All right, brethren, let's turn
to Acts chapter 28. Acts chapter 28. First verse begins,
and when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was
called Melita. And the barbarous people, That
word barbarous means they were not Greeks, they were not Romans,
they were not Jews. Now the importance of that is
this, is they didn't have the word of God. They had never,
by all accounts in the scripture, they'd never had the word of
God preached to them before. And yet we find here they were
religious. If you do a little research on it, you
can find the oldest standing religious structure in the world
is in Malta, in this place. It was believed to have been
built before the days of Abraham. Natural man is religious. I want to look tonight at this
question, natural or new? Natural or new? Now, natural
man and his religion, that's what we're going to look at first.
And then we're going to look at how God makes new, all things
new. What do I mean by natural man?
I mean that every man, as he's born into this world, that's
a natural man. He's born of man, not born of
the spirit of God. He has a physical life, has no
spiritual life. Natural man is born religious. We see this in these people in
Malita, in Malta. A natural man can do good works
unto others. Look at verse two. The barbarous
people showed us no little kindness, for they kindled a fire and received
us every one. This is, you think there was
a captain of the ship and there was soldiers and a centurion
and then there were prisoners. And it says here, they did this
to every one of us, for every one of us. Because of the present
rain and because of the cold, a natural man knows right and
wrong. and he knows something of judgment. Look at verses three and four. And when Paul had gathered a
bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper
out of the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians
saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves,
no doubt this man is a murderer. They knew murder was wrong. Whom
though that he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth
not to live. Natural man has a consciousness
of God, of a creator. That word vengeance in verse
four is a form of a word that signifying one of the names of
their gods. Vengeance of their imaginary
god. And they even with their imaginary
god imagined that their God had power to take vengeance upon
a murderer. They knew something of right
and wrong, and they knew something of judgment, and they had a consciousness
of God. Now, these are the three things
that we see here about a natural man, by the natural religion
of a man. One, he knows that there is a
God. Number two, He knows right and
wrong and judgment. He has a sense of right, of righteousness
and of judgment. And number three, man's religion
may prompt him to show kind works to others. Now let's turn over
to Romans. A few pages to your right. Let's
see, let's see. what Paul says about these things.
Here he's writing a letter to the Romans. This is to whom he's
going as he's on this voyage and gets shipwrecked on this
island. He's on his way to Rome. He had
written this letter prior to this. This is what he said. Romans
1.19. Now first off, we said by creation,
God's given all men a consciousness of his being. Look at verse 19.
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For
God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse." We look at everything around
us and we can tell somebody made this. A creator made these things. We know we can see something
of his eternal power in Godhead. The natural man, whether he will
admit it or not, believes, he knows, has a consciousness that
these things were made by God. Look at Romans 2. The second
thing we saw was even without the written law of God, these
barbarians didn't have the written word of God. But even without
that, they knew murder was wrong. They knew that, and they had
a sense of judgment. Paul was speaking of these natural
descendants of Abraham, Jews who had the written law of God,
who were making a boast in their outward obedience of this law,
in judging others who didn't measure up to this law. And he
used the Gentiles as an example, who didn't have the written law
of God. And look what he said in Romans
chapter 2. In verse 14, he says, when the
Gentiles, which have not the law, they don't even have the
word of God, he said, they do by nature, by nature, naturally,
the things which are contained in the law, these having not
the law are law unto themselves. What law is that that they are
unto themselves? Verse 15, which show the work
of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing
witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing
one another. They have a sense of right and
wrong and they accuse or excuse one another without even having
the written word of God. That's natural. Men have that.
