All right, let's turn back there
to Colossians chapter 1. Thank you, Art. Thank you very much. Well, I
got to bed this morning about 3.30 and I was laying there thinking
about the message I had finished up on and I was thinking about
what happened up there in Connecticut and trying to put myself in the
place of those parrots. And I understand how they could
be so sad, and I understand how they will probably be angry. And I began to question whether
I had prepared the right message for today. And then I got to
thinking about, what if Will died Friday at school? And I thought, It wouldn't matter
how he died, as long as he died in Christ. And so I thought,
if he died Friday, my biggest regret would be not taking enough
more time teaching him the truth. And so I realized the message
I have is the message, because this is the truth. This is what
matters. If you die, having this good
news right here, being settled in this good news right here,
it won't matter how you die. It won't matter. It doesn't matter
how we die. It matters in whom we die. Well, throughout the epistles,
The early church suffered the same charges and the same teachings
from false religion that the church faces in our day. Paul
was continually dealing with that in all of his epistles.
The false teachers would say that salvation, after they saw
Christianity taking a foothold, they said, well, salvation is
by faith in Christ. They would even say, and they
will say today, that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. But then they insist that the
believer must keep the law, must observe certain days, must observe
certain systems of rules and regulations or he cannot enter
into heaven. Well, either Christ is the end
of the law or the sinner must keep the law. Either Christ has
fulfilled the law or the believer must fulfill it. Either we're
complete in Christ or there's some work the sinner must do
to make himself complete. But the two cannot be mixed.
To do so is to mix law and grace. The error Paul dealt with is
the same false teaching which we hear so much in Christianity
in our day. Paul's object in this epistle
to the Colossians was to comfort the saints with the truth that
they are complete through faith in Christ, not by their works,
but only by Christ's finished work. Do you get that, believer? We are complete in Christ through
faith. Faith believes Him, turns from
all our works, from all our doings for acceptance with God and rests
in Christ. That does not mean that we do
not love to serve God. That does not mean that we are
not responsible to serve Him. We do. We are and we do. But
we're complete in Christ. The work's done. And we're not
doing anything from any other motive now than from the motive
of love for one that's done so much for us. Our text is Colossians
1, verses 21 through 23, and there's five words in this text
that we're going to focus our attention on. I just have four
divisions. Two of these words are in one
of the divisions. The first division, I want us to focus on these two
words, alienated and enemies. Verse 21, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. The second
word's reconciled. Yet now hath he reconciled in
the body of his flesh through death. The third word is present. to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in his sight. The fourth word is continue.
Verse 23, if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you've
heard, which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. Now the first thing
we see here is these two words, alienated and enemies. Verse
21 says, And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works. Before we were regenerated by
God the Holy Spirit, we were alienated. We were alienated
from the life of God. We think of an alien as being
somebody foreign to a country, one that's not subject to that
country's king, one that has no rights in that country, one
that has, he's not subject to any of the authority of that
nation. And that was true of us by nature. But this alienation is alienation
from the life of God. That's what we were alienated
from. We were alienated from the life of God. Ephesians 4.18
says, speaks of Gentiles walking in the vanity of their mind. That's what we did. We walk in
the vanity of our mind. And here's the vanity of our
mind. Having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. You
see how bad the vanity of our mind, our understanding was darkened. We were alienated from the life
of God through ignorance that was in us because of the blindness
of our heart. That was the case with us. That
was us by our first birth. That's the case with all men,
but that's the case of every child of God who's been called
by His grace. That's what we were. We couldn't
give ourselves the life of God. If we could give ourselves the
life of God, it wouldn't be the life of God, it'd be the life
of man. We couldn't give ourselves the life of God. The life God
gives, this life of God is the life God gives when we're born
of the Spirit of God. When we're born of Him, that's
the life of God. And this life is in His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's being born of Christ Jesus,
the everlasting Father, being born of God the Holy Spirit of
the incorruptible seed. That's what it is to be born and given the life of God, so
that we're no longer alienated from the life of God. But our
condition was even worse than that. We were alienated and enemies. and enemies. We were not only
cut off from the life of God, but in our mind, in our nature,
in our heart, in our ignorance, in the darkness and depravity
of our heart. The carnal mind hates God. The carnal mind hates God who
is life. The carnal mind hates the truth
that only God can give life. The carnal mind hates the life
God gives, which is Christ Jesus. The carnal mind hates God. And this is by our wicked works.
