Okay, let's turn to Ephesians
chapter 2. And I want to read one verse
to you here in verse 7. It says, that, meaning everything
that has just been said up to this point was done for this
reason right here. That in the ages to come, that
in the ages to come, throughout this age and all eternity,
that in the ages to come, He, God, might show the exceeding
riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Why do we delight in the Gospel?
Why do we delight to hear the Gospel preached? Well, when we
hear the Gospel preached, the gospel of our Redeemer, God is
showing us, He's reminding His child again of the exceeding
riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
This is the truth of God whereby the Spirit of God makes Christ
the life and the breath of our very being, of our souls. This
is the gospel that God makes a man whereby He makes a man
entirely new, and continues to keep us new, renewed in the inner
man, strengthened in the inner man, though that outward man
is perishing day by day. And it's because He continually
declares to us the exceeding riches of His grace toward us
and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. I want to look
at that tonight. Let's go back and let's begin
in verse 1. The first thing is we see the
riches of God toward us. in His long-suffering toward
us. His suffering long with us when we were in our natural state. Now this is a description here
of every man that is born into this world. You hear me speak
often of the old man. You hear me speak of the flesh.
You hear me speak of the unregenerate. You hear me speak of the old
nature. This is what is described here in this text. This is what
we are by nature. Here's verse 1. And you hath
he quicken. He's speaking here to believers
who have been born of the Spirit of God. You hath he quicken who
were dead in trespasses and in sins. Now dead says it all. That's what we were as we came
forth into this earth. We weren't hurt, we were dead. We weren't wounded, we were dead. We weren't paralyzed, we were
dead. We weren't almost, we were completely dead. Now, have you
ever seen life go out of a body? When life goes out of a body...
There's just a marked difference in that body. You've seen a person,
a corpse laying in a casket. You can put makeup on it. You
can do all these different things to try to make it look alive,
but it's just dead. It's cold. It's got no emotion. It's got no love. It's got no
expression of life in it whatsoever. Well, we are alive physically
and we can move and live and breathe and do these things,
but we don't have inwardly any emotion for God, any love for
God, any delight in God. Inwardly, we're as dead as that
corpse laying there in a coffin. That's what we are by nature.
Now that's the spiritual condition of every single person born into
this world the first time. We're born with no spiritual
life, no spiritual movement, no spiritual ability. All spiritual
life is absence from us. We're like that corpse in that
coffin. Now, a fallen man, a dead man, you don't look to a dead
man for anything. You wouldn't expect anything
from a dead man. That's us. And God doesn't expect
anything from us. And we ought not expect a dead
man to hear our gospel and understand our gospel and believe our gospel.
We sometimes get frustrated and we say, I just don't know why
they don't believe this. Well, they don't believe it because
they're dead. That's why. Dead. A dead man can't do anything. He's dead. Now, if our condition
spiritually was on a scale and zero was dead, Zero meant dead,
all right? Now, from here forward, we're
fixed to go backwards from zero. We're going minus from zero in
the minus direction. We're not only dead, but we're
dead in trespasses and in sins. You take a dead carcass. That's
bad enough. A dead carcass is bad enough.
But now you think of a dead carcass that's been covered over in ants
and maggots and just is rotting away. Now you got something worse
than even a dead carcass. Well, natural man is not only
spiritually dead, but we're covered over. We're immersed in our own
corruption. We're crawling with the filth
of our own trespasses and our own sins. All right? It doesn't
stop there. Now we're going to go back a
little further in the minus direction. Natural man is swept along in
the current of this world. Look at verse 2. Wherein in time
past you walked according to the course, the current of this
world. You go down to the shore and
you got that riptide that's under the current there. Well, if a
man's alive, folks who are alive can fight against that current
and try to strive against it. But if you've got no life and
no strength in you, that current's going to carry you wherever it
wants to carry you. Well, the believer strives against
being conformed to this world by the Spirit of God. We don't
want to be conformed to this world. But a dead man, now listen
to me, a spiritually dead sinner, doesn't even fight against the
current, but goes with it, just goes right with the course of
this world, to be taken with it, taken with it, and gladly
swept along with it. dress like it, talk like it,
listen to what the world listens to, eat what the world eats,
go where the world goes, be just like the world. That's what natural
man wants to do. The world tells you this is what
success is, the natural man shoots for it. The world tells you this
is what failure is, the natural man tries to avoid that. The world tells you how you ought
to dress and act and what's good to follow after, and the natural
man follows right after. Since Adam sinned and death passed
upon all men, mankind's not getting better. Mankind's getting worse. Mankind's going away from God,
not going towards God. That's the course of this world.
