We're going to start the second
hour with a hymn number 44 from the hardback temple. And then
you go, we'll bring scripture reading. So number 44, let's
all stand together. Number 44 in the hardback temple. And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me, who caused his
pain, For me, who him to death pursued. Amazing love, how can it be That
Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love, how can it
be That thou, my God, shouldst die for me. He left His Father's throne above
So free, so infinite His grace Emptied Himself of all but love
and bled for his own helpless race. Amazing love, how can it
be? that thou, my God, shouldst die
for me. Amazing love, how can it be that
thou, my God, shouldst die for me? No condemnation, Now I dread, I am my Lord's and
He is mine. Alive in him, my living head,
and clothed in righteousness divine. Amazing love, how can it be? that thou, my God, shouldst die
for me. Amazing love, how can it be that
thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Please be seated. Good morning. This morning's
call to worship scripture will be found in Psalm 67. Psalm 67. God be merciful unto us and bless
us. And how is he going to be merciful
and bless us? by cause his face to shine upon
us. This is talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. It says salaah, which means pause
and meditate upon what was just said. That thy way may be known
upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let the people
praise thee, O God, Let all the people praise Thee. O let the
nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the
people righteously and govern the nations upon the earth. Let
the people praise Thee, O God. Let all the people praise Thee.
shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our God, shall
bless us. shall bless us and all the ends
of the earth shall fear him. This blessing is in Christ and
this blessing is when he shines his face, the Lord Jesus Christ,
upon us. Let us pray. Father God, we thank
you. We come before you in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his merit alone, by his shed
blood alone. Father, we Come, we praise you,
we thank you for the wonderful blessing it is to be here. Thank
you for the message we heard, that Christ-glorifying message,
Father. And please, we ask for your blessing
to continue to His face, the Lord Jesus Christ's face, to
shine upon us, Father. And we pray also for all the
churches that preach the gospel, Father, as well as the Church
of Lexington, the conference, we pray for Pastor Greg and all
the other preachers that are going to preach. May their message
be clear, concise, and be Christ-glorifying. And that his face may shine upon
us, Father. We ask for this blessing and
we ask for you to be merciful to us. In Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Let's stand together once again
and we'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. How can God, so just and holy,
save my helpless, guilty soul? I am vile and so unworthy. Can this sinner be made whole? How unrighteous and polluted! How ungodly and undone! None can help me but the Savior,
Jesus Christ, the Father's Son. Jesus is the friend of sinners,
I will praise his holy name. By His sacrifice I'm righteous,
freed from every guilt and stain. Though my sins were all as scarlet,
they are now as white as snow. For the Savior paid my sin debt,
washed them in the crimson flow. Sacrifice of God's appointing,
He for me the ransom paid. Now there is no condemnation,
Satisfaction Jesus made. Resting only in His merit, safe
in Him my Lord and friend, soon I shall depart to see Him and
to praise Him without end. Please be seated, Michael. Brother Greg asked me Wednesday
night, he says, well, are you ready? I said, no. I said, I don't know if anybody's
ever stood behind the pulpit says I'm ready. I said, all I
can tell you is I plead that God is ready. Because if he's
ready, everything's gonna be okay. And if God doesn't speak,
this next few minutes will be in vain. And that's my prayer,
is that God would be pleased to speak through Robert, through
me, through the preachers, whoever stands, that we're just a voice,
that the message is from Him. And I pray that would be so.
I want to, I was thinking this morning, that may surprise some
of you, I do occasionally think, I didn't say I think correctly,
I said I think. And I was thinking as I look out over the faces,
how I take the goodness and mercy and blessings of God for granted.
I wake up every morning as if I deserve to wake up. And that
God would, in his goodness, place me in this time and in this place,
I fear I take that for granted too often. And I would say, as
Paul does, is that he said, I thank God for you always. You are an
encouragement to me. And as he has added to the church
here and brought in people, and I'm so thankful we see a younger
generation. That's a great, it's a great
blessing to my soul. And I hope we don't take it for
granted. One of the things I try to do here, and I pray for Ms. Susan, because she tries to do
as well. God has blessed me and charged me with the responsibility
of trying to teach our young people about Christ. We're not here to entertain them.
