In the future is what he always
has been. He'll never change. He's from
everlasting to everlasting. God. Cannot be comprehended by
our finite, fickle, human minds. We can't enter into it. About
all we can do is bow to it and believe it. Thy throne is established
of old. Thou art from everlasting. The
floods have lifted up, O Lord. The floods have lifted up their
voice. The floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier
than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of
the sea. His testimonies, His words are
very sure. Holiness becometh thine house,
O Lord, forever, the length of thy days." I talked to you a
little bit this morning here about the God of the Bible and mentioned
to you that God is to be honored. And the only way we can honor
God is to honor him in the way he has prescribed. We attribute
unto God. We ascribe unto God all glory
and all honor and bow to him. Whether we understand things
we hear relative to him, we bow to him anyhow. And there's a difference between biblical Christianity and present-day
religion. There's a vast chasm between the two, biblical Christianity
that honors God and human present-day twentieth-century
religion. Let me say that biblical Christianity
alone, A-L-O-N-E, biblical Christianity alone honors God. Present-day
religion cannot be compared with biblical Christianity. That is,
what you see and what you hear today, no matter religion, you cannot find it in the Bible. It can't be compared. Most of what's heard from the
pulpit, most of what's heard on the radio, Most of what is
seen on the television is nothing more than religious humanism. If you, per adventure, turn on the television
and there comes a religious program, you can say most of what you
see and most of what you hear from that religious program is
religious humanism. It amounts to poor showmanship
and fleshly excitement. Poor showmanship, fleshly excitement. That's about all that you hear
and you see is religious humanism. Christianity, biblical Christianity
that honors God and ascribes unto God all honor and all glory
and all praise. That Christianity and man-made
religion are as different as truth and error. They're as far
apart as God and error. And one reason
why I draw this conclusion is because it is a fact. And from
what I see and from what I hear, there is no emphasis placed upon
the sovereignty of God, none whatsoever. Human religion does
not emphasize or even much less emphasize, don't even mention
or dwell upon the right of God to rule and no limit to his right. They do not ascribe unto God
this divine majesty of his attribute of sovereignty that he alone
has the right to do as he pleases with his own. Now, there is no
emphasis laid upon that particular aspect of the character of God. So therefore I am led to believe
that most of what we see and what we hear is poor showmanship
and religious excitement. You see, God has not only created,
and the Bible says that in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth, God did it. And after he created, made all
things as they are, he looked upon his creation and he said,
It's good. It's good. Everything. He looked upon it and said, It's
good. And it's good, so I'll rest. And on the seventh day he rested
from his labor. because they were complete. Man
does not rest if the job is not finished. But the job was finished. The works of creation, man, the
moon, and the stars, and the firmament, the seas, the animals,
everything. He saw what was good and pleasing
to his eyes. God, he not only has created,
But he also controls everything that he has brought into existence,
everything that he's created he controls. God does. Man doesn't do it. Can't control the weather. We
don't know from one minute to the next. You don't know how
long your life is. We live and act as though we,
you know, it's going to make it to 65. We act like sometimes we're going
to make it to 105. But we have no control. We don't know the
least. I mean, you can choke on your
own spit. You can be sleeping and have a sigh of sprainage
and choke right there in bed, turn blue, be dead in the morning,
be dead long before morning. Well, I only have to say that
just in order to impress upon you, you know, that God, God
creates and He controls what He creates. He's in control now. He's in, them 500,000 soldiers
over there in the far, far east, Saudi Arabia. I mean, that thing
hadn't got out of control. United States, people are worried
to death. And I know we're responsible
creatures and all that, and we do have certain aspects of our
nature that cause us to long and desire for the security of
our own loved ones and our friends and neighbors and folks. But
our worry and fret and all that's not going to change anything.
Only God can change things. God's in complete control. He's
in complete control of Sodom. That guy can't move a finger
apart from God. God has raised him up because
he's part of God's eternal purpose. God's doing something. We call
it nature. But it's not nature, it's God
working in an ordinary way. He raised up Pharaoh for what? He raised him up to kill him. He said, I have raised him up
to show forth my power. He is a little old insignificant
Egyptian that thought he was somebody. God said, I'm going
to make my power known. I raised him up for this reason.
