Well, it's certainly been my
pleasure. Thank you for having me. You
know, I was thinking, just as I was sitting there when John
was preaching, that I've never seen him and Kevin in sandals,
never seen their feet, but boy, they sure are beautiful to me.
Beautiful are the feet of them that bring good news. And you've
had good news for me this weekend because the gospel is good news
for sinners. And I am so, so thankful that
I was here, as I said. And thanks to the church, as
I said yesterday, your labor of love, the expense of a conference,
you know, just, my, my, it is, it's heaven on earth. It's heaven
on earth. Anytime we hear the gospel preached,
it's heaven on earth. By way of introduction, I want
to tell you that I remember one time when I was younger. I was
out on my own, but I was struggling financially, and I had accumulated
a sizable debt. I was having trouble making the
payments. I don't know about today, but back then, they had
what was called an interest payment. You could go in if things got
tight. Instead of making the whole payment,
you could just pay the interest, and then they would extend the
length of your loan, a month or so, you're basically just
paying the interest, no principal. And I had great difficulty in
paying that debt, and my mother and father paid off that debt
for me. Now, the other part of the story
is they didn't tell me they did. So as I scrounged up those pennies
and dollars to make that interest payment, I was told that the
debt was paid in full. And I said, well, who paid it?
And she looked on the books and she said Leo Edmondson paid it. And you know, all I could say
to my parents was, I don't know what to say. I don't know what
to say. And as I think about the debt
that Christ has paid for me, even though I'm a preacher, I
don't know what to say. It's overwhelming. Overwhelming. That's the title of my message
this morning. Strange as it may seem, I don't
know what to say. When it comes to the gift and
the grace of God to me and for me, words just don't describe
it. Undescribable. I want us to look
together at one verse this morning found in 2 Corinthians 9, verse
15 if you would please. 2 Corinthians 9, verse 15. We have seven words here that
just say a multitude. Isn't that the amazing thing
about Scripture? Seven words. Thanks unto God
for His unspeakable gift. Now I know that you know that
the number seven in the Scriptures is the number of completion.
And here God gives us the reason that our salvation is complete
by Christ's finished work. The gift that this is speaking
of is salvation. Redemption. What is redemption? Christ paid the full price for
our sin. He redeemed us. Salvations of
the Lord. That's the sum and substance
of the Gospel. It is finished. That's the sum
and the substance of the Gospel. Not a lot of words. Salvation
is the gift of God. This outline gives us at least
three things, that being the first. Salvation is the gift
of God. Secondly, this gift of salvation is unspeakable. He calls it an unspeakable gift.
Thirdly, this gift causes those to whom it is given to be thankful. Thanks be unto God. Who are we
thankful to? We're thankful unto the one that
gave it. I was thankful to my parents, but I'm more thankful
to my God who loved me and gave himself for me. So first we see that salvation
in Christ is a gift. It's God's gift. Thanks to God
for His unspeakable gift. It's His to give, only He can
give it. Grace and mercy given to a guilty sinner is a gift. And that's all it can be. It
wasn't earned, it wasn't merited, and it certainly wasn't deserved.
If you buy something, you purchase it. You go to the store, you
pay the money, and you purchase it. If you earn something, you
work for it. And if you deserve something,
that means you merited it in some way. And one glorious thing
about this gift of God is that we'll never lose it. Now that's
a gift, isn't it? If God saves you in Christ, once
saved by God, always saved. Always saved. For the gifts and
calling of God are without repentance. That word repentance means without
change. Then change. God gives this gift
of calling and saving to us to never repent of it. To never
change his mind about it. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever, as we sung earlier. His divine nature never changes. He's God. He's unchangeable,
immutable. He's the Lord that changes not.
We change like the weather. Roller coasters, aren't we? Up
and down, up and down. If salvation depended on our
actions, friends, we'd be lost forever without any hope. But
it's a gift that it doesn't. It's God's gift to us. Not dependent
on our actions, it's dependent on His finished work. Right back
to that. As we always are. God is not
a man that He should lie. He's not the Son of Man that
He should repent. That word repent means to be
sorry. God's not sorry that He saved
us. That's why we're not consumed.
He's saving us with a gift given in Christ. Don't ever leave that
out. That's where the gift, He is the gift. For by grace are
you saved, that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. The prophet Samuel said this,
the strength, if you look at that in 1 Samuel 15, 29, that
word strength there is capitalized. It's capital S. That's speaking
of Christ. He's our strength. We're without
strength. While we were yet without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. The strength will not lie nor
repent, Samuel said, for he is not a man that he should do so.