We're not here to make it, oh, just keep them pacified, we're
here to tell them the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation. And I pray he would allow us
to do that. I take that as a great responsibility. And one of the
things, I'm not a teacher, some of the folks in the assembly
are, but I know some people, we learn through repetition,
don't we? When you were small, you, this may be foreign today,
but I remember standing, you said the Pledge of Allegiance
till you could have said it in your sleep. repetition, repetition. Well, we tried to do some of
that. And sometimes they kind of look at me and I say, before
we start Sunday school, we said, what is this book, the Bible,
all about? And they'll repeat some, it's
all about Christ and how he saves sinners. I said, if God, you
can say that with your lips, but, I can tell you, if we plead
with God, he'll put it in your heart. Because that is, this
book is all about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he saves sinners. And Greg, he asked me, he said,
what are you going to, I said, that's going to be the title
of this message, How God Saves Sinners. He said, well, what
verse are you going to use? I said, I'm going to start in
Genesis and I hope to go to Revelations. He said, that's a pretty broad.
I said, well, his salvation is pretty broad, so that's probably.
But from the start to the end, this is the book about Christ
and how he saves sinners. And I thought about this and
I said, you know, what Michael Etheridge tells you about how
God saves sinners or Greg Elmquist or Jimmy Swaggart or the Pope
doesn't matter. I wanna know what God says about
how he saves sinners. And more importantly, from the
word of God, I can look at that and say, this is how God saves
sinners, and is my experience the same as what he says? Because
if it's different, I've got cause for worry, because God does not
lie. And the idea that I've been saved
somewhere different than the way God says he saves sinners,
I fear I have a false salvation. I have a false hope. And to my
great sadness, there are multitudes today walking around with a false
hope. And they don't have any idea
how God saves sinners. And when they hear, Brother Wayne,
some of you before, Cheryl's telling this morning, when you
hear how God saves sinners, I never heard that before. Something
different, isn't it? But this morning, I pray the
Lord will enable us to look from his word. And if you would turn
with me, please, to Genesis 1.1. That's where we should start. Genesis 1, chapter 1. And I've talked to this before,
but I don't think we've given it. This is where we should start. verse one chapter one it says
in the beginning God and we don't need to go any further everything
everything that happens has its beginnings in God he is the creator
we are the creature we forget that all too often don't we everything
has its beginning in God No matter how I may judge it, good or bad,
it does not matter. You know, we've had the fact
that you're sitting here this morning, the fact that you're
wearing what you're wearing, all has its beginnings in God. I remember Brother Todd was sharing
one time, well, you're just, someone told, well, you're just
God's puppet. I wish I was. I wish I just obeyed
God perfectly. I wish I did, but I don't. that all things have their beginning
in God. God-willed, God-ordained, God-purposed,
God-predestined, they have their beginnings in God. And no matter how we deem the
event, good or bad, it had its beginnings in God. From the things
that we, the birth of children, that we rejoice in, to the things
that give us heartache, man's evil have their beginnings in
God. Isn't that what he said? Built
for destruction. God created people for destruction
and evil. All things have their beginnings
in God. And our problem is that the creature wants to take the
creator off his throne and put themselves on it. And it started
in the garden. And it's been true ever since.
What was the lie that the serpent told Eve? If you eat from the
tree in the center of the garden of knowledge, you can be God. And guess what she did? She gave
it to Adams and Adams, they both knew God had warned them. grabbed
the fruit and it looked good to the eyes, good to the taste,
and it would pleasure his flesh. Adam ate in hopes that he could
be God. And what's the first thing they
did? They hid from God. And they tried to sow some fig
leaves together to atone for their sins, didn't they? They
tried to do what only God can do. And we live in a time since
Adam and Eve, man then and man today, and I mean men and women,
boys and girls, all want to take God off their throne, off his
throne, and put themselves on it. And there's no more evil
than what we see in false, free will, man-centered religion. Think about it, we've all been
through it, many of us, and we've seen it. What do they tell everyone? You see the bumper sticker, God
loves you. God loves everybody. Christ died
for everybody. Christ wants to save everybody. Won't you let him? Who's the center of that salvation?
The creature. It's up to you. God's done everything
he can. Now it's up to you to decide
whether to accept or reject Christ's offer of salvation. They've put
the creature on the throne and taken God off. And the decision
is left with the creature, not the creator. And when you see
false religion, you know, I thought about this today. Some of you,
you may not be that far removed for it. Oh, how you'd have the
music play. You know what I'm talking about.
Oh, please come forward. They pleaded with the creature
to do something to let God save them. Believer knows that's not
true. And what's the sense of urgency?
