I hope this is what the Lord
wants read. Can you turn with me in your
Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 10? That's God's providences. Such a great thing. I'm so thankful.
You know, times of turmoil or whatever they may be, we can
only say one thing with certainty. we know who's in control, and
we know who's ordained it, and we know that even though we may
not understand it or even like it, we know that it's right and
good, because God's ordained it. These verses, Brother Greg preached there a
few weeks ago a sermon on what the we knows of the Bible, what
we know, and we know those because God has taught us. Scripture
says, and they shall all be taught of God. These verses here in
chapter 10 are things that only believers know. And we know that salvation is
all of God, start to finish. You've heard from this pulpit,
he either does it all or he doesn't do it at all. And as I look back
and I will say these verses come to my prayers almost daily. Especially
when we look at those who sat under preaching the gospel and
remain in unbelief. Especially our children and our
loved ones. And Paul here is praying and
I hope that we can see two things, who he's praying to and what
he's praying. And Paul starts out, he says,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. For I bear them record, they
have a zeal of God. Oh, they drive the church bus
and they teach Sunday school and they give money and they
pass out pamphlets but not according to knowledge. They're ignorant. For they being ignorant, what
are they ignorant of? They're ignorant of God's righteousness. What they don't know is that
on that day of judgment, the only righteousness God will accept
is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of that ignorance,
they're going about trying to establish their own righteousness,
having not submitted themselves into the righteousness of God,
which is Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." As believers, we know that If there are any
ones to be saved, God has to do it. So our plea is not with
the sinner, our plea is with God. God, would you be willing to
save my loved ones and the people? Would you be willing to save
them, Lord? If they're to be saved, only you can do it. I
can't do any, I can tell them the truth. I'm just a pawn and
God has to save them. and how it grieves our soul to
see them in unbelief, because we know what happens. I pray you, plain, all of us
as believers, that we're pleading with God for their souls every
day. And like one man said, how much
we believe that will be what our sense of urgency is. I'll close with Something happened
to me a few years back. A person came to me one Sunday
and says, Michael, are you going to be here next Sunday? I thought, well, that was quite
a little unusual, but I wasn't. I knew I was going to be gone.
I said, well, no, I'm going to be gone. Is there something going
on? I'm not too keen. I may have
forgot something. And that person told me, well,
next Sunday, I'm going to be baptized. And, I'm sorry, how that stirs. It almost brings you to tears,
even now, years later. See, what that person didn't
know was how many people had been pleading with God, day after
day, year after year. God, would you be willing to
save them? And I will say this, there's
times we get discouraged. Lord, are you not hearing our
prayers? That if God's put in your heart a desire for unbelievers to know
Christ, you cannot stop praying. And we know if there is that
he's going to save. That's what we, that's our desire.
And I pray as a congregation, we remember that, and we don't
plead with them, we plead with God. Will you join me for prayer,
please? I'm sorry, before, I wanna thank
Rinaldo Lawrence here. Their sister, Solange, passed
away last week. And Solange has been here several
times. Well, we pray that you'll give
him grace, and as a believer, we rejoice with her. Well, how
does it speak for me? A little jealous of her, to tell
you the truth. And I know she's where she wants
to be, and where we hope to be one day. But at the same time,
there's unbelieving members of her family. We pray, may God
be merciful to them and give them grace during this time,
but more importantly, that he may be willing to save them.
Let us go to prayer. Lord, we thank you for the blessing
of being able to gather together. We pray that by your power, you
will enable us to be faithful to Christ and his gospel. We pray for your servant, Brother
Greg, and your other gospel preachers, wherever they may meet, that
you will send your spirit to them and give them the ability
to declare Christ truthfully and simply and not hold anything
back. And as your people, Lord, that
you would give us the ability to hear and the faith to believe
and the faith to not only love what we hear but the willingness
to defend it when people tell lies against Christ and His gospel. And we pray, O Lord, not only
for ourselves but for those who gather here today that are strangers to your grace,
that remain in unbelief that today might be the day, Lord,
that you are willing to come to them Make them willing to
come to Christ and draw them to yourself and give them the
faith to rest and believe on Christ alone. And I pray you
would enable us to give you all the glory. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 199, 199. in the hard back temple. ? Sinners Jesus will receive ?
