I'll use a statement there that
I spoke on recently, but I want to use it again. It's the second verse. the last eight words of the second verse, and the third verse, the last
eight words of the second verse, and all of the words in the third
verse, trying, if I can, with the Lord's help, if I hear from
God, if I can preach, not in words only, but in power, I want
to tell you of the great things God has done for us. Great things, they say. No doubt
David had Israel in mind when he spake
about this captivity, the captivity of Israel in Egypt for those
many years. No doubt he had them in mind. They were in captivity to Pharaoh
And he made them work from daylight to dark, making bricks when there
was no straw. And finally, when they came to
the end of themselves, which every man must sooner or later
if he's to be a child of God, he must come to the end of himself. And that nation finally came
to the end of themselves. And they began to cry unto God. And God said He heard their cries. And He spake to Moses out of
the burning bush. And He said, Moses, go tell Pharaoh Let my people go. Let them go. Well, you know the story as well
as I do. The ultimate was that they were led out of Egypt
down to the Red Sea and the chariots of Pharaoh And
his fierce, warlike army followed them like a dog follows a train
and got them down to the Red Sea. And they were walled in by mountains
of rock on one side and mountains of rock on the other side. And
Pharaoh's army right behind them. And there was nowhere to go. They were shut up to God only. And God, through Moses, told
them to hit the water. And as they
took a step in that Red Sea, the water began to roll back. It walled up on both sides. And they went across that Red
Sea on dry land. So when a man gets shut up, when
his mouth gets stopped, when he gives up on self, doing anything
to gain God's faith, then he's a fit subject for God to save
him, when he knows he is sinnerhood, when he knows his helplessness,
when he knows somewhat of his deprivation, knows that he cannot
do anything about it, that he shut up to God. As the Israelites were shut up
to God, walls on both sides, the Red Sea ahead of them, Pharaoh's
army behind him could look nowhere but up. God told him to move
out. As he moved out, the water rose.
And when they got across, and the army of Israel, Pharaoh and
his chariots of generals, administrators, mighty men, they got in the middle
of that wall of water. God closed it up. and killed
every one of them. And God told Moses, after they
had crossed over, He said, You will never see them again. They
are gone! All gone! You will never see
them again. Great things that God has done
for His people! Great things! Well, the Lord turned again to captivity
of Zion. And we were, like them, the dream
that's the effect. Our mouth was filled with laughter,
holy laughter. And our tongue was singing, singing
praises unto him who delivered us. And they said among the heathen,
they testified, they told them what they knew.
You're not asked by God to tell what you don't know. You cannot
come back from where you've never been. You tell what you know. You, in the arrangement of God,
have opportunity to tell someone the testimony of God concerning
his son. You can only tell what you know.
You can't tell what you don't know. You tell what you know. And the Lord, they said, they
said, the Lord hath done great things for them. Verse 3, the
Lord hath done great things for us. There's us and them. The Lord hath done great things
for us. And the effect that the great
things had upon them, that they were glad. Made them glad. Usually when I hear of preachers speaking of having a balanced
ministry, a red flag goes up in my mind. Now what they mean
by this balanced ministry is that they don't make strong and
extreme statements about anything. A balanced ministry is generally
a cover-up and a compromise. If we preach the Word of God,
we will have nothing but strong and extreme statements. You cannot
take God's sovereignty too far. Neither can you take human responsibility
too far. You cannot preach the atonement
of Christ as too effectual or too definite, nor can you emphasize
strongly enough its sufficiency to save anybody who comes to
Christ. We cannot overemphasize preservation
by grace. We cannot overemphasize the necessity
of our own perseverance. We preach according to the proportion
of faith. Now, we don't seek a balance,
as if you preached something too strongly that it would upset
the balance of another truth. We don't need balanced preaching. We need bold preaching. And if God will help me this
morning. I will preach bold preaching. Whatever is in the Word of God,
I will preach strongly and even go to the extreme. Now, in this statement here of
David, where he said, The Lord hath done great things for made us glad. We're glad. There's three great things in
the great mystery of salvation that many professors of religion
seem to be alarmed at. It bothers them. The first thing
is, is how God saves sinners. Now, you may not believe that
they are alarmed at that, but really that alarms them. How does God save sinners, poor,
helpless, hopeless, unworthy, ungodly, unrighteous enemies
of God? How does he save these people? Well, he first must regenerate
them. because they are dead in trespasses
and in sins. He must quicken them and give
them life. That is called regeneration.
