All right, let's go back to Hebrews
chapter 4, verse 16. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16. My subject this morning is grace. Let us therefore, because we
have such a great high priest as the Lord Jesus is, because
all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom
we have to do. because we would labor to enter
into rest, to keep the blessed Sabbath of faith in Christ the
Lord. Let us, therefore, come boldly,
boldly. The word so terribly misused
and misrepresented in our day, these charismatic religious babblers,
and I'm being nice, they talk about going in with boldness,
claiming things from God, as if man by his claim on things
can order God what to do, what not to do. The Word has the idea
of freedom. Come freely. Come openly. God, teach me to pray, opening
my heart to you. Not afraid for God to hear the
cry of your heart. You ever notice when you find
an old believer, one who's been around a while, the thickest
part of their Bible will be the Psalms, almost always. And that's
because as we read the book of the Psalms, we're allowed to
go with a man after God's own heart into his closet and hear
him say what we want to say. but don't dare say. We go with
David and hear him cry, is your mercy clean, gone forever? Why
have you forsaken me? Will you not return to me? We
want to speak plainly and honestly, but just somehow don't dare. This passage is saying come boldly.
Come and tear open your heart before God, hiding nothing. Let him know every groan, every
pain, every heartache, every desire, every need. Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne. Don't forget, you're coming to
God on his throne. Come with reverence. Come boldly,
but come with reverence to the throne. But ever remember that
God's sovereign throne is the throne of grace. Come boldly
to the throne. There's only one, really. Many
men on the earth set thrones for themselves. There's only
one throne by which the world is ruled. And that's this throne
upon which sets God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
is a throne of grace. Come boldly to the throne of
grace that we may obtain mercy. that we may obtain mercy and
find grace, grace to help in time of need. Come to God, pour
out your heart's needs to Him freely, frankly acknowledging
that which you desire of Him, that which you need of Him, and
obtain the mercy and the grace that will help you in your time
of need. My subject again, I tell you,
is grace. Grace. And it's important for
these reasons. Number one, very few people know
what grace is. Very few people know what grace
is. I know that almost all professing
Christians profess to believe that salvation is by grace. The Bible states that fact so
plainly, so universally, so clearly, that none can read this book
and with any honesty openly deny that salvation is by grace. I
frankly don't know of anyone who professes to be a Christian
who would deny that salvation is by grace. All professed believers
say they believe in salvation by grace. But if you listen to
them speak of God's grace, it's obvious that they have no idea
what grace is. Most people, most men and women,
most preachers talk about grace in such a way that they do exactly
what Paul says he didn't do. He said, I do not frustrate the
grace of God. By that, Paul is not saying that
somehow a man can stop God's grace or hinder God's grace or
thwart God's grace. But with their words, they make
the grace of God meaningless. Paul said, I do not teach anything
that would make the grace of God meaningless. The grace most
people talk about is not grace at all. It's really just works
under the name of grace. It's really just free willism
under the name of grace presented in the name of the gospel. So
it's needful that we be constantly and clearly instructed in the
doctrine of the grace of God. Secondly, the message is important
because salvation by grace destroys all human boasting. It just flat
destroys it. Boasting excluded, pride I abase. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Grace
alone makes us to differ. God's electing grace, His redeeming
grace, His saving grace, His providential grace, that is distinguishing
grace. The Lord God called the pillar
of cloud and a pillar of fire to be light and direction to
the children of Israel, and that same pillar was to the Egyptians
confusion and madness. It was that pillar of fire, distinctly
shining for Israel, that caused the Egyptians to run heedlessly
into the sea and destroy themselves. God's grace distinguishes between
men. God separates, He always separates
the precious from the vile. And everything He does in His
grace, He does for His people. If your idea of grace allows
some boasting in you, as if the difference between you and other
people is something you've done, or something you've felt, or
something you've experienced. You don't understand what grace
is. Everything we have from God,
we have by grace. If I believe God, I believe God
because he gave me faith, and he sustains that faith. If I
repent of my sins and turn to him, it's because he has granted
me repentance. If I have any measure of consecration
to my Redeemer, it's because He has caused me to run after
Him and set my heart upon Himself. But Brother Don, isn't it our
responsibility to do those things? Yes, but responsibility doesn't
imply ability. You don't have any ability to
follow your Redeemer. None at all. You don't have any
ability to keep yourself from any evil. You don't have any
ability to set your heart on things above. You don't have
any ability whatsoever to love the Son of God. If you have any
of those things, it's because God gives them to you. Right
now, we've come together. You're here. I don't have any
question. You're here because you want to worship the Redeemer.
