Trying to adjust the temperature,
it feels a little warm in here to me. Y'all okay? Okay. All right, brethren, let's, I
bet people think I'm up here on my phone texting and everything
else, but I control my hearing aids with my phone, the air conditioner's
controlled, the heat's controlled with the phone, and I'm a high-tech
redneck, so I can't help it. Alright, brethren, let's look
here now. Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. Our title is,
The Lord Performs All. The Lord Performs All. And I'll
show you where I get that. The Lord Performs All. We get
it from verse 37. The angel told Mary, With God
nothing shall be impossible, And then down in verse 45, the
Spirit says to Mary, blessed is she that believed, for there
shall be a performance of those things which were told her from
the Lord. So I tell that the Lord performs
all. With God, nothing shall be impossible. The Lord shall perform all things
that were told us from the Lord. And we get an illustration here
of the miracles of God's grace that He works in His people.
We get an illustration of these miracles of God's grace that
He works in all His people in Mary, and Elizabeth, and John
the Baptist. Now, we're going to see Mary,
Elizabeth, John the Baptist, but the focus is Christ. Christ
is the promised seed in Mary's womb, but He's God working everything
taking place here. everything taking place here. The angel told Mary she would
bear the promised seed. We're picking up right where
we left off last week. When the angel told her she would
bear the promised seed, this was Mary's spirit right here.
She said, verse 38, Behold the handmaid of the Lord. I'm yours. Do with me as you will. That's
what she's saying. Be it unto me according to thy
word. Whatever Whatever your lot right
now, whatever you're facing right now, whatever the circumstances
in your life are right now, God did it. Christ did it. The one
we claim to believe did it. It's all of His hand. And He
says, in all things give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning
you. So if I'm upset about my current
circumstances, I'm mad at God. That's the only thing there is
to it. I'm just mad at God. But see the spirit he put in
his people? Mary said, I'm your handmaid,
Lord. Be it according to your word. And I told you last time,
there's a death penalty for adultery. And everybody's gonna think that
she's committed adultery, because she's not married to Joseph yet.
She's engaged, which was a legal agreement, just like marriage.
So they don't think she's committed adultery, even Joseph is. So
that's faith, faith, faith to say, I'm your handmaid Lord,
do with me according to your word. And she took off, she hastened,
she ran to Elizabeth to tell Elizabeth the good news. That's
what we do when the Spirit of Christ is formed in us, like
how when Christ was formed in her physically, when the Spirit
of Christ is formed in us, we hasten to declare this good news.
We run to tell people this good news, The gospel is the good
news of glad tidings. It's the good news that God has
sent his son and he gonna save us from our sin. This is good
news. So she ran to tell it. All right, now verse 40. We pick
up here, let's read it. This is our text. Luke 1, verse
40. Luke 1, verse 40. And Mary entered
into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came
to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, now get
that, she heard, she heard the salutation of Mary, the babe
leaped in her womb. John the Baptist is in her womb.
He leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
And she spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed art thou
among women. Now, I take that, everything
that just happened, I take that and the next two statements to
indicate Mary's now bearing the promised seed in her womb. Look
now, she said, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Christ
has taken the body, the Son of God has taken the body prepared
for him in her womb, and whence is this to me that the mother
of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as, now catch
this word, soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in
mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed
is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those
things which were told her from the Lord. And Mary said, my soul
doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
Savior. Now, we're not told what Mary
spoke in her salutation, but I'm gonna tell you what we know
from Scripture. We know that when the good news of Christ
is declared, when the good news of Christ is declared, it is
the voice of Christ speaking in spirit, more powerful than
any audible voice. It's the voice of Christ speaking
in spirit that works effectually in the heart, that causes the
effect in the heart that he purposed when he speaks. Mary spoke with
her voice, but Christ was the voice of her salutation. Christ
is the one working what took place here. You say, well, he's
in Mary's womb. He's God. Yes, he's in her womb,
but he's God Almighty. And he's working everything taking
place here. He's the prophet. That means
if we hear the gospel, he is the glory. He's the king. He
can bring the gospel to his people because he's sovereign. He's
the high priest. He's the one who represents us
to God and God to us. He's everything. So when the
voice of her salutation was Christ, and look here at what happened.