That is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians chapter 2
when he says, And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses
and in sins. First, God the Holy Spirit must
quicken that dead sinner. He cannot quicken himself. Can a dead man rise up from his
coffin and say, What's this big crowd doing here? We are as dead
spiritually as the man is this morning at the funeral home in
Faramon, is dead physically. That's how dead we are spiritually,
dead to spiritual things. So we must be quickened and given life. You can go to
the funeral home, and look at this fellow, and he doesn't look
like he's dead. They've got his vest suit on,
his hair is combed, his teeth is in, his fingernails have been
manicured, and he lays there with his eyes shut. And you could
speak to him or whisper in his ear and say, friend, Sorry about
what's happened here. And he wouldn't make no response.
You could shake him and he could make no response. Why? Because he's dead. Dead. Stone cold dead in the market. He's dead. There's no life in
him. He's void of life. Every man
born of Adam is the same way. He comes forth from his mother's
womb, speaking lies and hypocrisy. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Every man is dead before God,
dead spiritually. He cannot be aroused by human
It takes God and God alone, God the Spirit, to quicken this dead
soul and give him life. He is dead in trespasses and
in sin. Now, some would have you believe
that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore, The effect
of our believing causes us to be born again. No, you've got
the cart before the horse. You're born again in order to
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And to be born again is a sovereign
act of God Almighty. And he quickens, by his Spirit,
the poor, hopeless, helpless, doomed, damned, ungodly sinner. He quickens him and gives him
life, enabling him to believe the message concerning his son,
the Savior. Now, you say, well, if that's
the way it is, I can see why you say that there are many professors
of religion who become alarmed at that because they say, if
you believe, then you're born again. But you're born again
and the cause of regeneration is that you believe in the Lord
Jesus. You didn't born yourself. God
must quicken you. Now, remember this, it's the
duty of man, saved or lost, to give all glory unto God. It is such a dishonor for a man
to rob God of his glory. And the apostle, in one of his
epistles, He said, whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we
do, do all to the glory of God. God's jealous of His glory. He
must have all the glory. And so when a man is quickened
by the Spirit, it is a sovereign act of Almighty God that quickens
us and gives us life to believe the message of the grace of God
that the Lord Jesus Christ, in that great covenant where they struck hands, the
Trinity of the person, Let me read this real quick. John chapter
17. Listen to this. Verse 6, I have manifested thy
name unto the man which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, they belong
to you. And thou gavest them Me, and
they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all
things whatsoever thou hast given Me are of Me. For I have given
unto them the words which thou gavest Me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they
have believed that thou didst send us made. I pray for them." Now, who are
the them? They are those that the Father
gave to the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world. I don't pray for the world. Now,
listen to me. I'm talking bold. I'm making
strong, extreme statements here. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself said, I pray for them, I pray not for the world. Now, who do you pray for? He
says, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine
are mine, and I am glorified in them. Verse 14, I have given them thy
word, and the world hath hated them. When a man is quickened by the
Spirit, and trust alone in the person and the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. His friends, so-called, drop
off like flies. Even if he tries, he cannot have
any heart, genuine fellowship with them. They won't permit
that. They are of the world. And the
Lord said, I have given them thy word, and the world hath
hated them, because they are not of the world, those that
were given to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil one. Verse 20, Neither pray I for
these alone, these twelve, or these eleven, or his saved disciples. How many they were, I don't know. I know they were eleven. Choice. followers whom the Lord Jesus
Christ called them Himself. He called them unto Himself. They did not, out of their free
will, say, well, I decide this morning I'm going to go with
Jesus. If Jesus hadn't stopped them
on the way, they'd still be going in the other direction. He sought
them out. and called Peter and John and
Matthew and Nathanael and Bartholomew and all the leaven. He called
them and said, I'll make you fishers of me. And to the others
he didn't call, but he called them. Why did he call them? I
don't know. That is his sovereign prerogative. He can do what he wants to do. to whom he wants to do it to. He's sovereign in the disposal
and the giving of his grace. Well, you say, is that something that the preachers
of the twentieth century are alarmed at? Well, it is a missing
note in their preaching. I don't hear them preaching that.
