Take your Bibles and turn back
with me to Genesis chapter 4. I count this a privilege to be
able to come here, and I've known of this work for some time. And
Brother Don had talked to me about coming up here, but my
work just wouldn't allow me to do that. But I thought about
this work and prayed about this work for a long time. Genesis chapter 4 is the historical
account, if you will, of the first two people, and I've chosen
my words carefully, to be brought before the Lord. It is the story of Adam's first
two sons, And it is the story of all Adam's sons from that
day to this, and it's my story, and it's yours. It's the old
story of the fall of man, of the reconciliation of God and
man. It is the story of the redemption
of Christ, ruined by the fall, redeemed by the blood, and regeneration
by the Spirit. And lots of folks have a problem
with that, that regeneration. But if you'll read John chapter
1 carefully, you'll find that those who received Him were born
not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of
God. That birth took place before the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Those men believe for the same
reason we do. God sent His Spirit into our
heart and give us that ability and that will to believe Him. And the story never changes for
several reasons. The story never changes because
the God of this story never changes. He is the same. He said, I am
the same, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. In the book of James, he said,
Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father
of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. God
never changes. And this story never changes
because man's problem never changes. The problem is the same today
as it was in the garden. It's the same today as it was
when Cain and Abel came before God. It doesn't change. In Romans
chapter 5 verse 12, talking about sin entering into the world,
he said, by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. And then he goes from Adam all
the way to that present day where he penned the book of Romans.
And he said, and so death passed upon all men. And the evidence
is this, all have sinned. all have sinned. The problem
never changes. God never changes. It is evidenced
in our walk before God. Over and over the apostles used
that evidence in Ephesians chapter 2. Dead in trespasses and sins. He said we walk according to
the course of this world. There is a course and all men
walk it. And we walk after the prince
of the power of the air. And the real evidence that He
lays out before us concerning our sin and our condemnation
is that man loves darkness. He loves his darkness. He's not
willing to give away that darkness. He's not willing to leave it.
He's not willing to let it go. He'll cling to it to the very
end. He loves darkness. Our Lord said there in the book
of John, He said, this is condemnation, that light, that light he spoke
of, crime. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. So the story never
changes because God never changes and the story never changes because
sin never changes. That curse never changes. And
the story will never change because what God requires from sinful
man never changes. His requirements are not lessened.
He didn't send Christ into the world to compromise His justice
or compromise His name or compromise that way. That way is the same.
It's set in stone. It never changes. His love. The glory of God is in the perfections
of His character, in His holiness and justice, and His righteousness,
and those things He will not compromise. Yes, God is love. Yes, God is good. Yes, God is
kind, but not at the expense of His justice, not at the expense
of His holiness. God is the same. All these things
are the same, and so the story is the same. And in fact, it's the very glory
and character of God and His name is what this story is about. When this story is over, I'll
read for you in the very last verse of Genesis chapter 4. It says, Then, because of what
took place, because what was manifested, then began men to
call upon the name of the Lord. his name being his character,
and who he really is, not who they thought he was, but who
he says he is, who he declares he is, and who he manifested
who he was. And then began men to call upon
that name. Peter's brought up there in the
book of Acts in chapter 4, he brought up before that great
Sanhedrin, and before those high priests, and before those men,
And he says, they said, In what name do you do these things?
In what name? He said, Well, be it known unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you have crucified, whom he raised
from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole. And he said, This is the stone
which is set at nought of you builders, which is become the
head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby ye must be saved. And then in Romans chapter 3
verse 23, Paul sums up that awful mess we are in. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. See, we like to compare
ourselves with ourselves. We like to compare ourselves
with our neighbor or generally we'll find somebody that we think
is a little beneath us and makes us really comfortable and we
can compare ourselves with him. That Pharisee who stood in the
temple, he looked on that publican and he said, I thank God I'm
not like him. No, he wasn't that good. He wasn't
that good. But that's what we like to do.
We like to compare. But He said, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And so to be saved, verse
24, requires us being justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be
a propitiation through faith in His blood. To declare both
for those sins that are past, talking about His forbearance,
those Old Testament saints, and declares now, even for those
who have heard the gospel now, the same thing, to declare at
this time His righteousness, that He might be just and justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. So God doesn't change, the problem
doesn't change, the remedy never changes, and the means never
change. I don't know if you've ever thought
about this or not, but these two sons of Adam had the gospel
preached to them. How do I know that? Because Abel
brought a lamb. He brought a lamb. He didn't
just happen on a lamb. He didn't spin the wheel in the
barn and it had all these different sacrifices on it and it landed
on the lamb. He was told to bring a lamb.