All of this is by our wicked works. God made man upright. He made him in his own image.
He made him good. There was nothing wrong with
the first man. He made him holy, put him in
a holy environment, no sin, perfect environment. right there in the
garden, to show you and I that without the life of God sustaining
us and keeping us and holding us and bringing us to himself
and saving us, the creature will fall away. How much more do you
think we are unable to bring ourselves to God and do anything
living in a sinful, cursed, wretched environment where our whole nature
is unholy, where we're alienated from the life of God and can
do nothing to please God? It's impossible. But God didn't
separate himself from us. We separated ourselves from God. We sinned against God. We departed
from God. Isaiah 59.2 says, Your iniquities
have separated between you and your God, and your sins have
hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. We went away
from God. First of all, by Adam's wicked
works as our federal head. We're gonna stand in one of two
federal heads. We're either gonna stand, there
was one man created and given, and give him, no man's free of
God's will. Okay? No man's free of God's
will. But Adam was given freedom of his will to do what he would
with a holy and upright nature. And he sinned against God. And
so everybody born of him, everybody then, his sin was imputed to
the whole human race. The whole human race. By one
man's sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death passed
upon all men for that. And the margin reads, in whom
all have sinned. And Adam all have sinned. But
secondly, by our own wicked works. Now listen to me. Don't stop. I know you've heard this before,
because this is the gospel, and you're going to keep hearing
it. But now listen. Tune in. Perk up and tune in, because
this is life right here. Somebody might walk in your school
on Monday and do what was done up there. You need to hear this
today. You need to hear this message now. All right. Enmity by our own
wicked works. We were conceived in sin so that
we ourselves came forth enmity against God. Not only by Adam's
wicked works, that was passed upon us judicially, legally,
we became sinners. But also by our own wicked works
in our own mind, by our own sin nature, by our own wicked heart
and deceitful black heart, we did this. And it's enmity that's
active. It's not inactive. Now listen
to me. I know we start thinking about,
well, I know there's some good people in the world and there's
people that aren't. Every man in this world is enmity against
God. He's enmity against God. Till God's done a work of grace
in his heart, he will not submit to Christ. With some, these wicked
works are the base, wicked, outward, lewd, horrific, sinful acts. But outward sins are just the
tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface, submerged
underneath the surface, is the heart. That's the nature. That's
where it's coming from. That's where it's coming from.
Enmity also manifests itself in active religious works whereby
a sinner's trying to earn acceptance with God. Enmity, it manifests
itself that way. I know sinners will say, religious
folks especially, will say, I don't hate God and I've never hated
God. You, my friend, are a bald-faced
liar. You don't know yourself. You
don't know yourself. The carnal mind is so defiled
and it's so deceitful and it's so blind that until God intervenes,
part of our wicked works is rejecting the Word of God against ourselves. Here's the paradox of this thing.
The paradox of it is a man will vent his anger, defending himself,
saying, I am not enmity against God. I don't hate God and I've
never hated God. And he will do that, hating God,
denying the truth that God says, yes, you are. Yes, you are. And not only that, whole churches
are planted. Deacons are ordained. Many wonderful
works are done. Large works are done. Impressive
works are done. I mean really works that are
in themselves good works. And they're done by the will
and the wisdom and the methods of unregenerate men. All being
the active manifestation of hatred against God. That's a paradox.
You mean men would do all that, building up all this in religion,
because they hate God? Exactly, because they're trying
to come to God another way. They're trying to build their
tower to God. Look at Titus 1.15. Titus 1.15. Unto the pure all things are
pure. Titus 1.15, right before the
book of Hebrews. Unto the pure all things are
pure. The pure are those in whom God
has created a new man, created them in the righteousness and
true holiness of Christ, gifted them with faith to trust Christ
who is all and in all, who is our complete acceptance with
God. Unto the pure all things are pure. They've been purified.
within. They behold the truth now. And
unto them all things are pure. Every work they do is pure. But
unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, unregenerate man
is nothing pure. But even their mind and conscience
is defiled. They profess that they know God.
