French words that RSVP stand
for. And I don't know why we use French
in that. But simply put, it means, please
respond. So if you haven't RSVP'd about
lunch tomorrow, please do that before you leave today. Okay,
let me know. I'm the one keeping the number.
All right. Open your Bibles to Psalm 77,
please. Psalm 77. Babies don't cry to be born. They don't cry to be born. They're very comfortable where
they are before they're born. They are radically born violently,
pushed out, and then they cry. Crying unto God is not the cause
of our birth. It's the result of it. It's the
result of it. If you've been born, you cry. Cry unto God with my voice. I
cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice,
and he gave ear unto me. What baby has ever been born
and wailed and not been comforted? He hears, He hears our voice,
doesn't He? Pray the Lord will give us that
spirit this morning as we worship Him, to cry out to Him from our
hearts. Let's stand together. Tom's going
to come and lead us in the hymn number 290 and the hardback teminal,
number 290. Still have your Bibles open to
Psalm 77. We'll continue reading in verse
2. In the day of my trouble, if God makes you to be a sinner,
you'll be in trouble. You'll have a trouble you know
you can't bear. In the day of my trouble, I sought
the Lord. My sore ran in the night and
ceased not. My soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God and was troubled. I complained, and my spirit was
overwhelmed. Selah. Thou holdest mine eyes,
waking. I am so troubled that I cannot
speak. I have considered the days of
old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song
in the night. I commune with my own heart,
and my spirit made diligent search. Will the Lord cast off forever?
Will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clear gone, clean
gone forever? Doth his promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah. These are the fears of our flesh
as we seek the Lord's mercy, and I'm sure that our sister
Terry felt some of these as she waited for the Lord to take her
home. And I said, this is my infirmity, but I will remember the years
of the right hand of the Most High. The right hand of God is the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'll remember what He did. I'll
remember what He accomplished. I will remember the works of
the Lord. Surely I will remember thy wonders of old, and I will
meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings. Thy way,
O God, is in the sanctuary." The Lord Jesus Christ is that
sanctuary. Scripture says that He was made
flesh and He tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory as
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the sanctuary. He's that sacred place
that we flee to to find our hiding place. By way, O God, as in the
sanctuary, who is so great a God as our God? The God we believe is God. He
just is. And if He is God, if He is the
God that is, then the declaration of who He is exposes all false
gods for who they are. Thou art the God that doest wonders. Thou hast declared thy strength
among the people. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed
thy people. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
attempting to redeem anybody. He accomplished the redemption
of his people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw thee,
O God, the waters saw thee. They were afraid. The depths
also were troubled. The clouds poured out their water.
The skies sent out a sound. Thy arrows also went abroad. The voice of thy thunder was
in the heaven. the lightning lighted the world,
and the earth trembled and shook. Thy way, God's way, is in the
sea, and thy path in the great waters. And when John saw the
Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of God, he said, and
there was no more sea, no more great waters, no more tribulation,
no more persecution, no more trouble. and thy footsteps are not known." You and I have no idea what God's
got in store for us tomorrow. We can't see the future. He allows
us to see his backside. He causes us to look back to
what he's accomplished in the person of Christ on Calvary's
cross, but we don't know where he's going to lead us in the
future. We make our plans, but the Lord orders our steps. Thou leadest thy people like
a flock." I'm glad that I don't know where he's going to lead.
