Chapter of the Book of Peter.
I'm going to read the whole chapter if it's alright. Peter, an apostle
of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontius,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Benithia. Elect. One said, understand why they
preached on election. Well, one reason why they do
is because it's in the Bible. That's the first reason. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. According to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you
and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder Peter kind of rose
to the occasion here with that expression of blessed is the,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. He knew something
about that eternal election, that eternal choice that God
made in himself before time ever was. Boy, if God doesn't will
our salvation, there'll be no salvation for any of us. If we
claim, if we claim justice, if we claim justice before God,
we'll get nothing but eternal separation, eternal destruction. The grace of God is the basis
of our salvation. God's free choice. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Peter said. Which,
according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
You notice who hath begotten us? Which, according to his abundant
mercy, hath begotten us. God hath begotten us to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away, reserved in
heaven for you." Notice that expression, fadeth not away. That means it will never diminish. The inheritance, John Mitchell
mentioned it here last Sunday, He talked about the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ which is imputed to us, which is due
a reward. That righteousness that we have
is imputed. And it's due a reward. And this
speaks of that reward. Not a reward for our doing, but
a reward for the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ And
it's an inheritance. We're heirs of God and joint
heirs with Jesus Christ. All things are yours, Paul said. All things are yours. All that
Christ has, all that Christ is, belongeth to those that he represents,
his people. So he says to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away, does not Notice
in the 24th verse and that last expression there, which this
24th verse is indicative of man at his best state. It says, For all flesh is as
grass, verse 24. and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the
flower thereof fadeth away." What happens to the flower? What
happens to the grass? The grass withereth and the flower
diminishes. The flower fades away. Man fades away. Now he says that this inheritance
that the believer has in the Lord Jesus Christ does not fade
away. It does not diminish. It does
not lose its luster. It's reserved. Notice that word. It's reserved where at? Where Christ is. No one can break through and
steal where Christ is. No one can take a man's inheritance
away. The Lord Jesus Christ has now
a seat of honor. He is seated on the right hand
of God the Father. That's a place of honor and majesty
and dignity and a place of power. No man can creep or sneak into
the throne room of God and open the books of God's divine election
which are chained and fastened to the throne of God. So this inheritance, Peter says,
is incorruptible and undefiled and fadeth not away and it's
reserved. That word reserved means it's
kept. It's kept in where Jesus is for
you. It's kept there. It's safe. It's secure. There ought to be
a comfort there to us this morning to know, if we be in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that there is an inheritance awaiting us. It's there where Christ is. Thieves
cannot break through and steal, but it's kept, reserved, reserved. You buy a ticket to the basketball
game or something, and you buy it ahead of time. And you say,
well, I want a reserve seat. Well, they give you a ticket,
and it says row number H, seat number 6. And when you go there,
the usher takes you to row number H, Seat number six, and if there's
someone in it, he tells them to get out because this seat
is kept for you, reserved for you. That's what that means.
