. We have to come
to Christ as mercy-begging sinners. It's the only way we can come.
And the problem with men, the problem with you and I is that
we don't know that we're born dead in trespasses and in sin
until we've been made alive. When the Lord makes us alive,
when the Lord births us by his spirit, that's what born again
means, then we are able to understand spiritual things, but not until
then. That which is of the flesh is flesh, that which is of the
spirit is spirit. The Lord was talking to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus
says, How can a man enter into his mother's womb a second time
and be born? He just went over his head. Why? Because he was
in the flesh. But when the Lord revealed himself, when the Lord
spoke, he said, that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou canst tell from where it come or where it goeth, so is
every one that is what? Born of his spirit. Born of the spirit. Once we're
born again by his spirit, by his power, then we are unable
to do what? Come to Christ. Simultaneous,
if I can put it that way. It's just like faith and repentance.
You get them at the exact same time. That's exactly what it
is. Think of it this way. When a baby's born, is it alive
first time it breathes or is it breathed because it's alive?
Breathes because it's alive, doesn't it? The doctor will take
the baby and smack it on the bottom and it'll start screaming.
Well, we know it's alive because of the evidence that there. Well,
that's what faith is. Faith is just evidence that we've
been made alive. Evidence of justification, not
the cause of it. evidence of righteousness, not
the cause of it. The Lord gives it freely by his grace. Same
way as a baby, breathing. And who do we breathe? We breathe
the Lord Jesus Christ, our life. So once we're made alive, then
we're able to come to Christ. Coming to Christ is not a one-time
thing. Come to Christ, we come to Christ every day, don't we?
Every day. There's times we forget to come to Christ, and so you
know what he does? He brings something our way that
causes us to flee to him. Causes us to cry out to him.
And unless he brings things in our path, unless he causes us
to be desperate, and that's what it is, is desperation, we'll
never come to him. We'll never come, when do you
go to the doctor? When you're well, or when you're sick? Well,
when the Lord makes us desperate, he shows us our leprosy for a
little while, we flee to the great physician. That's what
Christ said, they that are holy need not a physician, but they
that are sick. I come not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. So if you're a sinner, I have
good news, come to Christ. This is what wisdom cries. This
is what wisdom cries. Christ is all wisdom. He's all
righteousness. He's all sanctification. He's
all redemption. He's all our justification. He's all our salvation.
He's all our glorification. He's everything to the Lord's
people. That's why we come to Him. Without Him, we have none
of those things. It's not Him plus me equals that.
He is all of that. And without Him, I am nothing
but a sinner. Nothing but a hell deserving
sinner and God has to do the entire work in order for me to
be anything but that. That's why the gospel is so glorious.
It's so simple. Christ did it all. Christ did
it all. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. And who put them there? Well,
the Lord did. The Lord put them there. When he had by himself
purged our sin, he sat down. He did it. He did the work. Now,
what does the scripture say? Come to Christ. Come to Christ. We cannot come to him until we
see that we have a need. And did you know that you won't
have a need until he creates that need? You have a need to
breathe right now. You have a need for your heart
to be beating. We have needs to eat. We have needs to drink. Well, that's because you're alive.
Whenever you're dead and trespasses and in sin, you won't have those
needs. You don't have those needs like that. But because once you're
made alive, you're gonna have those needs, spiritually speaking.
And what are you going to need to eat? The bread of life. What
are you going to need to drink? The Lord said that my blood is
drink indeed, my body is meat indeed. It's the fountain of
living water, isn't it? That's what we require now. That's
what we require. This is why we come to him is
because he has every substance and sustenance that is necessary
for our survival, for our life, for eternal life. And without
him, we have none of that. We are unable to bring ourself
to spiritual life. You've never seen somebody in
cardiac arrest bring themselves back to life, have you? It's
not possible. It's not possible. Neither is
it possible for a sinner to become one of the Lord's people, to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of something that they
do, they're dead. God has to do it. He has all the power.