He had the gospel preached to him. You know, when John the Baptist,
when Christ came down that twice, John said, I didn't know him.
I didn't know who he was. He was his cousin and he didn't
know him. He didn't recognize him as the Son of God. And he
came down that path and God gave him those visible signs of that
dove and he said, Behold the Lamb. The Lamb. It's always been the Lamb. He
was the Lamb slain in Revelations talks about the Lamb slain. before
the foundation of the world. When heaven was sought about
for one who was worthy to take the redemptive purposes of God
and to take that seven-sealed book, to take that book sealed
with those perfections of God and open that book of redemption,
none was found worthy except one, a lamb as it had been slain. The Lamb. It's the Lamb slain.
Only the Lamb was found worthy to take the book. And all the way through the Bible,
you're going to find this Lamb. This Lamb. This Gospel concerning
this Lamb. In the garden, Adam put forth
his hand, and he took that fruit that God commanded him not to
have. He took it in open rebellion
and defiance against God. And when he ate of that fruit,
his mind and his heart was changed. And they were changed forever.
Darkness and confusion filled his mind. Fear and ignorance
filled his heart. He had the same heart we have,
naturally. ignorance, darkness. We discover
something about God in the Bible and we just, for the first time,
and you just look at it in shock. I've never saw that before. That's
Adam's case. That's exactly where he was at.
find him back there among the trees of the garden, hiding behind
the trees, sewing fig leaf aprons, trying to hide from God. Ignorance
and darkness flooded and filled his heart. And he finds himself
hiding from God, trying to avoid the presence of God. And God
comes to this fallen man in his depraved condition, and He speaks
in power to his heart. And God reveals His sin to him
and His ignorance to him. in the light of His person, and
He slays that lamb. And as its blood pours out on
the ground, He takes that skin and He covers him and his wife
with those skins, covers their nakedness. And then He gives
them a picture, a promise, of a coming Redeemer. And He says,
view this lamb in the light of this Redeemer. View this sacrifice,
view this blood, view this reconciliation in the light of this coming Redeemer.
And Adam understood what that lamb represented. And that's
exactly what he preached to his two sons. One of them heard him
and was changed. He was moved. He was broken. He saw past like you come down
here to a stop sign, it says stop, you might stop, you might
go through. That's kind of how Cain viewed
the eating of the fruit. It was there, he went through
it, let's patch things up. That's not what took place. We're
talking about Adam tried to dethrone God, if you can imagine such
a thing. This is what this sin is all
about. And Abel understood that. Cain
didn't. He was broken. He was broken. He saw himself. He saw his own
inabilities. He saw himself fallen and depraved
before God. looked at that sacrifice, and
he brought it just as his daddy had instructed him, and he slit
its throat, and he did the very same thing that Adam did. He
looked at that lamb, and with his heart, he looked to that
coming Redeemer. Same thing we did. Same thing
we did. But Cain didn't. Cain didn't
do that. Cain... He heard that gospel. He heard the same gospel from
the same man. But Cain took that gospel and
he applied it to human reasoning and logic. Well, you know, I
wasn't there, but I think he's misinterpreted God a little bit.
And he took that gospel and he began to change it. He took what
he wanted. He added what he didn't like. He threw away. He added a little
bit of his own. He reasoned things out. He'd
come up with his own ideas. He came before God with that
sacrifice of the fruits of His labor and laid them down on the
altar. Now I want to show you something
here in Genesis chapter 4 before we get too much into the message
here this morning. I want you to look at verse 3
and look at those first few words. It says, In the process of time. There is a process to time. Time is not a vacuum where men
go and are changed and events and advents and all these things
happen by chance and circumstance. There is a process to time. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 said there
is a time for every purpose under heaven, a time and a season.
