Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 45 in your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book. Number
45, Free Salvation. Let's all stand together. Fast, how full, how free, the
mercy of our God. Proclaim the blessed news around,
and spread it all across. How full it does remove, the
stain of every sin, and makes our souls as white and pure as
though no sin had been. O guilty sinner, come! Christ stands to comfort thee. come cast thyself upon his love,
so vast, so full, so free. I'm glad salvation's free. I'm glad salvation's free. Salvation's free for you and
me. I'm glad salvation's free. Please be seated. Without money and without price,
free salvation. If it wasn't free, we couldn't
afford it. Let's open our Bibles together to Psalm 24. Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein, everything
belongs to him. For he had founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the floods. who shall ascend
into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and
righteousness from the God of his salvation. We know who that
is, and to be found in him is to have clean hands and a pure
heart. as we just sang, to have no charge, no charge against
us. This is the generation of them
that seek him, that seek thy face. O Jacob, Selah. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory
shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The
Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift
up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting
doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King
of Glory? The Lord of hosts is the King
of Glory. Selah. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
our hope coming before thy holy presence is completely in thy dear son
for all our acceptance, all our righteousness, all our forgiveness. Lord, we pray that for Christ's
sake, that you'd be pleased to bless us here tonight Bless us
with your spirit, the spirit of understanding, the spirit
of light and truth. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased
to cause us to find all our hope in Christ. Open your word, Lord,
and open our hearts. Forgive us of our sin. We ask
it in Christ's name, amen. number 199 in the hardback teminal. 199. Let's stand together again.
? 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 head ? Make the message
clear and plain. Christ, receive us in full. Come and He will give you rest. Trust Him for His word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ receiveth sinful man. Singeth o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ received a sinful man. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleanse me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive a sinful man. Christ receiveth sinful man Even
me with all my sin Hurts from every spot and stain Heaven with
him I enter in Sing it o'er and o'er again Christ receiveth sinful
man Make the message clear and plain, Christ receiveth sinful
men. Please be seated. Let's turn in our Bibles to Judges
chapter 12. Judges chapter 12. I pray the Lord will comfort
the hearts of his people this morning or this evening. As we think about our God's glory,
the truth is that all men are either jealous of God's glory
or they are jealous for God's glory. Ephesians, Judges chapter 12,
beginning at verse 1. And the men of Ephraim gathered
themselves together and went northward and said unto Jephthah,
Wherefore passeth thou over to fight against the children of
Ammon, and did not call us to go with thee? We will burn thine
house upon thee with fire. This was not a minor dispute.
They were angry that they didn't get the glory for defeating the
Ammonites. And we know that these Ammonites
represent our sin. They represent Satan. They represent
the enemy of God and our enemies. And Jephthah is a glorious picture
of Christ who went against the Ammonites and completely defeated
them. And now the Ephraimites, after the battle is accomplished,
after it's over, they're jealous that they don't get to participate
in the glory. And Jephthah said unto them,
I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon.