You see that? They profess they know God, but
in works they deny Him. being abominable and disobedient,
and unto every good work reprobate." The works spoken of here, whereby
they deny Him, are clearly not immoral, lewd sins. It says,
unto every good work. unto every good work. How then
are they denying him in good works? Where the mind and conscience
is defiled, though they profess that they know God, though the
deeds may be in themselves good works, the doer of those works
is yet abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate
because the carnal mind is actively working out his enmity against
God. He's actively trying to come
to God another way other than simply believing on Christ. That's what it is. He will not
renounce himself. He will not repent from all his
vain works. He will not repent from 30 or
40 years ago when he made a profession of faith walking an aisle. He
will not repent from all his vain deeds of religion and simply
believe God and rest in Christ. And everything he's doing is
an active hatred against God. God says it's worse than what
that boy did up there in Connecticut. Trying to come to God in religion
another way. He said of Solomon and Gomorrah,
their sin is wicked. But he said, Jerusalem, yours
is worse. That's exactly right. That's
what he said. because it's trying to put on this act of deception
and come to God as if God doesn't know. They that are after the
flesh mind the things of the flesh. They're looking at...
You just listen to the messages. When I preach to you, I'm trying
to tell you the works God has done, the works God is doing,
the works God says He shall do. How that in the end we're going
to praise all the works that God has done. You listen to what
I'm saying to you. That's what I'm saying to you.
When I preach to you about man's responsibility in this earth
and about how we are to walk in a manner honoring and glorifying
to God, remembering whose we are, whose bought us, and whose
purchased us, and whose we belong to, I do it declaring to you
most emphatically, trying to press upon you the fact that
you cannot gain acceptance with God by anything you do. The believer's
acceptance with God is fully fully, freely, finally, forever,
Christ Jesus alone. It's not what we do. It's not
by our works that we're going to be accepted with God. We will
do that which is pleasing in God's sight by His grace, by
Him working within us, but it's not at all law. It's not us trying to make ourselves
accepted of God. But they that are after the Spirit,
they mind the things of the Spirit. We talk about the things of God.
We talk about what God has done. We rejoice in what God has accomplished.
Carnal mind is death. They live in death. They eat
death. They breathe death. They love
death. They feed death. They talk about death. And I'm
talking about all those wonderful works men are talking about.
It's death, death, death, death, death. It's trying to get life
out of death. Life out of death. Can you get
life out of death? You can prop a dead man up and
walk around with his body and pretend like you're doing all
kinds of works with him. He's still a dead man. That's
what we are. Alienated from the life of God.
But the spiritual minded man is life in peace. I'm alive in
Christ. I have eternal life. It'll never
be undone. It'll never be taken away. I
have peace with God. We're not at war with each other
anymore. He's never been at war with me.
I've been at war with him, but now we're just at peace together. The carnal mind hates God. That's
why it's not subject to the law of God. It won't bow to God's
word and take sides with God and say, yes, God, you're true. So then they that are in the
flesh can't please God. When you're alienated from the
life of God, you're alienated in an enemy. That's what you
are. Here's the second word. Reconciled. Colossians 1.21.
Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through
death. Yet now hath He reconciled in
the body of His flesh through death. Talking about Christ.
By Christ's finished work, God has already reconciled a people
to Himself. Do you understand that? By Christ's
death. It says yet now. That means it
is done. It can never be undone. It can
never be undone. It says, yet now hath He reconciled. Christ did it whenever He laid
down His life. Christ did it. He reconciled
everybody for whom He died to God so that their slate is completely
wiped clean. They are completely justified.
They are completely righteous. They are completely everything
required for God to accept them, God has made peace for them with
Himself. That's what Christ accomplished.
It was done by His death. God didn't leave the slightest
degree of reconciliation in the hand of those He reconciled.
