Good morning. It's nice to have
a piano. It fills the room this morning.
So welcome back to Joy and Delphus. Glad they're here for a while.
A couple weeks. Let's open this morning service with hymn number
70 from your hardback hymnal number 70. Holy, holy, holy. Let's all stand together. Number
70. so Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning our song
shall rise to Thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? All the
saints adore thee ? ? Casting down their golden crowns ? ?
Around the glassy sea ? ? Cherubim and seraphim ? ? Falling down
before thee ? which were, and are, and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see, Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect
in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy
name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Well, I feel like I'm at the
silver sneakers to YMCA. The average age is about 60 here
this morning. All the young people are in North
Carolina. We're glad they're there. I'm
thankful for Adam and Lauren. I said the best advice I ever
heard about people, no matter what your age is, if you're ever
looking for a spouse, Brother Henry said, find someone who
loves Christ and try to get them to love you. And I tried to pass
that on to anybody that would listen to my foolishness, especially
my own household. Lord, you need to find someone
who loves Christ. Sometimes I've been asked, well,
are you ready? And I pray that if I ever say
yes to that question, that God would strike me dead. Because
there's never been anyone stood up here to declare Christ that's
ever been sufficient or ready. And I know every day I plead
with God that he would speak to his gospel preachers, speak
through them, and he would enable them to declare Christ truthfully,
boldly, and simply. And I pray he would do that for
Robert and I this morning. Years ago, you know, in religion,
I grew up in a small town, so we had revivals. And they were
big events. Airplane rides, cotton candy,
it was like the county fairs, small town, southern town. The
problem was after a couple of weeks, the town went right back
to where it was. And as Martin Luther said, they
had a lot of heat, no light. Gospel churches, they, We had
conferences even back in the 50s. I remember as a little bitty
boy going all the way from Pine Bluff, Arkansas to a conference
and conferences that had, and a lot of times they'd invite
the same preacher over and over again. And I remember it was
in, Brother Henry told one time of the man had been coming to
their conference for several years. One of the church members
came up to him, he said, preacher, I know you hope God's going to
save somebody today, don't you?" And he said, the man looked at
him, he says, no, not really. He said, I hope God gets somebody
lost. Because if God gets them lost,
it's because he's already saved. And I thought about that a lot.
There's a lot of truth to that. If you would ask most professing
Christians today, well, when were you saved? They can give
you an answer, can't they? In fact, they can tell you date.
Well, it was July 17th, 1108 AM. I remember I was sitting
in the third pew and I felt warm all over. And when preacher came,
I came forward and I gave my life to Christ. I accepted him
as my savior. And they look back on that experience
as the hope of their salvation. But if you would ask them the
question, well, when did God get you lost? It's the deer in
the headlight hook. They don't have any idea. What
do you mean? I don't, I don't understand what you're saying.
But the confession of every one of God's children is, it's the
same confession that the blind man. Remember when the Lord healed
the blind man on the Sabbath? All the religion grilled him.
They wanted to know who broke our laws. Finally, out of frustration,
he said the confession of every believer. And that is all I know
is this. I was lost and now I'm found. That's my confession. Religion
focuses on just saving, never considering. The Lord says, I'm
going to get my people. He came for who? The what? The
lost sheep. This morning, I want to talk
about what this means to be lost. And the question I'm going to
ask and hope the answer is, has God made you a sinner? Because only God makes sinners.
And why should it, you know, why is it important that I, I,
what do you want to talk about? Let's talk, let's have a positive
message. This is a positive message. And
the reason I want to know by the word of God, if I'm a sinner
or not, because in his word, God tells us that Jesus Christ
descended from the right hand of God in glory and descended
into this sin sick world to do what? To save sinners. I want to know, am I one of those
sinners? And if you'll bear with me, I hopefully we can see what
does God call a sinner? What man calls a sinner means
nothing. I will know what God calls you, sinner. And if you'd
look at Romans chapter five, Romans chapter five, and we'll
read starting at verse 12. And the word of God says, wherefore
as by one man, who is that man? That was Adam. By one man, sin
entered into the world. When Adam partake of the fruit,
he sinned against God and sin now entered into the world and
death by sin. Not only did Adam sin against
the Holy God, but death now entered the world. And I can promise
you one thing I know for certain, everybody in this room is going
to physically die because of the sin of Adam. But also because
of the sin of Adam, every one of us come into this world, enemies
and alienated of God. You remember when Adam sinned,
what's the first thing he did? He hid from God. That relationship
between God and Adam was no more like it was. Sin entered in the
world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men for that all have sinned. Every descendant of Adam, that's
all mankind, in the garden became a sinner. I became a sinner in
the garden. I inherited a sin nature from
my father, Adam. Now there's people that say,
you know, why should I be charged with Adam's sin? I didn't do
anything. Well, if you look on, it reads that If you do not partake
of the sin of Adam, you cannot partake of the righteousness
of Christ. And I always ask him, and I can
speak for me, even if it wasn't for Adam's sin, how are you doing
in keeping God's law? Are you able to keep it perfectly?
