Zechariah 9, verse 9 says, Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh unto
thee. He is just, and having salvation,
lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an
ass. The king has promised to meet
with us. We have reason to believe that
he is faithful to his promises. Let's stand together and rejoice
in that faith that he's given us to believe him. We're going
to sing the hymn on the back of your bulletin, so let's stand
together, Brother Tom. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
prophet, priest, and sovereign king. To him render adoration,
laud, and homage to. him bring. Let us praise the
name of Jesus, God incarnate from above, came to save his
chosen people, sent by God in covenant love. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
Who upon Mount Calvary Shed His blood and sealed our pardon,
Died from sin to set us free. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
risen, conquering, gracious friend, advocate and mediator. All our hopes on Him depend. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
for he brought us to his fold. Come, exalt his name and worship,
may the Savior be extolled. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
till we see him face to face. Then throughout the endless ages,
praise him for his love and grace. Please be seated. Good morning. Would you turn
to the book of Mark, chapter 6? Book of Mark, chapter 6. We're going to read verse 1. I'm just so overwhelmed with
thanksgiving this morning that Lord would purpose to draw me
here this morning to hear His gospel, to send His Holy Spirit,
to bless the Word. Doesn't seem like too long ago,
Brother Greg, we used to be like those millions, look forward
to that one day a year to solve our conscience, check A, B, C,
and D, and off we went, on our way to hell. And yet here, here
I am this morning, by his sovereign mercy and grace, and to enjoy
the love of the brethren. We're blessed beyond. Verse 1,
chapter six, and he went out from thence, from Capernaum,
and came into his own country, Nazareth, where he grew up. And
his disciples follow him. And when the Sabbath day was
come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many hearing were
astonished. I'm glad I didn't say all, but
many, because there are few that are chosen. many are called,
saying, from whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom
is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are
wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and of Judah, and
Simon? And are not his sisters here
with us? and they were offended at him. Now the Jews in that day thought
that the Messiah would come from kingly royalty or you know in
John 6 when the Lord said that he was the bread of life that
came down from heaven to give us life into the world these
were their comments saying how can he being a lowly carpenter
we know him Nothing's changed today. The world hate the Lord
Jesus Christ. They do. They're not offended
with the babe in the manger or the one that does miracles and
signs and wonders. But you tell them that he's God,
absolutely sovereign, that we have no claims on him, that he
can do whatsoever he pleases with our soul? They hate the
Lord Jesus Christ who died according to the scriptures, who rose again
according to the scriptures. That one they hate. But not if
you're a sinner. Oh no, this morning he was delivered
up for my offenses and your offenses. And he rose again for our justification. He took upon our sins. We offended
Him. We robbed Him of His glory. We
crucified Him. We don't hate Him. We love Him
because He first loved us. It's a work of grace if you're
a sinner. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without
honor, but in his own country and among his own kin. and in
his own house. It is true, the Lord said, the
enemies are from your own household. They truly are. They know you
better than anybody else. And when you say that, he said
that he came onto his own and his own knew him not. And then
he said that, but to many as received him, gave he the power
to become the sons of God, to everyone that believeth on his
name. You tell them that, and you tell them that it's not blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
Everything is of God. That's why they hate you. That's
why they hate me. And he could do there no mighty
work save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed
them. Are there any sick here this
morning that need to be healed? I need to be healed. I need my
sin to be put away. And here's the verse, verse 6.
And He marveled because of their unbelief. Not that he was fooled
by it. The Lord knows the hearts of
men. This morning, He knows my heart and He knows your heart.
He knows. And if you believe Him, it's
because He's given you the faith to believe Him. If you don't
believe Him, it's because He has not given you the faith to
believe Him. But that being said, if you're a believer, you know
there's one thing that debilitates more than anything as we walk
after Christ. It's this thing of unbelief. The civil war that
rages in between. You know what I'm talking about.