And he goes through and he names all those things. But he said,
God has set the world in men's hearts. I believe he's referring
back to the fall. So that they can never figure
this out. They can never figure out that
everything they do, and I admit, I look at these things sometimes
and just am amazed. Like when they crucified Christ. You've got Pilate and Herod that
couldn't stand one another. They came together. And the Jews
who couldn't stand the Romans came together. And the Gentiles
who didn't get along with any of them came together to crucify
the Lord. And they did exactly what they
all wanted to do. But when they did it, He said,
they did exactly what God determined before to be done. And this is
exactly what is going on here at these two altars. These two
men are doing exactly what their heart tells them to do. And what
they do is what has been determined of the Lord. In the process of time, and it
says it came to pass. It always does. It always will. It will come to pass. What God
has determined to do will be brought to pass, brought there
by the purpose and power of God who holds all men responsible
and accountable to Himself. There is a process of time, and
that process is ultimately to gather together. You can read
about it over in Ephesians 1. talks about that gathering. There's
going to be a gathering. It's going to culminate in that
last coming of Christ. But from the beginning and to
that point, there is a gathering. There's a gathering. And all
these things are gathered to Him. These two men were gathered. They are brought there. Every
son of Adam is going to come before God. He is going to be
brought there. He may be brought by the light
of creation. He may be brought by the light
of a declared gospel the way it was over there in Hebrews
chapter 4. Israel heard the gospel. Isn't that what he says there
in Hebrews chapter 4? They heard the gospel same as us. Same as
us. But it did not profit them because
it wasn't mixed with faith in them that heard it. So you may
come hearing the gospel, a gospel declaration. You may come, like
in Romans chapter 1, by the light of creation and conscience. Or
you may come by gospel revelation. But you're coming. You're coming. And I'm not saying to a certain
point or a certain hour or a certain minute. But I'm saying that over
your lifetime, you're being brought before Him by the light of God. And then you're going to manifest
when you come before Him by what you offer. You're going to come
before Him and you're going to manifest your standing before
God. Just the same as these two men did. You're going to manifest
it. You're going to manifest exactly
what you think about God, exactly what you think it requires for
God to be reconciled. You see, here's the thing. If
you bring a sacrifice and you come before God, And you bring
this sacrifice, and the altar can be anything, because the
altar is what you lay your gifts, this is the place that you lay
your gifts before God. And He gives it that name, altar. And you lay those gifts down,
whatever it might be. And when you do that, you admit
when you come that to worship God, He must first be appeased
by a gift, or an offering. Alright? When you bring this
gift to God and you admit that He must be appeased to worship
Him, you also admit of your guilt. There's a guilt. So that tells
me that you've admitted your guilt because you bring the gift. Now, the gift then becomes the
evidence of what you believe in your heart. that it takes
to reconcile you to God. It's the evidence. It's called
in Scripture both the evidence and the testimony. I think in Hebrews chapter 11,
doesn't it start out defining faith and said it's the evidence? The evidence? And in 1 John chapter
5, it speaks of it as the testimony. And I'll say this, there's a
time and a point in men's lives that turn. There's a turning
point. I'm not trying to preach a specific
minute. I don't know what that point
is. I just know that everywhere in the Bible where it talks about
reprobation, where it talks about God turning a man over to himself,
there's a point somewhere where God says that's enough. That's
enough. Just like Israel out there, he
said these ten times, he said, you came before me, and you disobeyed
me, and he said it ain't going to happen again. And that was
the end of it. That was the end of it. In Romans
chapter 1, it said when they knew God, they glorified Him
not as God, but become vain in their imaginations, and they
went this way, and they went the downhill track. And then
it says, and God gave them up. God gave them over. 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 says the same thing. Same thing. There's a time, there's
a point when men go beyond. But God gives them light. He
gives light to all men. He gave light. He preached this
gospel. The same gospel light fell on
Cain that fell on Abel. But they manifested by their
gifts when they came before Him. what was in their heart and that
work in their heart. And then you find down here in
verse 7, I want you to see this. In the very last line, they use
the word wrath. I like to do word studies every
now and then. This word wrath means to kindle a flame. It means
like you throw a match on your charcoal lighter and it just
goes up. That's how fast he reacted when
God had no respect to his sacrifice. It flushed his face. He became
red in the face. His countenance fell. He set
his jaw. And the Lord said to him, verse
6, Why art thou wrath? Why has thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou
doest not well, sin lieth at the door. If you had done what
I told you to do, if you had followed the testimony of your
Father, if you had listened to the Gospel I graciously gave
you, if you had obeyed it, wouldn't everything be okay? Wouldn't
be a problem. But if thou doest not well, sin
lieth at the door. Whose door? His door. And this is what men and women
want to do. They get into this thing of election, and they get
into this thing of God's sovereignty, and God's predestination, and
they say, well, it's God's fault. In Romans chapter 9, Paul said,
I knew you'd say that. Now he said, I got a question
for you. Who art thou, old man, that replies against God? This
is what God is telling Cain. Sin lieth at the door. He said,
here is the problem. And this amazed me. I was talking
to your pastor about it. He doesn't mention the sacrifice.