You don't have to teach a A baby knows right from wrong. A baby knows, has a sense, you
can see it in little kids that take a lollipop from another
kid. And the one that, they know,
they know those things, just simple things like that, what's
right and what's wrong. It's just a natural thing. The
third thing is the problem, though. Here's the problem with the natural
man. Look back at Romans 1, verse 25. This is the problem. Men changed the truth of God
into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than
the creator, who is blessed forever. Naturally religious man. Turn
over to Romans 8, I want you to see this. Naturally religious
men and women will do many works. They will do many works, but
their mind is set on the things of the flesh. They're set on
the works of the flesh and not on things which are spiritual,
knowing things are right. being taught of God. Now look
at this, Romans 8 verse 5, For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it's not subject to
the law of God. Not just the command, that's
not just the Ten Commandments there, it's the whole Word of
God. Not subject to this Word of God. Take the very written
Word of God and change the truth of God into a lie. to mind the
creature more than the Creator. To set the affection and the
heart on the creature more than the Creator. Why is that, Paul
said? Because the natural mind hates God. That's why. That's why. All right, look now. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh, naturally born men, No matter how religious they may
be, they can't please God. But ye are not in the flesh but
in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now let's go back to Acts 2,
I mean Acts 28, and let's see what this minding of the flesh
is. Let's see an example of it in
these barbarians. First of all, they reasoned Paul
to be guilty because with this eye, this carnal
eye of what they saw with this carnal eye. Look at verse 4.
And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast, when they saw
this snake bite Paul, hang on his hand, they said among themselves,
no doubt this man's a murderer. He's done something wrong. Because
this adversity, the fault that fell him, this man is guilty. He's done something wrong. Whom
though he hath escaped the sea, and this is what they said, that's
why that storm came upon them. Because of this man right here.
He escaped that sea, but our God's getting him. Vengeance
is getting him. Suffering him not to live. All
this because of what they saw just with their natural eye.
That's minding the things of the flesh. Look at the next thing
they did. Then they reasoned Paul to be
a God based on what they saw with the natural eye. And what
they saw was prosperity. Nothing. No harm came to him.
Look at verse 5. And he shook off the beasts into
the fire and he felt no harm. Howbeit they looked, when he
should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly. But after
they had looked a great while, and saw, with these carnal eyes,
no harm come to him, they changed their mind. And they said, He's
a God. He's a God. Now, I want you to
bear note of this. Now take in mind what we're seeing
here, and I want you to get this now. The same pollution that
was in these folks who just were lived out on an island, who didn't
have the written Word of God, the very same pollution that
we see here manifest in them is the very same pollution of
the naturally religious man who sits in a church in the United
States of America with the written word of God and doesn't have
an understanding, not being taught and born of the Spirit of God.
Same pollution. He knows there's a God. That's
why he is where he is. and coming and trying to go through
all the form of Godliness. He knows something about right
and wrong, and something about judgment. And he looks in this
book, and that's what he's looking for. What's right and what's
wrong? What should I do and what shouldn't I do? And he has some
idea of judgment, that vengeance, that God is a God of judgment.
He has some idea of that and he's trying his best to please
God by these things. And that's the third thing he's
doing. He'll do many, many works. Because his polluted thought
of his God, of who God is, his polluted thought is God accepts
or rejects, rewards or punishes based on the work of a man. The work of a man. Paul gave
his own countryman as the example. If you want to look there, Romans
10, verse 1. He said, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel, these are those that
had the oracles of God. They had the written word of
God. He said, and my desire for Israel
is they might be saved. Paul wasn't saying they were
saved. He said, my prayer is that they might be saved. For
I bear them record, they have a zeal of God, but not according
to knowledge. And what did this result in?
They're ignorant of God's righteousness and they're going about to establish
their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. Now, what have we seen here?
Naturally, religious man. He's corrupt in his understanding
of God even if he's got the scriptures. He is corrupt in his understanding
of righteousness and of judgment. even though he's got the scriptures.
And because of this, he's corrupt in his mind, minding the things
of the flesh, minding the creatures, the man, other man, his own and
other men's works, rather than the mighty works of God. You
see those three things? All right, now, when that's the
case, the kindness is shown. or the goodness he show, any
work that a naturally religious man does, he's going to do it
only when it's been earned by another. Is that right? He's going to
do it because somebody else merits it from him, for him to do a
good work toward them. And what he'll do is he'll also
regard the guilt of somebody or the righteousness of somebody
based on their adversity or their prosperity, whatever befalls
them in their day-to-day lives. He'll jump to that conclusion.
And the other thing to do is quickly as he shows kindness
of good work towards somebody, he'll jump to that rash judgment.