I'd try to change it, I'm sure. I'm sure I would try to change
it. Thou leadest thy people like
a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron being a type
of Christ. as the Deliverer and as our High
Priest. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we come
before Your throne of grace, pleading in the name of Thy dear
Son, our salvation, our acceptance. We thank you that we have an
advocate with thee. We thank you that he is the righteous
one and that all that you require of us is found in him. We ask father that you'd be pleased
now by the power of your Holy Spirit to open the windows of
heaven that you would shine the light of the gospel in our hearts,
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we would find
him to be our all in all. For we ask it in his name. Amen. Let's all stand once again. We'll
send it. Will you open your Bibles with me
to 2 Corinthians chapter 13? 2 Corinthians chapter 13. titled this message, Am I in
the Faith? Am I in the Faith? If God's given you a concern
for your soul, that's a question that you've asked yourself many,
many times. And it's a good question. The
Scripture says right here in verse 5, Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you
not your own selves, how that Christ is in you, except you
be reprobate, reprobate. Now that word reprobate means
to be rejected. It's the opposite of what the
scripture teaches about our acceptance before God is found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So when he speaks of being rejected
of God, actually it's a word that was used in metallurgy. Have you ever taken a bunch of
old jewelry to the jeweler and Maybe you needed a little extra
money and you wanted to sell some of your old gold. And you
couldn't tell the difference between the costume jewelry and
the real stuff. I mean, some of that stuff looks
like it's gold. And the jeweler would take the
chain or whatever it was and rub it on a little stone and
put a drop of acid on it. And if it turned a certain color,
it was gold. If it wasn't, it was rejected. That's the word
here. That's the word. So an acid test has been applied
to try the gold to see if it's real. To find out if it's real. If it's not, if it doesn't react
properly, then it's costume jewelry. It's just thrown out. It has
no real value to it. Now I don't want to be rejected.
I don't want God to put the acid test to me and find me to be
costume jewelry, a fake, a fraud, one who has been deceived and
who has deceived himself. And if that's not to be, then
it's necessary that we examine ourselves now. lest we be examined
later and find ourselves to be reprobate. Now, the natural tendency is to examine
yourself. to put the spotlight of inspection
on your life and see if there's some evidence of salvation in
the way you live. If you do that, you're not examining
yourself to see whether you be in the faith. The key to examining
yourself is not in order to determine whether or not there's some evidence
of salvation in your life. If you look for that, you're
going to be, and you are a believer, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
And if you examine yourself and find evidence and comfort yourself
with that evidence, then you've only further deceived yourself
to be a reprobate. So to examine yourself to see
whether you be in the faith is to ask yourself, who am I trusting
for my salvation? Where is my faith? Where is my hope? Now, you may or may not know
that Todd Niebuhr is a big UK fan. And I was talking to him
the other day and trying to console him over their loss for the NCAA
bid for the national champs. And he told me, he said, Greg,
he said, I believed with all my heart that they were going
to go all the way. I just believed it. The fact
that they didn't win had nothing to do with Todd Nybert's faith.
I mean, he was behind them. He believed they were going to
win. The fact that they didn't win had everything to do with
their ability to perform when they needed to. So his faith
was placed, sincere as it was, in the wrong thing. Do you believe? Now the scripture
teaches us about faith in Romans chapter 4. Will you turn with
me there? Romans chapter 4. Verse 1, What shall we say then,
that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For
if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory,
but not before God. If our justification before God
has to do with something we've done, with our works, then we
might find reason in that to glory. But not before God. God's not impressed. God's not
impressed. You know, men impress themselves,
and they impress one another with their religious activities,
and they try to convince themselves that they are in the faith by
those things. But God's not impressed. For what sayeth the Scriptures?
That settles all controversies. What does God say about it? Here's
what God said, Abraham believed God. He believed God. He believed that what he had
promised, he was able to perform. He believed God. And it was counted
unto him for righteousness. You see, it's not the strength
of our faith, it's the object of our faith. You can believe
with all of your heart that your team's gonna win, but maybe they
don't have the ability to do it. What is the object of our
faith? Examine yourself to see whether
you be in the faith. Who are you trusting? Paul said,
I'm persuaded. I'm persuaded. I mean fully persuaded
that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him
against that day. I'm trusting Christ with my soul. I'm trusting Him as my righteousness,
And God takes that faith that he gives us and counts it to
us or credits it to us for righteousness. In other words, takes the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ and credits it to our account. Verse 4, now to him that worketh
is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If our salvation
is by our works, then it's not of grace. It's not of grace,
it's not of free grace, it's of debt. It's something God owes
us. We've earned it. But to him that worketh not,
does that describe you? We're examining ourselves now,
right now, to see whether we'd be in the faith. To be in the
faith means that we're not looking to our works, him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly. Examine yourself to see whether
you be in the faith, to see whether you're trusting
Christ alone for all of your righteousness and for all of
your justification before God, knowing that you have no righteousness
of your own. Why? Because you're ungodly.