How many times have you come here wanting to worship Him and
gone home wanting to worship Him? We worship him because he
gives us grace to worship him. Third, this message of grace
is important. Because only the grace of God,
the teaching of scripture with regard to salvation in its totality,
being by the grace of God, gives all praise to God alone. I want so much as I preach to
you As I instruct folks in writing and personal conversation and
preaching publicly, I want so much to direct your eyes to God
our Savior, not to me, not to the church, and not to you. Any
message you ever hear, any article you ever read, any conversation
you ever have that leaves you looking to you ought not to have
taken place. It ought not to have taken place.
Our business is to turn your eyes, the eyes of your heart
and your understanding, away from yourselves and away from
us to Christ the Redeemer. Only the gospel of God's grace
gives all glory to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We hear a lot of talk these days
about litmus test. I may be over with. I'm always
behind on the news. They had to confirm that gal.
They were trying to confirm this Supreme Court judge. Folks have
litmus tests. Liberals do and conservatives
do. If they are opposed to abortion, then we're for. If they're for
abortion, then we're against them. The fact is, with regard
to all things spiritual, here's a litmus test. You can mark it
down. rubs your feathers the right
way and makes you feel good about
yourself. If it causes you to look at yourself
and say, yeah, yeah, I like that. It's not of God. It's not of
God. It is not of God. If, on the
other hand, it exposes you for what you are, nothing but sin,
nothing but corruption, nothing but a pile of iniquity, nothing
to be commended, nothing to extol or exalt yourself, nothing to
lift you above another, and gives all praise and all glory and
all honor to God alone. You can mark it down. That's
true. That's the message of this book. Here's the fourth thing. This message is important. Because
any mixture, I can't stress it enough, any mixture, any mixture
of grace with works and works with grace, any mixture of merit
with mercy, any mixture of your worth with Christ's worth, any
mixture of what you do with what God does is not just a terribly
evil thing, it is utterly damning to your soul. any mixture of
human worth, human works, any mixture of human will with the
worth of Christ, the work of Christ, and the will of Christ,
any mixture is utterly damning. It is utterly destructive to
grace. This is what the book says. If
by grace, then there's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is
no more grace. And here's the fifth reason this
message is important. I said at the beginning, few
people, very few people, very few preachers know what grace
is. Therefore, in this world, the
grace of God by which we are saved is looked upon only as
an attribute of God, and not really even as an attribute of
God, but merely as a passion or a desire of God. Something
that God wants to happen. Something that God earnestly
desires to happen. Something that God gives men
by which he gives them an opportunity to be saved. Or something that
God gives men by which they are able now to work for themselves
and save themselves. Well, grace is both an attribute
of God and a work of God. It is that by which God performs
his mighty operations in and for his people. And it is always
effectual. It is always irresistible. It is always that which God performs
exactly as he will. This grace we saw last night
is eternal. It is that which God Almighty
has bestowed upon us in Christ before the world began and it
is immutable. If it's eternal, it's immutable.
