It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. I'm going to try and sing a song off the
pedal. Whate'er my God ordains is right,
His holy will abideth. I will be still, whate'er He
doth, And follow where He guideth. He is my God, though dark my
road, ? He holds me that I shall not fall ? ? Wherefore to him
I leave it all ? ? Whate'er my God ordains is right ? ? His
Son will not deceive me ? ? Christ is my all, my only hope ? He
promised not to leave me His life, His death, His perfect
faith Hath pleased the Father holy So now I can come boldly
Whate'er my God ordains is right, His loving thought attends me. The sin that kept me far from
Him, Christ bore it all at Calvary. My God is true, each morn anew. He gives me faith, the gift of
grace. Christ is my life on D. Sorry. Whate'er my God ordains is right,
He is my friend and Savior. He suffers not to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather, Now I may know both joy and woe. Someday I shall see clearly that
he hath loved me dearly. Whate'er my God ordains is right. Here shall my stand be taken. Though sorrow, need, or death
be mine, yet I am not forsaken. My Savior's care is round me
there. He holds me that I shall not
fall. And so to Him I leave it all. Well, I really just need to say
amen. He stole all my thunder. I preached a message one time on,
is it well with my soul? And our piano player now, she's
married and got five grandchildren. But she was a young girl. She
used to come play with my children when she was just a child. And
I preached so as it well with my soul years. Oh, my goodness.
I was probably in my 20s, maybe. And the Lord saved that young
lady, and she's our piano picker now. She sings with her sisters,
best singers in the state of Tennessee. If you've ever heard
him saying, you know, that's true. That's true. I just read
one verse of scripture here to you in verse 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize. I love to baptize people. I do. But that's not what Christ sent
us to do. But to preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. and not with
words of wisdom, and I can't do that. I couldn't use words
of wisdom if I wanted to. I've never been that smart. And I, you know, it ain't no
sense me reading that because I couldn't do it if I wanted
to. But let me give you five reasons, five reasons why we
preach the gospel. Anybody who's ever been blessed
to hear a God-called preacher And I blessed the day that God
crossed my path with a preacher that knew the gospel. Oh, how
I blessed the day that God crossed my path with somebody that told
me the truth and exposed me and stripped me and made me see what
a horrible state I was in. And I knew right then and there,
there was a difference in what he had to say than anybody I'd
ever heard in my life. And you know, when you hear one
of those men, you know that their message is different than what's
being preached in most religious circles today. We have a lot
of preachers advertised on the radio down home, and they make
some of the awfulest statements. One fellow said, you know, we
want you to understand what God dreams the best for you. God dreams the best for you.
But let me give you an illustration of what I'm talking about, what
a difference in the message. Look over with me in Acts chapter
17. In Acts chapter 17. Look in verse 18, I believe it
is. You know, I heard a fellow say
one time, if it's true, it's not new. And if it's new, it's
not true. And another thing that I really
enjoyed when I first come around preachers that was preaching
the gospel, preaching the grace of God, was that they encouraged
you to bring your Bible, take your Bible, and follow along
in your Bible. And I've been places where people won't even
bring a Bible. They don't need a Bible. They're going to just
get entertained. They're going to have some clown
get up. And one of my wife's dear aunts, she said one time,
she said, boy, I love this new preacher we got. I just love
him. She said, he is so funny. He tells some of the most, he
tells some of the best jokes I've ever heard. That's what people are wanting.
That's what people are wanting. But look what he said here in
Acts chapter 17 and verse 18. This is what the difference is.
Then certain philosophers, he's talking about philosophers, the
Epicureans and the Stoics, they could not be more opposites when
it comes to philosophy between the Epicureans and the Stoics. They encountered him, talking
about the Apostle Paul, And some said, what will this babbler
say? Call him just a babbler, this old talker, this base man. Others some said, he seemeth
to be a setter forth of strange gods. Now I've heard that several
times in my life. When I've heard that people's
heard me preach to God, you seem to be a setter forth of a strange
God. I never heard nothing like that before. And because, and
this is the reason he said he's a strange God, because he preached
unto them Jesus and a resurrection. And they took him and brought
him unto Areopagus saying, may we know what this, listen to
this, new doctrine, new doctrine, whereof thou speakest of. Now
listen to what they said, for thou bringest certain strange
things to our ears. Tell us what you're talking about.