The course of this world is to go away backwards from God, not
to God. And that's true from the foulest
to the one that appears the best. It's true from the poorest to
the richest. It's true from those that are
out in the filthy back alley gutters to those that are in
the most pristine cathedrals. This is the case. The natural
course of man is to go away backwards from God. All right, now we're
going to go backwards even further. Paul says that the natural man
is under the dominion of the devil. Look at verse 2. He says,
We walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. Paul said, in whom the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not." Why
is it that a natural man cannot receive the things of God? Why
is it that a natural man has no delight in Christ? Why is
it a natural man cannot see the exceeding sinfulness of his sin
before God? Why is that? It's because he's
blinded by the prince of the power of the air. The mind is
blinded by Satan's dominion upon it. And he cannot see. Now there's
no exceptions about this. Look at the next word in verse
3. among whom also we all had our conversation in time past
in the lust of our flesh." That word conversation means conduct
as well as verbal conversation. It's everything about us. We
were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Now
some of those lusts and some of those desires were the outward,
evil, wretched, things that you equate with sin. Some of those
lusts and desires were those things. But some of those lusts
and desires were those intellectual things that we praise so much
about men. Philosophy. Vain deceit. Maybe it was like Paul was when
he was dead in his sins. Maybe it was feigned faith. Maybe it was a faith that appeared
to be genuine, appeared to be zealous of God, but had no idea
of how God saved sinners. All of these things are the lusts
of our flesh, the desires of the flesh and of the mind. The
man that's dead in sin doesn't have a problem coming to God
just so he can make his God and make his God do what he wants
his God to do. But this is what we were. Verse
3 says, we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. God's elect were put in Christ
before the world was made. Now let me show you this. Ephesians
1, look at verse 3. You know this. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy. That's what we were when He put
us in Christ. Separated into Christ. Holy in Christ. Sanctified in Christ by God's
divine election. He put us in Christ. Put His
people in Christ. We were without blame before
Him in love. in Christ. And He predestinated
us from that time before the world began to the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to Himself. And He did this all according
to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of
His grace, and in all this," this is what He did, He made
us accepted in the Beloved, so that God's elect were sanctified,
they were justified, they were accepted in Christ our surety
before the foundation of the world. You know what a surety
is? Assurity, in the way that we speak of assurity, is somebody
that cosigns with you and says, I'll pay the debt if you can't
pay it. That's not how Christ is assurity. When Christ, in
the everlasting covenant of grace, entered into covenant with God,
to be surety of His people, God never looked at His people to
do anything. He looked at Christ to do it.
And because He's God the Son and would, without any doubt,
any possibility, come forth and accomplish the will of the Father
for which God made this whole world, from that very time that
He entered into suretyship engagement, His people were sanctified and
justified and accepted in Christ Jesus in the Beloved from that
time forward. But when we came into this world
by nature, in ourselves, in what we are, in our natural state,
we were children of wrath even as others. The principles and
all the motives in the sin-dead heart that was just the same
in ours as it was in anybody else's. We were motivated by
the same selfish, carnal, God-hating lust just like everybody else
in this world. The scripture says the carnal
mind is enmity against God. We were children of wrath. We
hated God just like everybody else in this world hates God.