And just as quickly as he'll show mercy and he'll jump to
that last judgment, he'll praise and worship a man. It's just
what they did. And all of it, all of it combined
is one thing. It's man worship. It's the worship
of man. Man's his own God by nature. An idol, something imagined,
is the creation of a man. Covetousness is an idolatry. It's all worship, man worship,
will worship, everything about the man. Now, that's what me
and you are by nature. That's what all men are by nature. Now, what does God do? Here's
the second thing. What does God do? to bring His children to worship
Him. He makes all things new. He makes,
and these three things specifically we're going to look at, that
He makes new. These three things we've been talking about. Who
He is, an understanding of righteousness and of judgment, and an understanding
of what true works are. Newness. All right, let's see
this. The first thing we saw is a natural
man changes the truth of God into a lie. Well, the first thing
God is going to do is he's going to send his messenger, his preacher,
with his gospel. And the gospel that's going to
be declared is altogether new from that former lie that the
natural man held on to. It's going to be altogether new. That's what it's called. Good
news. It's going to be something new
that's new to him. As opposed to that lie he held
on to. It's going to be light. That's
what it's going to be. It doesn't say specifically here
that Paul preached the gospel, although Paul didn't go anywhere
he didn't preach the gospel. And he stayed here for three
months. And it doesn't say specifically that God saved any of his elect
here. But throughout this entire book
of Acts, isn't that what we've seen? Philip, the Lord sent him
out there on that that old road out there to that
Ethiopian eunuch right to him and he preached the gospel to
him and God saved him. The Peter, Christ called Peter
and sent him directly to Cornelius' house and Cornelius and his house,
many in his household were saved through the preaching of the
gospel. The Lord forbid Paul, the Spirit of God forbid Paul
to go to Asia and he went directly to a riverside where Lydia was
and preached the Gospel to her and God saved her. God put Paul
in prison in Philippi through those rebellious rulers, put
him in prison in Philippi because there was a jailer there, and
many in his household, that God would have to hear what he had
done for them. And Paul preached that gospel
to them. And just before this, before we get to this point where
we are now, Paul stood up in that ship and he said, Sirs,
be of good cheer. I believe, God, that it should
be even as it was told me. How be it? We must be cast on
a certain island. In this we see, whether we're
told specifically or not, we see that when God does save a
people, throughout the book we've seen it. He sends his preacher
with his gospel, and it's not the same old gospel. It's not
that other gospel Paul talked about. It's not what the Pharisees
were preaching. It's not what, it's new. It's
not what these men That gospel, that other gospel is no different
from what these men on these islands without the word of God,
no difference from what they were believing. This gospel is
true. Now I want you to get this point
now and listen to this. Nothing in the salvation of sinners,
especially not the preaching of the truth of the mighty Perfect
accomplished finished work of God in Christ Jesus Not that
preaching of that message. It's done through a lie It is
done by God Raising up his prophet and sending his preachers and
it's done through his gospel Through the truth of his son,
you know, no lies of a truth It's done through the truth and
it's to the praise the glory of his grace just as every other
aspect of salvation is. And that's just so. God makes
all things new, even the gospel. Even sending this gospel is altogether
new from alive men. Here's the second thing. The
natural man has a polluted understanding of what's right and what's wrong
and of judgment. And through His gospel, God,
the Holy Spirit, reveals the righteousness of God in the face
of Christ Jesus. That's the only time me and you
are going to find out that we can't please God by our obedience
to the law. We're going to behold it when
we behold Christ the truth and we behold the righteousness of
God in Christ. Now, look at this. I kind of
thought this was interesting. It says there that when they
saw Paul bitten by the serpent, listen to what they said. There
at the end of verse 4, they said, Vengeance suffereth this man
not to live. Now they're looking at things
just with the natural senses and their natural sense of right
and wrong and of judgment is wrong. They're looking at a man
and that's all they're seeing. But that's the case with us by
nature. And what God does is He makes
us to behold the righteousness of God in the face of Christ
Jesus. Christ is the seed of woman, promised from the garden,
whose heel the serpent would bruise. And because He was made
sin for His people, righteousness, judgment, suffered Him not to
live. It suffered Him not to live.