It filled John the Baptist with the spirit. Elizabeth was filled
with the Spirit and John the Baptist was. Now let me back
up what I just said. I don't want you to take my word
for anything. I want you to see God says it. Go back over there
with me in Isaiah 52. And look what we saw here in
Isaiah 52. Verse six. This is the Lord speaking. He said, my people shall know
my name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am he that does speak. Behold, it is I. And he says here, how beautiful
are his feet upon the mountains, bringing the gospel of peace,
declaring thy God reigneth. Look at verse eight. Thy watchmen,
those that Christ uses to preach, even somebody like Mary who's
speaking to Elizabeth, he said, they'll lift up the voice. With
thee voiced together shall they sing. Well, what voice is that? Christ said, my people shall
hear my voice. He said, my people hear my voice
and I know them. I quicken them. I fill them with
the spirit. And this is what happens. They
follow me. They follow me. Now, here's the effect Christ
works. So Mary comes into that house
and she salutes. Back then when a salutation was
something like what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, we saw this
morning. I, Paul, by the will of God,
sanctified by the Spirit of God, by our Lord Jesus, I come to
you. It was more than just, hey, how you doing? This was a gospel
salutation. And I'm sure Mary came there
saying, I have the promised seed, he's come, Christ has come. And
soon as she spoke, The voice of Christ blessed that word and
entered into Elizabeth, and the Spirit entered into Elizabeth.
And when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary the babe,
leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
Look back at verse 15. Look at Luke 1 15. It's Christ
who fulfills all Scripture. He fulfilled the law and the
prophets. This was said beforehand by the
angel to Mary. He said of John the Baptist,
look at the last part, he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost
even from his mother's womb. And soon as the Lord spoke, John
the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth's womb. She was filled with the
Holy Ghost and that baby leaped with joy, she said. Everything
in God's Word's there to glorify Christ. Everything. Everything
in this book is about Him. This is a hymn book. We call
that song book a hymn book. This is a hymn book. H-I-M. It's
a hymn book. It's all about Christ. Now look,
the Holy Spirit declared back in verse 26. He declared in the
sixth month the angel was sent by God to Mary. And then again
in verse 36, the angel told Mary, Elizabeth also hath conceived
a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her that
was called barren. For with God, nothing shall be
impossible. Now let me tell you something.
When I'm deaf, I can't hear, and it's due to an infirmity
I have. My inner ear bones have hardened.
But listen to this now. I was asking my audiologist,
I went home, looked this up, and it's true. By God's design,
the first three bones in the human body that develop in the
womb are the three little tiny bones in our ear. Those three
little bones in our ear. And by six months, those bones
are developed and a baby can hear in the womb. That's why
we're told it was the sixth month. Again, it was the sixth month.
And John the Baptist is now six months old in Mary's womb. Why
did God design it that way? Why did he make those bones to
be the first bones that develop in the ear, in the body? Listen, 1 Corinthians 121 says,
in the wisdom of God, after that the world by its wisdom didn't
know God, can't know God by our wisdom. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And if you
read on, it's so that no flesh gets to glory in His presence.
In Eliah verse 30 says, through this preaching, of God are you
in Christ, and of God is Christ made everything to us. He made
wisdom to us, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption
so that everybody that glories, glories only in the Lord. Listen,
this is vital. No sinner is gonna be able to
take glory before God. We're not gonna be able to say
we did something to save ourselves. We're not gonna be able to say
we contributed to our salvation. Why? The glory goes to God. And that's how, if he saved us,
that's how we want it. We want God to get all the glory.