If I can decide when I'm going to be saved in any time, do I
have any urgency for Christ? The answer is of course not.
It's what they call Christ on demand. Anytime I want him, I'll
just wait a little bit longer. I'll wait till the very end and
then I'll let Jesus save me. There's no urgency. But when
God and he is on the throne and it is his salvation, there becomes
urgency because all I can do is plead with the creator to
have mercy on me, the creature. You understand what I'm saying?
We plead with God. Lord, save me, oh Lord, for I
cannot save myself. God's salvation begins with God,
a God who does not know time. Before time ever began, the triune
God was there. When the world ends, the triune,
he'll always be, God's always been there. And every event of
my life, has been ordained in the beginning God. And I'll just say, sometimes you've been,
I call it smacked in the head with a two before. You know what
I'm talking about? I was reading the bulletin just
a few months back and brother Todd wrote an article and he
said, you know, we profess to believe that God is sovereign.
That's what God's word says. Do you believe that? We all believe
that, don't we? Then why is it I worry? Do you
ever worry? Of course you do. I do too. God's sovereign. Why am I worrying? Because I have unbelief. I struggle
with unbelief. I know in the beginning God,
but I still struggle to believe that, don't I? God, this is your
hands. It's in your hands. Oh, the troubles
I could have saved myself if so often I'd practice that and
put it into belief. Cause I don't, I try to fix myself.
I'm still trying to put me back on the throne and take up. And
the Lord doesn't allow that. Salvation begins with God and
it continues with God and it ends with God. and it's to his hands. We'll talk about this in a minute.
I'll just say this. God does save you. You'll know something about pleading
with God, especially if the Lord blesses
you with loved ones and children and grandchildren. You'll know something about pleading
with God. I don't mean just praying, I mean pleading with God. Lord,
I catch myself, Lord, if you don't save them, they're not
gonna be saved. You're the only one that has the power and ability
to save them, Lord. I could talk to them till they
curse me, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't share the truth
with them, but God, if they're gonna be saved, you're gonna
have to do it. In the beginning, God. Turn with me to Romans,
please. Gosh, I better put my glasses
on here, huh? Romans chapter 1 verse 21. This is our condition. Romans chapter 1 verse 21. Verse 21 says, verse 20 said, the invisible
things of him from the creation of the world were clearly seen.
Not a one of us have any excuse. I look up there, see the sun
come up this morning, the bird flies in there, I know in the
beginning, God. Clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead
so that they are without excuse. I can't use the excuse, well,
my mama didn't nurse me long enough or something like that.
There's no excuse. Because that when they knew God,
when they heard about God, They glorified him not as God. Neither were they thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
That started with Adam and Eve. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made, I'm sorry, made like the corruptible man.
They tried to make God like man, didn't they? Into birds and four-footed
beasts and creeping. Wherefore God also gave them
up, the Lord just gave them up, to unclean this through their
lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between
themselves. Verse 25, here's what they've
done. And we've done it too. Who changed the truth of God
into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the creator
who is blessed forever. And friends, that's what religion
is today. It worships the creature more
than the creator. If you don't believe that, you
ask someone, what makes you think, why do you think you're saved?
Well, I gave, I, I, I, I, I, I, I drove the church bus, I
taught Sunday school, I did this, I did that, I, I, I don't like
to be cold hearted, but right then my ears just went off. I'm
not talking to a believer. You'll never hear a believer
talk like that. How do you know you're saved, Christ? The Lord
Jesus Christ saved me. And I'll use, maybe I'm always
that, in spite of me. In spite of me, I was doing everything
I could to keep him from saving me. But oh, thank God, he is
the one that's powerful and he's the one able to save. They worship
the creature rather than the creator. They love to tell men
how wonderful they are and how much God loves them rather than
tell them about his holiness and his demand of perfect obedience
to his law. and the Lord Jesus Christ as
the only one who can keep that law. The first starting point is all
salvation begins with God. You know, and I thought about
something that's just ramblings of a fool, I guess would be the
best way to say it. Why are you here on this earth?
You ever wonder that, why you're here? You're here for one reason. The glory of God. That's the
only reason you're here. I'm not here for my comfort.