I'll bring him down here to the Red Sea and I'll drown him. I'll
drown him and all of his people. And my people on the other side,
on dry land, the children of Israel, Moses and Miriam and
all the rest of them will take their timbrels and they'll sing,
God hath unhorsed this man and throwed the rider into the sea. And they'll just sing and praise
God. You see, what I'm trying to say
is that the aspect, this great characteristic of Almighty God, of being sovereign, being able
to do as he pleases, there's no emphasis placed upon it in
human religion. Therefore, I know that it's a
man-made religion because true preaching It's true preaching,
and I'm not saying that I'm a great preacher, God forbid. I'm not. I'm not. Between a one and a
ten, I'm about three-quarters as far as a great preacher is
concerned. But I know something about preaching. You don't have
to be a great preacher to know something about preaching. I
know something about preaching. I know preaching is this. I know
this. that preaching is only, in the
psalm and substance, the bottom line, preaching is only telling
back to God what God has said about himself. That's true preaching. And that's what I'm trying to
do. I'm trying to tell back to God what God says in his word
about himself, that he's sovereign. That no man can stay his hand.
that no man can resist his will. That's all I'm saying. And that's what they said in
the Bible. I'm saying that God is not only created, but he controls
everything he brings into existence, and that includes you and I,
everything. The eternal, sovereign God, has
a purpose behind all the events in history. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
was that an accident? Did that happen apart from the
fixed foreknowledge of God? Was God's eye upon it? Did God
deliberately turn his back and let that happen? Or did God plan the whole thing? The Bible says that God planned
the whole thing. He said he predestined and predetermined
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was and is the greatest
event in human history. Is that God? poured out his wrath
against sin upon his own son because sin was charged to him. Who knew no sin? Was he behind
that event? He certainly was. Let me read
something to you here. It is not something that you
have read more times than I have, but I will read it anyhow since
I thought of it here. somewhere in the book of Acts.
Listen to this. In the second chapter, it says
this, Ye men of Israel, 22nd verse, Ye men of Israel, this
is Peter doing the preaching on the death pen, this is Pentecostal
preaching. This is what Pentecostal preaching
is. Pentecostal preaching is not speaking in tongues, unknowing
gibberish language, going through all kinds of gyrations and physical
movements. That's not Pentecostal preaching.
This is Pentecostal preaching right here. Ye men of Israel,
hear these words. That's Peter speaking. I want
you to hear what I've got to say. I've got something from
God and I want to tell you about it. Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God. A man! He's never God as much as God
as if he's never man. God become a man. This man, one
of us, the surety of our salvation, the captain of our salvation,
is a man. He's a man. It says he is a man approved of
God. God approved this man. A man
approved of God among you. by miracles and wonders and signs,
which God did by him in the midst of you as ye yourselves know."
You know, this is right. Him, this man that God approved. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. How did he get into their
wicked hands and crucify him? He was delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. God used these wicked men in
the fulfillment of his eternal purpose. He's behind all the
events in history. This is not isolated. It's all
through the Bible. It says, "...ye have taken, and
by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Then he says, "...whom
him God hath raised up," raised him from the dead, "...having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
beholden of it. It was not possible according
to God's eternal purpose. There must be one who would offer
himself as a perfect sacrifice, bear the sins of many, give his
people his righteousness freely, be buried in a rich man's tomb
and stay there three days and be raised from the dead and go
yonder to God's right hand to ever make intercession for his
people with his own blood. Death can't hold this man. He
accomplishes something by his death. He accomplishes the redemption
of his people. So you see what I'm talking about?
That the eternal sovereign God has a purpose behind all the
events in history. God is omniscient. Nothing takes God by surprise. He wasn't surprised when these
religious fanatics of the Jews took the Lord Jesus Christ and
said, beat him, whip him, kill him, we'll not have this
man to rule us. God wasn't taken by surprise. All the events from before the
foundation of the world was working unto this particular event when
God himself invades human history in the body of a man. What for? To redeem his people and to glorify himself through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. I say, brethren, that no one thwarts the eternal
purpose of God, up against this awesome, infinite
power. Power! God has power to speak,
and out of nothing comes something. And he takes the something that
comes out of nothing and fashions it into something that pleases
him. What power! What awesome power! He holds the keys of death and
hell. Who can take from him the keys
that unlocks? He shut up and no man opened. It's this God that we have to
do. I told you this morning some
people say, well, You're making God out to be a monster. Well,
I'm not, but if that's what a man believes, then they're going
to have to deal with the monster. See what I'm talking about? No
one thwarts his purpose. No one slips up on his blind
side because he has no blind side. There's no modifications
in the mind and the heart There's nothing that happens that happens
by chance. It's all by God's predestined
eternal purpose that he purposed in himself before time ever was. Nothing happens by chance. I'll