And when I called you, you delivered me not out of their hands. You
had an opportunity to help me. You know, we had an opportunity
in our father, Adam, to be faithful to the law of God. And we couldn't
do it. We couldn't do it. Now we're
in need of one who's able to save us completely outside of
ourselves. But these Ephraimites were jealous
of Jephthah and angry that they didn't get to participate in
the glory of the battle. Nothing's changed. Men are still
offended by the gospel because it strips them of their glory. You know, I found a verse in
the book of Job that, as I understand the book of Job, sort of summarizes
the whole book. It's in Job chapter 19, verse
nine, if you'd like to turn with me there. Job chapter 19, verse
nine. As I understand the message of
the book of Job, it's not about suffering. This is really what
it's about. Look what Job says in Job chapter
19, verse nine. He hath stripped me of my glory
and taken the crown from my head. That's what the gospel does. The gospel strips men of their
glory. It takes the crown from their
head. That's what Job, that's where
Job had to be brought. He came to the end and he said,
I had heard of thee by the hearing of mine ear. I thought I knew
God, but now mine eyes have seen thee and I abhor myself in dust
and ashes. I was wearing the crown of glory,
thinking that God owed me. because of my faithfulness to
him. And he has stripped me of my glory and he's taken the crown
from off my head. And he's given all the glory
to another. All men, every single one of them, you and me included,
will either be jealous of God's glory or will be jealous for
God's glory. We had, if you could say, our
chance in the garden. We didn't, we weren't faithful. We didn't keep the, didn't keep
the law. Only had one law to keep, not to eat the fruits of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We couldn't keep
it. In verse three, and when I saw
that he delivered me not, that you delivered me not, when I
saw that you could not help me, I put my life in my hands and
passed over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord delivered
them into my hand. Wherefore then are you come up
against me this day to fight against me?" I put my life into my own hands.
That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He came into this world. You had your opportunity. to defeat the devil the first
time he came to you, the very first time he came to you in
the garden and tempted you by causing you to question the very
word of God and you didn't do it. So as the second Adam or
as the last Adam, I took my life into my own hands and I took
on the responsibility and the Lord delivered them. The Lord
delivered the enemy and sin and death and hell and the grave
and Satan. He delivered him into my hand.
Why are you standing against me? David put it like this in Psalm
62 verse seven. He said, in God, in God is my
salvation and my glory. He is all my glory, David said.
He gets all the glory. You know, that's really the one
question that discerns the false gospel from the true gospel.
Who gets the glory? Who gets all the glory? I've
taken my life into my own hands. No man could help me. I went
up against the enemies of God all by myself and God gave me
the victory. What a gospel story. Here's the
heart and soul of the gospel. Every other false gospel depends
upon man to do something. The Lord said in Isaiah chapter
42, verse eight, my glory will I not give to another. You and
I have a jealous God. He's jealous for his glory. And
we're jealous for him to have his glory. If the Lord doesn't
get all the glory for salvation, then our salvation is jeopardized,
not only jeopardized, but lost. If there's something that I have
to do to make a contribution to my salvation, then I have
no hope, I have no assurance that I did it right or that I
did enough of it or that I was sincere enough when I did it.
So we're jealous for the glory of God. We want him to have all
the glory and salvation. We want him to have all the glory,
number one, because it's true that he gets all the glory. No
man could help him. He took his life into his own
hands and he went up against the enemy and defeated them by
the sacrifice of himself all by himself, putting away our
sin. Secondly, we, uh, We want him
to have all the glory because it's right. It's right for him
to have the glory. He's God, and we're not. And thirdly, we have a selfish
reason for wanting God to have all the glory. We're jealous
for his glory. Don't rob me of my salvation
by giving me something to do in order for me to be saved.
You'll rob me of my salvation, you'll rob me of my hope. I can
never have any assurance that I did it right. So God's people,
because of the truth and their love of the truth, and men won't
come to God because they have no love of the truth, but because
of the believer's love of the truth, because of his submission
to God as God, and because of his own selfish protection of
his own salvation, he's jealous for the glory of God. You are
either jealous for his glory or jealous of his glory. Isn't
that true of all men? These Ephraimites only had one
reason to be angry with Jephthah. They did not get to share in
the glory. But notice in our texts, they
had no interest in sharing in the glory when they had to go
fight, but now that the battle's been won, they want some of the
glory. Isn't that the way it is in man-made
religion? You know, I can't defeat sin,
I need Christ to defeat it for me, but he needs me to participate
in what he's done in order for me... He stripped me of my glory. I've taken the crown from off
my head. You've taken from me any hope. You see, it works both ways,
doesn't it? The gospel will either rob you
of your hope of salvation, or it'll be the only thing that
will give you any hope of salvation. And for those who are jealous
of God's glory, the gospel robs them of their hope. And those
that are jealous for God's glory, the false gospel robs them of
their hope. And so we are at a stalemate, aren't we? There's no place for compromise
between the two. They want the glory after the
fact. They wanted to kill Jephthah.