Absolutely. We deserved the wrath of God,
just like every other child of God deserves, every other sinner
in this world deserves the wrath of God. So that's the first thing
we hear in this Gospel. Now, you're thinking, how does
that show me His riches and His kindness? How would I see His
riches and grace in that? Here's why. Here's the second
thing. Because in this Gospel, we're being told that of His
riches of mercy and love and grace toward us. Look at verse
4. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins. And in that parenthesis there,
He says, by grace you're saved. God who is rich in mercy. You know what mercy is? Mercy
is God withholding from us what we have fully earned and what
we fully deserve. Angels fail, but God didn't show
them any mercy. But God had chosen to show mercy
to chosen sinners. mercy, to withhold from us what
we deserve. Why do you always preach about
sin? Why do I always preach about
sin? The believer, how can a believer, this is what carnal understanding
doesn't understand, how is it that a believer likes to hear
that same sin and rebellion be talked about over and over and
over. Why does a believer enjoy hearing about what he is by nature? A sinner and a hater of God.
Why does he like to hear that? We like to hear it because we
don't ever appreciate the riches of God's mercy until we have
some understanding of the depths of our sin. What's going to make
you appreciate the riches? You think about it. If you were
completely bankrupt, You couldn't pay your mortgage. Your mom and
dad couldn't put food on your table. They couldn't do anything
for you whatsoever to provide clothes to put on your back.
Anything. You know how much you would love
that person who came and said, I'm going to pay it all for you.
But you wouldn't have any appreciation of a person that came and said,
I'm going to pay everything you have if you're eating high on
the hog, and if you're dressing in the latest fashions, and if
you're living in a big mansion and walking around, you'd think,
I don't need him. How are we going to come to appreciate
the riches of God withholding in mercy everything we fully
deserve? We're going to understand it
by hearing about what we are by nature. And truly, as proportionate
as you find yourself to be a dead, dog, worthless sinner in yourself
is proportionally how much you're going to appreciate the riches
of God's mercy. Let me show you that. Turn over
to Luke 7. Luke 7. Look at verse 37. A woman in the city, which was
a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meet in the Pharisee's
house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his
feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears,
and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet,
and anointed them with the ointment, Now when the Pharisee, which
had bitten him, saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner
of woman this is that touches him, for she is a sinner. This
man would never let that woman touch him. This Pharisee was
so righteous in himself, he would have told her, Get over there,
woman, I am holy, and I am too holy for you to come over here
and have anything to do with me. Jesus answering said unto him,
Simon, I have some what to say unto thee. He said, Master, say
on. He said there was a certain creditor
which had two debtors. Both these fellas owed this creditor
a debt. The one owed 500 pence and the
other owed 50. You get the picture now? Here's
two men, they're in debt. One owes 500 pence, another owes
50. And he said, when they had nothing
to pay, they couldn't pay anything, he frankly forgave them both. He just forgave them both. Now
he says, tell me therefore, which of them will love him the most?
Which is going to love him the most? Simon answered and said,
I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said, thou
hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
he said to Simon, And he said, you see this woman? I entered
into thine house, and thou gavest me no water for my feet. She's
washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of
her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since the time
I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil
thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with
ointment. Wherefore I say unto you, her
sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. For to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little. You understand
that? The same, whoever's forgiven
much, whoever doesn't see how much they need this mercy, they'll
love little. But that one who sees I need
his mercy more than anybody else, they're gonna love him much,
much. That's why we preach this message
of our sin. Look at the next thing back in
our text. While I'm thinking about it,
I'll tell you something else. Mercy is God withholding from
us what we deserve. You know, one time, Nadab and
Abihu, they were sons of Aaron. They'd been consecrated to the
priesthood. They had on the robes of the priest and everything.
And they had just watched God consume the sacrosanct offering
and the burnt offering and the peace offering with fire. And
they decided that they would take some fire in each one of
their censers and they'd go into the tabernacle of God and they'd
offer it to Him. No doubt they were sincere. No
doubt that they had in their hearts it was coming to God and
giving something to God and glorying in God. But you know what God
did? God sent fire and just killed
them both right where they stood. And he turned to Aaron, their
father, and he said, don't cry. You can't cry. Then he said,
go get your relatives and let them carry them out in their
garments, carry them out, and they'll bury them. But you can't
even go out of this house and follow them because you've been
anointed with oil. And God said, I've done this
that you might understand that I put a difference between the
clean and the unclean. I put a difference between that
which is common and that which is uncommon. You think about
how many times we've come into the Lord's house in our days
of rebellion and and just mocked God by our irreverence for the
preaching of the Gospel and for the Word that's being set forth
and for this great and holy thing that's being done in our midst.