And the answer is, if you're honest with ourselves, we're
failing miserably, aren't we? But I inherited a sin nature
from Adam. In Adam, I became a sinner. Turn with me please to Psalm
51. Psalm 51 verse 5. Verse 5 it says, David, behold,
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. I became a sinner the moment
But Michael Etheridge came into being when those two cells came
together and I became a human being in the womb of my mother.
And sin, it's not that my mother or that, you know, David's mother
was living in sin. No, I became a sinner when I
was conceived. And you know, it's always interesting
to me is if you, I don't, we don't have to tell, you don't
have to teach your children to lie. They come by pretty naturally. And if they're a good liar, a
good liar will put a little bit of truth in there, won't they?
Well, they do that in religion. They just give a little bit of
shred of truth, and then they tell the lie. And I remember
a man in reform religion, and he used to teach this idea that
we're conceived in sin to people when he traveled. He was in Russia,
and one of the things he said, he taught the people this, he
said, When is a wolf a wolf? When it's born or after it eats
its first sheep? Well, the people understood that,
but the answer is when it was born. Well, when did I become
a sinner? When I was born or after I committed
sin? And the answer is I was born
into this world of sin nature. And I became a sinner from the
womb. And God made me a sinner. The trouble is most people don't
believe that. They don't believe that. Most
professing Christians do not believe that. I'm so thankful the Lord has
given us young people and it's exciting to see the young people
have children and grow up. And we're so thankful that he's
given us small children, babies and that. But when you look at
that baby, you know, our first thought you hear, Oh, they're
so innocent. The answer to that is no. I remember looking at
my children and my grandchildren. I was thrilled to see him and
I love him with all I have. They came into this world, a
sinner, needing grace and needing Christ. They're not innocent. I remember a gospel preacher
one time said, he said, hell is not full of innocent people.
It's full of guilty. I became a sinner from the moment
I was born. Look at verse 2, Psalm 51. It says, Wash me thoroughly from
my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my
transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Verse 4, I became
a sinner when I really disbelieved this and said, against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that
thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when
thou judgest. My sin, I became a sinner when
God gave me the faith to believe that my sin was against the holy
God and a just God. I may steal from Tom, and that
is a horrible thing, but I have not sinned against Tom. I have
sinned against the holy God, a holy God whose eyes are too
pure to even look upon sin, a God who must and will punish every
single sin that there is. If God were to allow one sin
to go unpunished, His justice and holiness is no more, and
He's no longer God. And I realized that here I am
all the day long of my life. This old flesh that I dragged
with me and I dragged with me from the day I was born to the
day I die is spent sinning against the Holy God. And God will not let it go. It
must either be punished in me or be punished in Christ. There is You know, especially
reformed religion, and I'm thankful God has made me a very simple
man, not a very bright man. But in reformed religion, they
used to like to break up sins. Well, there's willful sin, and
there's the sins you don't know, and then there's menial sins.
And I like it matters. All sin is a sin against the
Holy God. And I know this, that my sins,
as ever before me, my very best prayer that I've ever prayed
is laden with my sin. The best, and I've never known
that I've ever had one, but the best sermon I'll ever speak is
laden with my sin. Has God ever, you know, if you're
one of his, he has. Has he ever broken you? to the
point of tears. If you're his, he has, where
you come out crying, Lord, help me because I cannot help myself.