Now notice the fifth verse. It says, who? Who is he talking
about? The elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God, who are kept by the power of God. Those that are really and genuinely
saved, they have no fear of falling away and becoming lost, because
they're secure as God is secure. A man that's in Christ is just
as secure as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We're kept by the power
of God, that power that spake into existence this world out
of nothingness, and who could call into existence ten thousand
worlds like this? out of nothing. We're kept by
that power. We've seen the power of God in
creation. You just read the first two or
three chapters of the book of Genesis, and you'll see the power
of God. that He created out of nothing,
all that we see and all that we enjoy. That's power. That's
power. No one has power like that. All
of the gods combined have not power like that. Of course, we
know there's no God except the God of Abraham and the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob. But we're kept now. Kept. That
word kept is the same as the word reserved. We're kept. by the mighty power of God, through
faith, which is a gift of God. We're kept by the power of God
through faith. Faith is the means, it's the
look, it's the hand that joins us to Jesus Christ, and we're
kept through that faith. Remember now, faith is not something
that is original with any of us. Faith is a gift of God. God gives us faith. And we're
kept through the faith that God gives us unto salvation. We're kept. Boy, there's no doubt
in my mind about that. We're kept by the power of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
not going to lose a single solitary sheep that He died for on Golgotha's
He's not going to lose one. If he loses one, if he loses
you, Bob, if he loses you and you die and go and be eternally
separated from God, the first thing the devil will do, will
take you and parade you around and say, looky here, here's one
that he couldn't keep. He couldn't keep him. I got him. He couldn't. So it would be a
dishonor and a disgrace to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're secure. We're kept by
the power of God. He's going to keep us. He'll
turn this world upside down. He'll blow this world up by what
He keeps His people. Not one of His sheep shall ever
finally be lost. And I'll tell you why. Because
He paid the price. He paid the price that righteousness
and the law demanded. And the law must loose them and
let them go. Turn them loose and let them
go. I paid the price. We're redeemed. The chapter says,
not with metals, not with silver and gold, but we are redeemed
with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that blood
speaketh. It crieth certainly far louder
than the blood of Abel, that righteous blood of Abel that
cried out for vengeance. Much more the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The blood points. that I died
for him, he's mine, I purchased his redemption. We're kept by
the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though
now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen ye love." You haven't seen him, but you love him. The only reason you love him
is because an operation, a work of God's Holy Spirit in your
heart. God withered our ungodly natures
and brought us down to our nothingness that we might see Him who is
altogether lovely. And we love Him. Whom having
not seen ye love, ye love him. In whom though now ye see him
not, yet believe him. haven't seen him only through
the eyes of faith, yet you believe. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your soul. Of which salvation the prophets
have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you. Searching what or what manner
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow, unto whom it was revealed that
Not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things
which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the
gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,
which things the angels desired to look unto." Wherefore, that
is, wherefore means in light of. in light of what we have
said, in light of what has taken place, in light of these tremendous
and important statements made by the Holy Ghost to us and about
us. Therefore, or in light of this,
do gird up the loins of your mind. Get that thing together. What is it they say nowadays,
these guys? These intellectual fellows talking
about getting their minds together. You've got to get your head together.
It's all messed up, you know. Not doing this, not doing that.
Well, I've got to get my head together. Well, what they're
really talking about is this right here. Girding up the loins
of your mind. Get that thing together. Get
your thinking right. Put your thinking cap on. Get
it right. Get to looking at things in proper
perspective. I always have said that no man
could have any comfort or any satisfaction of, well, it would
only be temporary. It wouldn't be any permanent
satisfaction or any permanent happiness that did not know the
Lord Jesus Christ because He does not have any purpose in
life. There's no purpose in this whole thing if Jesus Christ be
not the object of our worship and the object of our love, because
it starts with God and it winds up with God. And if it doesn't
wind up with God in eternal bliss, it's going to wind up being separated
from God in eternal destruction. Therefore, a man who knows not
the Lord Jesus in the pardon and the forgiveness, he has no
purpose in life. None whatsoever. He's just going
through as quick as he can. Or prolonging it as much as he
can. He's only enjoying the temporal
things of this life, which are fleeting. They are like the grass. They are like the leaf that fadeth. Gird up the loins of your mind.
to the believers. He says, gird up the loins of
your mind, be sober, be sober, be serious, be serious. Remember,
you only got one soul. Only got one. Boy, if it doesn't
have a covering, it's going to wind up. Be sober and hope to
the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. That
is, don't go back to that which you've been delivered from. Do
not be like the dog that returns to the vomit, or the hog that
returns to his wallowing in the mire. You have been delivered
from that. Don't go back. Don't go back. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but
as he which hath called you is holy." That's God. He called
us. He called us out of this dark,
dismal, dreary world, out of this dark, dreary, dismal self-love
and selfishness. He called us. We heard his voice. We said, Here I am, Lord. He
said, come, we responded to the come, we embraced him. He called
us, he called us. But as he which hath called you,
he calls them one at a time. He called you, he called me.