And we're going to find out Sunday, as we read on in this passage,
that 42,000 of the Ephraimites are going to die in a battle
between Jephthah and them. And so their insistence upon
having glory for this battle and their insistence and their
jealousy towards Jephthah is going to result in their own
death. And isn't that the way it is with the false gospel? Men insist on holding on to something
that they've done, or something that they're doing, or a decision
they've made, or a prayer they prayed, and it results in their
own death. It is nothing but spiritual suicide,
and that's exactly what these men did here. Ephraim is often
referred to in the Old Testament as the Northern Kingdom. You
remember Ephraim and Manasseh were the two sons of Joseph,
born in Egypt. And Ephraim was the younger son.
And when Jacob went to bless Ephraim and Manasseh, you remember
he swapped his hands and he put the blessing on Ephraim, the
younger son. And yet Ephraim here is fulfilling
his name. His name means a double ash heap. That's what Ephraim means. And
here he's a picture of the northern kingdom, which was always opposed
to the things of God. It was only Judah in the south
that maintained its faithfulness to the line of David. The kingly reign of David was
carried on only in Judah. In the Northern kingdom, often
referred to as Ephraim, they were always at odds with God
and wanting to strip David of his glory and the throne of its
glory and take to themselves that glory. And so here's a picture
of all the false religions of the world gathering themselves
together. Notice. All the religions of
the world, all the false religions, have one thing in common. They
have one thing in common. They want to share in the glory
of salvation. They want to take to themselves
some credit, one way or the other. And they're jealous of God's
glory. Someone sent me a, a text this
week and was trying to encourage me to look into a church that
is in North Carolina, a church that an extended family member
was the pastor of in my family. And they wanted me to look into
it. So I looked it up and I wasn't surprised what I found. And this
is their, this was their definition of the gospel. The gospel is
the good news so far so good, that by his grace and for his
glory, so far so good, the holy and righteous God made a way
for everyone to receive forgiveness of sins through the life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ by your repenting of sin and
believing in Christ alone, in Jesus alone for your salvation
and for your Lord. God's made an offer. Christ died
on Calvary's cross in order that everybody gets a chance. And
he's helpless now. He's in the heavens wringing
his hands, hoping that men will let him have his way. It's up
to you. I've done my part. God's voted
for you. The devil's voted against you.
You get to break the tie. What's the gospel do? It strips
me of my glory and it takes the crown from off my head. No, that's
not the gospel. That's the Ephraimites. That's a double ash heap. That's
going to lead to the death of 42,000 men. You see, it doesn't really matter
if it's the ceremonies of Hinduism, or the holy days of Judaism,
or the traditions of Islam, or the hierarchy of Catholicism,
or the legalism of most Calvinism. There are a bunch of isms in
the world, aren't there? A bunch of isms, but they all
have one thing in common. They're jealous of God's glory. They want some credit to save themselves. That's what
the problem was with these Ephraimites. After the battle was won, after
it was all over, why didn't you, we're going to burn your house
down. We're going to kill you. They were jealous. The Lord puts it this way in
Psalm 2. Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine a
vain thing? This is an empty gospel. A gospel that would rob God of
his glory. A message that would be opposed
to God having all the glory and salvation. It's a vain thought. It's an empty thought. Why do
the heathen rage and the people imagine? They just imagine a
vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
his anointed. Here's what God says about all
the man-made religions of this world. And they all have one
thing in common. They're jealous of. the glory that Jephthah got for
winning the battle by himself. Let us break their bands asunder
and cast their cords from us. We're not going to be bound by
this. We're going to have it our way. We're not going to have
that man reign over us. We're going to have something
to say about this. And the Lord looks at them from
heaven. Is he threatened by them, by
their attempt to rob him of his glory? Is he threatened? But
no, the scripture says he laughs, he holds them in derision. And
he says to them, kiss the son, lest he be angry with you. Kiss