Turn with me to Isaiah chapter one. We're going to turn a few
places tonight. I just want to read three verses
towards the middle of the chapter. This is Old Testament, remember
that, but it's still the Testament of God. This is the First Testament,
I guess if you put it that way, and then you have the New Testament
that's all just the Testament of our Lord. It's all about Him.
And here's what our Lord says in Isaiah chapter 18. Come now,
let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing
and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse
and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth
of the Lord hath spoken it. Now here's the need that we have.
The need that we have is to come to Christ because if we do not
come to Christ, we're going to be devoured with the sword. What
is that sword? That's the sword of justice,
isn't it? The sword of justice is what pierced the heart of
the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for his people. This is
our hope, is the substitutionary work of Christ that the sword
that's due us, he took on the cross. That's the good news of
the gospel. But here it says, come now, let
us reason together. That's not negotiate. You know,
you talk to somebody like, be reasonable. That's not what that's
talking about here. This is a different word. This word means to prove,
to judge, and I like this one, to rebuke, to rebuke. They're getting rebuked. He's
being shown that there is only one remedy for his sin. We're
being shown it's only one remedy for our sin. And it is that which
makes the sin to be scarlet, that they be, Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. What's gonna accomplish
that? My reasoning? No, it's gonna be God's rebuke.
God revealing Christ. Christ's blood is what changes
the leper's spots. Christ's blood is what puts away
sin, the only substance that can, and it did once and for
all on the cross of Calvary. He's saying the only way for
our sin to be water and snow is by Him, is through Him, and
all for His glory. That's why wisdom cries come
to Christ. You see yourself having a need,
a need of being a sinner. You see yourself as a sinner.
And I'm not talking about somebody that has sinned once in a while,
but realizing that sin is not what we do, sin is what we are.
Sin is from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet. The
blood that we have is sinful. Everything we touch, we pollute.
We're utterly sinful, utterly depraved. When you see yourself
as that, The Lord says, here's my beloved son with whom I'm
well pleased. Hear ye him. The Lord reveals
his son and you see him as the only remedy. That's when you'll
come to Christ. And that's the only way we can
come, is a sinner needing to be saved. It's by him, it's his
doing, it's the work of God to redeem all for his chosen people,
all by his choice, all by his grace. How do we know it's all by Him?
Well, Romans chapter 311 says, there is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. That's pretty simple, isn't
it? There's none that understandeth, and there's none that seeketh
after God. You mean I don't understand and I don't seek after God? Correct,
in the flesh you cannot. Flesh cannot understand and comprehend
the things of God. The Lord has to cause you to
be birthed in order to believe Him. That word none, none understandeth,
none seeketh. That means none, doesn't it?
Men take words and act like they don't mean what they mean. None
means none. There's none good but God. There's none good, no,
not one, but the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. You and I are not
good in ourself and in our flesh. That's what the Lord's declared.
Yet we see the only remedy for our sin. Or thereby, if we see
that none means none, thereby we see the only remedy for our
sin is what? Come to Christ. Now don't make coming to Christ
a work, it's not. Coming to Christ is not something
you do physically speaking. We're not going to stand up and
move. Matter of fact, if we move a muscle, we're doing it all
wrong. Coming to Christ is coming to
him through the eyes of faith. You have to have faith to believe
him. And where does faith come from? The Lord. Who does it belong
to? The Lord. And who gets all the
glory? The Lord does. The Lord gets
all the glory in this. We see the only remedy is to
come to Christ. So what is our hope? We'll look at Jeremiah
chapter 31. Here's our hope, brethren, our
only hope. Jeremiah 31, verse one, at the
same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families
of Israel and they shall be my people. Thus saith the Lord,
the people which were left of the sword found grace. Remember that sword, that's that
sword again, the sword of justice. There it is. What's the hope?
