Yeah, I can see it from here,
that's good. As I grow older, I find I have
to be put in remembrance quite often, because I forget things. And my brother brought us to
remembrance this morning to study how special this time is that
we have here, and how rare, and much to my heart's grief, how
short it's going to be. We think sometimes it'll just
go on forever and ever. That's just not what things have
shown. The minute the gospel is gone,
the church is gone. Some religious organization will
be occupying this building. One of my prayers always is that
the Lord would take me before that happens. I was reminded
as you tried to prepare for this, the words of Brother Charles
Pennington. And remember, he said, there's
three things I've never been able to do in all my years of
preaching. He said, I've never been able
to preach Christ too high. And he said, I've never been
able to preach man too low. And I've never been able to preach
grace too free. And I said, well, I won't be
able to do that either. But that is our hope this morning,
the Lord would enable us to preach Christ high, man low, and grace
free. I was just thinking, some of
us drive a pretty good little ways to here and we patch religious
building after building, don't we? But yet, this is the only
place we know to have life. And I was looking it up and it
said there's over 4,000 religions in the world today. 4,000. That's
a lot of flavors of ice cream, isn't it? But the word of God
says there is but two. There's two, two and two only.
There is the gospel of God's grace in Christ. that tells sinners
that the only hope you have is for the Lord Jesus Christ to
save you. You are in Christ's hands and
Christ's holiness and justice demands that he either save you
or cast you into the pit of hell and it will be his decision.
That's the gospel. That's the gospel of the word
of God. And then there's 3,999 flavors of works. And it all comes down, they have
different this, different that, but it comes down to one thing,
they'll tell you. Salvation is in man's hands. And man has the choice to either
save himself or not. And it is a horrific lie. And
it is a lie that has been going on since the garden. When Adam
first tried to sow leaves to cover up his sin, That was works. And what did God do? He rejected
that, didn't he? And he had to give Adam coats
of skin. Innocent blood had to be shed
that Adam could have forgiveness of sin. That's the way it is
to this day, and that's the way it will be until the Lord comes
again. Grace or works. And it doesn't matter what flavor
the works is, it's all still works. The Lord made it very
clear. He said that if any works is added to your salvation, it's
no longer grace. And I thought about that and
I said, that's, we seem unindated, haven't we? And we've seen it
all the time. We see it between Isaac and Ishmael,
Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, grace versus works. And I can
tell you, it becomes a very heated discussion at times, doesn't
it? I always find, Tom, you appreciate this because you pick our hymns.
In our hymnal, there's some people. There are two brothers called
the Wesley brothers, Charles and John Wesley. They were in
the 1700s and they were very well known and they gathered
a great following. And they were preaching that
Christ died for all and that salvation was up to man. Well,
thankfully, there was a preacher in the wilderness at that time
named Augustus Toplady, who wrote Rock of Ages. And they had a
very open discussion. It seemed foreign to us today,
it would be in the newspapers. Because Augustus Lady, and I
like what he said, Toplady said, man's free will cannot even cure
the common cold or a toothache. And yet they are telling people
to place their immortal souls on man's free will to save themselves. And of course, the Wesley free
wheelers, they replied. They told top lady, your God
is my devil. That's pretty blunt, isn't it?
That's not a Christian loving thing they said, is it? There's
no love there, but grace and works cannot be mixed. There
are polar opposites, one to the other. Let's try as men have
to force them together like two magnets. You had two magnets,
you know, with the same polar, you get them close and what do
they do? They cross off. Well, that's what I want to talk
about this morning, grace and works. You know, I thought about
this. If you've ever shared the gospel
with anybody, and I'm sure this has happened to you, One of the
first words out of the unbeliever's mouth is, that's not my God. Anybody ever said that to you?
