I'm certainly thankful that he
has revealed himself so graciously. We're in Judges 2 this morning,
if you would like to turn. Judges 2. Now there's 12 judges in the book
of Judges that judge the nation Israel. You know the number of
12 would be the 12 tribes of Israel. That's certainly what's
being viewed here or established. I'm not going to go through all
12 judges. Time would not permit us to do that. Each judge is
a type and picture of Christ in different ways, and I know
you all were following Greg there for a while in the book of Judges.
They're still in Judges. He's preaching through Judges
in Apopka even now, so if you get a chance to pull up some
of his messages, the Lord has been giving him through Judges.
I'm certain the Lord would cause it to be a blessing unto you.
But in chapter 2, it's kind of an view of the entire book of
Judges. It literally sums up everything
in the entire book of Judges. Basically, what's taking place
is Joshua dies and all the people that had saw the wonderful works
of the Lord had passed away as well. And then it says at the
end of verse 10, these ones were raised up, nor yet have they
saw, they knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which we had
done in Israel. So they begin to do their own
thing. They begin to go their own way.
Turn all the way to the very last chapter in Judges, Judges
21, 25. It's the very last verse in Judges. So the beginning starts
with a summary of the book of Judges and what's going to take
place. And the very end tells us why. Judges 21, 25 says, in
those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. Now, understand that that's what
men do by nature. They do that which is right in
their own eyes. Men don't do that which is wrong
in their eyes. Men want to justify themselves
by nature. Everything that we do by nature,
we want to justify ourself or call it right. And that's exactly
what the children of Israel did. So Israel, we see, they're going
to get in trouble, and the Lord's gonna constantly bring them back.
They're constantly gonna forsake the Lord, and the Lord's gonna
constantly retrieve them. They're constantly, continually
would be a better word, they continually go astray, and the
Lord brings them back by these judges. So let's read here in
Judges chapter two. They've entered into the promised
land, the place of promise. Our Joshua brought them into
the promised land, just like our Lord Jesus Christ hath brought
us into him. The law could not do that. Moses
had to die first, and then Joshua brought them in, as we saw even
Wednesday night, I believe I mentioned that. But here we are in Judges
chapter two, and we see that there was those from a different
generation that rose up. And verse 11 says, and the children
of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam.
And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought
them out of the land of Egypt and follow other gods of the
gods of the people that were round about them and bowed themselves
unto them and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the
Lord and served Baal and Ashtoreth. Now, Baal and Ashtoreth are the
fertility gods of this land, the fertility gods. It's important
to mention that because they not only they not only committed
spiritual sin in forsaking the Lord, forsaking the God of Israel
and going after strange gods, but they were being taught just
like if you remember, Balaam was the one that brought in these
false gods of sexual offenses that the Lord said, don't do
that. And yet the children of Israel went after these strange
gods and these strange things. I don't know, we don't know exactly
why they went after the fertility gods as they did, but they didn't
only commit spiritual sin, but they committed physical sin.
They were beginning to intermingle with these different tribes,
different nations that were in the land of Canaan, in the land
of promise. I was reading someone that said that perhaps it was
because they didn't know how to till the land. They didn't
know how to farm the land. They saw their fruits and vegetables
of their crops. And this is just speculation,
but it does make sense. They were in a brand new land
and they didn't know maybe how to farm. And so they begin to
intermingle with these people. And these people were saying,
well, here's the gods we serve and look at our crops. And they
thought, okay, well, we'll, we'll worship Jehovah, but we'll worship him
in the form of Baal. And we'll have the same crops
as you do. And this is the intermingling of false religion, isn't it?
That's exactly what it is. It's the same as the Samaritan
woman at the well. She believed she was worshiping God. when
in fact she was worshiping God in the form of a dog or a form
of a cat. And there was five different
ones, the sun, the moon. And this is what men do by nature.
They try to intermingle grace with works. And that's exactly
where we find the children of Israel. Now, brethren, it's very
important to mention that the believer does not intermingle
grace and works, but we do have two natures, don't we? And that's
what I've titled this message is the two natures, the old and
the new man. Now, We see the depravity of
Israel here is so sunk, it's sunk to such a desolate, destitute
matter that they actually sacrifice their children in Jeremiah chapter
32 onto the high places of Baal. Not only do they follow after
these strange gods and go after these gods of fertility trying
to accomplish something, but they literally end up sacrificing
unto these strange gods. Now, I want us to understand
this morning that we do not physically sacrifice our children, but there's
men and women all over this country, all over the world right now,
that are sacrificing their children under false gods, spiritually
speaking. They have them underneath the
sound of a man that's declaring unto them that Jesus loves everybody
and he wants to save everybody and you have to do your part.