You know what mercy it is if God didn't just send fire and
consume our little narrow behind right there where we stood? That's
the mercy I'm talking about. What God says is holy is holy.
Holy. That's what we're talking about.
Look at this next thing now back in Ephesians 2. This is why we
preach this, because not only do we see His mercy, but verse
4 says, we see His great love, wherewith He loved us even when
we were dead in sins. Even when we were dead in sins.
God's love for His elect is unsearchable. You know that text that Brother
Bruce preached from the other night. Look over there at Ephesians
3 verse 17. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what's the breadth
and the length and the depth and the height of that love.
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that
you might be filled with all the fullness of God. How are
we going to come to know something about that love wherewith He
loved us? We're going to come to understand something of it
when we see that He loved us even when we were dead in sins. Sin is an abomination to God.
Abomination means stench. It means it's loathsome. It means
it's abhorred by God. And we use that illustration
of that dead animal that dead carcass in the woods. If you
come upon a dead carcass in the woods and it's covered over in
maggots and it's covered and it's rotting away and it stinks
when you come upon it, what do you do? You go the other way,
don't you? You get as far away from it as
you possibly can because it's an abomination to you. That's what you are and I was
while we were dead in our sins. just that loathsome, like a dead
carcass with maggots all over it. And yet Christ loved us. Let men talk about all they want
to. Self-righteous men talk about
how much they love men and how much they love their neighbor
and how much they fulfill the royal law of God. God's infinite purity. He's perfect
holiness. He hates sin with a perfect righteous
hatred. But God, who is rich in mercy
with His great love, wherewith He loved us even when we were
dead in sin. Look over at Romans 5. Look at
Romans chapter 5. When we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. We don't have any idea
what that word means. I wish we could. The ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die. Yet pert venture for a good man
some would even dare to die. Even if he wasn't righteous,
he just sort of good. Somebody would even die for that
man. But God commendeth his love toward us and that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we'll be saved by
His life. And not only so, but we join
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. Christ Jesus is our salvation.
He came to where we were, God hating, stench covered over in
trespasses and sins, that loathsome, hated thing of God. And He came
to where we are. And this perfect, holy, spotless,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, this servant of
the Most High God came to where we are. And in faithfulness,
as He promised the Father, He went to that cross and He took
all of that sin and all of that hated thing and all of that abomination
that we hate upon Himself. and then stood guilty before
the law of God and bore in his own body the stroke of God's
justice so that these worthless, sorry, no good sinners that didn't
want to have anything to do with him could have some understanding
of this great love wherewith he loved us. And with that mercy and that
love came the riches of His grace. Look there, He said, by grace
you're saved. Now, mercy is God withholding
from us what we don't deserve. Grace is God giving to us. Mercy is Him withholding from
us what we do deserve. Grace is Him giving us what we
don't deserve. Free grace. That means there's not any worthiness
in us, not anything in us that merited Him showing us this grace.
It's sovereign grace. That means that because there
was nothing in us of any value, nothing in us that could be merited,
God sovereignly chose whom He would to save. Distinguishing
grace. Jacob have I loved and Esau have
I hated. Well, I don't think that's fair.
Well, who are you? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why have you made me thus? Shall a little
pygmy of a man who's a rebel against God turn around and say
to God Almighty who's infinitely pure and holy and righteous,
I don't think you're doing what's right. Shall we? Who are we? We don't know who we are if we
can stand up and say that's not fair. I'm telling you, it's distinguishing
grace and it's super abounding grace. The law entered that the
offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound. By grace you say, if God demanded
the least work from us in order to be saved, there would be no
hope for any sinner, period. Because salvation is all of grace.