And God's going to make us to behold Christ Jesus the Lord. Do you understand why Christ
died on the cross? Do you understand that? Why Christ
died on the cross? Every child of God Every child
of God the father and I'm not talking about everybody. I'm
talking about every child of God the father Became a murderer
by the one transgression of Adam The only time we're gonna stop
looking at somebody else like they did and say this man's a
murderer because of what he's done Or he hasn't done it because
the prosperity adversity of him is when we behold. We're the
murderer Joe we're the murderer And when I behold I'm the murderer,
and that I've committed murder against God in Adam, and I'm
brought to nothing, to the end of myself and see what I am.
And God makes me to behold that when He made His Son what I am,
the very righteousness, the very judgment of God suffered Him
not to live. Christ is the last Adam. What does that mean? Just as
Adam was the representative of everyone he represented, Christ
is the representative of everyone he represented. Everything Adam
did was charged to everyone he represented and passed to them
through corruptible seed. Everything Christ did was charged
to those he represented and shall be passed to them in the new
birth through the incorruptible seed. everything. He's the last
Adam. You're either going to be in
Adam or you're going to be in Christ. You're going to have
to be represented in another, either Adam or Christ. That's
just how it is. And God was in Christ. God is Christ, Christ is God. That man is all God, and God
in that man is all man. He's the God-man. God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. Doing what and
when it says world it means as opposed to to just those natural
sons of Adam Just those elect children that he had from among
them, but also is elect from the Gentiles He was reconciling
Jew and Gentile unto himself because we couldn't reconcile
ourselves unto him We couldn't do what God commanded what God
demanded. We're murderers We're murderers
And God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
the sins of every one of His elect children to them, but imputing
them to Christ Jesus, His own Son. God was in Christ. In Christ, it was just what Abraham
saw when he was going up that mountain with Isaac. And he said,
God will provide Himself a lamb. God in Christ, God providing
Himself, God providing Himself, God Himself the Lamb, God Himself
providing a man in flesh and blood who is God, who is spotless
man. perfect man, so that He is absolutely
nothing like the children He came to save in nature, in work,
in thought, in deed, in whatsoever, so that He is a fit lamb, a fit
spotless lamb in whom is no sin, so that now He can make Him sin
for every one of those children that He determined to save before
the world began. He hath made him sin. Who did? Who did? He hath made him sin. Who did
that? God do that? Christ do that? Yes, he did. He made him sin. for His children,
that His children might be made the righteousness of God in Him,
in what He accomplished, in what He did. That He was made what
His children are, that His children might be made what He is. And
look at this right here. Look at this verse 5. And He
shook off the beast into the fire, and he felt no harm. All they saw was a man do that,
Christine. And that's all some people see
when they read this scripture. I think you can rejoice in this
with me. I see Christ whose heel was bruised
by the serpent. And I see Christ spiritually
by God's grace. I see Him when He was made sin
for us. This one who knew no sin, I see
Him though He was broken in His body and though He bled and suffered
that ignominious death on the cross, and though he bore the
wrath of God in his own body on the tree, though he declared
God just and the justifier of all who believe, at the same
time he was doing that, that serpent that was literally him
being made sin, that's what that bite of that serpent, whatever
the bruising of that heel was, but by doing so, you know what
he did? He shook that serpent off and
he conquered him. That's exactly what he did. He
said this. He, when he was going in the
garden, God said, he's going to bruise, the serpent's going
to bruise his heel. The seed of woman, but he's going
to crush the serpent's head. And on his way to the cross,
God said, this is my son, my beloved son in whom I'm well
pleased. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, this wasn't spoken for
my sake. It was spoken for your sake. Just so you know and he
said now is the judgment of this world and now is the prince of
this world cast out And I if I'll be lifted up on that cross. I will draw all under me He is
and he shall. He shall draw everyone for whom
he died to him and none shall be lost. He said, I laid down
my life for the sheep. I know them. They hear my voice.
They follow me. A stranger they won't follow.