We were enemies in our mind, alienated from the life of God
and enemies in our mind by wicked works. Why would God trust a
part of this reconciliation into our hands? We would never be
reconciled. to Him, if that was the case.
But not only that, we couldn't be reconciled to Him because
Christ accomplished reconciliation for the elect in the body of
His flesh through death. That's how reconciliation was
accomplished. The Son of God was made flesh because His brethren
were flesh. He's that perfect faithful man. standing in the place of all
His elect people. Just like Adam was that sinful
man who stood in the place of all of mankind, all He represented. Christ is that faithful man who
stands in the place of all He represented, so that everything
He does, they did. Everything He accomplished, they
accomplished. And He's that one who stood there before God with
all the sins of His people, burying them in His own body. That's
why He was made flesh. And He was made flesh that He
might bear the chastisement of the peace of His people in His
own body on that tree. He bore their sins and He bore
their judgment from God in His body. That's why He had to be
made flesh. He had to be made flesh in order
to bear the sins of His people and to bear the judgment of His
people. And there was no other way that God could reconcile
a fallen sinner to Himself than for Christ to come in His flesh
and lay down His life under the wrath of God and redeem that
sinner from the curse of the law. Satisfy justice for Him
so God can be just to be merciful to Him. So now you have got this
sinner, all of the sinners for whom Christ died, they're reconciled
by Christ. It was done when Christ did it.
Look at verse 20 there, Colossians 1.20. I just love this message. The message
of of God's grace is the best news, it's the best thing you
could ever, ever hear. Men who get mad and fight against
what God has done so freely for his people, they only prove how
dark and blind and ignorant and hateful of God they are. Because
this is the only hope we have. This is it. And God's done it
so freely for His people. Look at Colossians 1.20. He says,
let's look at verse 19. It pleased the Father that in
Christ should all fullness dwell. And having made peace, that's
what reconciliation is. It's God making peace with God
for His people. And having made peace through
the blood of His cross, through the blood of His cross, by Him
to reconcile all things, that is all people, all His children,
unto Himself, by Him I say, whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven, whether they're those already in heaven or those still
in the earth, they're all reconciled one way, by Him. Yet now hath
He reconciled you, He said. Romans 5.10 says, be turning
to 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 5. Romans 5.10 says, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
That means we didn't have a hand in it. When we were enemies,
when we as yet were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son. That means we and you were born
1900 and something years after Christ
died. That means we've been reconciled to God. Those of you who've been
called by his grave, we were reconciled to God at least 1970 or 50 or 60 years before before
we were ever born. We had nothing to do with it.
Look at verse 18, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry
of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world of his elect unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. I'm standing
here in the name of God. I'm standing here in the name
of God saying to you now, praying you in Christ's stead, be ye
reconciled to God. For if he didn't impute their
trespasses unto them, where'd he impute them then? Verse 21,
for he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Reconciliation was
accomplished by Christ for His people. But now reconciliation
is also a work of God brought within us. You know, we died
in Adam. But then we were also enemies
by our wicked works, because we're born of corrupt seed. We're
reconciled by Christ by the work He did on the cross for us, but
we're also reconciled in our heart and affections within. We got to be, in our minds, God's
got to be made to us no longer an enemy, but a friend who's
done all this for us. How's that going to happen? We're
dead. We're enemies. We're alienated. We think God's
our enemy. We're at war with God. We've declared war on Him.
We've pledged allegiance to the prince of the power of the air.
And we will not bow to God. So how then is this reconciliation
going to be accomplished? We have to be born of God. We
have to be given the mind of Christ. Christ has to be made
our wisdom. In other words, to replace this mind that is an enemy to God.
We have to have a new mind given to us. He purges our conscience. When we're born of God, then
He purges our conscience within by Christ's blood. He reveals
in us that God has already reconciled us into a state of eternal peace
with Himself. That He's justified us of all
our sins, past, present, and future, by Christ's blood. Do
you realize what that means? If we're justified of all our
sins, past, present, and future, that means, and God says, I remember
their sins no more. That means there's nothing a
sinner can do that will ever be counted by God in the court
of heaven as a sin against us that will bar us from entering
into heaven. He remembers our sin no more. Well, you told us
this morning, though, He'll chasten us for our sin. Yes, He will.