By grace you're saved through faith and that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. Justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. And Paul said,
and at this present time also there's a remnant according to
the election of grace. If you don't want to have anything
to do with God whatsoever, if you don't like God and don't
want to have anything to do with Him whatsoever, I'll give you
something to think about. Chew on this. Thank God for His
sovereign electing grace, because if it wasn't that He had one
more remnant in this earth that He's going to call to faith in
Christ, you wouldn't get to go around and snuff up your heels
and kick up your heels and enjoy His air and His sun and His plants
and His earth and everything that He's given you that you
eat and chew on and devour and are going to go to hell with,
if it wasn't for the fact that He has a remnant according to
the election of grace. That's the only reason this earth
is still held in store by Him. Isn't that true, brethren? Well, now let's go to this last thing. Last thing here. Grace, grace, grace, grace. Grace
makes you want to serve God, don't it? Y'all heard those messages
this week at Danville? You know what we heard down there?
We heard every preacher who got up spoke a little different facet
of that face of that diamond to show us these riches of that
grace that we have. Nobody there broke the law out
and started whipping people and started trying to constrain people
and get people to do by the works of the law, by trying to use
the law at all. They used the law lawfully. They
used the law to say, the law says we're guilty. The law shuts
our mouth. The law says we can't come to
God in our works, any shape, form or fashion, not before conversion
or after conversion. But by that gracious message
that went forth telling us that we are complete in Christ, as
complete as Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, I left
out of there wanting to serve God. Didn't you? I left out of
there so thankful for what Christ has done for us. Did it make
you leave out of there and say, man, let's go sin now? And it
doesn't do that. It makes you leave out of there
saying, oh, what God has done for us by His grace. It's the
only thing that melts the heart of stone. It's the only thing
that makes a man obedient. Grace is the only thing that
constrains us. That great love wherewith He
loved us, that's what constrains us. Law won't do it. Well, this
is the third thing. We rejoice in this gospel because
we hear of the riches of eternal life by Christ. We hear the riches
of His long-suffering toward us while we were in sin. We hear
the riches of His mercy, His grace, and His love toward us
while we were sinners. And then we hear the riches of
eternal life by Him. Look at these three things He
says. Verse 5, God has quickened us together with Christ. Look
at verse 6, He's raised us up together with Christ. And look
at verse 6 again. And He's made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You know what that means?
We're saved brethren. We have been and we're going
to be. We're saved by Him. Now let's
look at this individually. He's quickened us together with
Christ. Christ laid down His life. He really did. And He was
buried in that tomb. And when He went into that tomb
and He gave up the ghost, He really laid there a lifeless
body in that tomb. But the Spirit quickened him.
He raised himself. The Father raised him. And the
Spirit, it says, quickened him. And when the Spirit quickened
him, life came into him. Life re-entered into his body.
And when that life entered into his body, life entered into the
body of all his elect people. Now, not us individually, not
in our experience of grace, but as being, we're members of His
body. So all of the elect of God, when
that life came into Him, that life came into His body. Because
He's one with His people. And it's because that we're quickened
with Him. that He brings His gospel to
us and the Holy Spirit enters into us and quickens us to newness
of life. And when He's quickened you who
were dead, this is what happens. We experience true, God-wrought
conviction of sin. We won't do that until we're
alive. A dead man can't feel bad about anything. He's dead.
But when we're made alive, then we start seeing our sins against
God and God only. We experience what the fear of
God is when we're made alive. Because now we truly see Him
as He is. When we're made alive, then the
spirit of prayer enters in, and for the first time ever, we really
start begging God for mercy, for mercy, for mercy. That's
only when we're made alive that we do that. And then look at
what happens here. In verse 6, He said, and He raised
us up together with Christ. After that life came into Christ,
Christ stood up and He walked out of that tomb. He arose and
came out of that tomb alive. And when He came out of that
tomb alive, just like we came alive in our head and in Him
in whose body we're members, we walked out of that tomb with
Him too. And so, because He did that, brethren, when He's made
us alive and made us to approach Him now looking for mercy, on
the grounds of mercy, instead of on the grounds of some work
we've done? Instead of on the grounds of thinking that He ought
to receive us now because we, so-called, are believing in Him?