That's sacrificing them spiritually. Do we see that? We don't physically
sacrifice our children or spiritually sacrifice our children. As the
elect of God, we bring them to hear about a man who told me
all things ever I did, is this not Christ? We bring our children
to hear the truth of the gospel. If you love your children, you're
gonna have them under the sound of the truth. Is that not right?
It has to be. If we don't love our children,
we're gonna lie to our children. We live in a society right now
that doesn't teach their children in the way they should go. They
don't. They do not teach responsibility of their actions, nor do they
teach respect for authority, but yet the Lord says here whenever
he's dealing with the children of Israel. Well, look with me
here in verse 14, and the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel
and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers. So we
see this physical rebellion of Israel also can be likened to
our physical rebellion against God. We, by nature, By nature,
and I understand this morning, I'm not preaching on works. I'm
talking about our old man. Our old man hates God and everything
about God. God did not come to save the
flesh. God did not come to redeem the flesh. He came to redeem
the spirit. He came to save the soul. That's eternal. We have
a carnal and we have an eternal. a spiritual, and we have a physical. And the Lord came to save us,
not from our nature, but to save us from ourselves. And that's
what he does. He leaves us for a moment, just
briefly, around the inhabitants of this land, around the things
that our eyes see, and we go and we find ourselves so often
doing the things which we would not want to do. The things that
we despise are the things we find ourselves doing. Turn back to Genesis a few pages,
Genesis 25. This is the believer's life in
this chapter. This is the believer's life.
As we're looking through here, we see that God raises up a judge
that brings them unto himself. And as soon as the judge dies,
they go back doing the exact same thing that they were doing
before. And God raises up another judge to bring them back to him
again. You and I are brought not by a judge, but by the judge,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the judge of the world.
We're brought by the gospel. That's what continually brings
us back to him. That's how he draws us nigh unto
him. That's how he reveals his face
unto us is by his gospel. So here we are. in a world full
of non-believing people, people that hate God, and even in our
flesh, we're able to enjoy spending time with non-believers. Why?
Because our flesh hates God also. But yet we have a new man, a
new man that's taken ownership of the old man's sin. Even though
the new man is perfectly righteous in the eyes of God, it took ownership
of that sin. That's the reason that you recognize
that you're a sinner is because you've been given a new nature.
Our flesh will never acknowledge that we are intermingling in
this world, that we are going the way of Balaam, that we're
going after the Genghis Khan of Korah, but that's what our
flesh would do by nature. And yet the grace of God restrains
us, and the gospel is presented, brought forth by the Spirit,
and we're brought back to Him again, and we're brought back
to Him again, over and over and over. That's literally the believer's
walk, isn't it? Every day, we crucify the flesh,
the scripture, the Lord, is the one that keeps us. He crucifies
the flesh. He fulfilled all the demands of God in the flesh because
we cannot. During Genesis chapter 25 and
verse 22, it says, And the children struggled together within her.
And she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire
of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two
nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be
separated from thy bowels. And the one people shall be stronger
than the other people. And the elder shall serve the
younger. Now you and I already this morning,
I've declared unto you the goodness of the Lord and the grace that's
given by the preaching of the gospel. We know that we're kept
by the power of God. There is no way we can keep ourselves.
I've declared unto us already that it's the Lord that saves
his people by his choice. So we have to ask with Rebecca
here, if it be so, why am I thus? And the answer comes, In the
end, we have a new man and an old man. We have two nations,
if you will, warring inside of ourself. We have a spiritual,
we have a carnal. We've been made alive, spiritually speaking. And the carnal man is enmity
against God. And yet the spiritual man, all
he can do is look to Christ because he's given the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So, as soon as you're, it's been
said like this, you're going through a trial, You're going
through one, you're coming out of one, or you're fixing to go
into one. Why is that? Because of our flesh.
Because the Lord has made it thus, to where this warfare takes
place, and yet we already know the end, that it is finished.
I'll read back in the men's study. In Revelation, he said, it is
done. I am Alpha and Omega. That's our rest. It's not based
upon what I'm doing in this world. It's based upon what he done
while he was in this world. It's not based upon what I'm
trying to accomplish. It's based upon what he accomplished.