Sound this word of grace to all ? Who the heavenly pathway leave
? All who linger, all who fall ? Sing it o'er and o'er again
? Christ receive his sinful man Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. ? Come and he will give you rest
? Trust him for his word is plain ? He will take the sinful last
? Christ receive the sinful man ? Sing it o'er and o'er again
? Christ receive the sinful man Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, sing it o'er and o'er again. a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive a sinful man. Christ receiveth sinful man,
even me with all my sin. Purged from every spot and stain,
Heaven with Him I enter in. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Please be seated. That's good news. This is a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation. Every word of it is worthy to
be accepted as true and everyone ought to believe it. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. And Paul concluded that verse
by saying, of whom I am chief. He was talking about his current
condition and this was late in his life. This was not long before
they put him to death over the gospel. He called himself the
chief of sinners. Are we just saying it? Are we
sinners or are we... Scripture refers to believers
as saints. Saints are not those special
individuals recognized by some church. All God's people are
called saints. Separated unto God, holy in Christ. That's what the word saint means.
To be made holy. Am I holy before God in Christ? Or am I a sinner? Yes. Yes. The Lord's given you grace. to believe what he has revealed
about yourself, you'll know that both are true. Both are true. We've got two natures. My old
Adamic nature, that nature that I was born with is nothing but
sin. My new nature in Christ is nothing
but sinless perfection. And those are the two points
of this message this morning. Two points. The title of this message is,
What Is In Man? What Is In Man? Turn with me to John chapter
two. John chapter two, I believe the Lord has given us clear answer to
this question. Verse 23. And when he was in
Jerusalem at the Passover, and I pray that's where we are now
in Jerusalem, the city of peace celebrating the Passover, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is that Passover lamb who shed his blood
The Lord would pass by us and not hold us guilty of our sins. And when he, the Lord Jesus Christ,
was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed
in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. You're following me so that you
can have your bellies full. It's what the Lord told those
5,000 men that he had fed miraculously. And that's so true of all of
us today apart from the grace of God. We would use God to gratify
our earthly needs, our worldly needs, our fleshly needs. That's
all man-made religion is about. It's just to, you know, to call
on God when I need something in this world. Following me so
that you can have your bellies full. The belly in the Bible
is a picture of the flesh. And that's all we would do if
the Lord did not teach us otherwise. But Jesus did not commit himself
unto them because he knew all men and needed not that any should
testify of man for he knew what was in man. He knew what was
in man. And he has revealed to us in
his word what he knows is in man. Now, I would like to preface this
by making this statement. We don't understand anything
we believe, anything. The good news is that God did
not call on us to understand. He calls on us to believe. Take holiness, for instance. I gave you a definition, I think
it was last Sunday. The best definition I know of
holiness is the word other. Other means that there is no
other point of reference. There is nothing to liken this
to, nothing that it can be compared to. It's holy. And our God is
holy and all of his attributes are holy. His love is holy, his
righteousness is holy, his justice is holy, his mercy is holy. Everything about him is holy. And if holy is other than anything
that we know anything about, how can we possibly comprehend
holiness? We believe that he's holy because
he has revealed himself to be the trice holy God. The seraphims hovered over his
throne and they cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of
hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. God the Father's holy, God the Son's holy, God the Holy
Spirit is holy. And God gives faith to bow to
that holiness and to believe that he's holy, whatever all
that means, I don't know. has not seen nor as ear heard
nor has it even entered into the imagination of man the things
that he has prepared for us." Oh we look through a glass darkly
now, our understanding is so limited
but then face-to-face We believe whatever it is God
says. And that's what faith is. Hebrews,
the scripture says, without faith, it is impossible to please God.
For they that cometh to him must understand who he is. Must have
a full comprehension of who he is? No, must believe that he
is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek
him. Faith is just believing what
God has said. Faith is not believing, well,
if I just believe something, I can make it happen. You know,
you hear that in religion. You hear that among motivational
speakers. Name it and claim it. Speak it.
I mean, I'm all for having a good positive attitude. I think we
ought to have a good positive attitude. And I hate it when
I'm negative. And I hate being around negative
people. But don't think because you have a positive attitude
or because you say something that you can make it to be. That's
blasphemy. That's putting yourself on the
throne of God. We're positive in believing that
whatever God does is right and it'll be good. And we can rejoice in Him always
and be thankful in all things for this is the will of God.
All things are the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us.
And in that sense, we can be thankful and positive and this
idea that that you can speak something into existence or just
believe it hard enough and make it happen? That's beyond presumption. That is blasphemy. That's making
yourself, but that's what, that's where the world is, isn't it?
No, no, we just believe God. Whatever God says, whatever God
does, that's faith. And someone said, well, how much
of God's Bible, how much of the Bible do you have to believe
to be a believer? If you're a believer, you believe every word of it.