the son, bow before him. Child of God, you are jealous
for the glory of God, aren't you? You are. You want him to
have all the glory. The last thing you want to do
is rob him of any glory and take it to yourself in fear that you'd
have no hope. The hope of your salvation is
that he got the victory all by himself. that he, by the sacrifice
of himself, was successful in putting away all the sins of
all of God's people of every generation. And you, Jephthah
has come home, and the Ephraimites hear about the battle against
the Ammonites, and they're jealous, and the child of God says, hallelujah,
Jephthah. Thank the Lord. He gave you the
victory. Every person in this world is
jealous of God's glory or they're jealous for God's glory. You know, men are desperate to
relieve themselves of the guilt and shame of their sin and to
know God. They are. And there's three messages,
there's three ways that are being presented in the world to achieve
that end. The first message is this, you're
not guilty. It's not your fault. You're a
victim of your circumstances. Have you noticed how many addictions
now are called diseases? Every addiction has a disease
name for it. What are they saying? They're
saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. They're trying to
sab men's conscience by saying, you're not really to blame. You
can shift the blame to somebody else or something else. The second
message is you are to blame, but you can fix it. You can do
something about it. The first message was the message
that Adam first went to in the garden, didn't he? Blame game
goes all the way back to the very first conversation recorded
between Adam and God. Where art thou Adam, the woman
which thou gavest me? And then the second, the second
picture is seen in Cain. Cain said, well, it didn't help.
What my father did in trying to blame God didn't really help.
So maybe I can fix it. And Cain brings the sacrifice
of his own labors. So, you know, that's the second
message. Yeah, you're at fault, but you
can fix it. You know, you just, you go through
the right steps. and make your commitments and
make some good decisions and you can rectify this problem.
You can solve it. The third message, which is the
only message that's true and the only message that gives liberty
and freedom in Christ is the one that says you are completely
at fault and God has already fixed it. He's already fixed
it. He has put away, he has defeated
the Ammonites. He has put away all the sins
and felt all the shame and all the guilt of all of God's people. Put them away. And God's people
rejoice. They don't want to rob him of
that glory. They want him to have all the
glory. And the third one we find in
Abraham. If the first one we see in Adam
and the second one we see in Cain, the third one we see is
in Abraham, isn't it? And Abraham and Isaac are going
up on a mountain and father, here's the wood and here's the
fire, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? We looked
at the burnt offering last Sunday. The burnt offering was a complete
offering, sacrifice to God for sin. It was a sin offering is
what it was. What did Abraham say to Isaac?
Son, God will provide himself a sacrifice. God will do all
the providing. He will provide himself as the
sacrifice and he will provide himself to himself. the sacrifice. This offering is not made to
us. Christ made it to his Father, and he succeeded in satisfying
the demands of God's justice and God's law. Oh, Jephthah has
come home. Amnon has been defeated. The
Ephraimites, those who are nothing but an ash heap, are jealous
of We're gonna burn your house down. We're gonna kill you. Our Lord says to them, I came to you in the garden. I gave you an opportunity to
stand up to sin and to Satan and to defeat your enemy. And you couldn't, you couldn't
do it. So I took my life into my own
hands and God gave me the victory. What a glorious message. Listen
to what the Lord says in Zechariah chapter two about Jerusalem.
He says, for I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire
round about, and I, saith the Lord, will be the glory in the
midst of her. Isn't that true? God's people come together. He
gets all the glory. We rejoice in the fact that He
took His life into His own hands, and He did for us what we could
not do for ourselves, and that God gave Him the victory. We're
not jealous of His glory. We're jealous for His glory. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
1. Ephesians chapter 1. In this In this chapter, the
Lord tells us how it is that he got the glory in election,
in redemption, in regeneration, in sanctification, how God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit get all the glory. And God's people rejoice in that.