Tell us what you're talking about. Now I'll tell you, I've been
encountered that and every preacher's been encountered with that time
and time again. And I was recently, I was around
a young man and he had a t-shirt on that says, God is, God is. And he's the youth leader in
the largest Baptist church in our county. And they got a $2
million a year budget. They got to have $2 million a
year just to operate. Huge out, huge edifice, huge
edifice. And he's the youth teacher there,
the youth leader there. And I asked him, I said, well,
what is God? You know, you just got on your
t-shirt. I said, you say God is, well, tell me what he is
to you. He looked at me so blank faced.
He looked at me, why do you ask such a question? I said, you
said God is, what is he to you? I said, when I see that, the
first thing I think of is that God is just. I said, you know
you got that on there. Did you know he's just? Do you know he's holy? Do you know he's a sin avenger? Do you know he's living? And
that fella never wore that t-shirt again and never spoke to me again.
He talked to me every time I saw him. He went the other way. Oh
my. And you all, all of you can attest
to this fact. All of you can attest to this
fact that there's been a steady, steady decline from truth, a
decay in religion, a decay in everything in this world. It's become so rotten that it
stinks, but there's God's truth is constant. God's truth is constant. You know, the gospel is constant.
The gospel is not if and ands and buts. The gospel is constant. And I am not worrying or concerning
myself with keeping up with the times. Down home, and I don't
know if they do it around here or not, but in the morning they
got what they call a traditional meeting. That's for old folks
like us that want to dress up when we go to church. We were
in God's presence, we want to dress up. you know, that's a
traditional meeting and they're going to sing. It's well with
my soul and a high, you know, and amazing grace and they want
to sing. Jesus paid it all. They want
to sing that and then when they're done with that, they want the
contemporary guys come in and that's all the fellas coming
in and they bring their coats in with them and they come and
they sit in and they all got their shorts on, come in with
their pajamas on and bottoms on and you know, and then they
get the band up and they got to get the band going. They got
to get to having a big time. And they all whooped you do it
for a while. That's contemporary. And I'm telling you what's the
truth. I say this all time. Hell ain't half full. It ain't
half full. It ain't. And then this idea
of being relevant. Todd, you reckon me and you'll
ever be relevant? That's what you got to be relevant.
I remember a fella told me about Todd. He said when they found
out what he preached, he said he couldn't get five people in
a phone booth to believe what he preaches. And that's what people believe, what they believe. But let me
tell you, you know, the gospel's constant and we're not trying
to meet the needs of what they call the modern man. But here's
some constants that the scriptures tells us about. This is a constant,
man is still a sinner before God Almighty. God calls man a
worm, calls him a grasshopper, calls him a dog, calls him nothing,
calls him darkness, calls him deaf, calls him corrupt, calls
him blind, It calls him everything that you can think of. That's
what God says about us. God says about man. And man,
that's a constant. Man's still a sinner before God.
And the second constant is this, the Lord Jesus Christ is the
only Savior of sinners. There's not another. If I had
one thing that I could stand up in front of thousands and
thousands of people to preach, I'd preach that God said no man
can come unto the Father but by me. Jesus Christ is the only
Savior that God provided for sinners. There's not another,
there's not another name, there's not another person. Jesus Christ,
the Lord of glory, God said, this is the Savior. God himself named him. Thou shalt
call his name Jesus. What does that mean? Jehovah
God with us. What does that mean? That he
come to save his people from their sins. And the third constant
is this, God's word has never changed. They can change it,
they can translate it, they can take the he's out of it and the
she's out of it and they make it mother, they can make him
all kinds of neutrals and all that, but I'll tell you something,
God's word has never, ever changed, never will change. He said, forever,
oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. He said, heaven and
earth will pass away. But there's one thing, it'll
never pass away. My word won't. You know, God can make a thousand
worlds if he wants to. He can create all kinds of people.