You know, lying is a result, an effect of weakness. It really is. I had, in my younger
years especially, not so much now, but I always tried to be
humorous. My wife told me before, why do
you always try to be funny? And then you tease folks and
you have a good time. I had a lady one time at church
say, I was teasing around, she said, you can't believe anything
he says unless he's in the pulpit. I'm glad she added that. It's a fact of weakness. We're
weak. We're weak. Men change their
mind all the time because by nature we're without strength.
And something unforeseen arises, a man or a woman, something first
hinders their first design and desire. In our weakness, our
will, if you want to call it that, we don't really have a
will. As John very ably said, we will not. That's our will. There's certainly no such thing
as a free will with us because our will is in bondage to our
sin. But God is not a man. He's not
a man that he should or could lie. Men are weak and feeble,
but very often we can't perform what we do and what we promise.
But Christ is the strength of Israel. Oh, Israel being His
people, and even when they were without strength, He died for
them. That's what makes it a gift.
Christ is the same. Today, tomorrow, from now on,
always been the same. Secondly, this gift of God is
unspeakable. How can God and His grace be
described or explained? We just proclaim it. It can't
be explained. How could He love a wretch like
me? I can't explain that. I can't
explain it. It's unexplainable. It's unspeakable.
If God's grace is purchased, a reward, or something merited,
or accomplished by a work of man's hands, it could be explained. And man would be very quick to
explain it. Well, you know, I did this and
I did that. And just like they did, the Lord
said they would. Haven't we? Haven't we? We've done many wonderful works
in thy name. Well, I deserve salvation. I've
earned it. No, you didn't. It's a gift.
You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. You certainly
don't merit it. We don't frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness
come by the law, by us keeping the law, by us doing something,
then Christ is dead and vain. We have no gospel and no hope
of salvation if that's the case. Do you work for a gift? Absolutely
not. If you did, it would cease to
be a gift. Our dictionary defines the word gift as something given
willingly to someone without payment. And the great word of
the scripture, the word of God, is not merit. It's grace. Grace. God's love, mercy, and
grace and forgiveness is freely given. Now that's a word I understand,
free. You know, you hear it advertised
free, I've learned that when man says that, there's a catch
somewhere. You know, I've got this certain
thing here, I'm gonna give it to you free. It's gonna cost
you $300 for me to ship it to you, but the item itself is free. God, when God says free, it's
free, freely, freely. You know, I found this interesting,
like John did with the hour. That was beautiful, man. I tell
you, you think about one hour. But the word grace is found 170
times in Scripture. The word gift is found 59 times. The word given is used 498 times
in the Bible. Do you know how many times the
word merit is found in the Scriptures? None. Not one time. Zero. How about the words deserve or
deserveth? One time for each word. And interesting enough, both
of those verses about deserving declare that God has punished
us less than our iniquities deserve. So really, it's not about something
we deserve. We deserve much more. in way of judgment. The word
earn, not used one time in all the scriptures. The word earneth
is used twice in one verse, Haggai 1.6, which says this, he that
earneth wages, earneth wages to put into a bag with holes. You ladies have a purse and you
can fill it up with diamonds and pearls and gold and all that,
but if it's got a hole in it, you know how much is going to
be left in it when you look in it? None. It's like a bag with
holes in it. All filthy wages and works of
righteousness are of no spiritual profit. None. You can take them
all and put them in a bag There's a hole in it. It's all going
to be empty in the end. Salvation in Christ comes to
us only one way. You've heard that this weekend.