You just believe it all. Whatever God says. I don't understand
it. I don't pretend to have a good
understanding of it, but I believe it. Whatever God says about everything
is the way it is. The way God sees it and what
God says about it is the way it is. God is past finding out. But just because he's fast finding
out doesn't mean that we ought not to seek him. I don't have to understand algebra
to know that two plus two equals four. What God reveals about
himself may be just a tip of the iceberg, scratch the surface.
Those analogies don't do justice to how little we know about God.
Our knowledge of him is so limited and yet what he reveals, we know. Just because we can't comprehend
him in anywhere near the fullness of his glory doesn't mean that
the things he reveals about himself aren't true. And it doesn't mean
that we ought not to continue to seek to know more of him.
Paul said, I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me.
Oh, that I might know him, the power of his resurrection, the
fullness of his suffering, this one thing I do, I press towards
the mark for the prize. Oh, I just want to know him.
So as little as we know him, we want to know more of him. But we believe, we believe. Romans 1st Corinthians chapter
8, the Lord says, if any man think that he knoweth anything,
he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know it. Knowledge puffeth
up, love edifies. Oh, let us not be proud. and whatever
the Lord has revealed. What we know is just such a small
portion. And let us give to Him all the
glory and all the praise for the faith that He's given us
to believe every word that He has spoken. If any man among you seemeth
to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he might
be wise." Oh, you see, the pathway to wisdom
is the confession of our foolishness. It's the It's the acknowledgement
of how little we know. And as soon as we start boasting
and thinking that we know something, all we're doing is proving that
we don't know anything as we ought. I was thinking about that response
that David had in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter seven, when the Lord
told him that he was going to establish a house for him. And David responded by saying,
who am I? Who am I? But you know, there's
another way to phrase, not to phrase, but to give emphasis
to that phrase. Who am I? Who am I? You know, you would think that
as much time as we spend as young people trying to figure ourselves
out, that when we got older, we would have learned something
about ourselves. And yet, how often times we're
in conversation with somebody, or we hear something, or we hear
somebody talking about something, and our thoughts are, we don't
say it, our thoughts are, you don't know yourself very well,
do you? You ever think that? And then it comes back. Boy, I don't know myself very well.
And I'm sure that there's a lot of people that see things in
me that I haven't seen. Who am I? I haven't figured myself out. All this self-awareness and self-help
books Therapy, we're trying to figure out who we are. And it's
like going down in a well. The deeper you go, the darker
it gets. Who am I? Well, what does our text say?
Look with me again at our text. Verse 25, he needed not that
any should testify of man for he knew what was in man. So here's the application of
the first two points that I've been trying to make. Believe God about who He says you are. And you're not going to understand
it as it fully is. But we believe it. because God
said it. He knows what is in us. There's no confusion with him.
You say, well, so-and-so knows me better than I know him. Oh,
he knows everything. Psalm 139, he knows the thoughts
that we think before we think them. He knows our hearts. He knows what we've done and
what we're doing and what we're gonna do. He knows our words
before we speak them. He knows what is in man. You wanna have a good self-esteem?
Just believe what God says about you. And quit trying to figure out
anything else. Quit trying to get, you know, into the finer
details of who you are because, like I said, it's a depressing
subject, first of all. You are a depressing subject
to yourself. I'm a depressing subject to myself. We just believe what God says. He knows what's in man. He knows
what's in you. He knows what's in me. So what
has he said to us in his word about ourselves? Because that's
enough. That's enough to know. Just believe
whatever it is God says. In order to understand the two
things that I want to focus our attention on as far as what God
says about us is to believe that you have two natures. Because what's true about one
nature is just the opposite about the other. Robert Hawker put it like this,
regeneration makes no alteration in the flesh, only on the spirit. Regeneration makes nothing in
the flesh holy. and it leaves nothing in the
spirit unholy. That's who you are. That's who
I am. We are sinners by nature. We are saints by the new birth. Here's what God says, all, all, all have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. That's pretty simple and clear
definition of sin. Everything that falls short of
the glory of God, God calls sin. The world wants to refer to sin
as something that, you know, that's very shameful and very,
that's sin. Sin is what we are, because everything about us falls
short of His glory. That's what God says. He knows
what's in man. No confusion with Him. We might
justify ourselves to one another. We might have people try to psychoanalyze
us, and we might try to do it to ourselves and come up with
all sorts of foolish ideas, but here's what God says, and He
knows what's in man. Every man at his very best state is altogether
vanity. Now that means that you and me