They found grace. in the wilderness, even Israel,
when I went to cause him to rest. So here's the Lord giving grace
and causing him, Israel, which is God's chosen people, that's
the church, causing them to rest. And he says right here, the Lord
hath appeared unto me, old saying, and here's our hope. Yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I did what? Drawn thee. Didn't leave you
to yourself, I drew you. That's how you come to Christ,
by God drawing. That's what he does, is he draws
his people to him. The Lord made it very clear,
no man come to the Father but by me. And then he says in another
place, no man come to the Father except the Father which sent
me, draw him. This drawing, this effectual
calling is not, it's irresistible. It's not something, who can resist
God? Nobody can stay his hand or say,
what doest thou? The scripture says nobody can
challenge his authority. So he comes to the center. He
says, live. And he says, come to me. Come
to me. And what was our responsibility
in that? He did all of it, didn't he? He did all of it. The only
way we can come is if he causes us to. Our hope is not that we
love God. Our hope that he loves us. I don't glory in my love. I don't glory in my works. I
hope it's his work. We don't glory in our sacrifice.
We glory in his sacrifice. The hope of the believer. Christ
said this, all that the Father give me shall come to me. I love
that, they shall. Means they're going to, this
is God speaking. All that the Father give me shall come to
me. And he that cometh to me I in no wise will cast out. I
will in no wise cast out. Come to Christ, this is the cry
of wisdom. This is the cry of wisdom. Now
go back to our text here in Proverbs. chapter eight. To further cement what we've
said thus far about you and I being unable to come to Christ. He's going to give us the qualification
of who can come to Christ, who can right here. Look at verse,
well, let's just read this again. Chapter eight, verse one, doth
not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice. She standeth
in the top of the high places by the way in the places of the
paths. She crieth at the gates, at the
entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O
men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple,
understand wisdom, and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear, for I will speak of excellent
things, and the opening of my lips shall be right things. Verse
five is where you'll find the qualifications. Oh, ye simple
understand wisdom and you fools be ye of an understanding heart.
It's the simple and the fool that the Lord calls. It's the
simple and the fool that the Lord reveals himself to. It's
the simple and somebody said, well, I'm not simple. You are
compared to God's wisdom. We are, aren't we? We're beyond
simple. No, he knows everything all the time and he's everywhere
all the time. Compared to him, we're very simple and we're very
foolish. And that's what the Lord does when he shows us himself.
And he shows us how beautiful and glorious Christ is. We say,
I'm gonna put my hands over my mouth. I spoke foolishly. I don't
know anything. That's what Job was saying. I
don't know anything. And you know everything. That's the only
way you can come to Christ, is emptied like that, humbled like
that. And the Lord has to be the doer
of that. He has to humble us in order for us to be able to
come to him. We must be simple and we must
be foolish. We must be abased to nothing,
or Christ is not all. If we come to Christ with a little
bit of self-righteousness, we're not coming to Christ. We're coming
to brag. We're looking to get the Lord's
attention by what we've done. We're coming to brag. Well, I
don't do that anymore, and I don't go there anymore. This is just
telling God that you're good for yourself, that you're doing
good things, and he should pay attention to that. You know what
the believer says? Him, not I, not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name be all glory and honor and praise
forever. No, we look to the same thing
that the Father looks to. The Father is satisfied with
Christ. What are we satisfied with? Christ alone. It's not
Christ plus my good deeds or Christ plus my good works or
Christ plus anything. It's Christ is all. Come to Christ.
Come to Christ. If you desire to come to Christ,
there cannot be one reason in you that you find why God should
accept you. If you want to come, listen to
what I'm saying, this is important. If you want to come to Christ,
if you want eternal life, if you want to come to Christ, there
cannot be one thing in you whereby you believe God would choose
to accept you. You have to come to him with
nothing. Completely empty. Completely empty. No righteousness. No honor for yourself. No glory
for yourself. You have to come to him without
clothing. You can't bring your righteousness
to him. You remember blind Bartimaeus whenever he was crying out, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. He was a blind beggar.
He couldn't find the Lord. He couldn't get to the Lord.
What a beautiful picture of what we're talking about of coming
to Christ. He couldn't come to Christ if he wanted to. He didn't
know where he was. He couldn't see him. And so what happened? The
Lord, the disciples said, be quiet, you're bothering the master.
Boy, that's how it goes, isn't it? People get upset with us
whenever we desire to come to Christ, whenever we desire to
worship him and desire to talk. People don't like election. They
don't like that. They don't like that God's God.