He will turn us so that we don't run into our sin and die in perishing
sin. He'll turn us and keep us seeing
in Christ. You're complete. It's done. Stop
running after that sin and seek Him and His house and His brethren
and the good of His people. Serve Him. And how much more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? In other words, you can't do
better than that. He offered himself. You've not
offered yourself. You've not resisted unto blood.
You haven't gone and said, I'll die to put away my sin. He did it through the eternal
spirit so that though he died, he's risen from the grave now,
and he's seated at the right hand of God. Can you do that?
Can we do that? He did it without spot. He's spotless, perfect. He had
no sin to begin with. You have to be spotless and sinless
before you can take the sin of somebody to yourself. We can't
do that. In other words, shouldn't the
blood of Christ, when we hear this good news and hear what
He's done and we've truly taught it in our hearts, shouldn't that
stop us? Shouldn't that purge the conscience?
Shouldn't that make us see there's what I'm doing trying to come
to God some other way is useless. God's found His ransom and God's
accepted with His Son. It's done. While our conscience
was defiled, though our deeds were evil, because everything
we were doing was not in the love of God. It was not out of
love for God. It was not from the pure motive
of what God has done for me. It was trying to come to God
some other way, trying to get the glory that belongs to Christ,
the preeminence that belongs to Christ, the fullness that's
in Christ, and attribute it all to myself. And God said, that's
wickedness, and that's evil. And he won't have it. But God
sets our affection on Christ by teaching us inwardly what
Christ has done for us. He teaches us that he's put away
our sins by himself. He teaches us that he remembers
our sin no more. Oh, isn't that good news? Oh,
if you see your sin, that's good news. That's what's gonna make
you forget the sin of your spouse, and the sin of your brother,
and the sin of your sister, and love them and cherish them in
spite of their sin against you, is when you see that every single
solitary breath you take is sin against God, and yet he doesn't
remember it anymore. We come down off our high horse
then and start thinking in our minds about what they've done
and realize it's nothing compared to what I do constantly. And
that'll make us love Him and love one another. That's when
love's ruling the heart. That's when love's got the seat
of our affection. He teaches us there's no more
condemnation now because of what Christ has done. No more condemnation. We cannot be brought. The believer
that's called can't be condemned. God condemned His Son and He
won't condemn anybody for whom He condemned His Son. That's
double jeopardy. That's unjust. And our God is
just. The judge of all the earth shall
do right. And then He teaches us now that
He's made us completely free by His Spirit from the law of
sin and death. It can't touch us. Satan can
accuse all he wants to, but he's got no ammunition. Our sin's
put away. God has come and He has undone
everything that Adam did in the garden. And he's not only undone
it, he's done it through the eternal spirit so that we are
eternally uncondemnable, eternally holy, eternally accepted, eternally
given life, so that we got something better than Adam ever had. This
can't be undone. Then, what happens then? What's
this purging of the conscience? What's going on when this is
happening? I'm trying to tell you what is happening. I hope
maybe somebody here is experiencing what I'm talking about. I want
you to recognize what it is. When this starts to happen, the
terror you had of coming to God and being honest with God, The
fear of God that you had, which was a legal fear of coming out
of the darkness into the light and saying, Father, you're right.
Father, everything you said about me is true. I'm unjust. I don't deserve anything. I'm
a wretched, ungodly sinner. That terror is gone. That terror is replaced with
this great love because the love of God can't abide and have dominion,
I mean the terror can't abide and have dominion where the love
of God has dominion. And when He sheds His love in
the heart and He sheds it abroad in that new man in the heart,
that terror and that evil wickedness that kept us from being honest
with ourselves and honest with God and honest with one another
and coming and confessing we need mercy, we need grace, we
need God to do the work to save us from ourselves, that terror
is gone. And love's there now. And then
there's no fear. 1 John 4, 18 says, there's no
fear in love. But perfect love casteth out
fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth's not made perfect
in love. You know what's keeping you from
God, who will not come to God and confess your sin and believe
on Christ? You think God's going to condemn
you because you're wicked. You know you're wicked. You know
you've never done anything to live up to God. You wouldn't
be afraid of dying if it wasn't so, and you're afraid of dying.