And he said, if I'm lifted up, I'm drawing them all to me. Every one of them. He did it
by breaking the power and the yoke of that old serpent of sin,
by purging the sin of his people. When he had by himself purged
our sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
And this redemption that he obtained, it's not something now that he
obtained for everybody. And so now, if you accept it
or you reject it, then that's going to disannoy what he did
and bring you back under bondage as the naturally religious man
thinks. That's not the case. You know
how we know that? Because in Hebrews 9.12 it says
what he obtained is a little thing called eternal redemption. It was obtained from before the
foundation of the world and the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. It was obtained when He laid
down His life at Calvary. It's eternal redemption and it
can't be chained by you or by me. He's going to draw His sheep
unto Him and they're going to be born of Him and they're going
to know what He's done. There's no doubt about it. No
doubt about it. Well, here's the third thing.
In the midst of Our old dead body of flesh. This omnipotent
power of God working within. God's going to make His children
new. New. And He's going to make them
serve in newness of spirit. And not in that oldness of the
letter. And that oldness of the flesh.
And that oldness wherein we want to serve. Look here at verse 6. Now this
was all natural in them. Everything they did here was
fled. This is, we see here, a natural man. We're just looking now at
this, the opposite of this, and what God does in spirit. Naturally,
let's look at this. Howbeit they looked when he should
have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but after they had
looked a great while and saw no harm come to him, they changed
their mind and said that Paul was a God. Now that's all natural. But you
know what happens when God enters in, when Christ enters in, in
these just these natural corrupt dead bodies of flesh? You know
what He does? He creates something new that wasn't there before.
It's called a new man. It's called an inner man. And
when He does that, He gives faith and He makes us look. He makes
us look a great while and we start being amazed and rejoicing
in this victorious triumphant Lord of glory, Christ Jesus. And He grants us repentance.
Where He gives faith, He gives repentance. You can't separate
the two. Faith and repentance. You can't have one without the
other. Where He gives faith, He gives repentance. And what
He does is He turns us from what these men were doing, what we
were doing formerly, and that minding the things of the flesh,
and He turns us to no more worship man and say, man's a god and
worship the creature, and He turns us to behold Christ and
we say, There's the true and living God, my Savior, all my
righteousness, my all in all. I love that, I think I put it
in the bulletin, that article that you posted, that tract you
posted where Bruce Crabtree wrote about, is there more than Christ?
That last little statement, he said, God declared Christ is
all. Bruce said, is there more than
all? Is there more than all? And then this free grace, this
newness of life in us. Now then, it's going to cause
a believer to be zealous for good works, to want to maintain
good works, but all together now from a new motive and from
a whole different way. Turn over to Titus 3. This is
the last thing I want you to see. I was going to point this out
to you in the beginning, but I wanted to get to here so you
could enter into this with me. You know back there in verse
2, what they did in showing them kindness, it said, Luke record,
he said they did it because of the rain. And because, in other
words, it was a natural thing, a natural reason they did it.
A natural reason. Now, Paul in Titus has been declaring
to Titus. He's been teaching Titus to declare
to the people, to the believer, to be sure, be careful to maintain
good works. And when he gets to verse 3,
he makes an important point. Now let me bear this out before
I give this to you. Natural man thinks this. Natural
man thinks God The foreknowledge of God is what God foreknew instead
of whom God foreknew. After man imagines God looked
down through time and saw that man would do some work of righteousness,
some work that's right, such as believing on it. or some whatever,
and that's why he chose man. That's what he based his electing
grace upon. That's not the case. God's election
of grace is based solely on him choosing whom he would in Christ,
not based on any good or evil in us, period. And then the natural
man thinks this, that after he's made a profession of faith, now
God is going to give him something greater in heaven based on works,
based on some work of righteousness in him. Now Paul has been teaching
here, observe good works, be sure to maintain good works.
But he tells us in Romans, I mean in Titus chapter 3, he says here
this, that these good works are not to be based on others earning
those good works. Look at verse one. Put them in
mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates,
to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be
no brawlers, be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. Now,
he's talked about husbands and wives, he's talked about children
to their parents, he's talked about all these things that the
believer, the believing child, the believing parent, the believing Employer the believing employee
the all these how we are to regard each other, but now he's telling
us here that That men that were to do this to aren't always going
earn that They aren't always going to treat us in a way to
where we want to be That you would say, well, they deserve
to be treated this way. And he reminds us of this because
he says, we ourselves also are sometimes foolish and disobedient,
deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice
and envy, hateful and hating one another. That's a description
of the men that he's saying, of others that he's saying, don't
brawl against them. That means with your tongue.