But one thing he'll never make is never make another word. His
word is constant. Constant. It's not changed. And
I'll tell you one fellow said one time, He said, I want you
to read Romans 9. He said, no, no, I ain't going
to do that. If I do that, I'll end up believing like you do. And I tell you what, here's the
fourth thing that's not changed. It's constant. It's constant. God's way of saving a man has
not changed. God has not changed the way he
saves a man. He's not down here begging. He's
not knocking on no doors. He's not begging. God's not a
beggar. You know, as a sovereign, if
you was lived back in the days of kings, when kings had all
the authority. You, a king can have you killed
just that quick. King did not ask anybody to do
anything. He told people what to do. And that's the way God
has it in this business of salvation. He says, I will, and you will. When that, you said yesterday
morning and said, Lord, you said, seek my face. Oh Lord, thy face
I'll seek. You tell me to seek your face,
I'm going to seek it. God's way of saving a man has
not changed. He got to do it all or it's not
going to get done. Salvation to the Lord from Alpha
to Omega. And if Jesus Christ our Lord
does not save a man, he's not going to be saved. And the gospel,
here's the fifth thing that's never changed. The gospel, the
gospel is still, still the power of God to save. Let me tell you
a true story, a true story. I was up in West Virginia preaching
a meeting. I believe it was 1978, and I come down to visit Brother
Henry Mahan, 13th Street. He was in October, and I come
down to visit him, and I knew some truth. I knew some truth.
I really did. I believed in particular redemption,
but I was sitting talking to Henry. He was at his desk, and
I was sitting at a chair. He's at his desk, and I'm sitting
in a chair right here like this, and we got to talking, And I
said, Pastor Mahan, I said, I know it's the gospel soaked in our
tears. You know what he said? He leaned
across that desk, stuck that finger just like this, stuck
right across that desk. He said, it's the gospel whether
you ever shed a tear or not. He said, the gospel's the power
of God whether anybody sheds a tear or not. And that's, boy,
I went, I had to have somebody else drive me. But that's the truth. I had to
hear that. You got to hear that. And the gospel is still the power
of God. Now, let me give you some reasons
why we preach the gospel. The first is this. We preach
the gospel for the glory of God. God said, you know, Psalm 115
said, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but under thy name,
under thy name, glory. You know, man's chief end is
to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And if you don't enjoy
Him here, you won't enjoy Him there. I enjoy God. I enjoy the
Lord. I enjoy His Word. I enjoy His
people. I enjoy the gospel. God is, God
is, like I told you, we don't have, our life's not boring.
How can you have a relationship with God and your life be boring?
And I tell you, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him
forever. And God, one thing, if God, what
God's interested in, we ought to be interested in. And one
thing that God guards closely is His glory. He said, I will
not give my glory to nobody else. And he said there in 1 Corinthians
1.26, he said, no flesh should glory in his presence. God put
us in Christ Jesus and made him unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Why'd he do that? That no flesh
should glory in his presence. And I'll tell you this, this,
this, you know, the scriptures tells us, what do you eat? What
do you drink? Whatsoever you do, do all for
the glory of God. You know, whether we're singing,
whether we're singing, I love the singing here. Boy, you do
such a wonderful job and you other fellas do. Oh my, Gabe
tonight, oh, what a blessing. But oh, whether we're singing,
whether we're praying, whether we're preaching, whatever it
is, God help us to first be motivated by desire to glorify Him, honor
Him, and bring praise to His holy name. Oh, John the Baptist,
they come to John and I tell you if it'd been anybody else
but God, John, they said, are you the Christ? Tell us plainly.
And he said, no, I'm not him. Well, who are you then? I'm a
voice, just a voice. What are you saying? I'm a voice
crying out in the wilderness. Just a voice, just a voice. He said, oh, listen, when he
comes in, he's got to increase. He got to go up. I gotta go down. He's got to be everything. I
got to be nothing. And oh, when Isaiah saw the Lord,
you know why the first thing he saw, he said, I saw his glory.