read one verse to you. I'll read it again over here
in chapter 11. of the book of Romans, verse
36. You don't have to turn to it, just listen as I read it.
It says, First it says, Who hath first given to him? God will not be a receiver. Man would make God to be a receiver,
but God's not a receiver, He's a giver. And He says, If I ever
needed anything, He said, I wouldn't ask you. But he'll accept the least gift
that you give out of a heart that understands that what you've
given me, God, I give to you. But first it all comes to you. Who hath first given to him,
it shall be recompensed unto him again. Now listen to this,
for of him, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ
and to Jesus Christ are all things. Why? To whom be glory forever
and ever and ever. God must be glorified and will
be glorified. He cannot be glorified if we
don't know who he is. God, I'll just stay with me a
minute or two and I'll quit. God's eternal purpose includes
the work of the Divine Trinity in man's salvation. The Trinity,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The three
in one, one, three in one. One God, three persons. God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, yet distinct
in themselves, equal, co-equal, I am the Father all one, Jesus
said. Show us the Father, Philip said.
He said, I go to the Father. He said, Philip said, why, show
us the Father. He said, Philip. Philip said,
you've been with me for all these months, day in, day out. You've
been with me all this time and you still say, show us the Father. Why, Philip, He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father. I am the Father of one. You say,
I don't understand it. I don't either. But I enjoy it. And I believe it. I don't understand
it. I'd be the biggest fool there
ever was if I'd say I could understand the Trinity. I can't understand
how God become a man. I can't. It's a great mystery. God become a man. Why did he
become a man? To save his people. He could
only save his people through a man. So he become a man. He took our nature without our
sinful nature. He took a nature as a man. Well,
listen, I said that God's eternal purpose includes the work of
the divine trinity and man's salvation. Number one, the Bible
says in Ephesians 1 and 4, and you can look at it if you want
to. I'll read it. You've heard it hundreds of times
from this place. But let me read it to you again. Ephesians 1 and 4. It says this. It says, Grace
be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us, as it already
took place, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, for I am
in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world. God the Father chose a certain
number to be saved according as he had chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world. God the Father. The Trinity is
active in the eternal purpose of God and the salvation of his
people. God the Father made the choice.
Is he entitled? Is he right? I mean, is it right
for God to make that choice? God made the choice. If a man's
ever saved, if a man ever experiences the new birth, except a man be
born again, if he ever experiences being born of the Spirit of God,
being converted to God, being redeemed by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ and made accepted in the Beloved, if he ever experiences
what it means to be saved by the grace of God, he can trace
it all back. He can go back step by step by
step by step and he can find that it all started right here.
According as he, as God the Father, has chosen us in Christ Jesus,
the foundation of the world. That's where it all started.
God made the choice. It wasn't, I mean, some folks
say, well, that sounds like election. Well, that's what it is. Some
people try to make light of it. I've read where
men have said, well, there is such a thing as election. They said that God has a vote
and you have a vote. and the devil has a vote. That's what they say. But the devil didn't have any
part in this election. And you and I weren't around.
We weren't even registered to vote. Neither was the devil. It was God that made the choice.
He chose. Does he not say, and I quoted
the scripture to you this morning, does he not say Moses asked him,
he said, Lord, show me your glory. He said, show me your glory. God said, Moses, come up here. And there was a rift in that
rock. And He hit him in the cleft of
the rock. And He said, when I pass by,
I'll let you see my hindquarters. But he said, Show me thy glory.
God said, Undo it. My glory is this. I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. And I harden it whom I will harden. And he said, That's my glory. The glory of God is doing what
he pleases according to his will and he chooses. You say, well,
I wonder why he chooses such people as he does. They have
no, for the most part, they have no respectability. They have nothing that, about
them, character-wise, personally, that God ought to prefer them
over and above others, they are in themselves base things. Why does God do that? Why does
God pick up one here and then skip over others and pick up
another? Why does God do that? God does
that according to his eternal choice. Listen to what he says
here in the book of 1 Corinthians. It says, because the foolishness
of God, and of course we know really there is no foolishness
with God as we understand the word foolishness, but he just
condescends and uses this expression that it might be comprehended
by our peanut mind. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For you see, your calling, brethren, remember I told you the gifts
of God, the gifts and the calling of
God are without repentance. That is, God doesn't change His
mind. He knows what He's doing at the outset. He chooses, He
calls. Those He chooses. in eternity
past, he calls them to himself through the gospel. That's the
only way they can come to God is through the gospel. Jesus
is the gospel. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father except by me,
by my doing and my dying. That's how he calls you. Still
a small voice there. You hear it. You hear it. No
one else hears it. You can't prove it. I couldn't
prove it. I couldn't prove it to the If
my life depended on it, I couldn't prove that I ever received a
call from Almighty God, whom the heavens cannot contain, who
condescended here in time and sought me out and called me unto
himself. I couldn't prove that to nobody.