You can embark on it. God Almighty is eternal. He's
immutable. God's salvation is eternal. It's
immutable. Our acceptance with Christ is
eternal. It's immutable. And God's grace
bestowed on us in eternity in Jesus Christ the Lord is immutable
grace. What do you mean by that, Brother
Dunn? I mean it never changes. God is never less gracious to
us and he's never more gracious to us. God is never more pleased
with us and he's never less pleased with us if we're in Christ his
son. God's grace is immutable. It
cannot be in any way hindered and it certainly can't be destroyed.
It can't be thwarted. It can't be put away. The Lord
God makes this statement by which I am constantly cheered in my
soul. In the teeth of all that I know
I am, in the teeth of all that I do and wish I didn't, in the
teeth of all my sin and all my iniquity, the God of glory says,
I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. If that doesn't ring your bell,
your clacker's broke. I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. And this immutable grace of God,
this gift of grace that is without repentance, is sovereign. The
Lord God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. Wherever God
bestows his grace, salvation is the result. Grace is not an
offer of salvation. It's not an opportunity to be
saved. Grace is the accomplishment of God's salvation. Grace is
not in any way common. I hear folks these days. Men are running rapidly as they
can to every form of compromise, trying to make the gospel of
God's grace palatable to men. So they'll speak very piously. And when hypocrites speak piously,
did you ever notice how they change their voice tones? God. His common grace. Common is useless. Common is meaningless. Common
is of no benefit to anyone. God's grace is not common. It
is always special. He said to the children of Israel,
that is to you and me, I gave Ethiopia for you. I sacrificed
Egypt for you. I gave men for you and people
for your life. And whatever is required for
your good, I will do it and I will sacrifice it. God's grace is
special, irresistible, saving grace. Now let's look in the
book and see how it's presented to us. Number one, turn if you
will to the book of 2 Timothy chapter 1. No, let's go to Ephesians
1. We looked at 2 Timothy last night.
God's grace is spoken of in this book as covenant grace. Before
the world began, the triune God met together in blessed covenant
mercy. And there was a covenant made
between the three persons of the Godhead and our blessed surety,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Brother Don, did God really
get together with his three persons and his son and sit down and
write out a covenant, stipulations and terms and handshakes and
all that stuff? I don't think so. I don't think so. God doesn't
have to think in order like I do. I don't just have to put things
down in order in my mind. I've got to write them down to
think in order. First one thing, then another,
then another, then another. One thing built on the other.
God speaks to us in the language of covenant mercy to give us
some ability to get a handle on what he's done for us. It
is not to suggest as when the Lord speaks of a book written
as though he really wrote out a book, but rather he speaks
in human terms so that we can understand something of what
he has done and is doing for us. Here in Ephesians 1, we see
this covenant grace displayed. Verse 3, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us, past tense,
it's already done, with all spiritual blessings. What all does that
include? All spiritual blessings. In heavenly
places, that is in heaven, in Christ. And how is it that he
blessed us, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him? He chose us for this purpose,
that ultimately, when he's finished, we will stand before God holy
and without blame. He did not choose us just that
we could go and do our best to live a holy life. Now, do your
best to do that. Don't misunderstand me. Do your
dead-level best, but when you've done your best, it ain't much.
There's no holiness about you. Well, don't you think we ought
to be holy? I don't think you ought to be.
I know if you're His, you're going to be. I know if you're His, you
are. And He will present us at last
holy. Holy. I remember Brother Scott
Richardson preaching for us. Marvin is, you may or may not
know this, Marvin is a pastor for Brother Scott Richardson,
pastored in Fairmont, West Virginia for, what, 50 years? He was preaching
for me several years ago, one of our conferences, and he said,
I want to preach to you about the holiness of God. He said,
the holiness of God, H-O-L-I-N-E-S-S. has something to do with the
wholeness, W-H-O-L-E-N-E-S-S, of God. Holiness has something
to do with wholeness. That which makes God to be separate
from all his creatures is the whole being of God. everything about him, take any
part away, and he ceases to have this holiness by which his name
is hallowed above all things. It is the whole being of God
that is his holiness. And when God's finished with
us, he's going to present us whole. Some of you are without
Christ. Your problem is you're in need
of being made whole. There's something missing. It's
called life. Something missing. It's called
spirit. Something missing. It's called the life of God in
you. Godliness. Something missing.