He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. That's why he said,
He saves through the Spirit, through the preaching of the
Word. And listen, how you gonna hear? Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. So those three bones are the
first to develop. And here's John the Baptist,
six months old, and when Mary enters that house and declares,
I have the seed of woman, the one that God declared in Genesis
3.15 when he said there's gonna be a seed of woman that's gonna
crush the devil's head. She said, he's in me. And when
that good news came, the voice of Christ spoke. And that spirit
entered Elizabeth, and John the Baptist leaped for joy, filled
with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Now, you gonna
sit here, and I know what you're thinking. I thought it too. We
all think this. That's impossible. That's impossible. Six-month-old, and filled with
the Spirit, and heard the gospel, and leaped with joy, with faith. Our Lord Jesus said, In Psalm
139.13, look there, we looked at this last week. Look here,
this is why last week I had to cut my third point short. I'm
preaching it to you this morning. But I wanted to preach, I preached
this message first, Psalm 139 first, and I wanted to preach
this together, because they go together so well. But look here
in first, Psalm 139.13, this is Christ speaking. And he's
talking about being in the womb. the Son of God coming and taking
the body God prepared for Him. And he said there in verse 13,
thou hast possessed my reins, that's the innermost desire of
the heart. He said to the father, you possessed
my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's womb, I will praise
thee for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works
and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid
from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in
the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect, unformed. In all thy book all my members
were written, which in continuous fashion when there was none of
them. But you see there, he said, thou hast possessed my reins.
Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. Look at Psalm 22.10. Psalm
22.10. This is Christ. We know this
is Christ speaking too. This is that verse where he said
in the verse one, my God, my God, Forsaken me we know this
is Christ look here in verse 10 I Was cast upon thee from
the womb thou art my God from my mother's belly you see that
The angel said of John the Baptist he should be filled with the
Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb And Elizabeth said, as soon
as the voice of thy supplication was sounded in mine ears, soon
as the voice, the voice was more than just Mary's voice, they'll
lift up the voice together. That was Christ's voice. accompanying
Mary's voice that blessed John the Baptist. And it says, and
that babe leaped in my womb for joy. Not just leap, not just
him just kicking because he's uncomfortable. He leaped because
he was overjoyed by what he heard, whatever Mary said. Now here's
the fact, brethren. I know you think that's impossible.
I know we, by nature, are gonna say, well, I don't see how that
could be. Listen to me. Don't miss this. It is just a
much, a miracle of God's grace, just as much the power of God,
just as much God working what only God can work, that he quickened
a dead sinner like you and gave you faith to believe him too.
No different. It's just as much a miracle that
he did that in you as he did that at John the Baptist. Were
you that dead in sin? Did you come from your mother's
womb that dead in sin that God had to work a miracle to give
you faith to believe? That's not what the world preaches
of faith that, oh, you just believe when you get ready to. That's
not what the book of God says. The book of God says, 1 Corinthians
2 says, the natural man, the way you come from your mother's
womb, you won't receive the word of God. And neither can you know
it, Because it's spiritually discerned. You gotta be taught
of God, you gotta be taught, born again of the Spirit. Christ
said you must be born again. You gotta be born by hearing
the Word, the water of the Word, the Gospel, and by the Holy Spirit
giving you life. And for a... Dead sinner, conceived
in sin, comes from a mother's womb speaking lies. For us to
be given a new spirit and a new heart and faith to believe Christ
is just as much a miracle as for John the Baptist to be quickened
and given faith in his mother's womb. With God, nothing shall be impossible. You believe that? God's way bigger
than we are and way bigger than we can even imagine. What we
know about these scriptures and about God is like taking a thimble
and putting it in the ocean. We just can contain our little
thimble's worth, that's about it. Heaven's gonna be finding
out all things about him, knowing him like he knows us. He said there in verse 45, there
shall be a performance of those things which were told us from
the Lord. You that believe, God, with God,
nothing's impossible. He will perform everything he's
promised us in his word. It's the voice of one, the voice
of the Lord Jesus, the prophet, spoken in spirit that quickens
us. Look at John 6. This is our Lord
speaking. He offended these people because
they were just, they were religious because they made themselves
religious. They decided to follow him because he fed them and they
wanted more, they thought, boy, he's our meal ticket. We follow
him, we're gonna have it made in this life. That's not salvation. And he said, you're gonna have
to eat my flesh and drink my blood. He meant, you're gonna
have to believe on me or you can't be saved. And they heard
that and they said, it's a hard saying. Listen to what he said,
verse 61. John 6, 61, when Jesus knew in
himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said to them, did this
offend you? And what, if you shall see the
Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It's the Spirit that
quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. It's the Lord working in
spirit that gives us a new spirit and quickens that new spirit.