He called you, and he called others, and he's going to call
more. He calls them one at a time. It's not a vast general calling. which calls them by the thousands
at one time. That is, they all hear the same,
and He calls them one at a time. Because it is written, Be ye
holy, for I am holy. For if you call on the Father,
who without respect of persons judget according to every man's
work past the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as
ye know that ye were not redeemed, that is, you were not Redeemed
means bought back. You are not redeemed with corruptible
things, things that tarnish, things that are not enduring,
things that are not lasting. As silver and gold, from your
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
that wasn't the way you were redeemed. Remember this, gird
up the loins of your minds, get this thing straight. is redeemed
with the precious blood of a lamb, a lamb, not the lamb, but a lamb,
there's only one. With the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot. That's what
it took. for our redemption. A lamb without
blemish and a lamb without spot. That is, a man, a God-man without
sin. They have no sin. Sin on Him,
but no sin in Him. The Prince of this world come
up and findeth nothing in me, the Lord Jesus said. No sin in
Him. No sin in Him. God demands a
perfect sacrifice. Remember, I've told you time
and time again that God hath said, in effect, that he will
not speak to or be spoken to by any member of the human race
apart from a divine sacrifice or substitute. God will not.
He will not speak to you or you will not speak to him apart from
a substitute. God demands absolute perfection. He will not accept anything short
of what He is. He is absolutely perfect. He
will not take anything in a sliding scale apart from His perfection.
The Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself. for the sins of His
people, offered Himself. God honored, God recognized,
God accepted that sacrifice in that He raised Him from the dead.
He was without spot, without blemish, no sin in Him. Perfect, absolutely perfect.
That staggers, that defies my very thinking. Boy, it's got
to be by faith. Only a fool would think otherwise.
Only a fool would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Only a fool. We're fools for
Christ's sake. That's what Peter said. And only
a fool could believe, a fool or an idiot, would believe that
Jesus Christ was without sin. Man, it was born of a woman. Born of a woman. Housed in the
womb of the Virgin Mary. came forth, lived in this life,
associated himself with men and women, was harmless and undefiled,
without spot and without blemish, a perfect sacrifice, a perfect
man, the only perfect man that ever lived was the Lord Jesus,
the only real man, the only mature man, the only all-around man
was the Lord Jesus Christ, and he gave himself in the stead
and place and room of His people. Well, listen to this now. Who
does that have reference to? It has reference to the Lamb,
who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.
That is, before time was, back in eternity, before there was
the Why you can't even find a starting place in all of this? God had
determined. God had determined. For ordained. Verse 21. Who by Him? I who, by him, the Lord Jesus
Christ, do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead,
and gave him glory, that is, the Lord Jesus, that your faith
and hope might be in God, seeing ye have purified your souls in
obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto unfeigned love of
the brethren. See that ye love one another
with a pure heart, fervently, being born again, not of corruptible
seeds, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of a man as the flower of grass." That's what
we are in our best state. The grass withereth, and the
flower thereof fadeth away. the word of the living God, but
the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you." All right. From what I've read thus far,
at least in the latter part of this first chapter of the book
of Peter, it tells us that If there's an example for us to
follow, it's Him, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, "...because it is written,
Be ye holy, for I am holy. But as He which hath called you
is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." And
it tells us here that He was this precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. You know, the very moment that
I try to imitate or copy the life of another human, I lose
that which is an honor to me and a glory and glory to God. And that's my individuality. And so many people in our day
is trying to copy somebody else, trying to be somebody that they're
not. Just be yourself. and emulate or copy the Lord
Jesus Christ. Don't try to be like somebody
else. You can't be some... Well, you might like to read
of some of the Puritans and some of the great men and women of
God in days gone by, and you read and see their lives as depicted
on the printed page, and you say, I'll copy my life after
that. But if you do, you lose. You
lose that which is an honor to you, and glory to God, which
is your individuality. If I become a copy, you'll find
out that a copy is always inferior. It's not for real, it's just
a copy. It's inferior to the real thing. The moment I try
to mold my life after another person, I lose that which is
power to me, and that's my personality. God uses personalities. So don't
lose yours. There's not another one like
it in the topside of God's green earth. Hold on to it. Don't sell out. Don't give it
up. God made me as I am to serve in his body and to accomplish
his purpose and to glorify his name. And there is not in all
the history of our race a single person whom I would bid you or
myself to mold our life in their image. There is not a single
biography. I would have you read and say,
I will relive this man's life. To imitate other men is weakness
and it will forfeit God's purpose for you and I. Let's don't try
to imitate other men. Let's be ourselves. Let's not
lose our individuality. Let's not lose our personalities.