Christ in you. And when God's finished with
us, he will present us whole before himself. Unblameable and
unreprovable in his sight. Read on. He did it in love. When I get
to those two verses at the end of verse, or those two words
at the end of verse four, I always have to ask myself, should I
read those at the end of verse four at the beginning of verse
five? Yeah, let's do it both ways. He chose us and blessed us before
the world began with all spiritual blessings and love. and in love
having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will
wherein he hath made us accepted. The objects of his favor, his
pleasure, and his delight before the world began in the beloved. Salvation is the result of this
covenant. This covenant God made with his
son on our behalf before the world began. In this covenant,
there was an election made of son to salvation. And a ransom
was found so that the Lord God looks on his son, our surety,
and says concerning his elect, deliver him from going down to
the pit, for I have found a ransom. He who is the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world and a seal was pledged. The Lord
God says in Revelation 7 concerning the judgments that fall on the
earth, hurt not the earth till we have sealed the hundred and
forty and four thousand. Don't hurt the earth till we've
sealed every one of them in their foreheads. And that seal is the
blessed gift of the Spirit in the new birth. You wonder sometimes
why God doesn't destroy this world. If it was up to me, I'd have
done so a long time ago. Everybody said me. I'd have done so a long
time ago. Why doesn't God destroy this
world? The message said. Why? Well, things in the state
they're in. You hear preachers who often
talk in ignorance say, well, if God doesn't send his son soon
and judge this world, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.
Well, things today are just like they were in Sodom's day. and
things a thousand years ago just like we were in Sodom's day.
Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. This world
is a world of sin, of rebellion, and ungodliness. Why does God
leave it stand? Well, go back a little further.
Why didn't he destroy Adam when he sent him to the garden? Why? Because in Adam there was a chosen
seed whom he was determined to save. And he was determined to
save at the appointed time of love by which to greatly and
perfectly show forth his glorious being and the riches of his grace
in the salvation of everyone of the elect sea. And so the
world stands until the elect are all saved by his grace to
the praise of his glory. He didn't destroy Sodom until
he brought Lot out. And he won't destroy this world
until the last of God's elect is saved. trying to live every day on the
tiptoe of faith. I've got a supposition bubbling
up in my soul. Maybe sitting here this hour
is the last of God's elect. And he's about to call you by
his grace. And when he does, that's it. That's it. How do
you know? Because the Lord is not slack
concerning his promises, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering
to usward. God's long-suffering. This might
say, well, God's long-suffering with Madeline Murray O'Hare was.
No, he wasn't. God's long-suffering with Balaam.
No, he wasn't. God's long-suffering with the
world. No, he's not. No, he's not. He's long-suffering
to usward. He's long-suffering to you, not
your neighbor, to you. Well, how do you know that? That's
what he said. He's long-suffering to us. We're not willing that
any, any of us, his elect, should perish, but that all should come
to repentance and knowledge of the truth. Well, Brother Don,
how can you be sure that's what 2 Peter 3.9 means? Because down
in verse 20 of 2 Peter chapter 3, he says the long-suffering
of our God is what? Salvation. The long suffering
of our God is our salvation. All right, here's the second
thing about grace. God's grace is prevenient grace. Turn to
Jeremiah chapter one. Preachers don't talk about it
much anymore because preachers don't know much about it. But
there was a time when prevenient grace was a common theme from
the pulpit. The word prevenient means preceding,
or that which goes before. Prevenient grace, now listen
carefully, listen carefully. Prevenient grace is the secret,
unknown, unrevealed, private working of God in all the affairs
of providence, making a way for His grace to His own. Prevenient grace is God's secret,
absolute manipulation of all things including the thoughts
of men, and the number of hairs on your head, and the deeds of
the righteous and the wicked, the works of angels and of demons. Prevenient grace is that grace
by which God secretly manipulates all the world and every detail
of your life Preparing you for that time described in Ezekiel
16 as the time of love when he will pass by you And spread his
skirt over you call you by his grace and make you his Prevenient
grace Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5 Here it is God told Jeremiah
about it Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee I Loved
you I approved of you. I sanctified you. I accepted
you. I ordained you. That's what the
word new means. I knew thee. Before thou camest
forth out of the womb, before you ever drew your first infant
breath, I sanctified thee. I set you apart. I said, he's mine. He's mine. And I ordained thee. I ordained thee a prophet. And
from the time you came out of your mama's womb to this day,
I've been preparing you to be my prophet. That's God's prevenient
grace. I ordained thee a prophet to
the nation. Paul said, when it pleased God, he separated me
from my mother's womb and called me by his grace. I mentioned
last night difference in the way we are raised in this world. Every bit of it by God's providence.