And we all know how important that was. God didn't mention
the sacrifice. He didn't mention the absence
of the Lamb. He went right straight to the
heart of the problem. He said, sin lieth at the door.
That word lieth means coucheth. Some of you have different translations.
When you get home, look in those translations and see what it
says. Almost all of them, they use the word couch and they use
the word crouch. And what he's talking about there
is a lion defending his territory. And he crouches down. And anything
that dares invade that domain, Satan pounces on it with both
feet and destroys it. He's not letting anything in.
Nothing is coming in. And the Lord told him, he said,
now watch this, in verse 7 down here at the end. And unto thee
shall be, see that shall be? That was added by the translator.
See how it is written? You can lift that out without
destroying the text. And I think it makes the text
read better. Sin lieth at the door, it coucheth at the door,
and unto thee his desire. Your desire is the same as his. You know, I forget the comedian's
name. There was a black comedian years
ago and he always used to say, the devil made me do it. You
know who I'm talking about. Yeah, but you did it. That's
the thing. That's what he's telling me.
Your desire and his desire is the same. What possesses the
man becomes the man. That's the story of Cain and
Abel. What possesses the man becomes the man. When he says
there in Ephesians chapter 2, When God quickened you, He found
you dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in times past you 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. And we were all by nature, all
of us by nature, that way. That's where God finds sinners. That's where He finds His people.
He finds them possessed by the strong man. In the Gospels, the
Lord tells the story this way. He said, When a strong man armed
keepeth his palace, his goods are at peace. Unless a stronger
than he shall come in and take him down. and spoil his house. Now that's the only way it's
going to happen. That's what the Lord's telling came. That's
what these verses are talking about. He said, Unto thee his
desire, and thou shalt rule over him. All the rest of the translations
that I read, read this way. Thou shalt master him. Oh, but we can't, we no match
for Satan. But you will be. You will be. He said greater is he that's
in you than he that's in the world. in the same context as
that sin reigns when Christ is established, and that Spirit
of Christ enters into you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. When
He comes in, He takes that strong man down. That strong man, he's
still around, and he's still barking and roaring, but he's
on a chain. He's taken down. The Lord takes
away from him his rule. And if He doesn't take away his
rule, you don't know Him. You don't know Him. Christ is
King. And when He talks about His Kingdom, that's what He's
talking about. Nearly everywhere in the New
Testament where He uses that word Kingdom, it means rule.
God establishes His rule in you. And what possesses the man becomes
the man. That is why these apostles, when
you go into the epistles of the New Testament, you see them concentrate
two-thirds of that epistle on good works. That is what they
are talking about. What possesses the man becomes
the man. That righteousness, just as sin
reigned unto death. Do you remember reading that
over in Romans chapter 5? This grace shall reign unto righteousness. It reigns too. It rained in Abel. It broke him. He turned loose
of the darkness. He turned loose of the world.
He turned loose of everything. And he brought a lamb. Only a
lamb. He didn't bring the lamb and.
He just brought the lamb. He didn't trust in the blood
and. He just trusted in the blood. Ruling and reigning. That's the
story of salvation. Ruling and reigning. Oh, he got
upset before God. God put that sin right where
it belongs, right back on him. It's your sin. It's your sin. I don't know about here down
in Arkansas. We have a lot of different religious
influences. They just kind of do away with
responsibility and accountability before God. It's like this whole
thing is all worked out and so it doesn't make any difference.