It's not based upon me at all. And that's the good news of the
gospel. He will not utterly leave us to ourself. When we realize
these things, we realize that we're carrying a dead corpse
on our back, aren't we? We're literally carrying around
just this old dead flesh. I'm a dying man preaching to
dying men and women. It's that simple. If we can get
a glimpse of that, we'll understand something about the Lord's amazing
grace in salvation. He did not come to save this
flesh. We're going to have tribulation. We're going to have suffering.
We're going to have heartache. We're going to have pain. And
it was even mentioned in the men's study that that's pretty
much all we have is just sorrow all the time. The scripture even
says, man, mourn of a woman is few days and full of trouble.
That's the summary of man. Man born of a woman, and all
men are born of a woman. Few days and full of trouble, that's
it. That's why Christ had to come.
Because we're full of trouble. But in Him, in Him we have life. We have life and we have it more
abundantly. Christ came to give us this new
man, and when the Lord sees us, all he sees is that new man,
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He sees us in Christ. Turn with
me to 2 Peter 1. I mentioned to you earlier about
sacrificing children, spiritually speaking, and thanks be to God
that it's already finished. And even if a child is born in
false religion, such as myself, the Lord can bring them out of
that and does for his people. He will. The Lord will not lose
one sheep. But men like to say things like
God has a plan for your life. God wants you to have an abundant
life here on this earth. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
give us abundant life, spiritually speaking, not physically speaking.
We never can get up and declare that the Lord wants you to be
financially well off. It's just not true. He didn't come that
you would be able to have a wealthy life. He came to give you abundant
life in Christ, that your wealth would be found in the finished
work of Christ. And to the believer, that's all that you want is Christ.
2 Peter chapter one tells us in verse three, according to
his divine power hath given unto us all things. all things that
pertain unto life and goodliness through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might
be partakers in the divine nature." Now there it is, brethren. There's
the gospel. That we might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust. So what is he saying here? By the divine power that he's
given, by the divine power that he has, we've been given all
things pertaining to life and godliness. We've been given glory
and virtue. Glory and virtue means goodness
and purity. What is Peter saying here? I'm virtuous? I'm good? I'm pure? In the eyes of God, understand
that even the stars are not pure in his sight. So how is it that
me, knowing my flesh, knowing the sin that I am, how is it
that I could be made pure? Because of his exceeding great
and precious promises. Because he hath made us partakers
of the divine nature, the nature of Christ, the nature of Christ. I love that he says that we've
escaped the corruption having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. You're saying I've escaped the
corruption? I don't see that I've escaped the corruption.
It's all around me and I am the corrupt thing. Yet in Christ
Jesus, we have escaped corruption. What are these precious promises?
What are these exceeding great and precious promises that Peter's
talking about? We'll go back to our text in
Judges chapter two. Judges chapter two. And the good
news of the gospel starts in very the very beginning of chapter
two, verse one. Judges two, verse one says, and
an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Basham and said,
I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you into the
land which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, and here
it is, brethren, I will never break my covenant with you. I will never break my covenant
with you. Our entire hope in salvation
hangs on those words. There is nothing that we can
do in keeping a covenant in any way. By nature, we are enmity
against God. This old man that we carry around
hates God, hates everything about him, hates holiness, because
in God's holiness, it leaves man as utterly destitute, without
hope, without strength. But thanks be to God, when we
were without hope, when we were without strength, Christ died
for the ungodly. Thanks be to God that he will
never break this covenant because this covenant was not between
us and God. It wasn't me and the Lord Jesus
Christ and the Father. We were given, the elect were
given to Jesus Christ to redeem, but the covenant completely took
place between the Father and the Son. That's why he'll never
break the covenant. We had nothing to do with it. We're just the
benefactors of it. We're just the partakers of it. That's the
good news of the gospel. It's no wonder Apostle Paul said
in Romans chapter eight, there's therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. He went on to say, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. If the Lord's the one that justified,
who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? The Lord's the
one that justified. The Lord's the one that made
us perfect in his sight. The Lord's the one that made
us partaker of this perfect nature of Christ. Isn't that glorious? We are partakers of the Lord's
nature. And what is the Lord's nature?
Everything that he did was under the Father. Everything that he
spoke was pleasing to the Father. Every work that he performed
was perfect, was true, and was good. Even though we're false
and full of sin in this old man, we are truth and grace in the
Lord Jesus Christ and our new man. That's the good news of
the gospel. So here we find ourself just
as the children of Israel. Knowing everything that I've
already spoken, look in verse 13. I'm gonna read a few of the
first words of a few verses here rather than reading it all. It
says, and they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtoreth.