Some of you have been raised under the sound of the gospel,
raised in a home where God's worshipped, where God's known.
Oh, what an honor. What a privilege. What a delight. This Dr. Glenda, I've known her
and her daddy for most of 40 years. 38 years ago, I first
met folks at Fairmont. Your dad's 86 years old? 86. Been a faithful man all those
years. Faithful man. What an honor. What an honor.
Not many have it. Not many have it. I was raised
in a house where God wasn't known at all. Wasn't known at all. We went to church whenever we'd
have enough family trouble, we thought we'd go to church and get things
better. And that's about it. About the only time God's name was
mentioned was when somebody was cussing. God wasn't known at
all. And I want to tell you what,
if I could, I wouldn't swap places with you. I wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do
it. I don't know for sure, but I suspect you ask her daddy,
she was raised, never did anything wrong in her life. That wasn't
the way I was raised. If you could ask my daddy, he'd
tell you. But if I could, I wouldn't swap places with you. Not a moment. Not an experience. painful or
blissful, good or bad, because everything God has done for you,
he did for you. And everything God has done for
me, he did for me, and for us together as his own. It's called prevenient grace,
forming the character molding the thoughts, training the child
for the purpose he intends to use that child in his kingdom
for his glory. Oh, how well God's grace is described
as restraining grace. You remember what he said concerning
Avimelech when he was about to take Sarah? And he said, I withheld
thee from sinning against me. That's a heathen king. He didn't know God from a rotten
stump. He didn't have any idea who God
was. But God said, I withheld you from committing adultery
with my child Sarah. I withheld you from the passions
of your evil heart. And so it is, God says to his
elect in every aspect of their lives, hitherto shalt thou go. and no further. We ran with our coattails on
fire of hell as quickly as we could to destruction until God
stepped in our way and said, no further, no more. That's all there is to it. You
remember how David sent his men to get some supplies from Nabal,
whom he had helped greatly? Over in 2 Samuel, I believe it
is, 1 Samuel 25, you can read the story. Nabal embarrassed
his fellows, shaved off their beards, cut off their skirts
up to the buttocks, and sent them high tailing it back to
David. And David said, get your swords on. As soon as your beard's
grown, we're going to visit Nabal. And we're not going to leave
anybody in that house standing. We're going to destroy every
man, every child, everyone in that house. So we're going to
kill them all. And Nabal's wife Abigail heard about it. And she
packed up every good she could get in the house on pack animals
and took them to David. And she said, my husband's a
fool. That's what his name means. Now,
David, the Lord sent me to prevent you from shedding blood. And David said, oh, what a woman.
What a woman. He thought so highly of her.