Let's be who we are. I can't be Henry Mahan, and Henry
Mahan can't be me. I can't be John Mitchell, and
John Mitchell can't be me. I can't be Stanley Borders, and
Stanley Borders can't be me. God's got a use for Stanley Borders,
and God's got a use for me. God's got a use for Henry Mahan,
and God's got a use for John Mitchell, and God's got a use
for me. I can't be them, and they can't be me. I must be me.
I must retain my individuality and my personality. God uses
that. God uses that. Yet there is one model. There
is one model. One that you can imitate, one
that you can copy and strive to be like in every jot and every
tittle. That's our Lord Jesus Christ.
Four things I want to say to you this morning in regard to
our model, in regard to Him. who loved us and gave himself
for us. If you'll turn with me to Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter
8, you'll find out that this verse that I'm about to read
to you, the 29th verse, you'll find out that to imitate, to
copy, and to strive to be like, In every jot and every tittle,
this is God's purpose for you and this is God's purpose for
me. Not to be like the preacher, not to be like Bob Wilson or
Fred Clevenger or Glenn Shreve. Not to copy their lives. Whose
lives are we to copy? We're to copy the life of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because this is God's purpose
for you and God's purpose for me. That's what this verse says.
Verse 29, For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate. Now who did he foreknow? I read
to you here in the book of 1 Peter, the elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. God has foreknown a people. His people. They are a covenant
people. They are the people for whom
Christ came and died for. He became their surety. His people. Now listen to this
now. Moreover, whom He did predestinate. Those that He predestinated before
time ever was. Them He also called. And whom
He called, them He also justified. and whom he justified them he
also glorified." Now let me go back up in verse 29. "...for
whom he did foreknow, but also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren." Now, what is the purpose of God for each one
of us? To be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're going to copy anybody? Let's copy Him, Christ our Redeemer. The best person that ever lived
on the top side of this globe was the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's
emulate, let's imitate, let's strive after to copy Him in every
jot and every tittle. Let's be like Christ. Let's be
like the Lord. Let this mind be in you! Paul
said to the Philippians, that was in Christ Jesus. Who thought
it not robbery? be made equal with God. Let this
same mind that's in Christ be in you. Let's be gentle. Let's be kind.
Let's be tender. Let's be bold. Let's be forceful. Let's be like the Savior. Let's
be like Jesus. Well, that's what the Bible tells
us here. It tells us here that we're to
be conformed to the image of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, and secondly, This is
the work of the Holy Spirit in you. We're being conformed to
the image of Christ daily. And we'll realize that one day,
not in this life, but we'll make some progress towards that end.
It's what, well, of course, the theologians call that sanctification. We're daily being conformed to
the image of the Lord Jesus, and it is the result of the work
of the Spirit of God in our lives. He's working in our lives to
bring about the conformity of the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I said we'll not realize it completely in this life. These
people that say that they're without sin are saying that they
have realized this conformity in its entirety and completeness
while they're in this life, and that's not so. The man that makes
the most or bribes the most about his perfection talks too much. He goes too far. He's not perfect. He never will be until this is
concluded. And this will not be concluded
until he dies. But he'll make some progress
in it, and this progress is the work of the Spirit of God. Turn
with me there to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, I believe it is, and
verse 18. Listen to this verse, and I think
this is evidence that this is the work of the Holy Spirit in
you. It says we are, in the latter part of that 18th verse, it says
Behold, we all, with an open face, beholding as in a glass
the glory of God, are changed into the same image from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the living God, or the Spirit
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we've found out so far that
we need to copy the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, every jot
and every tittle of his life, and this is God's purpose for
us, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And thirdly,
this is the desire of every believer. Now, that's right, it is the
desire of every one of us. Who is a believer in Christ?