That's not... If you come into God expecting
God to receive you because now I believe in you, so receive
me. That's a work. That ain't grace. Grace is coming
to him empty, undone, a sinner in need of mercy, on the grounds
of mercy. And when he does that, you know
what he says to his child that he's given his life to? You're
pining away. You're there in chains. You're
in that bondage. You're in that sin. You see it
and you know it and you feel it and you experience it as it
being against God and God only. And when he does this, then he
speaks to you. When he's drawn you to seek mercy
from him, he says, Lazarus, come forth. He doesn't leave you in the tomb
of sin and misery. He brings you out of it. He brings
you out of it. And this is what He makes you
to behold. Look at the next thing there. He makes you to behold
that you're sitting together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Everything He did, we did, brethren.
When He lived, we lived. When He obeyed, we obeyed. When
He went to the cross and died under the penalty of justice,
we died. When He went into that tomb, we were buried. When life
entered Him, life entered us. When He came out of that tomb,
we came out of that tomb. When He sat down at the right
hand of the Majesty on high, we sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high. And this is what He makes the
sinner to see when He's brought us to cry out to mercy for Him. Sin's dethroned in our hearts
when that happens. When that happens, sin doesn't
have dominion in the heart anymore. There's a new man created. There's
a man that wasn't there before. There's a man that's alive now
within this old dead corpse. And that new man rejoices in
the righteousness of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God,
the love of God because of what he's done for us. He's conquered
sin and death and hell and he's conquered us and he's made us
to see we're more than conquerors in him that loved us. Now, let's ask this question. How'd all this come about? Did the Scripture say here that
man did anything? Did the Scripture say here that
man did anything to quicken his soul? Does this Scripture here
tell us that we did anything whatsoever to put ourselves in
Christ? Nope. No, we were in Christ because
God put us in Christ. Of God are you in Christ Jesus.
From the foundation of the world. Who of God is made unto us. He comes and reveals, puts us
in Christ in time. Who of God is made unto us. The
Lord said, my sheep shall hear my voice. And they're going to
follow me. And I will give them eternal
life. And they're going to never perish, neither any man pluck
them out of my hand. It's because we're raised to
a good hope through grace by what He's done for us. Christ
has made everything to us. Everything to us. We thought
before our mind was that we really could come to God by something
we've done. But now we have the mind of Christ. And having the
mind of Christ, we see the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus. And now
with the mind, with the inner mind, the new mind, the mind
purged by the blood of Christ, we serve God in newness of spirit,
not in the oldness of the letter, because his blood's purged our
conscience from dead works to serve the true and living God.
Then the gospel becomes a delight to us. You know why this message
of total depravity is such a glorious doctrine to me? Because by the
message that declares just how horrible a sinner I am, I see
the love and the grace and the mercy of God and what He's done
for me. I love to hear it over and over and over. Tell me over
and over and over about how sorry and how bad I am, how opposite
to God I am. Because that makes me delight
in how God has made me one with Him and His Son. Tell me about
the doctrine of election. I listened to a man yesterday
preach message on election. He didn't preach a message on
election. He preached a message before a message he was going
to preach on election to try to get all the people prepared
for him to preach the message of election. And I thought, why
don't you just, if you just preach the doctrine of election, people
would delight in the doctrine of election by God's spirit.
But because you're trying to use this craftiness and this
hocus pocus jumbo nothing to make men like it, they're not
going to like it. If they do, it's going to be because a man
made them like it. Just stand up and declare. It's the first
thing Christ said when he came into this earth. First message
he preached was the doctrine of election. And they took him
up to the hill and tried to throw him off the hill. That's why
a man won't preach the doctrine of election. They take away his
house and his car and his big income. That's why he won't preach
the adoption of election. But I love it. You know why?