Have you examined yourself to see whether you'd be in the faith
and determined yourself to be ungodly? Determined all of your
righteousness to be as filthy rags before God? Determined yourself
to be unable to perform that which God requires? His faith, His faith is counted
for righteousness. Faith, the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Am I trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ for all my salvation or is it Christ plus? Do I believe? that what he did satisfied all
the demands of God's righteousness for me. Do I believe that the
sacrifice he made of himself on Calvary's cross put away my
sin once and for all? Do I believe that God is satisfied
with Christ? that his shed blood is a sufficient
covering to make me perfect in the sight of God." Look what
he goes on to say, even has David also described the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
without works. God imputes the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ to those who look to Christ as the only
hope of their salvation. without their works, saying,
Blessed are they, blessed of God are they, whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin. There's my hope. Christ is my
hope. Now, go back with me to our text. This matter of being reprobate,
being rejected, being put to the acid test and determined
to be a fraud. The Lord uses this word again
in Romans chapter 1 and verse 28 when he said, "...even as
they did not like to retain the knowledge of God in their mind
therefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind." They didn't
like this gospel. They didn't like this message.
It stripped them naked before God. It left them without anything
to do. They wanted to make some contribution
to their salvation. They didn't like to retain the
knowledge of the God who is in their mind and so therefore God
gave them over. God let them believe a lie. Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. Verse 10, "...and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish..." Those are the ones
that were rejected. Those are the ones who left this
world and were eternally separated from God. Because they received not the
love of the truth that they might be saved. They didn't rejoice
in the gospel. They didn't love Christ. They
didn't trust Him. And for this cause God shall send them strong
delusion that they should believe a lie, that they might all be
damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
Now that doesn't mean that they were out living some sort of
licentious life of debauchery, pleasuring themselves in all
their flesh. It means that they were pleasuring
themselves in the hope of their salvation of those good things
that they had done. They weren't lovers of the Christ. They weren't lovers of the truth.
They were hoping that God somehow would merit them His favor based
on something that they had done. Go back with me to our text. Examine yourselves. Examine yourselves. Is all your hope, all your hope, in Christ alone? And has God made Christ to be
known to you? Look what he says. Examine yourselves
whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you
not your own selves? Sure you know yourself. How that
Christ Jesus is in you. You see there is a difference
between Christ being revealed in you and Christ being revealed
to you. It is Christ Himself. become your life. We just read
in 2 Thessalonians to love the truth is different than just
acknowledging the truth. To love the truth. Is the knowledge
that you have as a true doctrine been made a blessing to your
soul? Do you embrace it as the very
hope of your salvation? Does it reveal the glorious person
of the Lord Jesus Christ to your heart? Is Christ indispensable
to your very life? If we've only understood them
and believe them intellectually, then it's nothing more than knowledge.
And knowledge does nothing but puff up. It's the love of God
that edifies. Oh God, give me a love for Christ. Let me see Christ in me. all set in Colossians chapter
3 at verse 3 he said for you are dead and your life is hid
in Christ in Christ if I've examined myself to see whether I be in
the faith and see whether Christ is in me then I've concluded
that I'm dead, I'm dead. That when Christ died on Calvary's
cross, I died in him. In Colossians chapter two, verse
20, Paul said, I am crucified with Christ, with Christ. Nevertheless, yes, I do live,
but the life that I now live in this flesh, I live by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and died for me. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but holy, holy, holy lean on Jesus' name. How do I know I'm dead? God has made me to cry. The first
cries of a newborn, when all the senses are for the first
time felt in a world of sights and sounds, smells and tastes
and feelings, when he's been radically forced from the warmth
and comfort of the womb. For the first time, it feels
itself vulnerable. It feels itself afraid. It feels itself helpless. It's been cut off from the umbilical
cord of its false security. And by a violent experience,
it's been pushed out into a world to where all it can say is, what
must I do to be saved? All it can say is, be merciful
to me, O God, a sinner. All it can say is, woe is me,
for I am undone. I'm a sinner. I'm a man of unclean
lips. You're not going to cry that
unless you've been born again. Babies don't cry to be born.