I saw his glory. How big was his glory? He said,
his train filled the whole temple. I saw his glory. Daniel saw his
glory down by the riverside and he got weak and got faint. This
idea that, oh, well, God's getting his glory, let's give him a big
hand clap for Jesus. Let's give a big hand clap for
God. Could you hear the apostle Paul getting everybody up and
say, let's say hallelujah for Jesus. You think God gets glory
out of that? Oh my. And when Isaiah, I mean,
when John, The Lord appeared unto him in revelation. He fell
as a dead man. This idea that people can see
God in this and not be affected by it. Oh my, first time I saw
the glory of God and really saw the glory of God and what a wretched
I was and such a worm I was. I got down in the floor, in the
middle of the floor and laid there just, oh, I just tested. You talk about loathing yourself. If you ever see God's glory,
you just, you'll loathe yourself. And I'll tell you what, we got
to everything. Please God help us, whatever we do, do for your
glory. Let's listen for his glory. All
of God's glorious attributes are revealed in the gospel. People
say, my God's a God of love. It's not, don't say that. God
is love. God is love. And he loved us. You know how he commended his
love toward us? And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us, huh? And oh my, his mercy's glorified. Moses said, Lord, I wanna see
your glory. That's all Moses said. He done
went through the Red Sea. He had done seen everything that
could, 10 miracles down in Egypt there, and he saw the Passover
angel come through and kill every firstborn except the people behind
the blood. And then you know what he said
after he got on the other side of the river? The Red Sea, he
said, Lord, after all he's seen, he said, I won't see your glory.
Will you show me your glory? God said, you can't see it. He
said, I got to do something for you first. Listen, I got a little
rock here. I got a little place here and
I'm gonna stick you in that place and I'm gonna put my hand over
you. That's why he sent his son into
this world. He was the invisible image. He
was the visible image of the invisible God. And God put his
hand there and he says, now I'm gonna cause my glory to pass
by. What was his glory? I will be merciful to whom I
will. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. And that suits me just fine.
I will. And oh my, his righteousness
is glorified. Oh, he said, you know, the gospel,
I'm not ashamed of it for in that gospel, God reveals his
righteousness. He reveals his righteousness
and his justice is glorified. You know, here's the thing. Chris
has already dealt with this so well. God must be just. He must be just. And He may show
mercy, but He must be just. He must be. He must be just. And God is love. And love has
to be expressed. You cannot have love and not
express it. And since God is love, He must
express His love. And He don't express His love
to just anybody. You men don't express your love.
You don't express your love to anybody like you do your wife.
And that's the way Christ was and God was. He expressed his
love in his blessed son. His love must be expressed. He
is righteous and he must punish sin. And so God shows us when
he says that he is just, and I believe you quoted last night
that God will know by no means clear the guilty. Now, what does
that mean? That means he punishes the guilty.
He punishes them. And I was guilty. I was guilty. I was guilty and everybody else
is guilty. And God said, I'm not going to
clear you. I'm not going to do it. He said, there's only one
thing I can do for you. And that is punish you, punish
you unto death. The soul that sinneth it must
die. And since you sinned, you got to die. I've got to punish
you. You got to die for your sin.
So I can't clear you. So how in the world did He do
that? He took His blessed Son, His glorious Son, sent Him into
this world, and when men got a hold of Him, they took that
blessed person, and they spat on Him, they slapped Him, they
pulled His beard out, they beat Him till He was a bloody pulp,
and I put a crown of thorns on Him, They put nails in his feet
and nails in his hands, and they mistreated him and everything. You know why? Because God said
he made him to be sin. He became the guilty one. God
said, I'll charge him with their sin. I'll make him bear their
guilt. I'll put him to bear their guilt.
I'll bear him to bear their shame. I'll charge him with their sin.