Oh, it makes a difference. It makes a difference. Even though
in the end, The end result when the believer, just like when
they went into Canaan, let me use that as an example. They
went into Canaan. They couldn't defeat those giants
in Canaan. They couldn't. How are they going
to overcome walls and stuff? These people were slaves, come
out of Egypt. And the ones actually who entered
in didn't come out of Egypt. They were born out here in the
wilderness. They didn't know anything about fighting. They didn't know
anything about any of this stuff. How are they going to go in and
take over this power and authority? Well, God says you're going to
do it. And then he'd take 10,000 of them and whittle them down
to about 400. So when they went in, they had
no doubt who actually did it. But they swung a sword, didn't
they? Huh? That's what this is saying. That's
exactly what this is saying. You're going to rule over him.
You're going to. But when you do it, you're not
going to have a doubt in your mind that it's God that worketh
in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. But you're
going to do it. And you're going to think it.
You're going to see it. I think that's why folks have
such a hard time with those scriptures like 1 John chapter 3 and all
these different scriptures. Now, Cain got angry. God put the blame back where
it belonged, at his feet. He got angry. And he left. He killed his brother. He manifested.
That's what all unbelievers do. When their religion is exposed
in the light of the Lamb, in the light of that purpose of
God, in the light of His sovereign reign, in the light of our inability,
when false religion is exposed in that light, it infuriates
men. It just infuriates. If they're
blood kin, they don't want to own you as their own blood kin.
Your enemies, the Lord said, will be them in your own household,
your own neighborhoods. In His own country, He could
there do no mighty work. They despised Him because He
revealed to them what they were. He manifested to them what they
were in the light of God's purpose and in the light of His land.
And he left. He left that country. He couldn't
stay there. He couldn't get along. He couldn't
fellowship. He left that country. And look here what it says down
here in verse 16. Cain went out from the presence
of the Lord. See, God confirmed this gospel
and He confirmed this regeneration in Abel. He confirmed those things. He confirmed them in the heart
of Abel. He confirmed them there in the
anger of Cain. He confirmed this place. He confirmed
this sacrifice. He confirmed his faith. And when
Cain left that, he left the presence of the Lord. Now there's a lot
of churches and religions all over the country, but there's
a few here and there where God has confirmed His presence and
His power and His sacrifice. And if you leave those, you leave
God. You leave His presence. When
Cain left, he left the presence of God. And he went over here
to live in the land of Nod. Anybody in here ever look up
that word Nod? You ever look that up? It means
place of a vagrant. And I saw that and thought about
him being a vagabond and so on, so I looked up that word vagrant.
That means a man with nothing to offer. He lived in a place
where they had nothing to offer. A place without the lamb. A place
without the price. A place without the presence.
He was a vagrant. He went to live in the land of
Nod and he left the Lord. And the Lord never mentions Cain
again throughout the entire Old Testament. And then when you
come to the New Testament, it mentions him three times. Each
time he identifies unbelievers and pretenders and professors
of the gospel. In Hebrews chapter 11, I know
you're all familiar with that, in verse 4, where he said, By
faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice unto God than Cain,
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying
of his gifts, and by it him being dead, he yet speaketh. He's still
speaking. He tried to kill him, but he's
still speaking. And he'll go right on speaking,
right on into eternity. So Cain is a man who tried to
approach God without faith. He tried by his works to approach
God. He tried something other than
the way of grace. And God identifies him there
for it. Exposes him there for it. And then you find him again
over in 1 John chapter 3. If you are familiar with that
verse, there he is talking about a new heart. He is talking about
your affections being changed. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. Herein is love, not that we loved
Him, but that He loved us and gave His Son. as a propitiation
for our sins. And he goes on down and he is
talking, he sinneth not, this man who is born of God, he sinneth
not because his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin. There
is a new man in him, a new nature in him that loves God and loves
his brother. No doubt about it. It has got
to be. It wasn't there before, but it is there now. Now watch
what he says, not as Cain. who was of the wicked one. He
was of the wicked one. It takes a change in heart. It
takes a change in mind. This gospel must be preached.
You must hear it. You must understand it. You must
receive it. You must embrace it. And in that
there is a birth. There is a new nature given to
you that allows you to do that. That allows you to embrace it.
And that love of God is shared abroad in your heart. And you
love one another. If that love's not present, I
don't know how many times John says that through there, then
you're not of God, you're not born of God. And then the last time he mentions
him is over in the book of Jude. Jude's written to the church,
he tells the church to contend for the faith, contend for these
doctrines, contend for the preaching of Christ. Don't just stand by.