But when God does this, His perfect love casts out fear, and it makes
us so we can come to God now and be honest with God. And for
the first time, we believe Christ. For the first time, we've been
made honest. For the first time, we confess our sins. We believe
Christ. We believe He's worked all this
work for us and in us. And then for the first time,
we draw near with a true heart. in full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies
washed with pure water. And then we start singing with
the psalmist, my heart is fixed, oh God, my heart is fixed. I'll sing and give praise. My
heart's fixed. It's set on Him, it's having
a new mind, a new heart, a new nature. Now doing His will, becomes
a delight. Now his gospel becomes a delight. Now coming to hear what he's
done for me, I just can't get over it. I want to hear it more
and more and more and more. I want to give myself to serve
him. Now I believe he owns everything. Now I see what he's done for
me and his son. Now I see that it's just sitting
there, everything at my disposal. And God's just saying, just believe
me and it's yours. Just believe me and it's yours.
Whatever you need in this life to promote the good news of what
I have done in my son, that my son will have all preeminence,
it's yours for the asking. That's so. Do you believe that? Say, well, I don't know. I haven't
experienced it. Try believing it. Try believing Him. If we don't ever trust Him, we
won't ever find out if it's so. When that old man starts screaming,
don't trust God too much, His blood shed abroad in our hearts,
we hear this good news through His Spirit, and He turns us from
that old, vile, wretched, God-hating criminal, and He turns us to
Christ, and He says, Son, just ask me. I gave my Son for you. What do you need? What do you
need to exalt Him? What do you need to glorify His
name? What do you need to help your hurting brethren? What do
you need to help them? It's yours. That will make you
free. In every way. It makes you free.
You're not in bondage. You're free. Free to serve Him. Free to love Him. Free to...
You're free. You see, the law don't have a
thing to do with that. That's love. That's grace making
that. So reconciliation's done for
us and it's done in us. It's all by God. Then thirdly,
and I'm gonna be brief here. Look at this word, present. Look
at Colossians 1, 22. Why did He do all this? Why did
God do all this? To present you holy and unblameable
and unapprovable in His sight. God the Father has done all this
in His Son, Christ Jesus, and given us His Spirit to present
us, to present you, Himself, to Himself. in His sight, the
only way He will receive you. Holy and unblameable and unreprovable. Right now, Christ, our High Priest,
has entered into the very presence of God for us. And just like
Aaron went into that Holy of Holies, and he held a breastplate,
and on that breastplate it had the names of the tribes of Israel,
he's got the names of his children on his breastplate, representing
us, presenting us to the Father. You say, well, I'm not there.
Good thing. Christ is, and that's the only
one that matters. Christ is there. He's presenting
us to the Father. Our life is hid with Christ in
God. You understand? We're dead, and
our life is hid with Christ in God. He will one day deliver
up the kingdom to the Father, and He's going to say, Lo, the
children thou hast given me, here they are. And not one of
them is going to be lost. Every one of them is going to
be there. And He's going to present you in His perfect all-knowing
sight, where nothing can be hid, light, where no darkness is,
in His all-knowing sight. He's going to present you to
Himself, holy and unblameable and unapprovable. We've been
made honest by His grace and we can say, that can't be. by anything done by me. Not that I'll be presented in
the all-knowing sight of God, holy and unblamable and unapprovable. No, but back in verse 12 it says,
the Father hath made us meet, fit, to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. We've been looking at how He
did it. He did it in Christ. Christ is our righteousness and
our sanctification. He is our righteousness, that's
that outward thing He did for us, and He's our sanctification,
that's that inward work He's worked in us. He's our perfect
obedience. All our sins were purged away
by His sacrifice. Our persons are washed and cleansed
in His blood. We're clothed with His spotless
righteousness. Our hearts have been sanctified
by His Spirit. He will present us in all the
beauties of His holiness. Do you think Christ can be blamed?