And so God drew out His sword of justice and He took His sword
of justice and plunged it deep into the heart of His Son. And our Lord Jesus was in such
control that you know what He said the first thing He said
on that cross? Father, forgive them. Forgive them. They don't know
what they're doing. And we didn't know what we were
doing. That's the first thing out of our Lord's mouth. And then he looked over at that
thief and listen to me, what I'm telling you, when that thief
looked over at the Lord Jesus Christ, you know what he was
seeing? He wasn't seeing a man with a little loincloth on him
and a little blood coming out of his side. He was looking at
a man with blood covered from the top of his head to the sole
of his feet, and blood was pouring off of his body. Blood was pouring
off of his body, out of his feet, pouring onto the ground. He said
his bones were showing in his back. And so when that thief looked
over, he's looking at someone that's a bloody, bloody mess.
His face is bleeding, blood's in his eyes. And he got a big
rip in the side after he died. But oh, listen,
that thief looked over there and you know what he called him?
How could he see the Lord in that man? How could he see the
Lord in that broken body, that bleeding man? Blood all over
him, blood dripping on the ground off of his body. And how could he look at him
and say, Lord, that's the first word out
of his mouth, Lord. Remember me when you come into your kingdom.
You got a kingdom. And when you ascend into your
kingdom, will you remember me? And you know what our Lord told
him? Bless his holy name. He said, today, today, today,
you shall be with me in paradise. That's how God could be just.
Now God, I've not got by with one sin
I've ever committed. I've not got by with the first
sin I've ever committed. If any of you not got by with
one of them, every single one of them has been punished. The
ones that Christ died on the cross before I was ever born.
But let me tell you something. He bore my sin before I ever
come into this world. I'll tell you this. I believe
he bore my sin before the foundation of the world. That's a quinky
dinky, ain't it? You know, God's eternal and everything
he does, he does is on the basis of eternity. The only reason
we know anything about time is for us. And just the minute you
enter into glory, time is no more. But God's eternal. And did not Christ stand as the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? So if Christ would
stand as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,
that means that He bore in the purpose of God, in the will of
God, in the decree of God. We don't talk about, they talk
about decrees. There's only one decree. And God declared the
decree of God, and that decree was that as the Lamb slain before
the foundation of the world, Christ bore all the sins of all
of his people in God's decree before Christ ever set foot on
this earth. If that had not happened, God would have sent every single
person on this earth to hell had not Christ stood good for
us before the foundation of the world. So, you know, this is, in our
theology or in our doctrine, in our teaching, what we understand,
we understand that now, but in our experience, in our experience,
somebody had to tell us that, somebody had to teach us that,
somebody had to preach that to us. We didn't know we was elect
until God made us know we was one of His elect. You know, we
didn't know we were sinners till God made us sinners. Three kinds of sinners, you know,
there's a preacher made sinner. There's a mama made sinner. And
then there's a God made sinner. And when God makes you a sinner,
and that's what I mean by all that stuff happened back there.
And we've learned that we understand that we, we, I believe that,
but yet in our experience, we have to hear the gospel. We got
to be brought to the Christ. We got to be affectionately called.
And the scriptures tells us that the gospel, being born again,
not of corruptible seed, that's what we was born with, but incorruptible. by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. And what happens is in preaching
the gospel, God, we're sowing seed. We're sowing seed and the
gospel has a seed in it. And God plants that seed in a
person's heart and in a person's soul. And when that seeds, it's
just like putting seed in the ground. When you put it in the
ground, it don't come up the next day. You got to wait a little
while. And next thing you know, there's
a little green sprout come up there. And that's the way the
gospel is. A seed may be sown, and that
seed will lay in that heart, and that seed will lay in that
soul. And somebody else will come along, and he'll water that
seed. And somebody else will come along,
and he'll water a little more, and preach a little more. Next
thing you know, that seed says, oh, there's some life here. I
heard something I ain't never heard before. I believe that, preacher! That
seed sprouts and brings forth life. And oh my, ain't you grateful
that God didn't let us, if God let us get by with sin, be no
hope for any of us. Well, let me get to my second
point. Let me see what time we got. Oh, my watch died. What time
is it? Here's the second thing, not
only is we want to preach the gospel for the glory of God, but we're commanded to preach
the gospel. God doesn't, I've heard preachers say, boy, I tell
you, God's calling me to preach. I just, I just can't do it. I
just don't want to do it. I just can't possibly do it.