And it causes us to run to Christ. And we cry out, but I like what
Jonathan Edmonds said, even those tears we cried must be washed
in the blood of Christ. We have no holiness. And the
Lord God is perfectly holy. And it's against him that I've
sinned. God made me a sinner when I've
seen my sin was against the holy and just God. And there's nothing
I could do to atone for a single sin. I'm guilty. I became a sinner in Isaiah. Isaiah, just turn to Isaiah 64,
please. Most people don't believe this
about themselves. They don't believe that they
inherited their sin from their father, Adam. They don't believe
that their sin is against the holy God. And they don't believe
that they have no righteousness. Look with me at verse six. And
I will, 64 verse six. But we are all as unclean thing,
and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. And we do fade
as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us
away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee,
for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities. God made me a sinner when he
revealed to me and gave me the faith to believe that I have
no righteousness, no righteousness. There's never anything I've ever
done in myself, this flesh that's pleasing to God. I have no standing
for God. I'm guilty before God. When God makes you a sinner,
you know that Lord, I deserve to be cast into the pit of hell. But oh, this flesh is a horrible
thing. If you're here, your flesh, has
your flesh ever accused you that, Michael, you want to call yourself
a Christian and do what you do and think what you think? You're
not a Christian. But it does the same thing on
the other side, doesn't it? Yeah, you're a sinner, but you're
not as bad as so-and-so trying to deceive me that I have some
righteousness. I have no righteousness. And
the truth of the matter is, as long as you believe you have
some righteousness, you will never turn to Christ. You'll remain in your sin and
die in it. One of the things that Some of you went through this. It's very difficult when you
have loved ones that you know are without Christ. Especially
when you have some of age, you know, their dates are numbered. But I know in most cases, and
many of you have this, they're very, very religious. They talk
about their church and what they do for God. They drive the bus
and they give money and they do all these things. And I know a few years back,
the Lord has made it very clear to me when he talks about when
Paul pleaded, pleaded for the souls of his lost loved ones.
And I do that daily. I'm sure you do too. We plead
for the souls of our Lord, because if you don't save them, Lord,
they're not going to be saved. I'm not pleading with them because
they'll never come. I'm pleading with God Almighty
because He's the only one able and has the power to save them.
I pray that He'd be willing. But when Paul says they have
a zeal for God, oh, they're very religious, but without knowledge. They are
ignorant of the righteousness of Christ. They don't know that
the only righteousness God will ever accept is the righteousness
of Christ. not your righteousness, not mine,
only the righteousness of Christ. And he says, they go about trying
to establish their own righteousness rather than submitting to the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I did that one
time, didn't we? Oh, we, we went from free will
to wherever reform religions to this the this, the this, and
all around because we were trying to establish our own righteousness.
And never until God brings you and makes you a sinner, you will
never flee to the righteousness of Christ. God made me a sinner when he
said, Michael, you have no righteousness. You cannot stand before me. You
stand guilty. I'm so thankful God made me a
sinner. Well, God made me a sinner when he
taught me some things and gave me the faith to believe them.
It's one thing to teach is to give you the faith to believe. I have this every day. If you're
a believer, you suffer from the same problem. Paul said, that
which I know to be good, I do not do. That which I know to
be evil, I do. Paul, my sin's not a sin of ignorance. When I sin against the Holy God,
I know it's wrong, but yet I still want to do it.
Why this old flesh that I'm carrying around? I know it. God made me a sinner
when he said, in my flesh, there is no good thing. There's nothing
good about me. That's why when the rich young
ruler said, why? The Lord asked him why I called
him now good. He said, there's none good, but God. No, I have trouble believing
that about myself. And then when Paul says in Romans, This is a worthy saying. Something should be believed
by everyone. That Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. And then what'd he say next? Of whom I, what's the next word? You know the next word? I, there's
a two letter word in there. I am chief. Not I used to be the chief and
I'm not anymore. This is a believer. I am the
chief right now. I am the chief of all sinners. I have trouble believing that
about myself. I do. And probably if you're honest
with yourself, you, yeah, I'm a sinner, but the chief of all
sinners? The worst of the worst? See, that's that old flesh telling
you about your self-righteousness. Yeah. I have to ask every day,
God, would you give me the faith to believe that I am the chief
of all sinners? And I'll tell you, if God ever
does that for you, there won't be any problem with you judging
other people. You'll find you'll be very forgiving. Yes, God made me a sinner when
he gave me the faith to believe those things. Why is it that we say right now,
why is it important to know, has God made me a sinner? Because
I want to know, did Christ come for me? Did Christ come for me? That's
who he came to save, the sinner. We sing a hymn, not the righteous,
not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to call. I need to know,
do I fit into that group of people who Christ came for? Has he made
me a sinner? And give me the faith to believe
that. I want to know, tell you, if
God ever makes you a sinner, I'll say it, it's what he put
on my heart. There is great freedom when God makes you a sinner. Great freedom. God's law has
nothing over me. I'll just tell you this. God's
law is holy. God's law is good. God's law
is just. We love God's law. But brothers
and sisters, I don't even try to keep it. Because I know I
can't. There's freedom in that. How
many times in religion did you say, oh, we need to have a prayer
group to keep all of us, you know, so you can keep me accountable
and I keep you accountable. No, I can't keep God's law. I
can't keep it. There's freedom in that. I don't go around trying to get
in programs Should I do better? Of course. But I don't try to
set up where I'm looking to myself to do better as my hope of salvation. There's great freedom in that.