Look at Ephesians chapter one beginning at verse At verse three,
blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. All of my blessings are bound
up in him. I was reading Hawker this morning and I love the way
he said it. He said the full oak tree is
in all of its foliage and in all of its strength is wrapped
up in that acorn. And that's so true, isn't it?
It's wrapped up in that acorn. And here we have all the blessings
of God and the fullness of the foliage of his church that will
one day be realized. It's all bound up in that seed. All everything that that acorn
will ever be is is bound up in that one little acorn. according, look at verse four,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Years ago, I'd read that and
I'd think, well, I need to be more holy and I need to be more
without blame and I need to be more loving. No, that's what
being chosen in him does. It makes us without blame and
it makes us holy and it gives us the love of God. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. This happened
in the covenant of grace. When God the Father, God the
Son, God the Father placed his elect, his predestined people,
his chosen people in Christ Jesus, according to the good pleasure
of his will, That's the only explanation. Why would God choose
me? Why would God choose some? Why is it that I have a jealousy
for God's glory and the other people I know outside of Christ
are jealous of His glory, the good pleasure of His will? That's
the only answer. He didn't look down through the
quarters of time and see in you and me something that impressed
him. He didn't see a decision that we would make and therefore
choose us according to his foreknowledge. No, he loved us before the foundation
of the world. If that's the way it worked,
then that's still a freewill gospel. God had to look at what
man was going to do before he could, before he could determine
what he was going to do. That's a freewill works gospel. No, He predestinated us according
to the good pleasure of His will. He is God. He will not share
His glory with another. He will do what He wills, when
He wills, however He wills, with whomever He wills. He always
does it right. Look at verse six, to the praise
of the glory of His grace. So there's the glory that goes
to God the Father, having predestinated us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, that his people would praise him. Lord had, you
see, here's the heart of those who are jealous for God's glory.
They're not like the children of Ephraim that were jealous
of the glory that Jephthah got. They're jealous for God's glory.
They're like Jephthah. I took my life into my own hands.
God gave me the victory. Here it is. Lord, why would you
choose me? Why would you choose me? Why
would you give me a heart for your glory? Only according to
the good pleasure of your will and the glory of your grace.
The glory of your grace. wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved." We have our acceptance in Christ before God. Look at verse seven. In whom?
In the Lord Jesus Christ. In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom
and prudence, having made unknown unto us the mystery of his will,
according to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself."
There it is again. Why does God save some and not
others according to the good purpose of the pleasure that
is within himself? He does what he wants. that in the dispensation of the
fullness of time, he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him with work of all
things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to
the praise of his glory." We're jealous for his glory,
aren't we? He does get all the glory. The father gets all the
glory for having predestinated a people according to his own
will and purpose. The son gets all the glory for
having redeemed, successfully redeemed all those whom the father
chose. Let's read on. In whom, I'm sorry, verse, Verse 12, let's
read that again, because I missed the last part of it. That we
should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ. Who first trusted in Christ?
God the Father trusted in Christ. Remember Jephthah trusting his
daughter and letting her go into the mountains for two months
and bewail her virginity with her fellows? And here's a picture
of God the Father who trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill
the promises of the covenant when he would take his life into
his own hands and God would give him the victory. In whom you also trusted, after
that you heard the word of truth. There's no salvation apart from
here in the gospel. How shall they call upon him
in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe on
him in whom they've not heard? Everyone that hears with the
ears that God gives them will believe. And in believing, they will call. Notice in whom also you trusted
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation. The good news that God has accomplished
the salvation of his people, that he gets all the glory, that
Christ actually redeemed everyone chosen in the covenant of grace. in whom also after that you believed,
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of his glory." Three times in this
passage, we read unto the praise of his glory. The first time
is related to the Father in election. The second time is related to
Christ in redemption. And the third time is related
to the Holy Spirit in regeneration and in sanctification. to the
praise of his glory. We're not jealous of his glory,
are we? We're jealous for his glory. The gospel of God's free
grace in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ gives
to him all the glory. Moses in Genesis chapter, Exodus
chapter 33, asked the Lord, he said, Lord, show me thy glory.