If God calls you to preach, I guarantee you 10,000, you're going to preach.
You're going to preach. Huh? Oh my, you may preach in
your sleep to start with, may preach in your dreams until God
opens a door for you, but if God calls you to preach, He'll
provide you a place to preach, to exercise those gifts, but
He calls us to preach, and that's what Paul said here, Christ sent
me to preach the gospel, the gospel. Huh? If souls are saved,
we'd love to, that's all people used to say. We're here to win
souls to Jesus. We're here to get soul people
to accept Jesus. We want folks down here at the
altar, we're here to see you accept Jesus. But when we're
commanded to preach the gospel, if a soul is never saved, we
still have to preach the gospel. Huh? Whether we got to, I'm going
to tell you another story. I'm going to stop and tell you
another story. Years ago, you know, I had a farm for 40 something
years and every once in a while I'd get a bunch of calves, but
one time I had this little old bucket calf, a little old Holstein
calf, and I raised it on a bucket. And he got up big, and then I
have to go down there and feed that calf every day. One Wednesday,
I was going down there to feed that calf, and I was so discouraged,
man, I've quit so many times. Good grief, I've quit. I've quit
quitting because I've quit so many times. But I was going down
there to feed that calf, and I said, Lord, it's Wednesday
night, and I'm supposed to go to service. I said, Lord, what
in the world's the use of going? There's no use going. Ain't nobody
listening to nothing. Ain't nobody there. Just an old
lord. I don't even want to go. I don't
even want to try to get nothing to say. And about the halfway
down there at the barn to feed that one calf, dawned on me. I'm going down here to feed one
calf. One calf. Got to do that. And then I'm complaining about
going and freeing some of the Lord's sheep. And I said right
then and there, God, please forgive me. And if there's only one sheep
in the service, I'm going to be there to preach to that one
sheep. I'm going to have some food for him. I'm going to have
some food for that one sheep. And sometimes I think that's
about all, you know, but listen, that's what I'm telling you.
We're commanded to preach the gospel. The results has nothing
to do with it. The results has nothing to do
with it. No, it doesn't. The ability, the inability of
the sinner doesn't stop the preacher. He's commanded to preach. And
Ezekiel, when God told Ezekiel, said, son of man, took down there
and there's a big old valley of dry bones. Oh, dry bones. Very many and very dry. He asked,
he said, that preacher said, preacher, can these bones live? Lord, you're the only one who
knows anything about that. He said, I'll tell you what I
want you to do. I want you to start preaching to them. Well,
Lord, they're dead. They're dry. And they're all over the place.
Preach to them. All right, I'll do it. So he
started preaching. And then the scriptures, but
God commanded the bones to come together. the preacher was preaching
but God commanded the bones come together and them bones bones
went together together and they stood up there and they didn't
have no life and then God said now go ahead and preach to them
some more and then God commanded flesh to be put on them bones
and he said oh my they're still dead they're still dead he said
now he said tell the wind to blow and God commanded the wind
to blow, and they lived. Now, you think we got it rough. You go preach to a bunch of dry
bones. But oh my, that's the way God is. He commands us. And
I tell you, I want to do like you said, I want to do what he
says. And then let me give you the third reason. I don't want
to take very long at all. We preach the gospel. Command
us to preach the gospel because the gospel alone is the power
of God unto salvation. It's a power alone. If God is
pleased to bless the gospel, it becomes your salvation. Paul
told the Galatians, you know, the gospel of Ephesians, he said,
it became the gospel of your salvation. Now, man can't draw,
look with me over here in Romans 10. You know, Men can't trust
a Savior they don't know anything about. Can't trust a Savior they don't
know anything about. They can't trust one they don't
know anything about. They can't trust an unrevealed
Christ. And look what it says here. Verse 13. Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's true. That's true. But then he asked
a question. Well, how shall they then call?