Well, they've told you the truth. That's not their God. The God
of the Bible is not their God. And that's probably the only
truth they've told you the whole time they've been talking to
you. They don't know the God that is. I want us to look at
that this morning. Before we do, I thought, how
in the world has free will, religion, works religion, I mean, it seems
everywhere around us, doesn't it? And the gospel of God's grace
in Christ, it seems like just a speck compared to everything
else. And believe it or not, Trevor,
I thought of you. And I thought of some other ladies
I know that's taught math. I remember one time I was in
school and a teacher said, I'm gonna show you that one plus
one equals three. And I thought, you can take any
grade school child we got and ask them, one plus one, and they'll
tell you right now, two. They don't even have to think
about it, they do. But he said, I'm gonna show you and I'll prove
to you one plus one equals three. And he started at one side of
the chalkboard and wrote all the way down and went, and this
shows my age, doesn't it? And then he went to the other
chalkboard and he run, and sure enough, the end, what does it
say? One plus one equals three. And you couldn't find anything
in there really to disagree with him about. You know what I'm
saying? He started out with a math equation. He'd done all these
formulas, but about two thirds of the way through it, He left
math and he went to, it was a class of logic, man's reasoning. And man's reasoning says, you
know, they like to say in logic, well, if A is true, then B is
true. Some of you may have been forced
to learn that, I was. And if B is true and then C is
true, that's how free will religion builds their thoughts. They'll
start out with the truth. Every lie has a shred of truth
in it, doesn't it? A good lie. And they'll read
you and they'll open the Bible and say, see right there, it
says, God is love. And if you and I opened it, what
would we say? Yes, that is true. That's what
the word of God says. So sayeth the Lord. But then
they've left the word of God and they went to theology. You
see what I'm saying? Well, if God is love, he must
love everybody. See, they're building up a strong
man, aren't they? And if he loves everybody, then he loves you.
And if he loves you, then he had to die for you. You see what
I'm saying? They've left what saith the Lord
and they've went down into logic or man's reasoning. Brethren,
God spare us from that. I want us this morning to look
from the word of God, how God saves sinners. And what does
the Lord say? And I pray that, Robert, I hope
I learn again that I'll read what saith the Lord, keep my
mouth shut. That's probably a good thing,
because I don't want to get beyond that. Turn with me please to
Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one. And we'll start at verse 14. Mark chapter one, this is the
gospel of God's grace in Christ. And the word of the Lord says
verse 14. Now, after that, John was put
in prison. Jesus came into Galilee preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God. This is not some preacher
preaching. This is the preacher preaching
the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what he preached
to him. He said, the time is fulfilled. and the kingdom of
God is at hand. Do you believe that? Most people
don't believe that. They don't believe that the kingdom
of God, judgment is coming and it's coming right now, much sooner
than you or I know. That day of reckoning is coming.
Can't be avoided, can't be delayed, and it is coming. And he tells
them, repent ye, and believe, see that little three-letter
word there? The, believe the gospel. There is but one gospel,
the gospel of God's grace in Christ. Don't believe one of
the gospels, believe the gospel, and that's Christ. So we see
the first thing in how God saves sinners is the sinner must repent. Repent I can tell you right now. I have neither power nor ability
to repent or desire That means to have my mind changed I need
to have my mind changed of everything I believe about God about Christ
about salvation and about me Because everything I believe
from the womb is wrong It's logic. It's my thinking how God should
be I And that's why you always get that, that's not my God.
Well, that's not my, well, then you don't know the God that is.
I need to be given repentance. I need to have my mind changed.
One of the things, I tell you, young people and especially smaller
people, parents, I want to encourage you. I'm thankful, I'm used to little
children that doesn't, you know, they're crying, that doesn't
bother me at all. Because parents, I'm going to
tell you something that I know by experience, because I learned
as a small boy, four or five years old, your children hear
a lot more than what you think they hear. They may be fidgeting,
they may be writing, but you'll be surprised at what they hear.
That's why it's important they be here. that they hear the truths,
plural, about Christ and salvation. Now, the warning as you grow
older and you grow up, hearing those truths, my warning is,
brothers, young people, and older people, and anyone, those truths
are not salvation. Those truths point you to the
truth. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's salvation. You can know all the truths about
the word of God there is, and perish. Do you know Christ? That's what my fear, you've got
to know Christ. Repent and believe the gospel. I need to believe it. And I don't,
I need to believe it that it's for me. For me. Like I said, I grew up, I could
talk to you in a minute I could have defended the doctrines of
grace, and I could have done all of those things, and many
of us have been through that road, haven't we? And I was as
lost as could be. I was no better than those Pharisees
that pointed to everybody else as an expert, and I was so far
lost, I didn't know the difference. Turn with me next, please, to
John chapter five. John 5, verse 39 and 40. So now we know that we must repent
and we must believe the gospel of God's grace in Christ. That's
the starting point of salvation. Then 39 and 40 says, and this
is the Lord again speaking, he says, search the scriptures for
in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which
testify of me. And look at verse 40. And you,
he's talking to me and he's talking to you, you will not come to
me that you might have life. You won't come. You can read
this book, you can read it every day, 24 hours a day if you want,
but you will never come to Christ. You won't come. God didn't say
I'm gonna put up barriers that you won't come. No, you will
not come. You'll come to anything else. You'll come to religion. You'll come to knowledge. You'll
come to clean up your life a little bit. You'll do all those things,
but you won't come to Christ. I want to say, and I said, these
buildings we see around here, so-called churches, they're full
of people that search the scriptures and they will not come to Christ.