Now, some may have a greater desire than others, but all have
a desire. Or if we say that this is not
the desire, or if we say, well, I don't have that desire, then
we're saying that the work of the Spirit is not effectual in
us, and in fact, we're just denying that we were born again of the
Word of God. Well, let me read to you from
the 17th Psalm. Psalm 17. Psalm 17 and verse 15. Now this is the prayer of David,
and David is no different than any one of us. He is a man with
the same symptoms that you and I have. Same likes and dislikes
and so forth. He is a man. But now listen to
what David said, and I think that you'll see that to be conformed
to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ is the desire. It's the
purpose of God in our lives. So the Spirit of God works in
our lives to bring about this effect, and part of the work
of the Spirit is implanting this desire in our lives to be like
Christ. We have a desire. If you have
no desire this morning, you've got trouble. You've got trouble.
If I have no desire to be like Christ, I've got trouble. That's all
there is to it. Listen to what old David said, ask for me, ask
for me. I will behold thy face in righteousness,
and I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. My
desire, he said, is to be like you. That's my desire, and that's
the desire of every believer. And fourthly now, this is an
inward work. Let me read something to you
here in the book of Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter
3 and verse number 5. I haven't got the right verse,
but the verse I want is this. I thought it was the third chapter
there, but it's not. The verse that I want is this.
I quoted part of it to you just a little bit ago. Let this mind
be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Chapter 2. What verse was it? 5? Hell, I was pretty close, wasn't
I? I looked at the wrong one. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought
it not, robbery to be equal with God. Let this mind be in you.
The desire of every believer is to be like the Lord Jesus
Christ. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. It's an inward work. Let this
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Now listen, changing my
way of dress, that is, the way I dress, that will not make me
like Christ. Now some people, you know, they
won't wear any lipstick, and I mean that's their problem. I mean, I'm not going to set
up any rules or regulations as to whether a woman ought to wear
any lipstick or any makeup on her cheeks or whether she ought
to comb her hair this way or that way or whether a man ought
to shave or not to shave or whether a man ought to wear a black suit
or a blue suit or white shoes or red socks. I don't make up
no rules or regulations because I know this. The way a man dresses
or the way a woman dresses will not make them like the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's an inward thing. It's not
the outward. There's a lot of stress upon
that in this life. The fundamentalists of our day
put a lot of stress on it. Thou shalt not do this, not do
that. And all they become is a legalist. When it's all over with, they
become a legalist. They're like a Pharisee. The
Pharisee, what did he say? He has the same principle that
the fundamentalist has today. The Pharisee said, I thank God
that I'm not like him. I don't do that and I don't do
this. And they began to measure their goodness by another man's
weakness. They say, well, I pray so many hours a day. The Pharisees
say, I go up in the temple and I pray three hours a day or twice
a day, and I give a tithe of all that I have, and I know the
Scriptures, and I do this and I do that. What I'm saying, it's
an inward work. It's an inward work. It's a working
inside where a man lives, the true man, the true man, down
there where he lives. It has to do with attitude. has
to do with a man's attitude. You can tell generally what kind
of a man a man is by his attitude. His attitude. His attitude towards
God. His attitude towards God's people.
His attitude towards the Bible. You can tell what kind of a man
he is, whether he's trustworthy. His attitude. I'll tell you, changing my way
of dress will not make me like the Lord
Jesus Christ. No, sir. Changing my speech to
say, thee and thou will not make me like the Lord Jesus Christ. Heard a fellow say the other
day, said that his grandmother, who was a godly old woman, said
she always said thee and thou. She said, all of her life, she
said, thee, and she said, thou, and she said, thine, thee, thou,
and thine. And he said, Grandmother, why don't
you talk like other people? Well, she said, I want to use
the language of Jesus. That's the way Jesus talked.