I'm not here for my enjoyment. I'm not here for anything but
the glory of God. But I know this, if God enables
me to give him all the glory, it'll be for my good. I'm here for his glory. When
I'm pushed down under the mire, as David said, down into the
waters overflow me, I'm to come out. God, I give you, do you
give God, can you give God glory for that? Can you give God glory
for your trials and tribulations? They're for his glory and our
good. He forces us to look back to
the creator and not the creature. I try fighting the snakes on
the ground way too many times. When he's already told me, look
to the serpent. So we know the salvation begins with God. You hear them pleading with men.
Oh, why don't you do this? You do that. I don't care what
it is. You can't do it. I heard years
and years ago, a man say, today's false religion tells man that
Christ is in their hands and they can either accept or reject
his offer of salvation. That's, isn't that what's said?
I don't care what work you do, it's up to man. The truth is
we are in Christ's hands and his holiness demands that he
either save us or cast us into the pit of hell. That's the only
two options. And it is his decision, not ours. And I can't do anything to change
his decision, not ours. All I can do is plead with him,
Lord, show mercy unto me. And if he ever puts that in you,
he'll save you. He's never turned anyone away.
Well, what is it? We now know that God's the creator.
As the creator, he has the right to command of his creature whatever
he wants. And we know he has the power
and ability, he's given it all to the Lord Jesus Christ. He
will do with me what he wants, when he wants, where he wants,
whenever he wants. Turn with me please to Acts,
Acts chapter one. Verse 24. I got this wrong. 24 to 31, there's not 24 to 31 there,
is there? Peter, I mean, Paul's preaching
Pentecost and he preaches the gospel and it pierces men's hearts.
I don't see it, I know it's right in here. And they came to Paul
and they said, what must we do to be saved? And what Paul tell
them, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt
be saved. That's how God saves sinners.
Well, what's this repentance? Have I had repentance? Repentance
is to have your mind changed. You ever had that before? Well,
I'll change my mind. My mind went from here to there.
We come into this world wrong about God, about salvation and
about ourselves and about the Lord Jesus Christ. Every thought
we have with Him is totally wrong. Repentance changes all of those.
He changes our mind about God. He changes our mind about Christ.
He changes our mind about salvation and He changes our mind about
who we are. And He commands every one of us to repent. He didn't offer to give us, He
said, I offer you to repent. He commands us to repent. And
as creator, He has that right. And we come into this world in
rebellion against God. I'm not gonna repent. I won't
repent. And we're going to see why here
in just a minute. I'm not going to repent. I hear, I get, you
know, sometimes, have you ever heard anybody say, well, you
know, I've always believed in God. You've heard of that? I've always believed in Christ.
You've never had repentance. You never had your mind changed. God says you must repent. Remember
John the Baptist came in repeating repentance and faith in Christ. To turn from yourself, repentance,
and to look to Christ. It's not just to turn from yourself,
it's to look to Christ also. They go hand in hand, faith and
repentance. That's how God saves sinners.
I need my mind to be changed. Can you say, I've asked, can
you say, you know, There was a time I believed this about
salvation and God and Christ. I was wrong. I was wrong. I now know better. I now know how God saves sinners.
Oh Lord, give me repentance, faith in Christ. Turn with me,
maybe this is the one I was looking at, Acts 16. There it is, yes. Acts 16, verse
29, it says, then he called for light and sprang in and came
trembling, this is the jailers, and fell down before Paul and
Silas and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to
be saved? And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and all thy house. John preached repentance and
faith in Christ. Today, all we talk about is what?
Faith in Christ. Isn't that what religion talks
about? Faith in Christ. Just believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. No, you need your mind changed. The problem is you're
believing what you've always believed, and that's your hope
of salvation. And that's not how God saves
sinners. God needs to give us repentance. Turn with me please
to John 5. So what's the problem? The Lord's told us to come. What? The Spirit of the bride say what?
Come. Come to Christ. God's told us
the only way I'm going to save sinners is that you come to Christ.
That you put all your hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what it says here on John
5 verse 36. John says, I have a greater witness
than that of John. This is Christ speaking. For
the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same
works that I do, bear witness of me, that's Christ, that the
Father has sent me. And the Father himself which
has sent me hath borne witness of me. You have neither heard
his voice in any time nor seen his shape, and you have not his
word abiding in you. For whom he hath sent, him you
believe not. He sent Christ and you wouldn't
believe him. Isn't that what he told them? I've been with
you and you won't believe me. You keep asking for more and
more and I've already told you. You would not rest in Christ.