And that is by the way of a gift. And as John said, that gift is
Jesus Christ. Salvation is in a person. It's
in a person. It can't be explained. It's unspeakable. It's inexplainable. It's believed by faith alone,
and that faith alone is God's what? Gift. That's what he said. When God shows us who and what
we are, when he gives us a whiff of ourself, oh, it don't smell
good. Don't smell good. We would never
dare to say that we deserved or merited or earned the life
that he freely gave us. A believer won't. As I said yesterday,
you know, we'd argue about who's the worst sinner. If we could lay at God's feet
a good work, one that would merit salvation, well, we can't. A
good work of righteousness wrought by the work of our hands, none
of it would be enough. It'd just never be enough. for
Christ to leave his glorious throne to come to this earth
and take on the form of a servant? Die a death, even the death of
the cross? Is the greatest criminal that
ever lived? But that wasn't, I was the criminal. He died in my room instead. And that's an unspeakable gift,
isn't it? No human merit deserves the incarnation
of God upon this earth. He's the God-man. He's the Son
of God and He's God the Son. Christ took not upon Himself
our righteousness. We don't have any. He took upon
Himself our sin. That was all there was for Him
to take. Our sin. in the greatest transaction
in all the history of the world. He was made to be sin for us
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Well, now that's
a free gift, isn't it? His righteousness. Took my sin,
gave me His righteousness. Perfect righteousness. The only
thing that God will accept. It's got to be perfect to be
accepted. What I'm endeavoring to say is
this, Christ's sacrifice could never be deserved by us, even
if we were good. Never be good enough. Never be
good enough. And if I spend eternity in hell,
it wouldn't even pay for the first sin that I committed. To every blood-bought sinner,
the Scripture says, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all. Isaiah 53, 6. And that's why
our Lord Jesus is God's unspeakable gift. That's why salvation is
indescribable. That's why our pardon is unexplainable. An offering for sin is for the
guilty. How could Christ die on the cross
for deserving sinners when there are none? No bruises of punishment are
required for those who are well. No chastisement of peace is needed
for the deserving. The Lord Jesus himself said those
that are well have no need of a position. You know who do?
Who does? The sick. The sick. Christ died the just for the
just? No. Christ died the just for
the unjust. Why? To bring us to God, the
scripture said. That's why. That's the only way
we can get to God. It's the only way God will accept
us. We were alienated from God. From a far distance, He's brought
us nigh. Christ came to us as an undeserving
gift. We can't speak of it as it should
be spoken. We just can't. It's unspeakable.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God. And as you said,
John, we're not just called, we really are the sons and daughters
of God. My, my. And again, it's not our
love for Him that saves us, it's His everlasting love for us that
does. Herein is love, not that we love
God. I love how John deals with that
real quick. Herein is love, not that we love
God. Get that out of your mind and
heart immediately. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us. And He sent His Son to be a propitiation
for our sins. We love Him because this is why
He loved us. Brother Paul Mahan made a great
observation about this unexplainable, indescribable gift that God gave
His people. Paul said there are three things
concerning a gift. First, it must belong to the
one that gives it. Secondly, it's got to be unearned.
You know, if you work for something At the end of the week, you go
to get your check and your boss says, here's a gift for you.
Well, that ain't no gift. I worked all week for this. And thirdly, it must be bestowed
upon you. Not offered. Not offered. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. And the world and all they that
dwell therein, it all belongs to Him. All we have that belongs
to us is sin. That's the only thing that's
ours, truly ours. The Apostle Paul asked, what
do we have that we did not receive? And then he went on to say, if
you received it, why do you glory? And how can anybody glory in
something that a gift that someone gives us? They get the glory. If there's any to be given, God
gets the glory. Not unto us, O Lord, but unto
Your Son. He gets all the glory. You know,
this world talks about self-made men. There ain't no such thing. No such thing. Self-made men
are said to have come from nothing and made themselves something. Well, that goes against the whole
Word of God. We are nothing, we have nothing,
and we can do nothing. Speaking to the wealthy of this
world, the Holy Spirit says, God gives us the power to get
wealth. Deuteronomy 8, 18. If a man has wealth, it was God
that gave it to him. He gave him the ability to work
and gave him a mind. It's all because of him. To the self-righteous religious
in the world, the Holy Spirit declares, God gives the increase. It's God that gives it. It's
God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. To those who
humbly bow to Christ, Have you humbly bowed to Christ? To those
who do, the Holy Spirit says, God giveth grace to the humble. To those who are saved by the
victory of Christ over sin, the Holy Spirit proclaims, God gives
us every victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians
15. You see, it's all His. It's all
His gift to give. The gift from God is unearned.
What does God say about it? It's the grace of God that brings
salvation. It's Christ who gave himself
for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity. A man is not
justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus
Christ. And really, the faith of Jesus
Christ. It's his faith that saved us,
not ours. who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given in Christ Jesus before the world
began. But after that the kindness and
love of God, our Savior toward man appeared, His loving kindness,
It is not by works of righteousness that we've done, but according
to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed upon us abundantly through
Jesus Christ, our Savior. That's all a gift, and it's unspeakable. Can't be described. Thirdly,
a gift must be bestowed. It must be imparted. It's not
something offered to us. It's an operation upon us, what
it is. Has anyone ever on your birthday
or Christmas ever said to you, I want to offer you a gift? A gift's not an offer, it's freely
given with no strings attached. And you give that gift to that
person because you love them. You want them to have it. Freely,
freely given. An offer implies that there's
an ability by the one who receives it to accept or reject it. I'm
offering you something, no thank you. How about this? Yeah, I'll
take it. You're involved in it. No. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 6.23. And what about this? Can you offer a dead man life?