He said the words, I speak unto you their spirit and their life.
And he said the flesh profits nothing. Listen, that means your
flesh does not contribute. That means the you that came
from your mother's womb was conceived of Adam, a sinner, and when you
came out of your mother's womb, your flesh, what you are by nature,
does not contribute to salvation. It don't contribute to you believing
God. And listen to this, it's not gonna hinder God from giving
you a new spirit and faith to believe God. The flesh can't
profit and it can't hinder, it can't do a thing. Turn to Isaiah
40. I preach this, I do this preacher's
class on Saturday mornings for some men in the Philippines,
and I preached on this yesterday morning. Look here, it's just
that wonderful passage where the Lord's telling his preacher,
comfort ye my people. said in verse one, he said, speak
comfortably to Jerusalem, cry unto her that her warfare is
accomplished, her iniquities pardoned, she's received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sin. Now look down here, I want
you to see, I said it's the voice of Christ speaking. Remember
John the Baptist quoted this, he quoted this chapter, and he
said, they asked him, are you that prophet? He said, no, I'm
not. Christ is that prophet. He said, no, I'm not. He said,
I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Look here. Verse three, the voice of him
that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. That voice is the
Lord speaking to us, telling us what to preach. And I can
prove it to you. Look down at verse six. The voice
said cry. He's telling his preacher what
to preach. The voice said cry. And he said, what shall I cry?
The preacher said, what shall I cry? Here's the answer. Tell them all flesh is grass
and all the very best goodliness a man can muster up in his flesh
is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth and the flower
fadeth. Because the spirit of the Lord
blows upon it, surely the people is grass. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth. In other words, your flesh is
profiting nothing. What's going to profit? The word
of our God shall stand forever. It's the voice of Christ speaking,
and here's the message. Your flesh profits nothing. It's
not gonna profit, but it's not gonna hinder God either. It's
the spirit of God speaking that's gonna give life. It's the spirit
of Christ speaking. This is what he meant when he
said the words, I speak unto you, their spirit and their life.
He said, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, I quicken them,
I regenerate them, and they follow me. Look at 1 Peter 1. First
Peter won. I'm telling you, this is not
being preached in most pulpits, because most people, I tell you
what churches do, they think if we build a big old ball field
and a basketball gym, we can get people to come, and then
we can preach the gospel to them. But see, they get themselves
head over heels in debt by getting that big building and all that
stuff, and then they can't preach the gospel, because they do people
that get offended and leave, and they got to pay the bills,
so they watered the word down, and they don't end up preaching
the gospel. Why? They started out wrong.
They started out trying to use carnal means to get people to
come when God said, you just preach the word. You just preach
my gospel, and trust me to do with it what I will. Look here
now. I'm showing you it's Christ's
voice speaking that gives us new life and faith, and that's
by his voice, and it's by the gospel being preached, that this
together, his voice being the power, and his gospel being the
power. This is the incorruptible seed.
We're born a first time of corruptible seeds, so we're corrupt by nature.