They wanna be God, that's the problem. But Bartimaeus kept
crying out louder. It wasn't gonna stop him, he
had a need. We see the point, he had a need. What do we have?
Do we see our sin? Do we see our iniquity? Iniquity
is what we do to try to fix our sin. I'm gonna go to church,
or I'm gonna tithe, or I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that,
and I'm gonna fix some of my sin. No, you're just adding to it with
iniquity. God says in Psalm 5-5, he hateth all workers of iniquity.
He hates them, he hates them. We were at one point, weren't
we? By grace, he called us to himself. Just like he did Bartimaeus. He said, go fetch him. Go bring
him to me. Bring him to me. Is that not
what he does for his people? The Holy Spirit comes, that's who
fetches us, the Holy Spirit. He brings us to where he is,
and we're made to confess our need. What would you have me
do for you, Bartimaeus? My sight. Oh, I want to receive
my sight. And the Lord calls him to receive
his sight. Calls him to receive his sight.
Is that not a picture of salvation? Where the Lord, now the most
interesting part about this is it says that Bartimaeus left
his garment behind whenever he approached the Lord. What's that
a picture of? That's a picture of our self-righteousness. I'm
robed in self-righteousness. I'm covered up with the fig leaves
that Adam and Eve sowed after they had sinned, rather than
being covered with the lamb. I'm covered with my own works.
I'm covered with what I think God will accept. The Lord says,
you cannot come to me that way. I'll cast you out. You can't
come to me that way. You want to come to Christ, you
have to come to him naked, naked. There can't be one reason in
you whereby God accepts you or I. If we come to Christ, we must
be the chief sinner. If there's one drop of righteousness
in us, we cannot, cannot, cannot come to Christ. Can't do it.
He won't accept it. He will not accept it. This is
why the Lord said to those Pharisees, you will not come to me that
you may have eternal life. You won't come to me. Why won't
they come? They had their own righteousness.
They had their own righteousness. Men hold to their works, to things
seen, to their good deeds, their lifestyle, their morals, their
conduct, code, Well, they hold on to about anything, don't they? Rather
than coming to Christ. Hold on to tradition. I know
people holding on to tradition. They believe in their tradition's
gonna save them and it's not gonna happen. Christ is all in
salvation. It's not Christ plus anything.
It's Christ is all, come to Christ. That's what wisdom cries. God's elect are made to bow,
made to surrender, made to confess the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, he's Lord and
Savior. A lot of people don't have a
problem with him being Savior, but you can't have him as Savior
if you don't have him as Lord also, he's both. Lord Jesus Christ,
both Lord and Savior. This is what the cry of wisdom
teaches the Lord's people. I wanna say this, this is very
important, all of this is important, but sometimes I write that down
so I make sure that I say that this is important, maybe to get
attention if I've lost any, just to remind myself of the severity
of the situation, coming to Christ, I wanna say this slowly and clearly,
coming to Christ is not coming to an understanding. It's not
coming to a doctrine. It's not coming to an ideal or
a religious experience or a religion. Coming to Christ is coming to
a person. Coming to Christ is coming to
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. It's not about what you know,
it's about who you know. There's no way that we can understand,
there's people, well, I guess I won't say that. I will say
this, coming to Christ is not coming to a doctrine. Coming
to Christ is not coming to a doctrine. You can know doctrine and still
not know Christ. That's accurate. There are plenty
of Calvinists in hell and there's all the Armenians are in hell.
How do I know that? Well, because their God can't
do anything. That's just facts. I don't claim to be, we don't
go around talking about being Calvinist here, do we? Why? Because
we preach Christ and him crucified. We preach the Lord and savior,
Jesus Christ. I don't, I don't even mention,
well, we can't help but mention men are totally depraved in the
message. We can't help but mention the Lord elected a people. We
can't help, we can't help but mention the Lord only died for
those people. We can't help but mention that
grace is irresistible. It's not your choice, it's God's.
And we can't help but mention that the saints that God has
saved are going to be, they're going to persevere. Why? He's
going to keep them by his power. He's not going to lose one sheep.