Oh Lord, help my unbelief. Give me more faith. And I want
to close by encouraging. I heard a message this week that
just spoke to this very thing. If you're here from Lexington,
you've heard that message. It was in 2 Samuel 7, verse 25. Remember, the Lord just got through
telling the prophet Nathan, what he was going to do for David,
that he was going to establish the house of David forever. And
we know that David is a type of Christ. The last part of verse
20, you read it, the last part of verse 25, this is what David
said to the Lord. And it's a plea of faith. He
said, do as thou hast said. do as thou hast said." It's not
presumptuous. What the Lord is telling you
and I is to ask Him from His Word what He already said He
has done. He said that if you confess your sins, I am faithful
and just to forgive you of all your sins. and to cleanse you
from all righteousness. If you ask it, you will receive
it. If you find it, you will see
it, and the door shall be open to you. If you come into the
throne room of grace boldly in time of grace and need, he said,
ask him, because he's already said he's done it. And that's
faith. That's plea of faith, looking
to him, resting in him. I pray he would do that now. Lord, we come into your presence
right now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thy dear son. Lord, we are pleading with you
this morning that you would do what you have said you've done,
asking that once again, that you would enable us to hear you
and to see you, and that you would give us faith to believe
you. Lord, we desire to worship you in spirit and in truth, and
we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit to do that, that
you would once again give your gospel preacher, our brother,
the power and the freedom to speak of Christ and to lift a
note that you may draw men to him. Lord, thank you for drawing
us here this morning. Thank you for blessing your word.
We ask, Lord, that you would do a work of grace in our hearts,
that we may believe you and rest in you, that you would get all
the glory We ask it in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 176. Number 176. Yeah. Break thou the bread of life,
dear Lord, to me, As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea. Throughout the sacred page I
seek thee, Lord, My spirit pants for Thee, O Living Word. Blest Thou the truth, dear Lord,
to me, to me! As Thou didst bless the bread
by Galilee, Then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall, And
I shall find my peace, my all in all. Thou art the bread of
life, O Lord, to me. Thy holy word, the truth that
saveth me. Give me to eat and live with
Thee above. Teach me to love Thy truth, for
Thou art love. O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now
unto me, that He may touch my eyes and make me see. Show me the truth concealed within
thy word, and in thy book reveal, I see the Lord. Please be seated. Rui Weixi is
going to bring some special music now. Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul in rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what He does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more Believe and find sweet rest God's wisdom, love, and
truth, and power Combine to make thee blessed In raging storms and fiery trials
He keeps me from all harms He walks with me and holds me in
His everlasting arms So be still my heart and doubt no more Believe
and find sweet rest God's wisdom, love and truth and power Combine
to make thee blessed My God with skill in fight and
great designs of grace with power and love that never So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more Believe and find sweet rest God's wisdom, love, and
truth, and power Combine to make thee blessed My life's most minute circumstance
is ordered by my God Who promised that in all things He will ever
do So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more Believe and find sweet rest God's wisdom, love, and
truths, and power Combine to make thee blessed Would you open your Bibles with
me again, please, to 2 Corinthians, chapter 6. 2 Corinthians, chapter
6. I've titled this message, Now. Now. N-O-W. Now. Truth is, now, I'm talking
about right now, right this very minute, is the only time that
you and I have to exercise faith, to believe God. It's right now. You've heard the road to hell
is paved with good intentions, and it is. People plan on getting
right with God and believing God tomorrow. No one's ever done
it, ever. Faith has never been experienced
tomorrow any more than anything else you could ever do tomorrow. Nothing's ever been done tomorrow.
And the road to hell is also littered with the bones of regrets
and successes in reflecting upon yesterday. There's no promise. that we'll even have tomorrow.
And there's no sure evidence, there's no absolutely sure evidence
in my heart that my faith yesterday was real faith. I can't look back to yesterday.
I can't look back to an experience that I had years ago. I cannot
look to anything other than looking unto Jesus right now. Now. And my prayer for us this morning
is that the Lord will give us grace to look to Him now. Now. It's the only time we have. Here's the glorious hope. As
long as there's breath, there is now. In other words, what I'm saying
to you is that if the Lord gives you faith to look to Christ now,
then He will give you faith to look to Christ an hour from now. And tonight, when you lie your
head down on your pillow, that will be your now. And tomorrow
morning, when you open your eyes and realize that you're alive
for another day, that moment will be your now. And when you
get back in the midst of the salt mines tomorrow and you have
to struggle with the things of this world, those moments that
you have tomorrow where God gives you breath and faith will be
your now. You can't look to your past and
you cannot look to the future. The only way faith can be experienced,
the only way faith can be enjoyed is now. Right now. Right this very minute. What
is it, 10 minutes after 11? Right now. Verse 20 of chapter 5, the Apostle
says, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be reconciled
with God. God has sent us as a voice of
one crying in the wilderness to say to you, come to Christ. Be reconciled to God. And the
only way that's going to happen is if the Lord does a work of
grace in our hearts. We know that. And yet the means
by which He does that, the warrant, if you will, for coming to Christ,
is His command to come. His command to come. They put
a warrant out for your arrest and they come, the police comes
to your door and says, I've got a warrant here for your arrest.