This incorruptible seed is Christ through the gospel and himself
entering in and giving you life. Look here, 1 Peter 1, verse 23. Peter said, we're born again,
not of corruptible seed, born again, born a second time. This
is of the Lord, born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, for all
flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of
grass. The grass withereth, the flower
thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever,
and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. God saves through preaching.
But it's not just the preacher. The preacher can't do a thing.
It's the voice of Christ speaking into the heart. And it's him
speaking this word and giving you eyes to see and ears to hear
and create new life in you, just like he did John the Baptist
in his mother's womb. And the flesh can't hinder it,
and the flesh don't profit. And we see that, John the Baptist.
It's just as much a miracle that you believe Listen, in John the
Baptist, we see the youngest that the Lord quickened in scripture,
six months old. And in the thief on the cross,
we see somebody at the very last moments of his life, and the
Lord quickened him and gave him faith to believe. Listen, the
flesh is not gonna hinder God from working. Whether you're
in your mother's womb or you're in the last seconds of your life,
It's no less a miracle of God's grace to save one as the other
and to save you. Listen, there's at least two
things we can get from that. Here's number one. The Lord always,
always accomplishes his purpose when the gospel goes forth, always,
always. Turn with me to Isaiah 55, verse
11. Isaiah 55, 11. So, look, in verse
10, he said, as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven
and returns not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh
it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and
bread to the eater. He said, so shall my word be
that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper
in the thing whereunto I send it. You see that? You preach
the gospel, and there's always two responses to the gospel. The first is, one is men get
mad, they're angry, they're not content being under the gospel,
they hate it, they wanna be somewhere else, they don't enjoy it, they
don't listen, they don't pay attention. That's God accomplishing
his purpose. He said, Paul said, we are a
saver of death unto death in some. That's God's work. He hardens with this same gospel
the same as he quickens with it. The other result is some
rejoice and they're smiling and they're praising God and saying,
oh, I'm so thankful it's all of the Lord. Salvation is of
the Lord. And that's of Him. He gives that. And I'm telling you, he's gonna
accomplish these two things every time the word goes forth. If
I have a problem with the gospel, and you know, our natural tendency
is it's somebody else's fault. What we ought to say is, maybe
it's me. Maybe I came here. Maybe I'm
lost. Maybe I need to know God. Maybe
I never really knew him. Brethren, with God, nothing shall
be impossible. He shall perform everything He
promised His people. Now, consider how miraculous
everything about our salvation is. Everything about it is miraculous.
1 Timothy 3. Go there with me real quick.
1 Timothy 3. Everything about our salvation
is miraculous. You think that John the Baptist
being filled with the Holy Ghost... Oh, I didn't give you the other
thing. The other thing this makes me hopeful of Not only that he
accomplishes his word, it's this. It gives me confidence to bear
witness to sinners. You know, I wouldn't even be,
I would have no confidence in preaching this gospel if it was
up to me, because I personally, just quite frankly, not that
good a preacher. But it's him, and he will accomplish
his purpose. So that makes me, and that, you,
if you're out and about, and somebody seems like they wanna
hear, Don't ever buttonhole somebody and try to force the gospel on
them. People aren't gonna hear you
by that. That's too much flesh in there. But if somebody appears
like they wanna hear and they're interested and they wanna hear
what you have to say about the gospel, tell them because the
Lord's gonna, that word's not gonna return to him void. And
here's something else that gives me great confidence. I have hope
for infants that die at birth. that die in the womb or at birth
from seeing what the Lord did with John the Baptist. He's able
to save from the womb. Well, that can't be done. Why do you say that? Because
you can't do it. Listen, everything God does in
salvation, you can't do it. Everything about it's a miracle.
You can't do it. So don't judge what God can do
by what you can't do. And here's what it does to me
too, it gives me assurance of this, as long as a loved one,
that lost loved one you love dearly and want them to hear
the gospel, as long as they're alive, there's hope, they can be saved.