at our best showing, the best thing we do, the most virtuous,
best part about us, God says is altogether vanity. You wanna know yourself, just
believe what God says. Just believe what God says. Because
he knows what's in man. And he has no need for a man
to tell him. He sees it clearly. Jeremiah chapter 17, verse nine,
the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? Who can know
it? You can't know yourself. It's
amazing. It's almost like the older we
get, the less we know about ourselves. You can't know yourself. You
know what God says about you? Here's what he says. Your heart
is deceitful, desperately wicked, and you can't know it. What's
the world say? Follow your heart. Here's what
God says. He that trusteth in his own heart
is a fool. Pretty simple. Pretty simple. Faith believes God. Just believes
God. And I'm so thankful that the
Lord only shows us by experience a very small portion of our sin. If he showed us what our sin
really looked like, we wouldn't be able to look at ourselves
in the mirror, much less get out in public. We'd be so ashamed. But the Lord shows us just enough. We cannot see that our wickedness
is great and that every imagination of the thought of the heart is
only evil and that continually. That's what God says. God looked
down from heaven, Genesis chapter six, and he saw that every imagination
and thought of the heart was only evil and that continually. We can't see that. We can only
see the evil of those thoughts that we're ashamed to admit. So does that mean the rest of
our thoughts are good thought? No. Whatever God says about me
is what I am. He needs no man to testify to
him for he knows what is in man. You see, understanding how sinful
we are is not what God demands. God demands believing what he
has said about our sinfulness. Oh, I need to wallow in the shame
and pity of my sin and I need to be more sorrowful and more
repentant and more broken before I can come to God. That's not possible. Just believe what God says, that every man at his very best
state is altogether vanity. Lord, I can't see that. And don't
pretend to see the evil of your sin as it really is. You can't
see, you don't believe that. I mean, you can't see it. You
believe it, you can't see it. If God's given you faith, you
believe what God has said about yourself, but you can't see it.
That our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked, we can't see that. We only see the deceitfulness
of those things that we hide or cover up to protect ourselves.
We can see a little bit of it, but we can't see it like it really
is. And God's not requiring us to
see it. He's showing us just enough of it to say to us, believe
what I see, believe what I've said, because that's who you
are. Paul said, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. You can't see that about yourself. You can't understand that, you
can't experience that, that everything in your flesh is evil, that there's
nothing good in you, you can't see it. We can only see the most
shameful acts of pride and grief and greed and lust and self-indulgence. We see those things, God gives
us a glimpse of how wicked our flesh is But if we're looking
at ourselves, well, you know, that was a pretty good thing
I did. What are you gonna believe? You see, we don't understand
how sinful we are, but God is not requiring us to understand
it. He's requiring us to believe it. And he enables us by his
grace to just believe what he says. when we come into his presence
just to say truth, Lord, amen, taking sides with God against
yourself. Lord, whatever you say about
me is true for you need that no man testify of. Man, you know
what's in me. We cannot see that our throat
is an open sepulcher exposing the corruption of death that's
in our hearts. We can't see that. That's what God says. You're
like a little bird. You open your mouth up to heaven
to be fed and God looks down your throat and he sees it as
an open sepulcher. full of dead man's bones. We can only see what we hear
when we say ugly things that we wish we could take back. We see that and we're shamed
oftentimes of what comes out of our throat. It's not what
goes into a man that defiles him, it's what goes out. Lord,
my words, how often they've shown me enough of the open sepulcher that's
there. Faith just believes God, brethren. Whatever God says about me is
what I am. It's true. I don't need to figure out much
more than what the Lord has shown me. If he gives me the faith
to believe this, How is it that we're going to
have some understanding and some light when it comes to our sinfulness? Well, he has to reveal his glory.
He has to reveal his holiness. He has to reveal his righteousness. In order for us to come to the
conclusion, there's nothing in me like him. When the Lord revealed himself
to Job, Job had previous to that been justifying himself. And when God speaks, Job comes
before the Lord and says, behold, behold, I see something now I've
never seen before. I am vile. I am what you've been
saying. I had heard of thee by the hearing
of mine ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee and I repent in
dust and ashes. Lord, I'm undone. That's what
Isaiah said. I saw the Lord. What did he say? I'm undone. Woe is me. I'm a dead man. Look at me. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
live among a people of unclean lips. There's nobody that's like
him. When he reveals his glory, just
a glimpse of his glory, one conclusion we come to, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. When the Lord revealed himself
to Peter after the resurrection, he fell on his face at our Lord's
feet and he said, oh, depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man.