Your obligation to come is that warrant. And our warrant to come
to Christ is the command that the Lord Jesus Christ gives to
us to say, come. But you can't come yesterday.
You can't come tomorrow. You can't come a minute ago. And you can't come a minute from
now. The only way you can come is
right now. Right now. And the Lord sends His ambassadors
to say to His people, come to Christ. Come to Christ. And the hope that those ambassadors
have, and the hope that God's people have, is knowing that
those whom God has chosen in the covenant of grace, those
for whom the Lord Jesus Christ shed his precious blood, those
for whom the Spirit of God is working in their hearts, causing
them, causing them to will and to do of his good pleasure, making
them willing in the day of his power. They're going to come,
every one of them. I'm confident of it. He's going
to make us come to him. Verse 21, for God hath made Christ
sin for us. God charged, imputed to, credited
all the sins of all God's people to our sin bearer so that he
bore our sins in his body upon that tree and satisfied divine
justice by the sacrifice of himself once and for all. God made him
sin for us that we become the righteousness of God in him. When God charges, imputes, credits
the righteous obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ to his people. Now look at verse 1 and here's
our text, chapter 6. We then as workers together. Now you see the with him is in
italics. Just leave it off. It doesn't
need to be there. God's not dependent upon us to
work with Him. If I'm not faithful to preach
the gospel, He'll raise up someone who is. He's going to redeem. He's going to regenerate everyone
that's been redeemed in Christ. He's going to do it. But we,
as workers together, beseech you also that you receive not
the grace of God in vain." Now what is it to receive the grace
of God in vain? Well, we touched on it a little
bit in the first hour. to hear the gospel and not to
believe it, to be outwardly religious and not have the Lord ever do
a work of grace in our hearts. That's partly, certainly what
he's talking about. Being convinced intellectually,
if you will, having an awareness of true things without having
the truth. And the truth is that there's
a whole lot of folks, and I stand before you as I'm talking from
experience. You can possess a lot of truths,
small T, plural, and not have the truth, capital T, singular. Oh, Lord, don't let me receive
the grace of God in vain. Don't leave me to thinking that
because I've cataloged some truths, that because I can parrot some
doctrine, or recite some verses, or show some outward evidence
of being religious, that I have the truth. Lord, don't leave
me without Christ. The other thing he's talking
about here is that once having received Christ,
that the believer doesn't live with an emptiness in that relationship
with Christ. If he's not looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ through faith, then the work of grace that's been
done in his heart will leave him void. It'll leave him empty. Not of salvation. Not of salvation. And every child of God who's
experienced the grace of God knows exactly what I'm talking
about right now. You have experienced the absence of the awareness
of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life because you were looking
to the past or you were looking to the future and you weren't
looking in faith to Christ. And the Lord's admonition to
us is, don't receive the grace of God in vain. Now he's not
talking about being saved and then losing your salvation. That's
certainly not possible. We have Christ. The scripture
makes it clear that we've passed from death unto life. And when
the Lord gives life, it cannot be reversed. It cannot be taken
away. We become partakers of his divine
nature, having escaped the corruption of the world that is in the world
through lust. We've been delivered. We've been
saved. The Lord doesn't save someone
and then send them to hell. He doesn't do it. We're born again. Born of God. Not of corruptible seed. Not
of the will of man. not of the will of the flesh,
but of incorruptible seed by the word of God. That's the means
by which the Lord gives us the new birth, and that can't be
changed. That can't ever be made vain. He said, I will make my abode
with you. I will sup with you and you with
me. He dwells in us and we dwell
in him and that's an eternal union that can never be changed. That's my hope. That's my hope. Verse 2. For he saith, and this
is a quote from Isaiah chapter 49, for he saith, I have heard
thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation have I succored
or helped thee. Turn with me to Isaiah 49, Isaiah
49. All of Isaiah 49 is a glorious declaration of God's promise
to reward the Lord Jesus Christ for His faithfulness. For His
faithfulness. That's our hope. Our hope is not in our faithfulness. Our hope is in His. Look at Psalm
49 verse 1. Listen, O Isles unto me, and
hearken ye people from far. The Lord hath called me from
the womb, the bowels of my mother, hath he made mention of my name. Now most of the times in the
scriptures where a child is named, well the tradition was that it