If you're gonna call on the Lord to be saved, how are you gonna
call on him in whom you have not believed? How are you gonna
call on him? And then not only that, but how
are you gonna believe in him if you've never heard anything
about him? And how are you gonna hear anything about him without
a preacher? And then how are they gonna preach
except they be sent? And Isaiah said, they not all
obeyed the gospel. So he said, well, how in the
world is this faith gonna come? How are we gonna become believers?
Faith comes, comes to where you are. Faith comes to you. And
every time we're preaching the gospel, faith comes with it.
Faith comes with it. And faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the word of God. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ,
bore his in his own body on the tree our sins and I ask you this
question I won't deal with all the things that he's already
dealt with who he Christ is and what he did but who did Christ
our Lord die for who did he die for he said I'm the good shepherd
I lay down my life for the sheep I have I lay down my life for
the sheep and I tell you what God Our Lord Jesus Christ told
us plainly, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me. And here's the thing about it,
the scriptures tells us so plainly, as many as were ordained to eternal
life, they believed. God said, For whom I did foreknow,
that word means foreloved, for whom I did foreknow, them I also
called. Them I called also justified. Them I justified, I also glorified."
Did you know every one of those things is in the past tense?
They was in the past tense the first time I read them, they're
still in the past tense. That means that something's already done.
And then he says, well, who is he then that can condemn us?
It's Christ that died. It's Christ that died. Who shall add anything to the
charge of God's elect as Christ the God? Who is he that condemneth? It's God that justifies us. Then who's going to separate
us? Oh, I tell you, God's got a remnant according to the election
of grace. And where is our Lord Jesus Christ
right now? People used to say, boy, Jesus
is down here and he wants to save you. No, no, no. Our Lord's sitting on His throne.
And old Scott Richardson used to say that. He said some things
that just absolutely blew my mind so many times over. I can
name three or four, but one of the things he said one time was
that you can come to Christ without moving a muscle. You come to Christ without moving
a muscle. Oh, that's, that's what we do. And then fourthly,
Let me give you this real quick. We preach the gospel because
men are going about to establish their own righteousness. Man
wants to be right in his own eyes. He wants to establish his
own righteousness. You dealt with that last night
about the Pharisee. He was righteous in his own eyes.
That rich young ruler came to the Lord Jesus and said, what
must I do to be saved? What must I do? He said, well,
keep the commandments. He said, oh, all these I've done
since I was a boy. He said, well, sell everything
you got. Oh my. And he wouldn't do it. He come
with a self-righteousness. He come telling the Lord, what
must I do? But how does someone go about
to establish their own righteousness? Well, they start looking to their
self and their works, their own ideas, their own opinions, and
what somebody told them, some profession that's stalled and
it stays old. But they don't submit to the
righteousness of God, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
ignorant of God's righteousness. And they're very zealous. But
you know where God's righteousness is established at? It's established
in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only place in the
world where there's any righteousness that you could possibly have.
And the scriptures tells us that Christ is the end, the goal,
the fulfillment of the law. Listen to this, for righteousness,
for righteousness. I'm as righteous as I'm ever
going to be. And I know you've said this time
and again, when I get to glory, I won't be no more righteous
than I am right now. When I go into heaven, I'll be
no more just than I am right now. You can't be no more holy
and no more righteous at one time than you can another. And
so when I get to glory, I won't be no more righteous than I am
right now. That's how good this righteousness
is. And let me ask you this, and
I will, can you find one person, one person in the whole Bible
who was saved by their goodness, saved by their morality, saved
by their works, saved by their baptism, saved by their giving? Or their church, but can you
find one person the Bible. I know some have tried. Ananias
and Sapphira, they tried. Simon the sorcerer tried. You
find men in the scriptures that tried. The rich young ruler tried.
They tried, but there's one man, one man in history, one man in
history, one man in time whom God accepted on his own works,
on his own merit, on his own obedience, on his own goodness,
on his own works, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And he had enough merit. You know, Thomas Aquinas, let
me give you a history lesson and I will quit. I will. Thomas Aquinas was the first
fellow in the Catholic Church that taught that if you had enough grace of yourself and enough
merit in yourself, you could give somebody else some of yours.