I don't have to, but it happened. It happened. I heard the voice
of God. It changed my life. These forty-some years changed
my life. Calling. You know what I'm talking
about. For you see, you're calling.
You're calling. Brethren, how but not many wise
men after the flesh. God doesn't call many wise men
after the flesh. Doctors, divinity, PhDs, great
bankers that's got financial geniuses, made fortunes on the
stock market, kings and queens and presidents. Listen, you see,
you're calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty men, not many noble are called. Now, you couldn't put that in
your pipe and smoke it, boy, because that's right. But, God,
have chosen the foolish things of this world. I don't glory in the fact
that I'm a fool, or not to be a fool, or not to be as ignorant
as I am. I don't glory in it. But in light
of this, I'm glad I didn't have all them
brains. God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise. You can take the wisest men in
the world, get them all together, all four of them, put them all
together, put them IQs of 160 some, put them all together there,
and they couldn't come up with a scheme like the scheme of redemption
that God wrought in the Lord Jesus Christ. As a matter of
fact, they can't even understand what you're talking about. When
you start talking about the gospel of substitution, Christ dying
for sinners, God being satisfied through the doing and the dying
of the Lord Jesus, justice and law being satisfied, they don't
know what you're talking about. They don't understand it. Why? Because the gospel is hid, hid
from their eyes and their understanding. The eyes of their understanding
have never been opened. Got to be open. It's foolishness
under them, but it's life and peace under them to believe.
But anyhow, listen, God hath chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise, and hath chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And
the base things of the world, and things which are despised,
hath God chosen things which are not. to bring to nothing
things that are. Why? That no flesh should rise
up and say, I had part in my redemption. That no flesh should
glory in his presence. Folks that believe that it's
their free will that brought them unto God are going to find
out, And they stand before God because no man's going to share
in God's salvation. Oh, listen. Election is the eternal
secret until conversion is realized. And it's free and it's particular
and it's definite. God the Son purchased our salvation
for a sheep at Calvary on that tree. He says in John 10, I laid down my life for the sheep. No man takes my life from me. I laid down that I might take
it up. He's God. He's all God and he's
all man. He said, I'll lay it down. He's
the only one who has power to lay his life down. We can't lay
our life down. God's going to lay our life down.
When the time comes, in due time, we're all going to die, unless
God comes first. But in due time, generally speaking,
all of us are going to die. We're going to die. Some are
going to die in their sleep. Some's going to die driving their
car with a heart attack, some's going to die in the hospital,
some's going to die out on the job, some's going to die a peaceful
death, some's going to die a violent death, but we're all going to
die and we won't have a thing to do with it. But the eternal
Son of God, He said, no man takes my life from me. I lay it down. I might take it out. I lay down
my life for the sheep, for my sheep, for the people that God
chose before time ever was. They're His sheep! The eternal
purpose of God is to call out His sheep unto Himself. Listen to me now. Our Lord Jesus
Christ did not purchase a salvation for all men. without exception. He didn't do it. These preachers
are lying. They're telling men that God
did something that he didn't do. They say, they're telling people
that God loves everybody. Without exception, God loves
everybody. Christ died for everybody. God
loves everybody and Christ died for everybody. Everybody from
Adam on down to the last will be saved. But hell's full of
people. If God loves everybody, why does
man die and go to hell? If God loves. What kind of love
is that? That's not the truth. It was never God's eternal purpose
to save all mankind without exception. It wasn't the purpose of the
Lord Jesus Christ to die in the stead of all men without exception. It was his purpose to die for
his sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never
perish. Oh no, He didn't purchase a possible
salvation for all mankind without exception, but He did purchase
a certain salvation for His sheep. Well, isn't that something? God
the Holy Spirit, what does He do? He regenerates all whom the
Father elected and all whom the Son redeemed and died for. He
regenerates them. They're dead in trespasses and
in sins. They're against God. They hate
God. They won't retain the thought of God in their minds. If they've
got any religion, it's a human religion. It's a religion that
they've adapted or adopted by somebody or adapted to. That's
all it is. It's just hearsay. Ain't no truth
in what they believe. The actual true and living God
they despise. They would be the first to pick
up a rock to stone him. But they must be regenerated.