was named at the time of circumcision, which was the eighth day. So
John, you remember with Zacharias, was made deaf because he wasn't
able to speak and It was at John's circumcision that it was made
clear that John's name was to be made John. Jacob, when he
was born, was called the supplanter because he was holding on to
the heel of Esau, and Esau was called Esau because he was red. And so children that waited until
they were born before a name was given to them, a name that
was appropriate to their situation or to their character, the name
that God gave to the Lord Jesus Christ was given to him before
he was born. The angel made it clear to Joseph,
you shall call his name Jesus. Why? For he shall save his people. He's going to accomplish the
salvation of his people. Contrary to what most folks believe,
the Lord Jesus Christ did not come into this world to make
an offer of salvation for which you make effectual by something
you do. A decision you make, a work you
perform, Whatever, no, he shall save his people. And when he
bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross, having suffered the full
wrath of God's justice for all the sins of all God's people,
he cried with a loud voice, it is finished. It's finished. I've accomplished it by the sacrifice
of myself all by myself on Calvary's cross. What does faith do? Faith looks to Christ. Faith
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith rests in Him. And that
can only be done right now. Right now. As an ambassador of
God, I am beseeching you, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Rest
all the hopes of your immortal soul on his glorious person and
on his accomplished work and look nowhere other than to Christ
for your salvation. That's what the Lord's telling
us in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6. Verse 2 of Isaiah 49, and he
hath made my mouth a sharp sword. The Lord Jesus Christ, his tongue
is a sharp sword. Oh, and it cuts. It's a double-edged sword. It
wounds and it heals. It kills and it gives life. It's talking about his word.
The means by which the Lord gives faith. As we saw in the previous
hour, faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word
of God. This is the means. He hath made my mouth like a
sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand hath
he hid me and made me a polished shaft. That's an arrow. In his
quiver hath he hid me. The Lord Jesus Christ belongs
to the Father. God sent him as the Christ, the
Messiah, in the full power of the Spirit of God. And never
a man spake like this man before. He speaks with authority. He
speaks with conviction. He speaks with clarity. And when
God speaks, He says, thus saith the Lord. I'm so glad for that. I'm so glad that God didn't say,
well, what do you think about this? Faith just believes God. It believes God. Lord, give me
faith right now to believe you. To not say, well, yeah, but. to not add any ifs, ands, or
buts to the word of God. Lord, shut me up to your word
and cause me to believe you right now. Right now. He said unto me, thou art my
servant. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
being called Israel here. He's the prince. He said unto
me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in
vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain." What
else could he have said? The first part of verse 4 is
exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ said from the cross when he said,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was forsaken
of everyone. His friends forsook him. God
Almighty forsook him. The angels could not come. He
said, I could call 12 legions of angels to come deliver me.
You remember what a legion was? 6,000 angels. 6,000 is in a legion. I could call
12 legions of angels. All the angels in glory sat with
their, stood with their swords drawn, ready to come deliver
the Lord Jesus Christ from Calvary's cross. All he had to do was say
a word, but he didn't. He didn't speak a word. He was
forsaken by all, cut off from heaven. Why? His death was necessary
to satisfy God's holy justice. He had to die in order for our
sins to be put away. What made his death effectual? What made the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ effectual? What made it successful in satisfying
the demands of God Almighty? What made his death effectual?
What made him successful? Is what distinguishes him unique
from all other men? What was there about the Lord
Jesus Christ that made him utterly unique from every other person
that's ever been born? I'll tell you what it was. And
it's seen in the second half of this verse. Look. I have spent my strength for
naught and in vain, yet surely my judgment is with the Lord
and my work with my God." Here's what made the Lord Jesus Christ
utterly unique from you and me. He believed God with all of his
heart every moment of his life. He had perfect faith. Perfect
faith. God's pleased when we believe
Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ believed
God even when He was forsaken by the Father. Even when he was
cut off, as the scripture says, from the land of the living.