And he talks about these men ordained of old time that creep
in unaware. You don't even see them. They're
just there. Like Judas. He was there. Nobody suspected him of anything,
but he was just there. But he was a son of perdition
from the beginning. He always was. He sold out the
Lord, but he didn't change. He was always that way. His heart was always that direction.
And here in Jude it talks about those things, and he gives three
examples. The first example he gives is
Israel that he redeemed out of Egypt, split a sea, marched them
through a sea on dry ground, preserved them in the wilderness
for 40 years, gave them water to drink, rain bread from heaven,
established the tabernacle, gave them the pictures in a priesthood,
All these things. Comes to Canaan, that unbelief
is exposed. They all died in the wilderness.
Why didn't they want to go in? Because from the day they left
Egypt, they had a little nucleus out here in this crowd that never
would quit whining and murmuring and complaining. And through
their influence, this whole outfit, except for two, perished in the
wilderness. Some men account Israel as being
as high as two million people perished in the wilderness because
of the influence of a handful. Hore, Dathan, and Abiram, whom
the Lord destroyed. That is exactly what they were
doing. Then you got the angels. Here are all these angels. Their
habitat was with the Lord in glory. And Satan spins his yarns. And a third of them leave their
habitation, it says in Jude, leave their habitation in glory.
And then thirdly, he talks about Sodom and Gomorrah. And what
does he sum all of these up? Romans chapter 1 will tell you
that this moral degradation of Sodom and Gomorrah was brought
about by vain imaginations concerning God and who He is. False religion,
it always, wherever that is prominent, that society, just goes downhill
into moral degradation just like our country is today. And you
know what he calls these things? The way of Cain. The way of Cain. All of these things were in the
heart of this man. And we read through this so quickly
that we don't even see it. We don't even see it. And yet
right here I see the story of me, I see the story of you, I
see the story of every man right here in Cain and Abel as he's
brought before God. And when you are, you manifest
what's on your heart. He'll give you a heart to bow.
He'll break that heart through the preaching of the gospel.
And that's what this little assembly set here is all about. I thought
this so valuable to our congregation because we're just a little congregation
and nobody goes through Taylor. If you go to Taylor, Arkansas,
you got to go on purpose. And we're out in the middle of
nowhere and we gather out there and sometimes the folks just
don't think anybody else in the world even knows they exist.
But here was the place that God picked and he said, here's my
presence. And he put it right there. And
he never took that presence away. And Cain went over here to the
land of Nod and said he'd build a city. He spent the rest of
his life trying to build a name for himself, trying to build
a name for his theology and his religion, and trying to justify
his sacrifice. And he took who knows how many
with him over here, enough to build a city, and established
all these things over here. But the presence of God never
left over here where Abel's house was. It stayed right there. And
in due time, Adam had another son to replace him. His name
was Seth. And then unto him was born a
young grandson, and his name was Enos. Then began men to call
upon the name of the Lord. And I'll give you one more thing
here with that. That's also translated this way. Then began God to call
upon them, to call them by His name. by His name. Those who are called by My name.
That calling there in Romans chapter 8 where He said He called
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. Whom He did
predestinate, then He also called. That calling is not that effectual
calling that we talk about. That calling is a calling where
He gave you His name in eternity. And I just think it's so important
that you understand, meeting up here in this firehouse, that
right now, this is where God has chosen to have his presence
in New Jersey, right here, out of this whole state. I just left Washington, D.C.
They've got a national cathedral down there that you can see from
anywhere in that city, you can see it's It's massive. God isn't in 200 miles of that
place. His presence is right here. His
presence is right here. And if He speaks, this is where
He's going to speak. You just look out here and all around
here, that's the land of Nod. Nothing to offer. Nothing to
offer. Busy, pretty, building all the time, but nothing to
offer before God. Our Father, we ask You this morning
to take these things, apply them to the hearts of Your people,
and pray Your blessings on this congregation and on this pastor. We pray that You'll take this
church, this assembly, this gathering together here, and use them for
Your name's honor and glory. Give them of Your Spirit. Give
them hearts to rejoice in the gospel. Give them minds to understand
and a will to bow. Do these things for Christ's
sake. Amen.