They must be quickened. They're dead towards God. They're
dead in trespasses and in sins. Something's got to happen to
them. There's got to be a miracle wrought in their hearts. They've
got to turn from one direction to another. They got to turn
from the love of self to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. They regenerated. They're partakers
of the nature of God. Now, I don't know how it takes
place. God's sovereign in his disposal of his gifts. And the
Bible says, Nicodemus said, well, how can these things be? Jesus
said to him, said, well, marvel not, Nicodemus. He said, I know
you're amazed at what I'm saying, but no need to marvel at it.
Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. He cannot see the kingdom of God except he is born again.
How can these things be? Nicodemus said, can a man become
a baby again and crawl back into his mother's womb and be born
a second time? And our Lord didn't even answer the question. He just said, except a man be
born again. He said, the wind bloweth where
it wants to. He said, you can hear the sound
there, but you can't see it. That's what he said. You can
see the effects of the wind. My God, it will just take the
leaves off of the tree and bend the trees over, but you can't
see it. You don't even know where it's coming from. You say it's
coming from that direction, the next thing you know it's coming
this way. You hear the sound, but you can't see it. God said
that's the way this man born again is. Mysterious, isn't it? Mysterious. Ah, if you're a recipient of
it, Oh, if God has made you His choice,
and He's in His due time, according to His mercy, if He's made you
a vessel of mercy, and He's quickened you, changed your desires and
attitudes, turned you from this direction to that direction,
my God, we ought to fall down into the dust from which we came
and praise Him and give him honor and glory
for not walking by us and passing us by. Oh, listen, sinners have
no part in their salvation from the guilt and penalty of sin.
They have no part. Let's ask man's part. He's got
no part. He's very passive in all this.
God does it all from person to man. You say, but I come to church
and I heard it. How come you come to church at
night? How come you was in a place that you was in where you overheard
the good news of Christ dying for sinners? How come? Go back. How come? You'll have to say,
it was because of God in his providence so arranging things
that I'd be at the right place at the right time. I've told this story and tell
it again real quick to emphasize this. A fellow I know, he's a
good friend of mine. He and his wife, young, handsome,
handsome man and a handsome wife. Family, good jobs. Home, money
in the bank. And they both said they loved
the Lord. And gave evidence that they did.
Always attended church. This is the gospel. Lives respected. One time something got a hold
of this man. I don't know what it was. Something
got a hold of him. And he began to think that his
pretty wife was unfaithful to him. And the more he dwelt upon
that, the crazier it became. And he got to the place that
he just said, uh-uh. He got a detective. Hired a detective
to follow his wife. His wife was just working like
a dog. That's all she's doing. Had no aspirations for any other
man. Loved him. But anyhow, he pursued this and
finally moved out. And far as I'm with, he found
himself a girlfriend. And he's going down the road
towards Huntington, West Virginia. There's a big cliff there. There's
a big rock laying up on top of that cliff. The people that lived
in that area said they'd been there for a hundred and some
years. Ever since that cut was made, that rock was right up
there. Never had fallen. Millions and millions of cars
went by that rock. He come by there one night, and just as he got it to the
right place at the right time, That rock fell right on top of
its God, and he went out to meet the God that made him. See what I'm talking about? Time,
time, time, time, time. When we believe, trust in the Lord
Jesus, it's due to the working of His prophets. bringing us
at the right place at the right time. It is all of God. Sinners have no part in their
salvation from the guilt and penalty of sin. The glory of
God's salvation of sinners cannot be shared with anybody, especially
with those that he saves. Now, if man could take the credit
for his salvation, then it would not be by grace, Many think that the chief attribute
of God is love, and that's not necessarily so. The truth is
that Jesus Christ died on that tree in order that the demands
of God's holiness and love might be met. Mercy desired to save
the elect, but justice had to be satisfied. You see, mercy desired to save
the sinner, but justice, which is an attribute of God, justice
said, no, you cannot save apart from justice being satisfied. So justice then must be satisfied
before mercy can operate. And here is where the love of
God stepped in and provided a substitute in the Lord Jesus Christ who
satisfied God's justice. May the Lord be pleased to bless
His Word to our hearts.