Verse 14, and the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.
Verse 16, nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered
them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. Now verse
18 says, and when the Lord had raised up judges, Then the Lord
was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their
enemies all the days of the judge. For it repented the Lord because
of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and
vexed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that
they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers in following
other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them. They ceased
not from their own doings nor from their stubborn way." Can
you relate to them in any way? Well, we have a stubborn way,
don't we? We know the good that we should do, and yet we cannot
do it. Paul, and we'll read this in a minute, but Paul said, to
will is present. If I could live like I want to
live, and Greg has made this statement many times, live like
you want and look to Christ. The reason is because as a believer,
if I could live like I want, it would be perfect unto him.
It would be looking unto him all the time. And yet we're just
like these children of Israel. We must come and be reminded. and hear one more time. We must
come and hear the gospel again and be brought back. Turn us,
Lord, and we shall be turned. Cause us to seek your face. David
said it this way, had it not been for the Lord, when the Lord
said unto me, seek you my face, then my heart said, thy face,
O Lord, will I seek. That's the only way we come,
is when the Lord says, seek you my face. And he does for his
people over and over. He leaves us but for a moment.
He leaves us but for a moment, not utterly, not utterly to ourselves,
but just for a moment. What about Peter? It's a perfect
example. Peter's on a boat and the Lord
calls him out of the boat to come walk on the water. And Peter
literally walks on the water. You ever felt like you walked
on the water before? When it comes to being joyful in the
Lord, having a good meeting, we had a good service and I was,
I feel like I could just walk on water. Now I know that's not
literal, but it's figurative. You understand what I mean by
that? It's literally that, We're rejoicing so much right now,
I'm just looking unto Him. And as soon as we leave, we sink
right back down in the water, don't we? That's how it is. That's
why we have to keep coming. Well, that's what Peter did.
He gets out of the boat, as you know, and he starts walking on the
water. He's looking to Christ and he's literally walking on
water. And then he takes his eyes off of Christ. Just as the
children of Israel here took their eyes off of Christ, just
as our old man always wants to not look to Christ, our old man
can't look to Christ. Our old man won't look to Christ,
can't. But yet the new man constantly
looking unto him. And as we get caught up in the
flesh, our eyes are taken away. And what do we do? We sink. What
do we cry out? Lord, I've taken the first step.
I need you to take the rest. That's not what we cry out. We're
beggars, aren't we brethren? We're mercy beggars. Lord, save
me. That's all that I can say is, Lord, save me. I can't do
anything. I've gotten myself in this situation. It's all my
fault, completely all my fault. That's the new man, isn't it?
The new man's crying out, Lord, save me. The flesh and its arrogance
and its stubbornness would say, I'm good. Give me just a minute.
I'll get back to the boat. I'm okay. How foolish is that?
That's what men do by nature. They believe they can do something
to get whatever they need God to do to help them. But the believer
just says, Lord, save me. Therefore, the Lord gets all
the glory and salvation, doesn't he? That's the way we like it.
That's the way we have to have it. They ceased not from their own
doings, nor from their stubborn way. My wife has accused me of
being stubborn before. I don't know if anybody else
in here has accused someone else of being stubborn, but Our own
way is not the Lord's way. We know, don't we, that we would
not come unto Him. We would not come unto Him had
He not said, come unto me. Had He not made us come unto
Him. When the Lord talks about irresistible grace, that is good
news to me because I can't resist it. I don't want to resist it.
If He's given us faith, we have to have it. It's glorious and
beautiful. And we run unto Christ. yet we see our old man is constantly
stubborn against the things of the Lord. That's why we have
to be here, isn't it? Paul talked about crucifying
the flesh. He said, I crucify the flesh,
nevertheless I live, yet not I, it's Christ liveth in me.
And this is the life I now live in the flesh by the faith of
the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So we see
This crucifying of the flesh is literally coming to church,
coming to where the gospel's being preached and begging, Lord,
save me, Lord, save me. This is not us going out here
and living, believers live a moral life, don't misunderstand. We're
not frivolous in what we do and we know, we love the Lord's law
and we want to obey the commandments of the Lord, knowing that if
I was to commit such and such sin against my wife, there's
gonna be consequences in the flesh But we don't preach those
type of things. Do you know why? We preach Christ
and the Lord keeps His people. We rest in the Lord keeping His
people, don't we? We certainly have warnings from
the Lord and different things, and you all know this, but we
preach Christ and Him crucified and the Lord gets those that
are His and the Lord keeps those that are His until the very end
and that's where we rest. I'm thankful I wasn't called
to be a law preacher. It's not my job to tell you the
law over and over and over to get you in line, and we can't
keep the law. We can't keep the law. But Christ
did. Christ did for his people, didn't
he? Kept it perfectly. We find ourself wanting to do
good, but evil's always present. Turn with me to Romans chapter
seven. Romans chapter seven. In verse 14, Romans 7, for we
know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do, I allow not, and what I would, that do
I not, but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which
I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, for
I know You've been made to know this. We have been made to know
this. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good
that I would do, the good that I would I do not, but the evil
which I would not that I do. Aren't you glad for substitution?