But when they're born, when they're born, they feel themselves for
the very first time to be helpless and vulnerable. Can you imagine
if you could remember the thoughts of that newborn? You know, all
of a sudden, The experience of this world is thrust upon them
and they've been cut off in their thinking. Sure they're going
to cry. What shall I do? What will become of me? Oh God
have mercy upon me. I'm lost. I'm a fool. My sin
is ever before me. It's ever before me. If I'm gonna
prove myself to see whether I be in the faith, in the faith, and
whether or not Christ be in me, the first thing I'm going to
conclude is that I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. And don't be confused about that. Sin, you know, people think sin
is nothing but a behavioral problem. It's so much more than that. Sin is that which proceeds from
the human heart. God said in Genesis chapter 6,
when He looks at your heart and my heart, what He sees is that every imagination
that we have is only evil and that continually. We compare ourselves to ourselves
and we compare ourselves to one another. That's not God's standard
of comparison. God's standard of comparison
is himself. And what he sees is, and when
he causes us to be in the faith, the very first thing that he
makes us to see is our vulnerability, our helplessness, our sinfulness. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
10. I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 15. Matthew 15. At verse 10. And he called the multitude and
said unto them, Hear and understand. It's not that which goeth into
the mouth that defiles a man, but that which comes out of the
mouth that defiles a man. Then came his disciples and said
unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after
they heard this saying? Lord, they knew you were talking
about them. Lord, you've offended the self-righteous. You've offended
the Pharisee. And he answered and said, every
plant which my father, my heavenly father, hath not planted shall
be rooted up, it shall be reprobated, it shall be rejected. God didn't
plant it. God didn't do it. It was their
own doing. It was their own works. They think that what they do
is what qualifies them as a sinner or not as a sinner. Let them
alone. Just leave them alone. They be
blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind,
blows shall fall into the ditch. Then answered Peter and said,
declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, are you also
without understanding? Peter, examine yourself and see
whether you be in the faith. Are you like them? The Lord knew
he wasn't. But it's that question, that
probing question that the Lord continues to ask each one of
us, isn't it? It causes us to examine to see
if we'd be in the faith if Christ be in it. Do you not yet understand, verse
17, that whatsoever enters into the mouth and goeth into the
belly and is cast out in the draught, but those things which
proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they
are they which defile a man. It's what you say about Christ,
it's what you say about God that defiles you because out of the
heart proceeds the issues of life. Our words are a reflection
of what's in our heart. For out of the heart proceeds
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man, but to eat with unwashing hands defileth not a man. It's what comes out of the heart. First John chapter 3 verse 4
says that sin is the transgression of the law. Now what is it to
transgress the law? It means to fall short of its
requirement. And the truth is that you and
I have transgressed every one of God's laws. Every single one
of them. I know you talk to the Pharisees,
well I've never murdered anybody. Sure you have. Sure you have. The Lord made that clear. He
said, you've heard it said of old, that if you take a man's
life, you've committed murder. I say unto you, that if you have
ought against your brother in your heart, you've committed
murder already. You've killed him in your heart.
So the Lord's, the man looks at the outward appearance, God's
looking at the heart. And what God sees in the heart
is all these All these sins, this sinful nature of the human
heart. You see the truth is we commit
sins because we are sinners. Sinners is what we are by nature.
If God's proven us to be in the faith and if Christ is in us,
the light of the gospel, the light of the gospel does two
things. It exposes the glory of Christ
and it exposes our sin. 1 John 5, verse 17, all unrighteousness
is sin. Romans 3.23, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Now let me ask you, you
wanted a good definition of sin. What in your life falls short
of the glory of God? What in your life is not sin? That's God's definition. I know
it's not man's definition, but it's God's. 1 John chapter 1
verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. And if we say that we have not
sinned, we make Him a liar. Everything we do is fraught with
sin. David said in Psalm 51, "...against
thee, and thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight,
and my sin is ever before me." Lord, what am I going to do? This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Listen, if you've been made a
sinner, you're a miracle of grace. Because men are not sinners by
nature. God has to make you to be one. And that's the evidence. That's one of the evidences that
you're in the faith. You have fled to Christ for refuge. This is a faithful saying worthy
of all except Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He saves every one of them. He's
never made a man a sinner without saving him. Matter of fact, he
saved them before he made them a sinner. If you want to put
it like that. In relationship to order of things. Now in the relationship to time,
it happens all at the same time. You're made a sinner and you're
saved at the same time. But in the order of things, you
have to be born again. You have to be born of the Spirit
before you can be made a sinner. If you've been made a sinner,
it's the evidence that you're in the faith. And that you're
looking to Christ. Christ in you is your hope of
glory. And that you're no longer under
the law. You're not under the law. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
4. Paul says in verse 20 that he
stood in doubt of those who were professing Christ in Galatia
and the reason that he stood in doubt of them is because they
were giving ear to the Judaizers. They were Well, I wonder if maybe
there is some law keeping that we need to do in order to secure
our salvation, in order to prove that we're in the faith, in order
to examine ourselves. Maybe there's a law that we need
to put into practice and maybe we need to get under that law.