No, that's not the way Jesus talked. That's the way the King
James translators talked. You see, in 1611 or 1631, whenever
they translated the Bible, in the English from the Latin and
the Greek and the Hebrew, there was a high English and a low
English. That is the spoken language in
England. And so they translated it in
what's known as a high English, a high class type of talk, grammar. And they said, Thee Thou and
Thine. And she said thee, thou, and thine all the time because
she wanted to talk like Jesus. But Jesus didn't talk like that.
Jesus was a Jew. And Jesus, in all probability,
spoke in the Jewish language, the Hebrew. Well, what I'm trying to say is this.
This is an inward work, this which we've talked about here
this morning. It's an inward work. It's the work of the Spirit
of God in us, and changing the way I dress, and changing the
way I talk, and changing the place that I live. That is my
living quarters, moving from this place to another place,
or even changing my place of worship. A lot of people, well
I listened to a fellow on the radio or the television here
the other day, I think he was one of these I believe he was a minister,
he said, of the People's Temple. It had to do with these people
that committed suicide over there in South Africa. He said that
he was a minister. Had been with this guy for, oh,
the biggest part of 20 years. Joined up with his group in Indiana.
Was impressed by what he'd done, helping the poor. the interracial
equality of the congregation and so forth, and he said he'd
become a minister in the people's temple. And they asked him a
little bit about his background, and he said, well, he said, I
was kind of interested in religion, but he said, I've become disappointed
in religion and the religion of my mother and father because,
he said, they were always jumping from one place to another. He
said, they were always getting out of this church and going
to another church. He said, just going from one church after another. And he said, I've become disenchanted
with religion in general. I saw the hypocrisy of it and
saw the hypocrisy in the lives of my mother and my father is
what he meant. Jumping from one church to another. Well, what
I'm saying is, jumping from one church to another, Change in
your way of dress, change in your speech, even change in cities
will not make you like Jesus Christ. Now boy, that's the truth. It won't do it. You can move
from here if you want to. You can say, well, this church
is not doing me no good. You can move, but it will not make
you like the Lord Jesus Christ just because you move. You can
say, well, I can't have no fellowship here. I'm going to move to another
city. I'm going up north or I'm going down south. Well, you go.
You go. But it will not make you any
more like the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an inward thing. That's
what I'm saying. It's an inward thing. It's the work of the Spirit
of God in your heart and in your soul. I must be given a new heart and
a mind by God's Spirit, or I'll never be conformed to the image
of the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of how I talk and regardless
of where I live and regardless of the language that I use. If God gives me His Spirit and
gives me the mind of Christ, then I'm going to be conformed
to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. an assembly, it's got
5 people or 55 people or 555 people if it's in the remotest
corner of West Virginia or in the largest city in the world. It doesn't have anything to do
with where you are, who you are, how you dress, all that. It's
do you have the mind of Christ? Has God given you and me the
mind of the Lord Jesus Christ? Has He given us a new heart?
Have we been born of the Spirit of God? Do we really, honestly,
sincerely, genuinely, have we faced the reality of the nothingness
of this old man, and seen the disgust of the soul,
the depravity of our natures, and fled to him who alone is
our refuge? Have we fled to Christ? Have
we really come to Christ? If we have, all things are yours. They're all yours. The purpose
of God for you is to be conformed to the image of Christ. It's
the inward work. It's the work of the Spirit of
God. And it will be your desire and it will be realized. Isn't
that right? God's purpose won't be thwarted. You know, I heard some preacher
say one time, he said, well, he didn't believe in this doctrine,
once saved, always saved. He didn't believe that. Ah, no. He said, that was born in hell.
Even though the Lord Jesus Christ said, and I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish, that man looked right into the
face of the living God and said, that doctrine is born in hell,
once saved, always saved. Well, I believe that. I believe
once saved, always saved. I don't believe that anything
will thwart the purpose of God. If God hath sent His Son, and
His Son hath sealed my redemption with His blood, God will not
demand payment twice for that which I owe. If Christ paid my
due, God will not demand that I pay. Well, I hope this has been of
some help to you. Been a help to me. Been a help.