That thief on the cross was saved in the last moments of his life.
So that's what I get from it. Everything in this word's miraculous.
Look here, 1 Timothy 3, 16. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. Here's what godliness is. God
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed all in the world, and received
up into glory. You want to talk about a miracle?
God came down and took flesh like His elect that He would
save. He came down and took flesh like
His people. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. You want to talk about a miracle?
And He was justified in Spirit. The Spirit of God made that body
for him. Pure, holy, not like me and you.
Me and you are sinners in the womb. Read out Psalm 51, conceived
in sin. In our mother's womb, we come
forth speaking lies. He was holy in the womb. You gotta be holy in the womb
to be saved. He was for his people. And then the Holy Spirit descended
on our Savior at his baptism and God declared from heaven,
this is my beloved Son whom I'm well pleased The Spirit justified
him to be who he is. All the miracles he worked, where
he healed people and gave them ears to hear and cleansed the
lepers, that's justified him as being God in human flesh.
The Spirit justified him. And listen, Those physical miracles He did,
that's just an illustration of the spiritual miracle He works
when He gives you spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to
hear and a new heart and He makes you an entirely new creation.
And then He laid down His life. Listen, when our Savior laid
down His life on the cross, we saw it this morning. If you missed
the first message, go listen to it. The gospel in a verse,
Isaiah 53, 6. All we like sheep have gone astray,
and we all went to our own way, and the Lord laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. The Lord has a people He chose
to save. And here's why we preach this, because the word says it.
Ephesians 1, 3 says God chose His people and blessed us by
choosing us in Christ. And we say it this way because
when Christ died, He accomplished what He came to accomplish. He
didn't make something possible if you will do something. That
put all the salvation in your hand. Christ accomplished the
salvation of His people. So the Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of all His people. Christ was made sin for us who
He's going to save. That's who Christ made sin for. And our Lord Jesus put away the
sin of His people. He put it away as far as the
east is from the west. He blotted it out of the book
of God. To be justified is to have no
sin before God. He made His people the righteousness
of God by what He did, not by what we do. It's all of grace
He did that. And listen, he said, and Isaiah,
he said, I hid not my face from shame and spitting because my
father will justify me. That's what he said. He claimed
he was the son of God. He claimed he was the lamb of
God. He claimed he was going to save
his people. And when he got finished, he laid down his life. It took
his blood, his life, because you had to die. If God's going
to save you, you've got to die under the justice of God. Because
God's righteous. He's not going to clear the guilty.
Christ did that for his people. He paid that debt. And once you've
died, the law has nothing else to say to you. Ain't no police
officer in this graveyard over here trying to arrest anybody.
The law got nothing to say to you once you're dead. And in
Christ, all who God saves died. This is the good news. But when
he finished that work, he came out of that grave, and the Lord
justified Him. The Lord showed us by Him coming
out of that grave that He is the Son of God. He is the God-man
mediator. He is the Savior. He is the one
who is the salvation of His people. And He is the life of His people
seated at God's right hand right now. And this is the good news
that the Spirit of God speaks to you in your heart. When He
declares Christ's name, that's what He declares to you. He is
salvation. He is wisdom. He is righteousness.
He is sanctification. He is redemption. That's what
happened to John the Baptist. He heard Christ's name and the
Spirit of God made him know you're in Christ, and Christ is your
wisdom, He's your righteousness, He's your holiness, and He's
your redemption. And that baby leaped in his mama's womb. And
I'll tell you, you and me leap when He tells us to. But listen
now, let me tell you what He's promised us. He was preached
to the Gentiles and believed on in the world. That's a miracle
that you believe in Him. He had to do all this in you
to make you believe Him. Go to 2 Corinthians 4. Look at
this. The powers of Him. It's not of
us. 2 Corinthians 4, 3. Listen. If our gospel be hid,
it's hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who's the image of God, should
shine to them. For we preach not ourselves,
but we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. I'm not up here preaching
me or man or you or anything of our, I'm preaching Christ
and his work. And we're your servants for Jesus' sake. Why
do you preach this? How'd you get this message? How
was this faith given to you? For God, the same God that commanded
the light to shine out of darkness in creation, that same God has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Catch this,
but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. It's God's power that's
gonna save. For John to be filled with the
Holy Ghost in his mother womb and elite for joy, it's no lesser
miracle for him to do it than it is for you and me to do it.