They won't come. They refuse to come. You and
I, I know I was there, I'll speak for me. I was no better than
the Pharisees shaking my fist saying, we will not have this
man rule over me. See, that's the evil of free
will. When they tell men they rule over Christ and God, they
have no fear of God. You will not come. And I think,
how many times we've seen it? I hate to bring up fame because
it shows age, but especially in the South, they had a come
to Jesus moment. You ever heard that? They had
a come to Jesus, you know that? Well, come to Jesus, that's what
they did. In time of trouble, because the Lord afflicts, he
afflicts both his people and he afflicts non-believers. When
he brings affliction and trouble in your life, the first thing
they do is they run to religion. to salve their wounds. Of course,
the problem is, as soon as that time of trial and tribulation
is over, what do they do? They go right back to where they
were. What they say, what's born in trouble dies in time of peace. That's what religion does. That's
not the gospel. The gospel is we rely on Christ
all the time, completely. But the Lord has said, no matter
what, you will not come. You won't come. That's why the
fire and brimstone, you could preach all you want, but that's
never preached one soul into the kingdom of God. Will not
come. Look at John three. Let's turn
to John three, verse 17 to 21. And our words ought to be, what
saith the Lord? For God sent not his son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. Now see, in religion and man's
thinking, aha, right there it is. And they'll go right there
and they'll say, see there, he come to save the world. You see,
they take a, no, the world means, we'll see, it doesn't mean, well,
it doesn't mean all the people. Read on, because the next verses
say this different. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation,
that light is coming to the world. That's Christ. Christ has come
into the world, and men love darkness rather than Christ.
because their deeds were evil. And everyone that doeth evil
hateth Christ, neither come to Christ lest their deeds should
be reproved. Men and women and boys and girls
will not come to Christ because they don't want to be told that
their righteousness is filthy rags. It's not sin that keeps
me from Christ, it's their good deeds. It's their good deeds. How many times, I know, I'm guilty
of this, I guess. You ever been, I'd be somewhere,
wherever, place of shopping, like, you know, and all of a
sudden you see, here comes so-and-so that you used to go to church
with. You know, very religious. Well, I used to, some of you
are smirking because you know it's true. I'd see them, I'd
duck down the other aisle and start heading the other way because
I didn't want to hear all the things they were doing for God.
And when you share, try to share the gospel, I know with my family,
well, we drive the church bus, you don't know how much money
we've given, we taught Sunday school, we did that. They don't
want to hear that when I tell them, you know what? My best
prayer is sin. My most sincere attempt at repentance
is sin. The best words I've ever said
are sin. I have no righteousness. All
my righteousness is filthy rags. I have to pray every day, Lord,
would you give me the faith to believe that I am the chief of
all sinners? Because that's not my, the old
flesh don't want to believe that. My flesh wants to believe that,
oh, there's, well, there's something good in there. You're better
than so-and-so, you know. No, God has to give us that. And we will not come to Christ
because we know that's what Christ is going to say, that my best
efforts are worthy of hell. There's nothing I can do to save
myself. Turn it over, please, to John 6. Verse 44. So now we know that
we must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. The Lord says you will not come.
And we will not come because of our own self-righteousness.
We don't want to admit that. And now we're gonna see in verse
44, no, see that word? No, no, no
man can come to me. No man can come to me. I have
neither power nor ability to come to Christ. I have no desire
to come to Christ. Most folks are very happy in
religion, aren't they? but there's 4,000 of them, almost
4,000 of works religion. If this works doesn't meet my
criteria, I'll move over here and then my works will meet my,
you understand what I'm saying? They wanna go somewhere where
they can do their own, they can be king of the salvation of their
own soul. They wanna take God off the throne
and put themselves there. But the Lord is saying right
here, this is Christ, no man can come to me, and oh, thanks
for the, when the Lord says accept or but, accept God the Father,
which has sent me, has sent Christ, draw him. I am depending on God
the Father to draw me to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that word
does mean drag, and it doesn't mean drag like I'm kicking and
screaming like a little child that doesn't want to do something.
No, it means he has to drag me because I'm like Mephibosheth,
I'm lame and unable to come to him. I can't do it for myself. I can
do nothing to save my own soul. I have to be taken to Christ
by God the Father, and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Has God taught you or
has man taught you? Because once God teaches you
something, no man can get you, they can't un-teach you that.