Do you think Christ can be reproved? Do you think Christ is holy?
He's the one He's going to present us to Himself in and by. He's
going to present Himself to us a glorious church without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing. A bride prepared for her husband. I was thinking about that and
I thought of this. There's going to be a lot of folks, he says,
going to meet him in that day saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we
do all these works in your name? They're going to stand there
in front of him in that day and actively vent their enmity against
him by saying, look at all the wonderful works we did in your
name. Actively stand there and vent
that inequity and that enmity to his face. Can you imagine
a bride showing up to her wedding, or a woman showing up to a wedding,
claiming to be the bride, but the groom has never met her?
You'd say, well, that woman showed up trying to say, I'm your bride.
I'm your bride. I've been planning for this day
since I read it in the paper that you were getting married.
I've been planning this for, I've done all this and look,
I made this wedding dress and everything and I'm your bride.
And he's standing there saying, woman, I've never met you. I
don't even know who you are. Sinner, be honest with God. He
knows them that are his. We don't come to God fooling
God. You can plead all your works. You can deny your sins. You can
claim you believe God. But this one simple fact will
betray you to him in that day. He will say, depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew
you. Bind him hand and foot, take
him away. Cast him in an outer darkness where there will be
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Can you imagine a stranger showing
up before the king? A rank stranger just coming up
into a king's palace and claiming she's the king's daughter? And
claiming that she's wearing a garment that she made and she's claiming
that the king made it? We can't fool Christ our king.
Christ the king's daughter is all glorious within. You know
why? Her glory within is that she's
born of the king's seed. She's His daughter. She's partaker
of the divine nature of Christ the King. Christ is her sanctification
within. She's His daughter. She's born
of Him. And it says in her clothing is
wrought gold. It's the robe of Christ the King
that he made himself for his daughter to wear, our righteous
and just standing before God by his obedience. So we can't
fool Christ our King. Those given him of the Father
were alienated and enemies in our minds by wicked works. But
by his pure holy person and by his perfect work, we're reconciled
by him and all shall be born of him, robed by him, presented
by him, and shall be his holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
workmanship. And he did. When you make something,
and you hold it up for everybody to see it, when you stand for
somebody coming along and saying, I made that. You say, no, this
is my workmanship. That's what his children are.
Inside and out. All his workmanship. Now look
at the last thing, verse 23. The next words continue. If you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, which you've heard, which was preached to every creature
which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister."
Now believer, continue in the faith. If you're he is, you will. Continue
in the faith. Our faith will be proven to be
the gift of God if we endure to the end trusting Christ and
Him alone. That's what faith does. It says,
I don't need any other argument. I'm not looking to try to come
any other way. All my eggs are in this basket right here. I'm
going to live forever eternally or I'm going to perish forever
eternally trusting Him. But I'm going to do it trusting
Him. It's all in His hand. That's right. He that endureth
to the end shall be saved. Some are moved away from the
hope of the gospel for the works of the law. Some go to Mount
Zion and they're not content with Mount Zion. They take off
back to Mount Sinai. Some join with deceitful workers.
Some like the wages of unrighteousness. Some want a teaching position.
Some want some kind of honor in a church. Somebody, they want
a parking spot with their name on it or a pew with their name
on it or something. And you think that's absurd that
men would forsake eternal life and forsake Christ and go join
themselves with the Harlot of Babylon for that, but they will.
That's a deceitful heart for some other crooked way. I like
what Mark Twain said there. He said, I'm going to paraphrase
it, but he said, it's easier to fool a man than to convince
a man that he's being fooled. That's so. And these fellas convinced
them by just giving them some trinkets of dust to feed the
lust of their flesh. But the Lord said this, As for
such as turn aside under their crooked ways, the Lord shall
lead them forth with the workers of iniquity, but peace shall
be upon Israel. Peace shall be upon Israel. Don't
ever think that when, if folks leave us to join with freewill
works religion, don't ever for once in a million years imagine
that that's loss. That's gain. That's great gain. It's great gain. I would much
rather, I'm getting into my next message, but I'd much rather
see those that would harm you, Christ's sheep, to depart than
to see them remain. I would much rather that to be
the case, much rather. And it's not get lost, it's gain,
it's gain. But it proves, when men do that,
it proves that they were nothing but a fraud from the beginning.