You can say, you know, eternal life is an offer?
No, no, no. You're dead. A dead man can't
receive anything until God gives him life. Christ came into the
world to give life to a dead sinner, not offer life to one
to live. Our Lord said a man can receive
nothing except it be given him from heaven. That's pretty blunt
and plain and simple, isn't it? And what a gift this is. It can't
be spoken, it can't be described, it can't be explained. It's unspeakable. It's a mystery. God's ways are
past finding out. Past finding out. Religion today
has taken the unspeakable, the indescribable, the unexplainable,
and they've made it contemptible, despicable, and detestable. They've made God's grace, they've
made God's gift to sinners, the sinner's gift to God. I'll get
it out in a moment. Isn't that right? I hear folks
all the time, our church did this and our church did that.
And our church is doing this. It's all about what they're doing
for God. And they never say anything about what God is doing for them. He's done everything for us. It's ridiculous, it's futile.
False preachers stand and preach and say, God loves you, won't
you love him back? Won't you give your heart to
Jesus? Let me tell you something, he don't want it. Not in its
fallen state. Why, it's deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. God's gotta give us a new heart.
A new heart. And that's his gift, and it's
unspeakable. It's indescribable. His love to you is much, much
more than an offer. That's what modern day preaching
is made of. God loves you and offers you
salvation if you'll simply love Him and accept Him. I ran into
an acquaintance of mine not long ago, and he just, no matter of
fact, he called me on the phone. He called me on the phone, he
said, Brother David, and I started saying, don't call me brother.
But he said, I accepted Jesus. I said, did you accept him or
did he accept you? Big difference, big difference. No one gives like our God and
his gift is unspeakable. We call the gospel the greatest
story ever told. Actually, it's the greatest story
that has never been told as it ought to be. The Holy Spirit tells us what we
know in part and we'll be preaching part. Clay and Kevin and John, me,
we could all get our heads together and not even make a dent in the
gospel. No, no, it's, one day we're gonna
be known as we're known. I have not seen nor you heard,
neither hath entered into the heart of the man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. The Queen of Sheba,
she heard of the fame of Solomon. I've often pictured that in my
mind. I can see her coming with her caravans and all the things
that she brought to Solomon, and she heard of his fame, and
she came to prove him with hard questions, the Scripture says,
and he answered all her questions. He didn't hide anything from
her. He told her everything. And when the Queen of Sheba had
seen all of Solomon's wisdom, and she saw all that the Lord
had done for him, She said, behold, the half was not told. Half was
not told me by wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. We just tell in part, John. We
tell all we can, and we're reporters of good news. but we can't speak
it as we ought. Half hadn't been told. For over
2,000 years, men have been and endeavored to tell the truth,
but the half of it hadn't been told. And if God is pleased to
leave us here, mankind here, another 2,000 years, the other
half won't be told. And then thirdly, The outline
of this verse tells us that this gift causes us, the receiver,
the recipient, to praise and thank God for it. Thanks be unto
God for his unspeakable gift. God didn't come into the world
to make God love us. Christ came into the world because
God loved us. God loved His people from the
foundation of the world. That's why Christ is called the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. What does that
tell us? That before there was ever a sinner, there was a Savior. And that we're nothing but sinners. For God so loved the world. That's
talking about His people in the world. You know, the very verse,
John 3.16, you know, It proves just the opposite that
Christ came to die for the whole world when you really look at
the verse. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son. Don't stop there. That whosoever
believeth in Him shall have everlasting life. That's who that's talking
about. That's not talking about the
world. That's talking about His people in the world. Those that
believe on Him. that they should not perish,
but have everlasting life. God gave us his son and we love
him because of it. He loved us and that's why he
gave us Christ. And as I said yesterday, we love
him because, I said it earlier today, I'll say it again. We
love him because, you wanna know why we love him? Because he first
loved us. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us. God's gift is not the cause of
His love. God's gift of Christ is the result
of His love. Christ is the fruit of God's
love for us. And all our fruit comes from
being in Him. What an unspeakable, indescribable,
unexplainable gift. Again, herein is love. What is
love? Not that we love God. Well, we
love those buts only in the scripture. But, that he loved us. You know, a believer is not gonna
talk about their love for God. It's not gonna do it. We'd be
ashamed to talk about our love for God. But we're gonna talk
about his love for us. That's what we're gonna preach.