Those are all true facts. But I can know those facts and
still not know the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. I can know
all of that and not know him and the free pardon of sin. We don't come to a decision.
Coming to Christ is not coming to a decision. Coming to Christ
is not coming to a conclusion or, no, coming to Christ is coming
to a man, the God man, by faith, by faith. If I tell you come
to Christ right now, those who wish, come to Christ, I would
say, I would immediately say after that, don't move a muscle,
don't move a muscle. This is through the heart, this
is by grace alone, this is faith given. We can't come to Christ
unless he gives us faith to come to him, to believe on him. That's
the message. Christ is not begging to help
men or have men help him. He's not begging for anything.
God never begged one person. Matter of fact, he told the disciples,
if I was hungry, I wouldn't tell you about it. I wouldn't tell
you. I wouldn't ask you for anything.
He's God. He can turn stones into bread.
Satan knew that. That's how he tempted him. But
the Lord didn't do it, of course. But you understand what I'm saying?
Oh, he's God. He's not begging anybody for
anything. He's the sovereign Lord and Savior. He satisfied
the laws of demands. He silenced that sort of justice
for his people. He became he who knew no sin
was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. If Lord made his son sin for us who knew no sin.
then if he did that for everybody, then everybody's going to heaven.
There's nobody that's lost. I mean, think about that. That's
simple. And we didn't make a way of salvation.
He is the way. That's why we don't come to a
doctrine. We come to him. We don't come to an understanding.
We come to him. We don't come to a church. We
come to Christ. We come to Christ. He alone put
away the sin of his elect. He satisfied God in every way
to redeem his people, chosen people, God freely justifies
all for whom Christ lived and died for, freely, freely by his
grace. Free grace is the only kind,
did you know that? Sovereign grace is the only kind. It's
all the same, it's God's grace. This is why the cry of wisdom
says come to Christ, come to Christ. Don't bring anything
and don't move a muscle but come to Christ. Last place I want
to turn we'll finish here is Isaiah 55. As the Lord showed you, if you're
a sinner, has he made you, gave you this need, made you needy?
If he has, I got good news for you in Isaiah 55. Has he made
you thirsty? Has he made you hungry? Here's
what he tells us, Isaiah 55, verse one. Ho, everyone that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto
me. Herein your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. The sure mercies
of David. You that desire to have your
sin remitted, come to Christ. Come to Christ. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That's what he said,
wasn't it? How can they hear? How can they believe except they
hear? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can he preach
without even being sent? See, it's all the Lord that does it.
The hearing ear and the seeing eye, they're from the Lord. They're
from the Lord. Coming to Christ is not coming
to a religious experience or particular set of rules. It's
not coming to a lifestyle change or moral reformation. It's not
coming to an understanding of facts. It's coming to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's coming to God. That's what
you're doing, coming to God, the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know how you have to come? Pleading unclean, unclean. It's
the only way you'll be accepted. Unclean, unclean, in my hand
no price I bring, but to the Lord Jesus Christ I cling. This
is the hope of the believer. Have mercy on me, the sinner. And one of those men went home
justified, didn't they? Which one? The sinner. The sinner, the Lord
heard him. Coming to Christ is pleading
for his blood. Believing in his righteousness is your only hope.
Your only hope, because you have none. You have no righteousness
before the throne of God. Coming to Christ is actually
believing that he has to do all the calling, all the saving,
all the keeping, and all the glorifying. He has to do all
the justifying, all the sanctifying. He does every bit of it. If he
don't, we don't have any of it. That's what's coming, that's
what coming to Christ is. Believing that he is sufficient in every
way. Believing that he is perfect
and holy and right in every way. Believing that he accomplished
exactly what he said he would accomplish. And believing he
is seated at the right hand of God. That God resurrected him
because he was satisfied with his sacrifice and redeemed all
of his people. This is the cry of wisdom. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You that desire salvation, come
to Christ. Come to Christ. Let's pray. Father,
we ask that you would take this and bless it according to your
will, to our understanding. In Christ's name, amen.