And Paul said, I stand in doubt of you. You're not going to help
God out. Now he goes on to tell us a story
that took place between Abraham and Sarah and Hagar in the Old
Testament. And here's the biblical definition
of the law. You're not under the law. And
when God explains to us what the law is, he uses this to explain
it. And he uses this story. God had
made a promise to Abraham and Sarah that they were going to
have a child. Many years has passed. Sarah is an old woman. Long past menopause. Impossible
for her to give birth to a child. And she goes to Abraham and she
says, you know, obviously God intends for us to do our part. We've got to help God out. God's
not gonna fulfill this promise unless we make our contribution
to it. And so you go into Hagar and
have a child by her because she's my handmaid, she'll be my child.
And that way God will fulfill the promise through our efforts
to help him. And that's the law. That's the
law. Anything you do, anything you
do. Look at what it says. Verse 21,
tell me you the desire to be under the law. Do you not hear
the law? Do you not hear what the law says? For it is written,
now God's going to describe, he's going to tell us what the
law says. It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one
by a bondmaid and the other by a free woman. Don't you love
this story? But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he who was of the free woman
was by promise." Abraham and Sarah's attempt to
try to help God out, to fulfill his purpose, God says, is the
law. And that child was born of the
flesh. And there's no salvation there. That's reprobate. That's
rejected. That's put to the acid test and
proven to be false. It's not pure. Which things are an allegory
for these are the two covenants. There's only two covenants. There's
only two covenants. There's the covenant of works
and there's the covenant of grace. Am I trusting my works for my
salvation? Or am I trusting Christ alone
for all my salvation? It's the only two covenants there
are. Which things are in allegory?
For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which
gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. Mount Sinai was the mountain
of the law. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai
in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage
with her children. You know, if we didn't have this
commentary in Galatians chapter 4, you never would have read
that story in Genesis and come to this conclusion. But this is what God purposed
it for. This is an allegory. This is law and grace. You don't
mix them. Examine yourself to see whether
you'd be in the faith. Are you trying to help God out?
Or is God able, all by Himself, to finish the work of salvation
for you. It's just that simple. Are you
under the law or are you under grace? But the Jerusalem which is above
is free, which is the mother of us all. Now, it doesn't matter
where you put works in. If you put works in the beginning,
well, I've got to exercise my free will in order to be saved.
That's works. That's reprobate. That's rejected. Well, I've got
to work out my salvation through my discipline. I've got to earn
more favor with God through something that I do. So I've got to grow
in my sanctification and become more holy. Progressive sanctification. That's believed in most religions. That's works. That's rejected.
That's the law. Well, I'm going to earn a better
place in heaven. I'm going to get the mansion
up on the main street. I'm not going to be settling
for a cabin out in the corner. You know, they've written church
songs about this kind of stuff, you know? That works! Rejected! You're not under the law. You're
under grace. Did Christ do everything? Or
is He counting on me to do something in order to improve my salvation? Turn with me to Romans chapter
6 and I'll conclude. Romans chapter 6. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter
15 that the strength of sin is the law. The law not only exposes
sin, but the law aggravates sin. You tell somebody, you know,
we talk about reverse psychology with our children. You want a
child to do something, just tell them they can't do it, and that'll
be the very thing. You know, that doesn't just apply to children.
It applies to every single one of us, doesn't it? You tell me
something I can't do and that's the very thing I want to do.
Why? Because the law aggravates sin. It exposes it and it aggravates
it. That's all the law does. The
law never saved anybody. The law never improved anybody.