And here's what we do. We search the scriptures. For
in them they think you have eternal life and they are they which
testify of me. This is a book all about Christ
and how he saves sinners. And then verse 40. And you will If you had a highlighter,
you ought to highlight that. You will not come to me that
ye may have life. You will not come. I'm not keeping
you from coming. You won't come. I've told you
to come. You won't come. You will not
come. That's how foolish it is. Lord,
I plead for the souls of my loved ones, because you've told me
right here, they won't come. I had a hard time explaining
that to the young people. And I don't know if this is a
good example or not. The only pets I've ever had are
dogs. And the last dog we had, a lady come to my wife said,
I found this dog and it's at death's door. I mean, you'd count
every rib on the dog and said, I'm going to take it to the pound.
She said, oh, no, don't do that. I'll find him a home. And you
know, us men, we're not very smart, are we? Because she had
found him a home already, our home. The next day, that was
our dog. The kids, we took it and nursed
it back to health and loved it. She got it groomed, got it shots,
That dog went from death to living like a king. Lived inside our
house, little old dog, five or six pounds. But one of the problems
with that breed, their nature was what I call a runner. You
know what that means? If you crack that door, that
dog, it's gone out that door. And you'd have to look, where's
the dog before you open the door? Because if you crack it, he's
gone. Sure enough, somebody opened that dog, ran out the door. So
I go to the door and the dog would run about 30 feet to the
end of our driveway and stop and turn around and look at me.
You ever had that happen with a dog? Come on, come on, come
on. I used my nice voice, come on,
come on. Dog would look at me. Go get them treats. Come on,
don't you want one of these treats? Come on, come on back in the
house. I'd walk towards the dog, give
me the chain, guess what happens? I'd get about five feet from
the dog and what would the dog do? Turn around, run another
40 feet, stop, turn around, look at me again. And the nice voices went away.
Oh, if I ever get a hold of you. We did nothing but good to the
dog. But guess what? He would not
come. It didn't matter what, how I
treated him. It didn't matter that we had treated this dog,
like I said, better than, but it would not come. And after
a couple of times where he'd run 40 feet and stop, then he'd
take off and run off. Of course, our kids were little. They were crying. And I'm back
to the house. I don't care if it ever comes home, you know.
But the dog would not come. Was there anything I was doing
to keep the dog from coming? No. That was his nature. That's you and I. We will not
come to Christ. I'll tell you the rest of the
story in just a minute here, I hope. We'll come to religion. We don't
mind that. We'll come to some doctrine.
We'll come to some church traditions. We'll come to some church membership.
We'll join the 500 club or whatever it is on TV. We'll go down to
religious land, whatever it is on iDrive. We'll do all those
things, but we will not come to Christ because of our rebellion. Well, why is it we won't come
to Christ? Turn to John 3. Verse 14, And Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. Salvation we must believe in
the Son of Man. Rest in Him. Verse 16, Oh, for
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. And God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. 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 here's the condemnation. Light, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is coming to the world, and men loved darkness. There was a time
I came into this world and I loved darkness. I did not love Christ. I loved darkness rather than light. And the reason
we didn't love the light, we loved darkness because our deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, and neither come to the light, lest his deed
should be reproved. It is not our sin that keeps
us from coming from Christ. It's our righteousness that keeps
us coming from Christ. We don't want to be told that
everything you think you do is good and that's pleasing to God,
God calls filthy rag and is sin. And we don't want to hear that,
do we? I teach Sunday school. I don't
want to hear it. I drive the church bus. I don't want to hear
it. If you're not resting in my son as your only hope of salvation,
everything you do is sin and abomination in my eyes. And I
don't want to come to Christ because I don't want to hear
that I cannot save myself. That's what I don't want to hear.
Cause I'm thinking all my righteousness is my means of salvation. I won't come to Christ. Cause
I don't want to hear my self-righteousness be disproved. I don't want to hear that my
mind and heart is infinitely wicked. I don't want to hear,
and this is, I was reading this first and it helped me a lot.
When Paul says in me, There is no good thing. I am so thankful. You know those next little words?
In my flesh. That I mean in my flesh, there
is no good thing. I'm looking at you today as a
believer and telling you in my flesh, there's still no good
thing. This old flesh that I'm in right
now, there's nothing good about it. There's nothing in it that's
pleasing to God. Oh, thank God I have another
nature. I know, I think Greg described one time, when you
committed murder, they strapped the dead man's carcass on your
back and you had to carry it around with you all the time.