Even when he was cast outside the city. Even when he was denied
of his friends. He believed God. Perfectly. In the moment. Every moment. Can you say that
about yourself? Oh, I want to believe. Go back
with me to our text. Look at verse 2 of 2 Corinthians
chapter 6. For he saith, I have heard thee
in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I helped
thee. Now that's God speaking to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and that's a quote from Isaiah chapter 49.
Go back with me, flip back over to Isaiah 49 verse 8. Thus saith
the Lord, in an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the
day of salvation have I helped thee. Why did God hear the Lord
Jesus Christ? Because he believed God. He believed
God. He trusted God. He was faithful
to the Father. And the Father rewarded him for
his perfect faith. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, For he
saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted. God accepted the sacrifice
that he made of himself because he made it in perfect faith to
the Father. God's pleased. Whatever is not
of faith is sin. The Lord Jesus Christ was utterly
unique. in that he never sinned because
he had perfect faith every moment, every moment of his life. Now God can't be pleased with
me and you except that we be found in him. that we be found in Him. Not
having our own righteousness which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. We're looking to Christ and His
faithfulness to God as the hope of our salvation. God says to
the Lord Jesus Christ, I've accepted you. In an accepted time, I heard
you. Why? Because you believed Me.
Even when I forsook you, even when I cut you off, even when
I made it look like everything that you were doing was in vain,
even when it looked like to the world that Satan had gotten the
victory and all had forsaken you, and God Almighty Himself
had cut you off, you believed Me in that hour. And to His dying
breath, the last thing the Lord Jesus Christ said from the cross,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And he gave up the
ghost. Now that's what God requires,
perfect faith. Isaiah 49. Verse 5, and now saith the Lord
that formed me from the womb, to be his servant, to bring Jacob
again, though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the
eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. He came unto his own, his own
received him not. Natural Israel didn't believe
him, spiritual Israel will, every one of them. Every one of them. Why? Because he came to bring
Jacob. He came to bring the supplanters.
He came to make those who are at enmity with God. He came to
make them the princes of God. That's what he came to do. Did
he accomplish what he came to do? Or did he just make an offer
of salvation like the world would have you to believe? Is he in
the heavens wringing his hands, wishing that men would let him
have his way? That's the Jesus I hear people
talk about. Oh, won't you let Jesus come
into your heart? He wants to save you. He's doing
his best. He just can't quite get it done
without your help. That's not the one I read about
in the scriptures. That, my friend, is another Jesus. He's a figment of men's imagination. He is an idol. He doesn't exist,
and he cannot save. He cannot save. Come now to the one who is glorious
in his person and powerful in his purpose to save everyone
he came to save. Come to him right now. And he said, verse six, it is
a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the
tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will
also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest
be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. The Lord God Almighty is speaking
in Isaiah 49 to the Lord Jesus Christ and saying, I'm going
to give you even those Gentile dogs as your inheritance. Everyone I've chosen in the covenant
of grace, they're all going to come. They're going to believe. Verse 7, Thus saith the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to whom man despiseth,
to him whom the nations abhoreth, to a servant of rulers, kings
shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of
the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He
shall choose thee. He's faithful. Alright, go back with me to 2
Corinthians chapter 6. I began by saying that faith
can only be experienced now. You have no confidence that the
faith you had yesterday was real. No, you can't prove that. You can't, and you can't anticipate
God giving you faith tomorrow. So when the Lord says, don't
receive the grace of God in vain, and then he uses the Lord Jesus
Christ as an example of perfect faithfulness, perfect faithfulness. And what distinguishes him from
you and me is that he believed God with all his heart, all the
time. all the time. That's not like
us, is it? Oh, Lord, help thou mine unbelief! I'm so full of it! So now look
what he says. I have heard thee in a time accepted,
and in the day of salvation have I succored thee. I've helped
thee. Because you were faithful to
me, I heard the. Now, what hope do we have that
God's going to hear us? The only hope we have is that
we're looking in faith to the one who was perfectly faithful. And so he concludes this verse
with, behold, in light of all of this, look, that word behold
means, oh, amazed, I see something I've never seen before. Now is
the accepted time. The only time that God will accept
your faith is right now. Right now. Now is the day of
salvation. Right now. That's what the Lord is saying
to us. I beseech you, as an ambassador for Christ, come to Christ right
now, just like you are. Oh no, well you know, I need
to get something worked out. No you don't. No you don't. What do you think, you're going
to improve your position? You think you're going to get
something cleaned up or something fixed or something worked out
that's going to make you more redeemable? Your redemption is
based on the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what this passage is telling us. God heard him and his prayers
were accepted because they were given in perfect faith. So now you come because now is
the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Paul said, I've not yet apprehended that
which has apprehended me. This thing of faith, I'm still,
one day I'm going to see him as he is, I'm not going to need
faith anymore. I'm going to be made like Him.
Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love, because
there won't be any more need for faith, and there won't be
any more need for hope. My faith will be my sight, and
my hope will be my experience, and the only thing I'm going
to have is the glorious love of Christ. But right now, I'm
struggling with this thing called faith. But this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind, forgetting all my
successes, forgetting all my experiences. Oh, I can't tell
you how many times I've heard somebody say, well, you know,
I remember when I got saved. And I came down the aisle and
I wept and I prayed and I just had this euphoric experience
of salvation. And they're looking back to that
as their salvation. You can't have faith in that
experience. You don't know if that experience
was real. You don't know. Maybe you were
just emotional that day. You have no confidence that that
experience was real. The only time you can believe
God is right now. Now is the accepted time. Now
is the day of salvation. This one thing I do for getting
those things which are behind, I press right now towards the
mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. Come
to Christ right now. And when you leave here and get
in your car and you're driving down the road, come to Christ
right now. And when you go to bed tonight,
come to Christ right now. And as long as there's breath,
there will be a now. But don't rely on your yesterday
experiences. You remember what happened when
the children of Israel were given manna from heaven? And the Lord
told them, only gather enough for one day. Oh Lord, give me
this day my daily bread. And some of them didn't believe
God. So they gathered a little extra just in case the manna
didn't come tomorrow. And when they woke up in the
morning to look at the extra manna that they had gathered
up, it was full of worms. It was rotten, stinking. And
that's what yesterday's faith was. Yesterday's grace. It was yesterday. It's gone. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Come to the Christ who is perfectly
faithful to God. The only one that God is pleased
with. The only one that succeeded in
establishing perfect righteousness and satisfying the justice of
God through his sacrificial death on Calvary's cross. He's the
faithful one. He's faithful and He's true. But come to Him right now. And when you wake up in the middle
of the night, it'll be a now. And next week when you find yourself
between a rock and a hard place, that'll be a now. Now is the... there's no time
other than now. Don't you know that that man
who said to his soul, he said, I'm increased with goods. He
said, I'm gonna tear down my barns and I'll be bigger barns
and I'll store all my goods. Don't you know that he was intending
to get right with God tomorrow? Sure he was. Let me take care
of my material wealth now, and I'll worry about my soul later.
And God said, thou fool this night, thy soul shall be required
of thee. You can't get saved tomorrow. You can't believe God tomorrow. You can't come to Christ tomorrow. Now is the accepted time. Now
is the day of salvation. Right now. Oh, how much of our
lives we live in the past and in the future. Isn't that our
experience? Regretting our mistakes, fretting
over the things that we've done, or glorying in our successes,
or worrying about the possibilities of tomorrow, most of which never
come to pass. What does God say? Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Can you join me in asking God,
and let me, there's not a prayer I pray more
than, Lord, save me. We don't talk about getting saved
as if it was a one-time experience. Lord, this is, we walk by faith,
not by sight. Can you join me in asking the
Lord right now? Right now. No one was ever saved
tomorrow. And you've got no sure evidence
that what you believed yesterday was sufficient for the salvation
of your soul. Come to Christ right now. Otherwise. The grace of God is
in vain to you. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would use. The call of your spirit to bless
your word and cause us to come right now. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. 334 in the in the hymnal. Let's stand together. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart, Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day
or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my
true word, I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I thy true
son, thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one. riches I heed not, nor man's
empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, now and
always. Thou and Thou only, first in
my heart. My King of Heaven, my treasure
Thou art. May I reach heaven's joys, O
bright heaven's sun, Heart of my own heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of
all. Thank you.