We have to be saved by the same power of God. Mary said, my soul
doth magnify the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Only
way she could say that was the same grace and power of God worked
in her as was worked in John the Baptist. I should end here,
but I'm not. I'm going to tell you something
else. Listen. Everything about what the Lord does is a miracle. He said, there shall be a performance
of everything told us. Everything He promised us, He's
going to perform it. Here's the first thing. No more
offering for sin. You was working, you was told
by a false religion, men trying to make money so they could keep
their salary and keep their nice house and just fleecing you.
They told you, you gotta work for salvation. You gotta do this,
you gotta do that, you gotta do the other. Listen, when God
gives you a new spirit and makes you see, Christ perfected his
people by his one offering. And where remission of sins is,
there's no more offering for sin, no more. You go read Hebrews
10, no more offering for sin. He said, there's sins and iniquities
I'll remember no more. There's no more offering for
sin. And listen, here's another promise. He said, I'll never
leave you and I'll never forsake you. He said, I'll make an everlasting
covenant with them, and I'll not turn away from them to do
them good. I'll put my fear in their hearts, and they shall
not depart from me. He's not gonna turn from you, and he's
not gonna let you depart from him. Here's something else. He's gonna perform everything
he promised. He's gonna provide every earthly need we have. Listen,
bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure. That's
Isaiah 33, 16. David said I've been young and
now I'm old he said I've never seen the righteous forsaken.
I've never seen his seed begging bread Listen God who gave his
own son to redeem us and give us all spiritual blessing Don't
you think he'll give you a piece of bread if you need it? Sure,
he will Spiritual preservation he's gonna preserve us our soul
our spirit, and he's gonna comfort you in all your afflictions He
said in Isaiah 43 too, when you pass through the waters, you're
gonna go through some tribulation. That's all this world is. When
you pass through them, he said, I will be with thee. When you
go through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When you go
through the fire, you won't be burned. The flame won't even
kindle upon you. He'll deliver thee in six troubles,
yea, in seven troubles. No evil will touch you. That's
his promise. He's our refuge and our strength,
our very present help in trouble. When you come into trouble and
you're troubled and you're cast down in spirit by something,
you go to Christ. Don't complain and murmur and
cuss out another person and get all mad and bent out of shape.
Go to him. He's the only one that can help
you. That's his command. He said, come to me. I'll give
you rest. He'll support us through our
old age and through death. He said, even to your old age
I am he, even to whore hair, gray hairs, I will carry you.
I've made and I will bear you, even I will carry and I will
deliver you. That's his promise. He said,
I'm gonna give you life to come. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood, whoever believes on me, hath, right now, you have
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Oh, if
your children and your joint heirs with Christ, you're going
to be glorified together with Him. And whatever we suffer in
this world now, it's not worthy to be compared to the glory that
will be revealed to us. He's going to perform this because
He promised it. He's going to give you an immortal
body. I talked to my mother, she's in her mid-70s. She said,
when I wake up in the morning, it's not a matter of if I'm going
to hurt, it's just where. And these bodies are going back
to the dust because of sin. But when he raises us, he gonna
give you an immortal body. Body, soul, and spirit, we gonna
be with him. We gonna know him. Heaven won't be some floating
around on clouds. We gonna be in a new heaven and
a new earth with our Lord and know him and be perfect, sinless,
and be with him. And he's gonna be the great reward.