And it was rotting and maggots and all that. That's what I am
today. That new nature's here, but I'm
still carrying that old dead flesh with me. And that old dead
flesh is not gonna get any better. to the last breath is drawn.
I still battle it. But oh, thanks be to God, Paul
says, in my flesh. He didn't say all of me, there's
no good. In my flesh, there's no good thing. If that's all
you have is flesh, in you there's nothing good. But as believers,
we have a new nature. Turn with me to Romans 10. One more thing we'll look at. This is a hard, hard verse for
me to read. Not that I'm a good reader, but
it's hard God has, I'll say he has burned this in my soul. Brethren,
he's talking about his fleshly brethren here. My heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
For I bear record that they have a zeal of God, but not according
to knowledge. They're very religious. For being ignorant of God's righteousness,
they go about trying to establish their own righteousness and have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth." If God ever teaches that and
puts that in his heart, you'll know something about pleading
for your lost loved ones. I'll speak that for my family.
Most of my family's in church somewhere this morning. They'll
be in church tonight. They'll be in church most likely,
you know, whenever the door, they're there. They have a zeal
for God, but they have no knowledge of
Christ. No knowledge of Christ. And what they're doing is they're
going about trying to establish their own righteousness, good
works, good deeds, rather than submitting to the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God will not save you till he
brings you to that. Lord, I have no righteousness. If I'm gonna ever stand before
you, I need the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have to ask the Lord every
day, forgive me of my sin against him. I always ask for this, forgive
me of my sin of unbelief, that the Lord will forgive me
of my willful sinning against him. I willfully sinned against
God. That which I know to be good,
I do not do. That which I know to be evil,
I do it. I know it. I know it's evil, and yet I do
it anyway. And you know what? I want to
do it. That's the other part that troubles me. It's not accident,
what do you want to call it? The kind of sin where I didn't
know I did. I know I did it. I went into
it knowing it was evil and wrong, and yet I continue in it. But
I also have to ask Him every day, Lord, Forgive me of my self-righteousness. Don't allow me, Lord, ever to
think that there's anything I can do to save my soul. Strip me of any hope or thought
in myself. Cause me to rest only in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's how God saves sinners.
Well, we will not come. John says, no man can come to
me. He can't come. Not only we won't
come, we don't have the ability to come. Because the gospel says
in Ephesians that what? By grace you are saved through
faith. That is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. I can't believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ because I don't have the faith to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Not only do I not want to, I
can't. God has to give me the faith
to believe in Christ. I know it will not come, I cannot
come. But Lord, give me faith to believe
in Christ. If you don't give me the faith
too, Lord, I'm lost. I'm not gonna come. I won't come. I can't come. And then Psalm
110, we're getting close, so I'm just gonna, I can't paraphrase,
but I know what it is. In the day of thy power, the
Lord has made his people, what? Willing. When I didn't have the
will to come, God gave me the will to come. And it says, no
man can come unless the Father which has sent me, what? Draw
him. That means drag him. God had to go to me, grab ahold
of me, and drag me to the Lord Jesus Christ and give me the
faith to believe. If not, I'd have never come.
I didn't want to come, I wasn't willing to come, and I couldn't
come. And you know what? I didn't know that. Because I
believed just like every other fool in false religion, I could
come any time I wanted. That's how horrific the lie of
free will religion is. Remember I told you about the
dog wouldn't come? We'd grab hold of the chain and
make the kids, make the dog run into us. And it ran into us,
it already had a choker on it, and I'd put the chain on him
with a, you know what a choker collar is? It kind of chokes
the dog, takes the fight out of him. But you know what? Now this is a five, six pound
dog. I'm taking him home, guess what the dog does the whole way?
Puts their paws down, and I'm literally dragging that dog all
the way back to the house. That's what God had to do to
me. He had to choke the self-righteousness
right out of me and drag me back to the house, to his house. He drug me to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's how God saves sinners. And God had to do it all. As
they say, he does it all or he does none of it. Turn with me
please to Romans 10. Well, I don't know what I've
done here. Romans 10 verse 13, this is how
God saves sinners. Verse 13 says, whoever, you know,
we read that word whoever, well, it's up to you. No, it's each
and every one that God calls. Each and every one that calls
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And how shall they
call on him in whom they've not believed? That's Christ. And
how shall they believe in Christ whom they've not heard of? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? That is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. But they've not all obeyed the
gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
So then faith? Faith? Where'd that faith come? God gave it to us. Faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. This idea that I was wandering
through the woods one day and I felt a warm sunshine on me
and God saved me, that's not how God says He saves sinners.