I don't hear it in the material I read. I don't hear it on the
television. I don't hear it on tapes. I don't
hear it in religious magazines. It's a missing note in today's
preaching that God is sovereign in the disposal of His grace. Well, they're alarmed at that. is that God really saves sinners. That alarms some people, too. Now, if a preacher of God is
led to describe a sinner as half, half as what he really is, listen
to that, if a preacher is pumped energized, led of God the Spirit
to describe a sinner half as he really is. Just half. For the bottom of
him, or the other half of him, he never came. Here in the book of 1 Corinthians
chapter 6, I'll read to you something here. It's a help to me. I hope it
will be a help to you. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 8, Paul says to the church of Corinth
here, they've had some problems with, they had a problem with
the man who took his father's wife. It must have been his stepmother. And he committed this terrible
crime. And Paul went to him to correct
him, to tell him, this is wrong. So that's one of the problems.
But now he says in verse 8, Nay, ye do wrong and defraud, and
that of your brethren. Verse 9, it said, Know ye not
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? He
says the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. They'll never be part of the
kingdom of God, those that are unrighteous. So he said, Be not
deceived. neither fornicators, idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetousness, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. But look
at these next four or five words, and such were some of you. So if you describe a sinner,
have as he ought to be described. You cannot get to the bottom
of it because sin runs too deep. Paul is saying to these who he
refers to as the saints of God, the church of God at Corinth,
to the saints of God. He said, such was some of you. Why, he said, these that are
deceived, and fornicators, and adulterers, and adulterers, and
effeminate, and abusers, and with mankind, and of themselves,
and thieves, covetousness, and drunkards, and revilers, and
extortionists. They are not going to inherit the kingdom of God.
But He said, search for some of you. I once was in that crowd. I once
walked where they walked. Maybe not in every instance,
but I was far off from God. So far off from God. I couldn't
come back. I didn't want to come back. God,
the Good Shepherd, He must go and find me. And when He finds
me, He must put me on His shoulder and bring me all the way home. And I didn't help God in any
of it. I couldn't help Him. I was lost. Ninety-nine in the fold, but
there was one. After he counted them, he said,
there's supposed to be a hundred here, but there's only ninety-nine. Oh, the good shepherd said, my
sheep is lost. I must find them. Through the wilderness, through
the high winds and the water, through the brush and the branches,
The good shepherd went until he found his sheep. And he brought
him home on his shoulder and he said to the congregation there,
his friends that had gathered there who were concerned about
his lost sheep, he said, let us make a feast, get the wine
and the goodies and the niceties that's pleasing to the appetite
and let's have a feast. My sheep was lost, but now he's
found. I was one of them. I'd still be there had it not
been for God. I hadn't done anything to gain
God's favor, just the opposite. I wasn't religious, I was irreligious. But he found me when I was twenty-some
years old and brought me into the fold. And such were some
of you. See, there is a now and then
there is a before. In every safe sinner's life,
there is a now. This is what I am now. I've been
cleansed. I've been cleansed by the blood
of the Lamb. I believe the testimony of God
concerning the Son. My sins were laid on Him. And
he bore the wrath of God against my sins in his own body by himself
on the tree. And he said, As he is, so am
I. I'm just like him. They're all
gone. Taken away. They're all gone. Such were some of you. See what
I'm talking about? I could preach here for two more
hours and never touch the material that's prepared here for me.
But for your good news, I'll not do that. I'll not do that. I'm going to have to omit some
of this. I stopped at saying if a sinner,
if a preacher of God is led to describe a sinner half as he
really is, he could never get to the bottom of it. He's bound,
if he does do that, if God leads him to do that, He is bound to
shock the delicate minds of the parishioners until they are almost
half paralyzed. That the sinner is far off from
God, and if he's left alone, if the good shepherd doesn't
seek him, he'll die out there, far off from God. So far he cannot
come back. How far? Far off from God, dead
in trespasses and in sins, and he has no heart for God. He is blind and he cannot see. He is lame and he cannot walk. He is hard-hearted and he cannot
pray. He is dumb and he cannot speak. He loves the world and all that
is in the world. and he hasn't got a spark of
love to the Father in his heart. He's destitute. If God does not
sovereignly, by the grace of God, come where he has sent the
preacher, what does it say there? How can they preach except they
be sent? How can they hear if they don't
have a preacher? Heareth, hearing cometh by the
ear. hearing by the Word of God, if
he don't send the preacher. If he doesn't come where I'm
at, I'll die there. I love the world and all that's
in the world. In my natural state, I'm ungodly. Ungodly is the opposite of godly. Take your ungodly, That was the
message of John the Baptist, the message of Paul, and the
message of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're ungodly. The opposite
of godly. You're godless. You're an enemy
of God. You're a hater of the true God.