The law never made anybody better. It never changed anybody. So what are we going to do with
this problem of sin? Romans chapter 6 verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion
over you. Why? Because you're not under
the law. you're under grace shall not have dominion over
you it shall not rule your life now I know what I hope I hope
I know what you're thinking sure seems to have dominion over
me Why do I keep doing the things
that I do? Why do I keep thinking the things
that I think? Why do I keep acting the way
that I act? Why do I just do the same thing
over and over again if sin doesn't have dominion over me? I have
a word of encouragement for you. If you feel that way, You've proven yourself to be
in the faith, because every child of God feels that way. Every child of God feels that
way. But the truth is, though you may feel that way, you're dead. You're dead. You're not under
the law. You see, the truth is, when sin
had dominion over you, you weren't bothered by your sin like you
are now. When sin had dominion over you.
There was a time when, you know, you thought sin was just something,
just those really, really bad things you did. You know, that
you wanted to keep quiet and didn't want anybody, you know.
You didn't know that sin was all everything that you thought
and said and did and that you couldn't... You can't perform a work without
being infected with sin. If a man said that he's not sinning, I can't stand here and preach
the gospel to you without sinning. And that bothers me. But there was a time when sin
had dominion over you. You were so blinded to your sin
by your sin that you couldn't see it. And it didn't bother
you like it does now. Be encouraged, child of God.
To feel as if sin has dominion over you is the evidence that
you're in the faith. It's evidence that you're in
the faith. And that Christ is in you. Because
when Christ is in you, the light of His presence reflects all
that sin back to you. There was a time you couldn't
believe the gospel. When sin had dominion over you, you just
couldn't believe it. You didn't have any interest
in it. You heard it. It didn't affect you one way
or the other. You could take it or leave it. Now you can't
not believe it. You can't not believe it. Why?
Because sin no longer has dominion over you. It hasn't blinded you
to the truth of the Gospel. You had no love for the truth.
Truth, you said, like Pilate. What is truth? Yeah, a little
truth here, a little truth there. Nobody's got the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And now you know the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And you wouldn't let it go for
anything. Why? Because sin doesn't have dominion over you anymore.
Why? Because you're not under the
law. You're under grace. You're dead to the law. You're
not looking to yourself for the hope of your salvation. You're
looking to Christ. There was a time when you believed
that you had the power within yourself to exercise the work
of God when you got ready. You believed that you had a strong
enough will to demand the things of God in your life when you
were ready and that God was just standing on the precipice of
heaven ready to help you whenever you decided to be helped. Now you know Sin no longer has
dominion over you. Sin had you blinded to who you
were. You had way too high a view of yourself, didn't you? Now you know that it's His will
that saved you. It's His will that keeps you. There was a time when sin had
dominion over you that you believed that repentance was something
you did. You were going to suck it up
and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you left church
determined to be a better person. I'm going to read my Bible better,
I'm going to pray more, I'm going to conquer that. And I'm going
to repent. Now you know that a changed mind
is a work of grace. That God has to grant you repentance.
That you're completely dependent upon Him for that. Why? Because sin no longer has dominion
over you. You see, those are the kind of
things that people think when sin has dominion over them. You're
not under the law. You're under grace. There was a time when you were
completely comfortable worshiping an idol. You had fashioned in the workshop
of your own mind a little God that you pretended to bow down
to but in fact was bowing to your whim and you were very comfortable
with that God. Why? Because sin had dominion
over you. But now you're not under the
law. Now you're under grace. Now you know the God who is and
you despise that idol. and expose Him for what He is. There was a time when you knew
nothing about fellowship with God, fellowship with God's people,
love for His Word, love for His Gospel. Why? Because sin had
dominion over you. Why? Because you were under the
law. You weren't under grace. Now you're under grace. And though
you loathe yourself, And though you feel as if sin does have
dominion over you, you're dead to the law. You've been made
alive to Christ. You're perfect in the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ before God. And you are accepted,
which is the opposite of being reprobate, in the Beloved. And you know to be accepted before God is
to be found in Him. Not having your own righteousness
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, are you under the
law? Or are you under grace? The answer to that question will
determine whether you're in the faith and whether Christ is in
you. Examine yourself. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would not allow us to be still without ministering
grace to our hearts in the answer to this most important question. Are we in the faith? And is Christ
in us? Oh, Lord, don't allow us to be
reprobate. Put us to the acid test. Prove yourself to be in us, for
we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together, Brother
Tom. Number 35 in the Sopect Hymnal.