That's what we're gonna rejoice in. He sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. He sent His Son to be the mercy
seat, the atonement for our sins. Jesus Christ is the mercy seat
that our sins were put upon. And it's His blood that was shed
for our sins that makes them all go away. Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. He's the high priest that sprinkles
that blood upon the mercy seat. He's that unspeakable gift. Mr. Spurgeon told a story about a
man who constantly took the Lord's name in vain. And he did so one
day in front of an old man that loved the Lord. And every time
that man took the Lord's name in vain, the old man would bow
his head. And time and time again, as the
blasphemy flowed from his lips, the old fellow bowed his head.
And finally, the man looked at him. He said, why are you bowing
your head? And the old man said, I bow my
head at the mention of God's name. But I must reverence his
name, and I bow my head even if you curse it. The world in
general doesn't know God. Don't. The safe center is going
to find ways to thank and reverence their God in the midst of those
that don't. I remember Brother Henry telling a story about playing
golf. They had a group of men playing
right behind them on the course. And Henry and them were just
enjoying like you're supposed to, Johnny, when you play golf.
And every time they'd hit these guys, be right behind them, almost
hitting them at times. And so finally, they were caught
right up with them at the next hole. And Brother Henry said,
why don't you all go ahead and play through, as they say. You
go ahead and go in front of us. And the guy, he thanked him. And then out of conversation,
he said, what do you do for a living? Brother Henry said, I don't think
you will know. These guys were drinking and
cursing and having a big time on the golf course, you know.
But the man insisted, and Brother Henry said, I'm a pastor and
a preacher of the gospel. And the man turned red with embarrassment. And he began to apologize for
the cursing and the drinking. And he told him he was sorry.
He actually said, I'm so sorry. We wouldn't have acted the way
we'd acted if we'd known that. And Brother Henry said, ain't
no need to apologize to me. He said, I'm not anybody, but
God is. He said, and he heard every word
you've said. He's seen every action that you've
done. So if you want to apologize to somebody, you might ought
to apologize to Him. Those without Christ aren't thankful
for Him. They take His name in vain, He
means nothing to them. But He means something to you
and me that love Him and believe Him. Christ and His salvation, not
a gift to everyone, just not. But to those given this unspeakable
gift, They're thankful and they praise Him for it. That's why
we sing to the Lord. We're thankful. We're thankful. To those whom this gift has been
given, they're grateful for His unspeakable gift. How can a man
be just with God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? How can the justice of God both
punish and pardon? How can God's mercy and truth
meet together? If the wages of sin is death,
how can God remain just and at the same time forgive us of our
sin when sin is all we are? How can God be a just God and
Savior? How can God's righteousness and
peace kiss each other? How can God be perfectly and
wholly and righteous at the same time? His gift, Jesus Christ. Salvation is a gift of God. This
gift is unspeakable. It's unmerited, it's undeserved. It has to be revealed and mere
words can't do it. And lastly, this unspeakable,
indescribable, and unexplainable gift causes saved sinners to
praise and thank God. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name give glory. God gives us all things. What
do we give Him? Really, what do we give Him?
Only what's already His. That being praise and glory.
Has God given this gift to you? Do you have this gift? Well,
the Word is not even in thy mouth and in thy heart, the Word of
faith which we preach. That's the reason you had this
meeting this weekend. To preach the Gospel. To point
men to Christ and say, this is God's gift. This is all it means
that you have of being just before God. Words nigh thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart. And that's why we're here. And that's why it's so urgent.
It stood the means of preaching that God saves those who believe
the message of grace in Christ Jesus. And may he, by this precious
gift of grace, make it so to you who are yet without Christ.
And if He does so, it'll be for His glory, for your good, and
for Christ's sake. It's all a gift. I thank God
for His unspeakable gift. I didn't always, I didn't know
what His gift was, and I sure wasn't thankful for it. And I
thought I could explain it, but I couldn't. Not until God made
Him mine, and made me His. Okay, thank you, brother. Thank you.