Don't speak evil of them. Don't, don't, don't, don't be
brawling against them. Even though they might brawl
against everybody with their tongue and want you to join in
with them. He's saying, don't do that. And he's saying, they
might deserve it. They might appear to have earned
that, you know, for you not to be gracious to them. But remember,
he's saying, you were just like them. You were disobedient. But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared Not by works of
righteousness, which we have done. They didn't come to us because
we earned it. Because we were anything in us
to make it was by. But according to his mercy, he
saved us. His love and kindness came to
us, not because we earned his love and kindness. And he said
this love and kindness that you to maintain amongst others. Don't don't give it to him because
just because they've earned it, because you didn't earn it. How
did it come to you? By grace, by mercy, by the washing
of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being
justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the
hope of eternal life. And He says, this is a faithful
saying, and these things, What faithful saying what this is
a faithful saying Christ came in the world to save sinners
This is a faithful saying everything what he just said here that we
didn't earn salvation. We didn't earn his grace We didn't
earn his mercy. He did it. This is the faithful
saying this is the gospel we preach and he we have to be have
this affirmed to us continually that They which have believed
in God might be careful to maintain good works. And you'll never,
even if you do show mercy, if you don't do it solely based
upon this foundation, that salvation is by grace alone, that this
grace came to you alone, it won't be a good work. It won't be a
good work. This new motive is grace, grace,
grace. God did everything he did to
me by grace. So as I preach this to you, as
I say this to you, I'm affirming to you what we were in our natural
man and are still in our natural man. And I'm affirming to you
how God has made things new and that he did this completely by
grace so that now Tomorrow, when you're shipwrecked out there
in the world on some island with folks just like these men that
Paul dealt with, that Paul was shipwrecked with here on this
island, who had a corrupt understanding of God, and who had a corrupt
understanding of righteousness and of judgment, and who on one
area was showing him kindness, and then was turning around and
saying he's guilty, and then turn around and calling him a
god. When you come in contact with
men like that, be careful to maintain kindness. And every work that's honoring
and adores this doctrine, how? Even when they treat you like
that. even when they regard you like that, even when they say
things like that. Why? Because that's exactly how
God found me and you. That's where we were when He
came to us with this gospel and revealed Christ in us and showed
us He did all this. That's exactly how we were. Now,
if you do everything you do from that foundation, being washed
in the blood of Christ, being justified all by His grace, and
know that when I'm kind to somebody, even though they haven't earned
it, don't change where I'm at one bit. Don't gain me anything
more and don't take anything away. I am what I am by the grace
of God. Perfect in Christ. This is the
fruit of it, the result of it. And with that kind of work, that
God's brought in, God's well pleased with it. But that other
kind that, like these fellows were, like that natural work,
that God's not pleased with that. That's not even a good work.
Not even a good work. Well, God's merciful and He continues
to be merciful to us, not based on works of righteousness. We've
done by His own work, by His own work. Now what do we see
here? He makes everything new. He reveals
a new gospel. The gospel. The gospel. I don't mean something new that's
original. I mean, we've been going along
in a lie. And then He comes in truth and
light and shows us the truth. And He makes us to behold the
gospel in newness, in truth and in spirit. And then He makes
us to understand true righteousness. Christ our righteousness. Christ our righteousness. And
then He makes us, in all of this, in all of this, He has made us
new creatures to serve Him now, not as mercenaries looking for
a reward, but because of what He's done for us. Isn't that
right? Alright. So I ask you now, you
think about these things, and you, Paul said, you make your
calling and election sure, and you ask this question about yourself. Is this natural? Well, my delight, where is it?
What is it? Who is it? That's the question,
who is it? What think ye of Christ? And
if you delight in Christ, now here's the question, is that
natural? are new. It's new. It's of God who makes
all things new. All right, amen.