And that's why, that's how they invented saints. You know, if
I had, if I had enough grace, I could give you some of mine.
If I had enough merit, I could give you some of mine. Well,
he's the first fellow to start teaching that. So that's why
you end up praying, well, that saint up there has got plenty.
I'll ask him to give me some of his. And that's how it happens. But there's only one person,
one person that entered into glory by his own merit, by his
own work. And you're talking about merit,
enough to go around. Christ had enough merit to give
all of his children exactly what he himself had. I've got as much
merit as he does. He gives me grace for grace. Oh, I've told you this before,
and I'll tell you what's the truth. Why don't I just quit?
If any of y'all ever inherited anything from your parents, you
know, have a family, and you know, the parents die, and the
estate has to be divided up and all that, you know, and if you
got five people in your family or six, you know, and you, Everybody
gets, you know, a few dollars or this, that, and the other.
Well, you read it tonight, you know, God hath made us meet to
be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in life. We have
an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, which faith not a
way reserved in heaven for us. Now, here's the way God does
it. We have an inheritance, and when
you got five or six people, you gotta cut a pie. We've had pie
over at Greg's and them, and they cut that pie into pieces.
Somebody wants a little bitty piece, somebody wants a big piece,
and you know, and you gotta cut that pie. Well, here's the thing
about it, in our inheritance, God gives us the whole pie. Every
one of us gets the whole thing. We don't have to share it with
nobody else. We get the whole pie. Listen, if there's six of you,
y'all gonna get one piece of pie. But God's got a multitude
that no man can number. And he said, here's your inheritance.
You get every bit of it and you're the only one that's gonna get
it. And that's how wealthy he is. That's how much he's got
that he can give everyone of us exactly the same. And we all
are as wealthy as he is. Huh? Well, let me say this last
thing. We preach the gospel that we
as believers may grow in grace Oh, we want to grow in grace.
Grow in grace. Grow in some knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Grow in some... If anybody needs to grow in grace,
it's me. I'm the slowest learner. I tell
Shirley all the time, I'm the slowest learner. She'll tell
me something half a dozen times and I say, didn't you hear me
the first time? I'm a slow learner. And that's
why I say I'm a slow learner when it comes to the things of
God. Slow learner. I'm a slow learner. But here's
the thing about it. I've got a good teacher and he's
very patient with me. And he ain't gonna bust no pencil
over my head because I ain't learning fast enough. He's not
gonna mistreat me. He'll just be patient and go
on teaching. And I want to be taught, don't
you? Oh, Lord, teach me. Teach me. Well, you're all special. Special. You're just special. And I love every one of you.
Love y'all. Thank you, Donnie. Thank you,
Chris. Amazing how the Lord led both
these men to preach from the same passage about the gospel. Preach the gospel. The word gospel,
most of you know, means good news. And the reason why the
gospel is good news is because the Lord Jesus Christ did it
all. If he required any part of our salvation from us, it
wouldn't be good news. Wouldn't be good news. I'm so
thankful that we have a, have a savior that successfully accomplished
the salvation of his people. I was thinking about that one
passage you read from Romans chapter 10, how said they call
upon him and whom they've not believed. Think about that. How shall they call upon Him
in whom they've not believed? Now in that statement, what comes
first, calling or believing? You gotta believe before you
can call. So calling on the Lord is the
evidence that you believe. How shall they call upon Him
in whom they've not believed? Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for your effectual call of grace. Gives to us faith in thy dear
son to trust him for all of our salvation. We thank you that
you put it in our hearts as a result of that faith to call upon thee. Lord, we thank you for your word. these
messages, we thank you for your spirit and we pray that that
he would cause us to remember the things that we've heard and
apply them to our hearts. Pray, Lord, that you would bring
us back here again tomorrow and speak to us again. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen. Tom's going to come and
lead us in a closing hymn. We will have Gabe and Todd preaching
for us in the morning in that order. We'll begin at 10 o'clock
and we'll enjoy a meal together afterwards. So if you can stay
for that. Tom, what's the number? 127. Let's stand together. Number
127. so