Of course, the naysayers will say, well, if you don't have
God's law, you're just going to do what
you want. They'll live like they want. How's that working for
you? I'm doing that's what I do right
now. No, we won't continue in sin. We do continue in sin, but the
Lord has said it is the love of God that constrains us. It's the love of God. I am totally
dependent on God's Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ to keep
me from the evil that I want to do. I can say that right now. That's my hope. I have to pray
every day, Lord, please don't give me the desires of my heart
and mind because they are evil and they
will be by destruction. I have to pray every day, Lord,
I pray you would save me today and that you would save me from
me. I'm my worst enemy. I'm the most
evil there is. I don't have to worry about this
world out there. I need to worry about what's in this heart and
mind. And God, would you restrain that evil of my heart and mind? And it is with great comfort
that I can say that if God's made you a sinner and you're
one of his, he will not let you continue down that road of sin
until he breaks you. He will bring, I mean, you ever
had this? God bring trials. Any of you
had any trials in your life? Every day. You ever had any tribulation
in your life? Every day. That's God's correcting
hand. Causing you to see, Lord, I am
a sinner and I can do nothing for myself. Lord, cause me to
rest in you, to believe on you. He corrects us with that, doesn't
he? and he will not allow you to go on. And I'm thankful it's
that way, because if he ever left me to myself, I wouldn't be here. The greatest
judgment God can place on a person is to let them have what they
want, to leave them alone, to leave them alone. We see that
in Romans 1, you know, he talks about things that happen in the
prominent world, God left them to themselves, and they followed
after their sinful desires, never repenting, never looking back. Well, I will close this. That's
cheap to have some time to talk. That's probably a good thing.
Every day, I have to ask God, Lord, would you forgive me of
my sins against you? And there's multitudes of sins,
but one of my, the four that I struggle with, there's more
than that. Lord, forgive me for willfully sinning against you.
I'm not doing it out of ignorance. I'm not doing it because I have
no idea right or wrong. I'm doing it because I willfully
sin against the Holy God. I have to ask the Lord forgive
me of my unbelief. I always say my unbelief is so
real to me because it's so present with me compared to my faith.
My faith seems so small and insignificant. My unbelief is so real because
I witness it every day. We talked about today. Is this
just unbelief? Yes, it is. I struggle with all
the day long. Even when I'm praying, I struggle
with unbelief. But the comfort I have when God
makes you a sinner and causes you to rest in Christ, although
that faith is weak and wavering and goes and comes all the time
and sometimes seems like it's not present at all, the object
of that faith never changes. And he is strong and he is the
one in control of all things. That's what gives me comfort.
I get distracted way too easily. I'll just say that right now.
If you're, I don't know, you know, God is the one in control. This is the will of Christ that's
happening. I have to ask the Lord every
day to forgive me of my self-righteousness. It's with me all the day long.
God help me with that. And I'll close with this one.
This is one of the greatest This is a sin that I struggle with
mightily every single day. God, forgive me for complaining
against your good providence. I do it all the day long. I wish
I had that car. I wish we had that house. I wish
this. I wish, you know, I would go
around I'm always complaining against
God's good providence. I pray he'd have mercy on me
for that. But the good news I give you
this morning, if God's made you a sinner, it's because he's already saved
you. Most people today don't know anything about being a sinner. I remember the same man that
taught there. I mean, it was preached at that
conference. People come up to him. You ever had somebody say this? I seen this happen to have this
person come out and didn't like what he preached, which didn't
surprise me because he preached the gospel. And the person said,
you know, I've been a Christian all my life. You ever known anybody
like that? You know what he told her? You've
been a Christian way too long. Never been lost. That's where
most professing Christianity is today. They claim to be saved,
but they've never been lost. And the good news, like I said,
if God's made you a sinner and he's got you lost, it's because
he's already saved you. Thank you for your time. Tom,
thank you. All right. All right.