Show me thy glory. Let's turn to that passage. Exodus chapter 33. Now, Moses had seen a lot at this
time. He met God audibly and visually
at the burning bush when he had to take his shoes from off his
feet, and God spoke to him. He saw the acts of God in the
10 plagues that the Lord sent to prove His glory, His glory
over the false gods of Egypt to the children of Israel. The
Lord wasn't punishing Egypt or trying to convince the Egyptians
that He was God. He was showing the children of
Israel who He knew would go back to those gods that those gods
were no gods at all. Moses saw that. He saw the dividing
of the Red Sea. He saw the water come out of
the rock. He saw the mountain quake. He'd
already received the law from God. Now the Lord is going to
move him. And he says, Lord, if you don't
go with us, don't let us take a step if you don't go with us.
Lord, I need to see your glory. I need to see your glory. After
all that he had seen, look at verse 18. And he said, I beseech
thee, I plead with thee, show me thy glory. And here it is,
verse 19. And he, the Lord said, I will
make all my goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee. He'd already given him his name. Jehovah, I am. the self-existent,
sovereign, omnipotent, immutable God, completely independent of
man. I'm gonna show you my name. My
name is my glory. My name is my glory. Lord, you've
stripped me of my glory and you've taken the crown from off my head.
Isn't that what Job said? I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee. And here it is, I will be gracious
unto whom I will be gracious. And I will have mercy on whom
I will show mercy. There's my glory. My glory is
my sovereignty in salvation. My glory is in knowing that salvation
is of the Lord. It's not dependent upon anything
that a man does. He's gonna get all the glory
in election and redemption and regeneration. Say, well, how
do I know He's chosen me? You are jealous for His glory,
not of His glory. I repeat that again. All men
are either jealous of the glory of God or they are jealous for
the glory of God. If you are jealous for His glory,
You rejoice in knowing that he gets all the glory, that all
of your salvation was his accomplished work of redemption. That's faith. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for. Faith is the substance of things
not seen. There it is. We're resting the
hope of our salvation on the glorious person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who took his life into his own hands and the Lord gave
him the victory. And we dare not be jealous of
him. And we are by his grace jealous
for him. And we sing that song with the
church in glory. In the book of Revelation, thou
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honor and power, for thou has created all things,
both physical and spiritual. To be made in Christ is the creation
of God. God makes something out of nothing.
Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are
and were created. Lord, you get all the glory.
We rejoice knowing that our God gets all the glory. Listen what
Jude said in closing his little epistle. Now unto him that is
able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless. before His glory, with exceeding
joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty
and dominion and power now and forever. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, thank You that we have a Savior
who took his life into his own hands, and we were unable to
defeat the enemy. Lord, we thank you that you have
put into our hearts a jealousy for his glory. Lord, we pray that you would
deepen that conviction and cause us, Lord, to depend more and
more on thee for all things. For it's
in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Number nine in the Sproul hymn,
let's stand together. Is not that I did choose thee,
O Lord, that could not be? This heart would still refuse
thee, Hast thou not chosen me? Thou from the sin that stained
me, hast cleansed and set me free. Of old thou hast ordained
me, that I should live to thee. Your love had no beginning, no
cause in me was found. that you should choose to save
me, a sinner strongly bound. But grace not earned nor sought
for was purpose for my soul. For me salvation brought, for
Christ paid the dreadful toll. The Sovereign Mercy called me,
And taught my opening mind. The world had else enthralled
me, To heavenly glories blind. My heart knows none before Thee,
For Thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, if I love thee,
thou must have loved me first.