I really don't care what theologian so-and-so said or what doctor
so-and-so said. I'll say this, when the Lord
saved me, prior to that I was, many of
you here, we were together, we were in the highest form of works
religion, reform doctrine. And well, they just don't, you
know, we know so much more than they do. And we, sometimes I
hate to admit this, we probably took joy in belittling other
people's worth because we knew more than they did. Wasn't much compassion there
was, it was hard. I just like the Wesley's, there
wasn't no love, it was just heart. And then the Lord, he saved me. Now, I'd heard the gospel many
years ago. I didn't believe it, but I'd heard it. I could quote
it. Some of the things stuck with
me, some truth stuck with me, but I didn't know the truth.
But when God revealed the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ to me,
I had one of the biggest book sales you ever saw. I had a whole
bookshelf, and I tell you what, just throw them in the box. I was having a hard time finding
somebody to take them. I couldn't get them out of there fast enough.
I don't need them. I have the book. That's the only
book I need. I don't need to know what this
theologian, what that one says. I need to know what saith the
scriptures. And depend on God to teach me. I'm to be taught of God. Every
man therefore hath learned of the Father, Come to me. Not that any man has seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Christ hath everlasting
life. That's what I need to be saved.
I want you to look one more place. I think it's Psalm 110. Psalm 110. Psalm 110, the Lord said unto
my Lord, sit thou at my right hand till I make thy enemies
thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thy
enemies. And here we are in verse three. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauties of holiness from
the womb of the mornings, thou hast the due of the youth. To
be saved, God had to make me willing. had to make me willing. I didn't have the power, nor
the ability, nor the desire to come to Christ. God had to make
me willing. And when he does, there won't be issues with the
word of God. All you say, yes, yes, Lord, yes. Make me willing,
Lord. Will you make me willing? You
know, it says somewhere, I think, I can't remember, I think Romans
11, that he gave unto them, the Lord gave unto them the power
to become sons and daughters of God. God alone has all the
power. Every one of us has our thorns
in the flesh, as Paul did. I don't know how you say this,
I'll just say it in a nice way. I like to eat. I exercise a lot so I can eat
more. I'll just say that. That's me,
okay? And I love it. Brother Henry
said when he went to the doctor, Henry said, you either eat to
live or live to eat. Well, guess what? I live to eat. Where's my power? I know it's
not good. I know it's detrimental. Where's
my will? I don't have any will. I'm in
bondage. You understand that, don't you?
To my sin. I need God to give me the power
to discipline this flesh. I don't have the power to do
it. And oh, thank God that he does
make us willing. He makes us willing. Turn with me now to Romans 10, verse 13 through 17. So now we know is that we must
repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that we
will not come. We know that no one can come
except God the Father drug us to Christ and we know that the
only way we will do that is God has to make us willing. How is
it that God makes us willing? Well, he answers that for us
in Romans 10, verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now those works religious
they see there, whosoever, that means anybody. Well, the problem
is we won't come and we can't come. We can't call on the Lord. We are not able to call on the
Lord. How then shall they call on him whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? I see, and I'm willing to be
corrected, I see nowhere else in this book Does God save anyone
outside the preaching of the gospel? I don't see it. If he does, I don't know. You
know, there's things beyond this book we know, but he has given
to us the only way he's going to save sinners is the preaching
of the gospel. He's not going to save them in
free will religion. He's not gonna save me walking
through the woods one day and all of a sudden the sunlight
hit me and now I know Christ. He's gonna save me through the
preaching of the gospel. That's the only way there is.
And I'll never hear the preaching of the gospel unless I'm where
a congregation of believers and a gospel preacher is. That's how important what we
do here this morning is. I look back and I'm very thankful
that I just tell you my own personal, my father, one day we lived in
a small town and if you ever lived in a small southern town
and you meet somebody new, I bet they do this in Alabama, don't
they? First words they wanna know from you is what? Where
do you go to church? Now that may change now, that
not used to be that way, where do you go to church? And it didn't
matter where you went long as it wasn't the Catholic Church,
but you know long as you went that's all they cared about They
cared nothing about the preaching of the gospel This is a little
bitty old town my dad's son. I don't worry, but he had heard
the gospel next thing you know My family they wasn't happy with
him my grandmother and all them. We wouldn't go in there anymore
We'd get up on Sunday morning, you can appreciate this, this
is before they had interstates, we drove from Southern Illinois
to Kentucky to go to church. About three, four hour drive.