Paul's literally saying right here, by declaration, that the
good that he would do, he can't do, because evil's always present
with him. He's not making excuses for himself, he's literally saying,
I don't want to do this, and I'm finding myself doing this,
but what I would do, looking unto Christ, I can't do that.
Even though the will is present with me, the will is present
with me, but I can't do it. I want to do it, but I can't.
Verse 20 says, now if I do that I would not, it is no more that
I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law. that
when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight
in the law of God after the inward man." There it is, brethren.
You know why the inward man delights in the law of God? Because the
inward man has kept it perfect in Christ. That's the good news. The inward man has never sinned.
The inward man has been made like unto Christ, made in the
image of Christ, made good, made perfect, made pure, made righteous. As a matter of fact, 1 John 3
says, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God? Brethren, now
are we the sons of God. And it doth not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know, we know. Something else we know,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him. We shall be made
like him, for we shall see him as he is. We're gonna see Christ
and be made just like him. And as far as God's concerned,
it's already done. It's already finished. Let's read on. In verse 23, but I see another
law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing
me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? And he gives us the answer. I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then without the
mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the
law of sin. Now, he said the mind there,
and a lot of people talk about the heart. With the heart, man
believeth unto righteousness, with the mouth is confessions
made into salvation. But understand something, brother,
the Lord doesn't really give us a differential, a difference
between the mind and the heart. The mind is what looks unto Christ,
as Paul was saying here, that he serves. So then with the mind,
I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of
sin. What is he saying? The Lord's
given him a new heart. to serve the Lord with his mind. That's
what he's saying. It's the same exact thing. Do we see that? This is
the new man that the Lord's given us that continually looks to
Christ. And yet we have this flesh. And
I can't say this the way that I would like to, but I'm trying
to reiterate it over and over. We have a new man that looks
to Christ. That's all it can do. It's perfect. We have an
old man that won't look to Christ and can't look to Christ any
way, shape or form. That's absolutely enmity against God. We literally
have two entities within ourself warring all the time. one wanting
to serve God and one hating God. And Christ hath put away the
one that hates God. Christ came as a man, born in
the flesh, born under the law to redeem them that are under
the law. The Lord became flesh and dwelt among us. And the Lord
was perfect in his flesh, never wavering, never committing one
sin, the Lord died the sinless lamb for his people, bearing
their sin in their body. So even now, as the Lord looks
upon us right now, right this second, as we're standing here,
there is no sin, no sin. It's all been put away. The sin
that we have done in our flesh has been put away. And this new
man cries out, says, Lord, have mercy upon me, the sinner. And
the Lord says, you've been made perfectly righteous. You're justified.
You've never sinned one time. That's the glorious news of the
gospel. Christ Jesus came to save us
from ourself. Our greatest enemy is not the
devil. Our greatest enemy is not the world. It's this old
wretched man that I am. It's our flesh, isn't it? Christ
Jesus conquered the flesh for his people. Aren't you glad he'll
never break his covenant? You'll never break His covenant.
He said, I will never break my covenant with you. I'll never
break my covenant. How fast we would break it, how
fast we would run and turn away from the Lord, how fast we would
go back to the inhabitants of this land. And don't misunderstand,
we do have the world to contend with, and we do have the devil
to contend with, but truly the inhabitants of this land is what
we deal with the most, isn't it? It's the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life that's within us,
that the weight of sin of unbelief that so doth easily beset us.
We're so prone to wonder. We're so prone to leave the God
we love. We're so prone to go after. We want to take matters
into our own hand when we hear of anything negative that happens
in our life, don't we? I immediately, if I get bad news
of some kind, I immediately start thinking, how can I fix it? How
can I fix it? That's not looking to Christ.