He said He saves sinners through the preaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ in His Word. There's no salvation apart from
the preaching of the gospel of God's grace in Christ. I don't
know how that's as plain as I can say it. All my loved ones mean
well, they have a zeal for God, but they have no knowledge of
Christ in the gospel. Because they're going about today,
they're going about today to establish their own righteousness
rather than submitting. to the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's how God saves sinners. And much to my dismay, they're not going to be saved
where they're at. God's going to have to come to them. He's
going to have to make them willing. He's going to have to drag them
to Christ. He's going to have to give them faith to believe.
He's going to have to give them repentance and change their mind,
because they're never going to come. They're not willing, nor
can they. And that's why we know something
about pleading for God. Lord, would you have mercy on
me and mercy on my loved ones? Give me wisdom of when to speak,
when to say. Lord, use me to tell them about
Christ, but Lord, I don't care who tells them, just send someone.
Send a Philip, send whoever it is, Lord, but send someone to
tell them the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, lest they
perish. That's how God saves sinners,
and I pray that that's your experience. Because He don't save them any
other way outside of that. That's why this is such a great
blessing to me to be with you. Why would God bless me? Why would the Lord make me willing?
Why would the Lord come to me and drag me to Christ and give
me the faith to believe and rest on the cross? and put me under
the preaching of the gospel to do it. He brought me where the
gospel wasn't. I didn't wake up one day, well,
I think I'm gonna go listen to the gospel. I thought I just
knew what I'd listened to wasn't the gospel. That's all I knew.
I was like the cork in the ocean. I'll close with this last thing. I'm sorry for taking so long,
I guess. I thought, There's some truth in it. I was
reading about John Newton. He's more famous for his songwriter.
I've told you before, he wrote a new song every week for the
services. God had to be blessing him to
do that. I couldn't write a song between now and the end of my
life, let alone. John Newton said, when we get
into glory, there'll be three surprises. He said, the first surprise will
be who's there. He said, you're gonna look, you
know, we'll all be looking at Christ. So this is really not
a good story. He said, he'll look around, you'll see people
in glory. You thought, I can't believe that's a believer. I
can't, well, that just shocks me. He said, the second surprise
is you'll be surprised who's not there. He said, but the greatest surprise
of all, That's right, Wayne, it's I'm there. Why would God
save a dog sinner like me? This is how God saves sinners.
I pray that is your experience. Tom, would you close us after
the song? I would urge all of us to, I
know Jennifer is struggling, that we should plead with God
that he'd be pleased healed her body and that we would be pleased
to, he would have mercy on the family. Give them wisdom of how
to care for her and wisdom to the doctors. I just laughed, I said, you know,
we all talk about how free will, get a cold or an illness one
time and see how much your free, how's your free will help you
in your illness? Haven't you just willed to get better and
hasn't that happened for you? As a doctor, how's that working
for you? Answer, it's not. When we run out of free will,
then we look to God's will, don't we, Robert? Oh, Lord, I plead
with you to heal my body. I can't heal it. The doctors
can't heal it, but you can. You can. If we do that, I thank
you for your time. Number nine. ? Is not that I did choose thee
? For 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 or sought
for, Was purpose for my soul. For me salvation wrought, For
Christ paid the dreadful toll. ? Was sovereign mercy called
me ? And taught my opening mind ? The world had else enthralled
me ? To heavenly glories blind ? My heart owns none before thee
? For thy rich grace I thirst ? This knowing if I loved thee
? Thou must have loved me first Let's pray. Lord, we ask that
your blessing be on those members and family members that we know
who are sick, Lord. Lord, heal them. Lord, return them to their families.
Lord, give them the joy of your salvation. Lord, be with all
of your people as we struggle in this world. Lord, cause us
not to worry or to fret, but to look to you, knowing that
if one day we awaken your likeness, Lord, we are blessed above all
things. Lord, we ask now also that for
our lost family, loved ones that we have in our family, Lord,
who know not you, Lord, that you would send a preacher to
them or get them to where the gospel is preached, Lord, and
that you would save their souls. Lord, we ask this in Jesus' name,
amen.