I'm so thankful the Lord and his sovereignty put that in the
heart of my father. He brought me to where the gospel
was preached. I didn't go happily, I didn't
go willingly, because I sat there and all I cared about was, I
hope we're having chicken for lunch today. But he knew, he knew one thing,
that there's no salvation apart from the preaching of the gospel.
And they paid for it. People wouldn't, I didn't know,
I was only five years old, people wouldn't speak to him anymore.
Because you see, They dared to question works religion. That
was a thumb in the eye or a finger in the eye to works religion.
The gospel is still a thumb in the eye to works religion. Always
will be. But he knew the importance of
being where the gospel was preached. Cause it's only there that the
Lord reveals himself. And it's there that he makes
his sheep willing to come to Christ. That's why we pray, oh
Lord, let us preach Christ high and let us preach man low and
let us preach grace free. I'll close with this. Yes, there
she is. I have been known to tell a story
or two, have I not? Rachel, you know better than
I. She told me one time that kind
of hit me in the face, but she was right. I tell too many stories.
I love her for it. Years ago, Jack, you and I was
talking about, there was a preacher in Blytheville, Arkansas. It wasn't a big town, and I will
say this is back in the 50s. People, they didn't, when the
gospel, they didn't like it. And it wasn't just a matter of
saying, we don't like it and we're gonna tolerate it. That
didn't happen. They tried to literally run people out of town.
They literally did. Wouldn't rent them a house, wouldn't
do anything, wouldn't work on their cars. That's how it was.
You were told in works religion, you need to stay away from these
people. And the people did, and it made
it very hard for the believers. A believer's life's never easy,
is it? It's hard today for the believers when they know what
you really believe. But anyway, this went on for
a while, very open in their hatred of the church, the gospel church. So the gospel preacher one day
said he had had enough. So he drove and parked right
in front of the largest Baptist church in Blytheville, Arkansas,
and up the steps and headed towards the, I don't know what you want
to call it, the head preacher, whatever it was, office. Of course,
the secretary said, whoa, whoa, you can't go in there. He said,
I'll be just a minute. And he went straight in, opened
the door. And of course, the preacher of the Baptist church
caught off guard. He said, you gotta get out of
here. He said, look, I'm only gonna be here a minute. He said,
I'm gonna ask you three questions. And I want you before God to
answer them to me. And when I'm done, I'll leave
and you'll never hear from me again. All right. He said, my first
question to you is, did God save you or did you save yourself? Well, God saved me. He said,
did he do it by accident or did he do it on purpose? He said, well, he did it on purpose. And he said, did he do it when
you made a decision or did he do it before the foundations
of the world? And the Baptist preacher remained
silent. And he said, no, that's what
I'm preaching You leave us alone. Because that's from the word
of God. God saved us. He did it on purpose. And he saved us in the eternal
covenant before the foundations of the world. That's a comfort to this sinner's
soul. I can go to bed at night. I can go to bed at night. If
I wake up, Okay, if I don't, that's even better. I was kidding
Greg, he turned 67. I said, well, welcome to 67. The
good news is 68's not far behind. But I always tell him, and I
believe this, I said, that's a good thing. Because every day
when I wake up is one day that I'm closer to where I wanna be. One day closer. The world don't understand that.
World's religion don't understand that. I was talking with a man
walking the other day. He was 73 and I said, well, you know,
friend, I said, you know, we may not be here tomorrow. Oh
no, you'll be here. You walk. I said, well, I hope
not. He said, what do you mean? I
said, cause I know where I'm going and I can't wait to get
there. I'll close with this. It is my
heart's desire I ask God every single day. Lord, I pray if my death would bring
about the opportunity for the gospel to be preached to my loved
ones, I pray, Lord, you would take me today. Because I know
that's the only way they can be saved. And I pray, Lord, you would do
that. Me dying's no big deal, but to hear my lost loved ones
to sit where the gospel preached, that's hope. Because until that
happens, according to the word of God, there is no hope. There is no hope. And we're like
Paul. The different gospel works, works,
pleads with the sinner to accept salvation. The believer pleads
with God to give salvation. You hear that? I know my loved
ones not coming. They can't come. They don't want
to come because their own righteousness, they won't come. And I plead
with God, God, would you make them And the only way you can
make them willing is bring them to where the gospels preached. And send a faithful, send, I
always laugh, send a John the Baptist to preach to them, Lord. That's the hope. Thank you for
your time. Caleb, we look forward to hearing
from you this morning. Take a break. Yeah, take a break. Thank you.