When the Lord revealed himself to Daniel, Daniel said, my comeliness,
my strength and my beauty and the things I thought were good
about me have turned in me into corruption. In light of His glory,
in light of His holiness, in light of His perfection, there's
nothing in me like Him. And if the Lord is, that's why
we have to preach Christ, the one who alone is higher than
the heavens, the one who alone is holy and harmless and undefiled
and separate from sinners, there's none like Him. May God, by his grace, do we see that every thought
and imagination of the heart is only even on that continuum?
Do we see that? No, we can't see it. And that's
by God's mercy that we don't see it. But he has no need that
man should testify of what's in man, for he knows what's in
man. And he has told us. And faith just says truth, Lord. Amen. Whatever you say is right. I have no righteousness left
to myself. I must but smite myself on the
breast. my head hung and say before a
holy God have mercy upon me the sinner brethren God gives us faith to believe
what he sees in us we will come running to him Oh Because that's the other side
of who we are. We have no righteousness in ourselves. He is our righteousness. There is now, therefore, no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. By his word, by his grace, yes,
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified,
therefore, by faith. Through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. So that as he is, so are we. in this world. There's my new
man. And God says, I've separated
your sin from you as far as the East is from the West. And I
remember them no more. These two natures, Jacob and
Isaac. If I have Christ, I am perfectly
righteous in Him, by His grace and to His glory, perfectly holy
so that I can come in the presence of a holy God. I can come as
a sinner before the throne of grace and find a help in my time
of need. I have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin for
he is born of God. Now which of us would raise our
hands to say that I cannot sin? He's talking about the new man. His seed remaineth in us so that
we cannot sin because we're born of God. There's a new man that
can't sin. An old man that's nothing but
sin. Here's what God says. God says that He, the Father,
made Him the Son who knew no sin sin for us that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. When the Lord Jesus
Christ went to Calvary's cross, he bore in his body all the sins
of his people and he put them away. Past sins, present sins,
all your future sins have been put away by the shed blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible calls the Lord Jesus
our propitiation. And that word just simply means
that the wrath of God has been appeased. There's no more wrath. The billboard in our city that
says God is not angry, you can't make that general statement because
Psalm 711 says that God is angry with the wicked every day. The
only way that you can say that God is not angry is to be found
in him. Not having your own righteousness
which is of the law but that righteousness which is by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Him, God's not
angry. All of the anger was God was
expiated at Calvary's cross. It was poured out in its full
fury. The fire of God's justice was
quenched once and for all. So that though in my flesh I
remain nothing but sin in Christ I can come as a sinner before
God and know that this is a faithful saying, Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Jeremiah, scripture says, and his name,
the Lord Jesus, shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And
then 10 chapters later, and her name, speaking of the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she shall be called the Lord,
our righteousness. So he puts his name on us. And
we come into the presence of the, when we close, in Jesus'
name we come, we come in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's my righteousness. And in him, I have perfect righteousness
and perfect access before God. This is who God says we are. Spend your life in therapy. I
promise you as an old man, you're not gonna get to know yourself
much better when you're 70 as you do now at 30 or whatever
you are. You're just not gonna know yourself
very well. The older I get, the more I realize other people know
me. My wife knows me a whole lot better than I know myself.
And other people know you better than you know yourself. God knows
you perfectly. He needs not that any man should
testify what's in man for he knows what's in man. And faith just believes what
God says about what he sees. He sees that in my old man, And
in my flesh, I am nothing but sin. He sees me in Christ and
he says, as he is, so are we. Our heavenly father, thank you.
Thank you for your word. And Lord, we thank you for your
spirit. And we ask that you would give us faith to believe what
you have said. Lord, we can't understand it.
How can we see ourselves perfect in Christ? Oh Lord, that we might
just believe it because you said it. And rest in your precious
promises. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 30, let's stand together.
Number 30. In a spiral hymn book, number
30. ? Glory, glory, I'm forgiven ?
All my sins are washed away ? Christ by his great blood atonement
? All my sin has put away ? Sin imputed to my Savior When he
died upon the tree As the substitute for sinners God will not impute
to me Glory, glory, I'm accepted, robed in Christ's own righteousness. I'm a child, an heir of heaven. ? Saved by God's almighty grace
? Christ's obedience to the Father ? Is imputed now to me ? In God's
sight I'm pure and holy ? He declares me so to be ? Glory,
glory, I'll not perish ? In Christ's hands I am secure ? He who saved
me sure will keep me ? By God's grace I shall endure ? This is
not a vain presumption ? I just take him at his word ? Christ
has sworn they shall not perish ? Who believe on me their Lord. Hi Annie, what's up? I made it.