You're poor, you're ruined, you're wretched, you're undone. Your
case is so desperate and so hopeless if God does not look in your
direction now. You'll never be moved. I said
these are extreme statements, bold statements. But if this is what the Word
of God says, I'm bound. I'm bound under heaven by God
himself to tell the truth as the truth is revealed to my poor
soul. I'm not in this for my own glory
or recognition. And it's because I love Him.
I love Him. I love Him. And I'll tell you
why I love Him. It's because He first loved me. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that He first loved me. That's what Old David's talking
about. Ephesians, this and this, bold
statements, things that professors of religion become alarmed at. Oh, Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ, how did he get to be that way? Did he make a choice? Did someone say, raise your hands,
who's voting for Jesus? Who's going to vote for Jesus?
Who's going to vote to be an apostle this morning? How did
he get to be an apostle of Jesus Christ? It says, by the will
of God. It was God's will. It wasn't
his will, it was God's will. You say, well, certainly Paul
was willing. Paul was willing like I was willing
when I was out there in that meeting. I was never willing
until he made me willing. He saved me. You listen to this
and write it down. He saved me against my will,
with my full consent. He makes us willing in the day
of His power. Oh, listen to the saints. They're
called saints. The people of God are called
saints. Who calls them saints? The world doesn't call you They
don't call me no saint. They say, oh, that fellow up
there, I wouldn't go near him. He's crazy. He thinks nobody's
saved but him. I don't believe that at all.
Oh, no. But anyhow, now listen to me. I'm a saint of God. Whatever
I've said or whatever my reputation is, and I hope it's good. I know it is in the eyes of God,
but not in the eyes of men. because they get alarmed at what
I'm saying. I'm too extreme. I'm too bold. They want a balanced ministry.
Well, he says down here in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us, who are the
us. Thine they were, I pray not for the world, I pray
for them." That's the us. "...who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Already blessed
in Christ in heavenly places. But listen to this now. These Ephesian people. Church
at Ephesus. Paul said, "...according as he
hath chosen us." Is Paul one of those? One of the S's. God chose him. Separate unto
me Saul of Tarsus. Paul had the letter in his hand
with all the names of these disciples, these followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He went to the high priest and
he went to those in authority and said, Give me the names of
the followers of this Jesus of Nazareth. They'd give me their
names. And he had their names in their hands. And he was going
down to get them. And on his way, he wasn't looking
for God. He wasn't looking for God. He
was looking for a way to kill some God's people. That's what
he was looking for. And God unhorsed him, put him
on the ground, and he was blind. He went off yonder for three
years. God taught him some things, and
he came back. But this is what he says, according
as he hath chosen us in him. Who's in him? In Christ. He hath
chosen his people in Christ before the world ever was. I know what
you're going to say. Don't everybody have a chance?
That's another thing that preachers get along with. They say, well,
if he's chosen so many unto himself, before they had been before the
world ever was. It sounds to me like God is discriminant
in His choice. Well, He is discriminant in His
choice. It sounds to me like everybody doesn't have a chance.
Let me tell you this now. Salvation is by grace, not by
chance. I proposed this to someone here
the other day. A lady had a conversation with
the visiting preacher. And she said, Preacher, I know
I'm saved. And he said, Well, fine. Who
saved you? She said, God saved me. And he
said, Was it an accident? or was it on purpose? And that
wound her questions about it. When God saved you, was it an
accident or did He do it on purpose? According as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be whole and without blame before Him in love. And that's another
point that I could talk about. Well, you could look at me and ask
some people about me and be around me a little bit, and you say,
well, I've come to the conclusion you're not as holy as you ought
to be, and you are not without blame, and you are not before
Him in love. And you'd be right. You'd be
absolutely right. I'm not as holy. as God demands
holiness. I'm not without blame as God
demands, and I'm not before Him in love all the time, in myself,
in myself. But I am all of this in Him. You see, I was chosen in Him
before the world ever was. I was preserved in Him, the book
of Titus. And I was called in Him here
in time. And all that the Lord Jesus Christ
did from the manger, from that birth, from that time
that the angels of God descended upon that sacred spot where the shepherds gathered, And that angel said to the shepherd, he said, Unto you this day a
child is born, the Son of David. Unto you! But notice this, he
didn't say, Unto us. The angel didn't say, Unto us! But he said, Unto you, people! People! God has provided a Savior
for His people, not for angels. Well, I feel like I ought to quit. I wish I would take more time,
but I won't. I'll continue this, maybe this
evening, Lord willing.