It's not that such a one was a saint who fell away. They were
never the workmanship of God. True faith endures to the end
because God finishes what He begins. Paul said, having obtained
help of God, I continue unto this day. He which begun a good
work in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. So this
continuing to the end proves He really did the work. He's
really done it all. If we fall away, we just prove
all the charade was just a costume we built for ourselves. How do
we continue? Verse 23 says, grounded and settled. We're grounded. When you build
your house, you build it on a foundation. Our foundation's Christ. That's
the ground. Our foundation is Christ. And
we're living stones, fitly framed together, built upon this, grounded
upon this foundation. And when the house is built,
in the first year or so that the house is built, sometimes
a little longer than that, the house is not yet quite grounded
because it's got to settle. But when it settles and everything's
all loosened down and just settles down on that foundation, it's
grounded and it's settled. It's settled there now. That's
what he's saying. Being grounded and settled. Being
settled on Christ. And be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel which you've heard. The hope of the Gospel
is Christ, the anchor of our soul. Christ has entered into
the holy place and our hope enters in there and it's sure and steadfast
because there Christ is, there He is representing us to God.
If Christ is our hope, you will not be moved away from the Gospel.
The Lord said, who hears these sayings of mine and does them?
He's like a man, a wise man that built his house upon a rock.
Christ is that rock, and the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon the house. We
must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom. We're
going to have to bear that. But every house that's built
upon him falls not, for it's founded upon the rock. It's grounded
and settled on the rock, and it can't be moved. I've preached
this same gospel since the first day we met. I hadn't moved one
inch from it. I hadn't moved. I've been challenged
and disputed and everything else, and I've just kept preaching
the same thing to you. And if God keeps me, I'll keep
preaching this to you. And I'm telling you now, I'm
telling you this is so. If you've heard this gospel inwardly,
know that we have a good hope through grace. So whatever trial
comes, Whatever trial come, whatever doubts, whatever fears, hope
against hope. When it doesn't look like this
is not a, there's no hope in this. Hope against hope. There was no, to Abraham it looked
like there was no hope of him having a child. He hoped against
hope. He trusted God, that's what it's
saying, trust God. When it looks like there's no
way that you can believe this is gonna come to pass, believe
against unbelief. Hope against hope and believe
against unbelief. Whenever the Lord, he said to
those in Haggai's day, when he turned them to trust God, And
He turned them to trust Him and to depend upon His Word, His
house, to go to work in His kingdom serving Him. He said, now look,
He said, look what's in the barn. Look what's in the press vat.
He said, there's more there than there was before. And He said,
when as yet, it hasn't even been harvest time yet. You say, and
I read that and I say, that's impossible. You can't have seed
in the barn until you've had a harvest to get the seed from
that harvest to put in the barn. God's thoughts are not our thoughts
and His ways are not our ways. He does things to make us on
purpose sit there and say, I never would have thought this could
be done. He always whittles His people
down to a little number so that we have to say, God did this,
we didn't do this. That's what He's doing for us,
brethren. So endure. And look, nowhere else but Christ.
His strength is made perfect in weakness. That's when we see
His strength. Look nowhere else but Christ
and remember you're complete in Him. Complete in Him. Is it
that good? Is it really that good a news
that simply believing Christ I'm accepted? There's nothing
else for me to do to be presented to God wholly unblameable and
unapprovable in His sight? That's the good news. That is
the good news. We ought to be touching the ceiling
when we hear that. Man, sometimes it makes me want
to turn Pentecostal. I want to start jumping pews.
I do. It makes me want to just shout.
It's the greatest thing. Man, that's good news. You don't see it in yourself.
I don't see it in myself. Holy, unblameable, and unapprovable. You know what matters? Not my
side and not your side and his side. That's what matters. Amen.