The great reward of heaven is Christ himself. He's our crown
of life, our crown of righteousness. He is. Go with me to Revelation
21. Revelation 21, look here at verse
three. I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, Revelation 21, three, I'll give you a little
time to get there. I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he'll
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself
shall be with them and be their God. That's gonna be the reward
right there. We're gonna be with God and God
with us, and we're gonna know him. We're gonna know our God
and our Savior. And look, and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes. You know what makes us have tears
now? Sin. There won't be any sin then.
He gonna wipe away all tears from our eyes. There should be
no more death. That's what sin causes. There
won't be any more death. nor neither sorrow nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are
all passed away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, behold, I make all things new. God said, I did this. And
he said to me, write, for these words are true and faithful.
He said to me, it's done. And brethren, I'm telling you
right now, what I'm saying to you right now is because of what
Christ has accomplished. When he gives you faith to trust
him, the message is, it is done. It's done, there's nothing for
you to add to this. He said it's an inheritance ready, made, ready
to be revealed, prepared. He just gotta bring you there
so you can see it's all finished. And he said, I am Alpha and Omega
at the beginning and end. What that means is he's the author
of faith and the finisher of faith. He's everything in our
salvation. He is salvation. Salvation is
of the Lord and he is the salvation. Listen, I will give unto him
that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely,
not by your works, it's free. He that overcometh shall inherit
all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. How
you gonna overcome? He said, there's one way to overcome,
by faith. What does faith do? Lord, I'm
putting it all in your hands. If I'm saved, you're gonna do
the saving. That's how you overcome. You
trust Him to make you overcome. This is why Mary was so happy.
This is why she hastened down to Elizabeth's house to tell
this good news, is because this is what the gospel means to His
people. This is what Christ is to His
people. This gives new meaning to when the Lord saved that demoniac
at Gadara, and He said, you go home to your friends, And you
tell them what great things the Lord has done for you. You tell
them what he's done for you, how he's had compassion on you.
See, this is what we're bearing witness of. We're not out here
telling people how you can get rich, how you can prosper in
this life. And although God's gonna make
his people rich in ways that we don't even, you know, by nature,
we don't know what true riches are. He gonna make you rich beyond
what anything this world can give you. But we're not telling
people, our gospel's not preparing people for this life, it's preparing
people for that life. It's telling them, it's giving
God all the glory, that's why it's offensive to man. That's
why we got this meeting instead of one of these places that's
full of people. People don't wanna hear the message
that gives God all the glory, people wanna say, put a little
bit in my hand to do. God's not gonna let you have
any glory. He said, I will not share my glory with another.
I created my people for my glory. Go read it. It's Isaiah 43. I
created them for my glory, he said. We're going to praise him. Well, he said he'll give us a
crown. You know what you're going to do with it? I'm throwing it
at your feet, Lord, because I don't need glory. The glory is yours. He wears the crown. All right,
I pray. Well, let me give you one thing.
How do I know this is going to be so? How do I know this is going to
be so? Because 2 Corinthians 1.20 says, all the promises of
God are in Christ, yes, and in him, amen, unto the glory of
God. It's not maybe, it's yeah. If
God set his heart on you to save you, you are going to be saved. And everything you need is gonna
be provided for you, and you're gonna be in glory with him forever.
Mark it down. God said it. He shall perform
everything he promised you. Amen. Father, we thank you for
this word. We pray you bless it now to our
hearts. Make us not leave this message here in this building
when we leave it. Put it in our hearts and make
us think on it as we leave here. Make us go home and look these
scriptures up. Make us look up this message
online, listen to it again, and study what we heard, and see
that these things are so according to your word. Lord, be with your
people everywhere. Be with these brethren here.
Keep us till we come again. Bring us again, Lord. Thank you
for Christ's sake. We praise you, everything's in
your hand. In Christ's name, amen. All right,
Brother Adam, you lead us in a closing hymn.