That's looking to myself. That's unbelief. Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Jesus
Christ is who? Because he'll never break his
covenant with us. He'll never break his covenant
with us. This totally disproves the idea
of progressive sanctification, doesn't it? It does. There's
no such thing as progressive sanctification. We're not getting
better. We've already been sanctified in God's eyes, made perfect in
the Lord's eyes. If anything, it's regressive. According to
the flesh, we see ourself getting less. and less and worse and
worse and see more and more of him. We see more and more of
him. Thanks be to God, we are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. Brethren, these two natures that
we deal with Nicodemus had an interest in eternal life, and
we must understand that we must be born again. That's the new
nature. We must be birthed into the family of God. Spiritually
speaking, the Lord has to do that. He does it by the preaching
of his gospel. Nicodemus came with an interest and said, Lord,
what must I do to inherit eternal life? That is what every man
is going to church for today. It doesn't matter what the church
is. They're going because they want to inherit eternal life.
But what men believe they can do is their old man can please
God by the things that they do. They can work a certain work,
they can pray a certain prayer, they can live a certain life,
and the Lord would be pleased with them. That is exactly the
opposite of what Christ told Nicodemus. You must be born again. You're not good enough in yourself.
You must be born again. And Nicodemus said, how can a
man, when he is old, enter to his mother's womb a second time
and be born? Christ said, that which is flesh is flesh, That
which is spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee,
you must be born again. I love our Lord the way he looks
at Nicodemus and he says these words. How is it that you're
a master in Israel and know not these things? It's a rhetorical
question, isn't it? Because a man cannot comprehend
spiritual things based upon learning. We cannot read the entire Bible
and gain more knowledge in order to attain knowledge unto eternal
life of the Lord. We can't do it. How can Nicodemus
not know? Because it takes a preacher,
doesn't it? A preacher of the gospel declared in the power
of the Lord's spirit to reveal unto us we must be born again
and to birth us into the family of the Lord. That's the good
news is he's done that for his people. From the foundation of
the world, Christ was the lamb slain. From the foundation of
the world, we have been kept by the power of God unto salvation. And as the gospel goes forth,
he says, live and we're born again. That's the good news.
Now lastly, I want us to turn to 1 Corinthians 15. It's a few pages over. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 42 says, So also is the resurrection of
the dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in corruption. The
Lord's only one that can take something utterly dead, utterly
nothing, and make something out of it, make it alive. The Lord's
the only one that can do that. It is sown in corruption. It
is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is
raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is
raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It
is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body. and
there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first
man, Adam, was made a living soul, and the last man, Adam,
was made a quickening spirit." And I want you to notice in your
Bibles here that the words was made the second time is in italics. It should read the last Adam,
a quickening spirit. He wasn't made, he is the quickening
spirit. Do we see that? Now, yes, the
Lord Jesus Christ became a man, but he was he was who he was
from the foundation of the world. He was who he is forever and
ever in eternity. He's the eternal God. And he's
made he's a quickening spirit that makes us alive, his people. His people, we have been made
perfect in Christ. We have been brought to him by
the preaching of the gospel. Even though we wonder in these
inhabitants, wonder throughout this land, wonder and war against
the Lord in our flesh and look into these inhabitants that the
Lord's left. He brings us back to the gospel. He keeps his people.
And one of these days, according to his words right here. It is
sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is
sown in weakness. It is raised in power. We're
going to be raised in a spiritual body. One of these days, we're
gonna be conformed to his image. I've already quoted that to you.
We shall see him as he is. The scripture says, Lord shall
descend from heaven with the shout, with the voice of the
archangel, with the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall
rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be called
up to meet him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the
Lord. We have been given a body that is like unto his. We've
been given a new man that looks to him. That's my encouragement
to you this morning. Lord calls us to look to you.
We have these two natures, one that mourns, and one that rejoices
at the same time. Our new man's the only one that
truly mourns our sin, and our new man's the only one that can
truly rejoice in the finished work of Christ. The flesh doesn't
mourn our sin, and the flesh tries to seek after happiness,
but only our new man can mourn the sin that we are, and yet
rejoice in Christ putting away our sin. The Lord's given us
mourning and rejoicing. By the covenant of grace, I probably
should have titled this. I will never break my covenant
with you, but that's OK. I'm going to leave it the way that
it is. By the covenant of grace, he gets all the glory because
his love is everlasting, because his grace is everlasting, because
he is the everlasting God that will not break his covenant with
his people. Father. Cause us to look unto
you. Your everlasting covenant. Forgive
us for wondering. and for leaving the God that
we love. Forgive us for running away. Keep us and draw us nigh
unto thyself. Draw us nearer unto you. We ask
these things in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.