Because God chose his son first. And he chose me in his son. And
because he did that, I was holy and accepted in his son from
before the foundation of the world so that when I send an
Adam, God didn't wipe mankind off the face of the planet, me
included. I love it. That's the only thing that spared
me was God chose me in Christ. I love the doctrine of particular
redemption. You know why? Because it declares
that Christ Jesus didn't make a stab at putting away people's
sins. It declares He didn't make a stab at justifying men. It
declares He came to where He was and for everyone that He
represented, By His death, He purged our sins, put away our
sins, and obtained eternal redemption for us. And it means now that
we're justified in Him and we're going to be brought to know it.
We're going to be brought to know it because God values that
blood that He shed. I love the doctrine of irresistible
grace. You know why? I see how dead
I am. I was running from God, going
away backwards, hating God, not wanting to have anything to do
with God, but God in His mercy wouldn't take no for an answer.
He came in irresistible grace and caused me to believe. Most
people deny irresistible grace and try to say that God either
doesn't save, doesn't reveal the gospel to his people or that
he does it some other way or whatever. You know why? To protect
Mamaw who don't believe the gospel, to protect Daddy who hates the
gospel but claims he does, but never wants to have anything
to do with the gospel, to protect some refuge they've made in religion.
That's why men deny it. Because when this message goes
forth, it sweeps away the refuge of lies. And when it starts sweeping
away the refuge of lies, man becomes angry and he starts fighting
like a drowning man trying to hang on to a toothpick to save
himself. But this message declares God
wins. God comes and wins and I'm living proof of it. God wins!
Irresistible grace. And I love it! And I love the
doctrine of perseverance of the saints. You know why? Because
I'm kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed. It's His preserving that makes
me to persevere. You see, it's all of Him. That's
why we delight. He's just continually showing
us the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards
us through Christ Jesus. Alright, let's look at this last
scripture here, and we'll go home. Last scripture, Ephesians
1.17 there. He says, I want you to know that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, He said, I want the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, to give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him. The
eyes of your understanding be enlightened that you may know
what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to us-ward who believe. Now look at this, it's according
to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and
power and might and dominion and every name that's named,
not only in this world but also in that which is to come. And
He's put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head
over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all." Has Christ ever not succeeded
at anything? He shall not fail till He has
set judgment on the earth. And surely as He has accomplished
the redemption of His people, He's going to call every one
of His children out. He doesn't fail. He doesn't fail. Because
this same power that was exercised in raising Him from the dead,
He exercises now to fill all in all. All in all. And that's
when we experience this love, when we're filled with the fullness
of God. You know what happens then? When that old yoking, sorry,
no good preacher comes along that's trying to turn you back
from this holy commandment and turn you back to the Ten Commandments
and say, but now, except you keep these. Now, except you keep
these, you can't make yourself more holy. You know what you'll
say? I've been saved from that garbage.
Take that hogwash, stinking, nasty mess somewhere else." I
ain't hearing it. God saved me from that. I'm not
listening to it. God saved me from that. When
he comes along, he said, but now if you want a greater reward
in heaven, you need to do this, this, and this. You'll say, I
got Christ in glory, and if I got Christ in glory, if He's made
me one with the Jew and the Gentile, with the black and the white,
with the male and the female, so that there's no division,
no distinction, we're one in Christ Jesus, I'm not going to
buy into your hogwash that when I get to heaven, there's going
to be a difference in people, one living on the finer side
of town and another one living on the lesser side of town by
something we've done. I'm going to have Christ. You're
going to have Christ. I had a man tell me that one
time. Well, you're going to be in glory, but you just won't
have the things we're going to have. Give me Christ, you can
have all the rest. Give me Christ, you can have
the rest. Do you really think that God went to these lengths
to save us from that polluted self-exalting, sinful wretchedness
of us to try to exalt ourselves over one another to then make
us say, now, work real hard so you can be exalted over somebody
else, another believer. God forbid. That's not so. I pray God will give us an understanding
that we'd be safe from that garbage. So here's what Paul said, Colossians
3. Colossians 3. He just got through talking about
those fellows who keep on telling you whose gospel is touch not,
taste not, handle not. And he said, this is where he
ended up. Chapter 3, verse 1. If you then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Where
Christ is seated on the right hand of God, set your affection
on things above, not on things on this earth, for you're dead.
You're dead. And your life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. Amen.