As soon as Dabal died, David sent and married Abigail and
made her his wife. She was the instrument of God
by which she prevented David from doing the evil he was determined
to do. Oh, God, thank you for preventing
us from much of the evil we were determined to do, and allowing
us to perform only the evil you would use for our good and your
glory. You don't really believe that,
do you? I believe that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are thee called according to his
purpose. The psalmist says, Psalm 76,
10, surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder
of wrath wilt thou restrain. Brother Hart, this is just what
that means. Every evil thing done by every wrathful man in
all of history will praise God. And that evil that men would
do, including you and me, that God won't use for his glory.
and won't use for the benefit of our souls, He won't let us
do. Satan and the influence of hell,
Satan and all the demons of hell belong to God and are God's servants,
as surely God's servants as Michael the archangel, though they know
it not. They do nothing except that which
is according to the will and purpose of our God. Turn to Jude
1 again, Jude chapter 1, or Jude verse 1. Oh, how I rejoice, give thanks
to God for his free covenant grace and his secret prevenient
grace. It is this prevenient grace that
keeps and preserves God's elect throughout their days of rebellion
to the time of their calling. I'll give you a good assignment.
You don't need to write it down. It wouldn't be bad to write it
down. When you're meditating on God's
goodness in your private worship, every time you think of an experience
in your life before God saved you, and you look back and you
say, I ought to have died there. Every ounce of reason, everything
surrounding the circumstances, I should have died right there.
Mark it down, God preserved you. Mark it down, God preserved you.
I was talking to a fellow who just moved to Danville back in,
I can't remember when he moved, May? He was telling me when he
was a teenage boy he had a Corvair Spider. Now you folks, most of
you too young to remember a Corvair Spider. It was one fast running
car and weighed almost as much as one of those diamond store
glider planes you throw out here. It didn't have any weight at
all. There was no protection to it. He was out sitting in
the stoplight. And a lady hit me in the rear
end, me sitting there dead still, she was doing 55 miles an hour
driving a new Cadillac. And I went flying through the
windshield. And I said, well, I understand
why you went flying through the windshield and you're still here.
Because God Almighty intended to keep you until the day of
your coffin. Listen to this. Jude, the servant
of Jesus Christ, and brother James to them that are sanctified
by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. If you don't
mind writing in the margin of your Bible, let me give you an
alternate translation of that that's just as good and just
as accurate. Kept for Jesus Christ. Sanctified by God the Father
and kept through the fall of Adam, and kept through the ages
of time, and kept as God would raise up this nation and destroy
that, but destroy the life through which your family would live,
and kept through all the ages and wars and difficulties of
time and circumstance, kept through all the days of your rebellion
and ungodliness for Jesus Christ and called. All right, turn to
Ephesians chapter 1. Here's the third aspect of God's
grace. Regenerating grace. Regenerating grace. The new birth, regeneration,
is a resurrection from the dead. It is a resurrection from the
dead. It is a new creation. It is the
creation of Christ in you by God the Holy Spirit. It takes
something more than the choice and decision of your free will
to accomplish such a thing. It takes God's grace. And you
hath he quickened, made alive who were dead in trespasses and
in sins. Wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, that is you live just
like everybody else. According to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in
time past in the lust of our flesh, living according to the
lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. That is, we
lived with our fists shoved in God's face, hating God like everybody
else, even as others. But God. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, hath quickened us,
made us alive, together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. Turn to Romans chapter 3. Romans
chapter 3. The grace of God is regenerating
grace. It doesn't offer eternal life.
It produces it. It doesn't give good advice to
sinners, telling them they must be born again. It gives good
advice to sinners, telling them, or gives good counsel to sinners,
telling them they must, they shall be born again. The grace
of God is that by which we live. And fourthly, the grace of God
by which we're transformed, saved, made to be saints, is justifying
grace justifying grace Romans 3.24 we're justified freely freely
they hated me without a cause our Lord said that's the word
without a cause with no cause in us justified freely by his
grace but it cost him dear through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Now I realize justification was
accomplished long before we were born. It was accomplished in
eternity when Christ was accepted as the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. It was accomplished at Calvary
when the Lord Jesus Christ by the sacrifice of himself put
away our sins, having fulfilled all righteousness as our substitute.
And it is accomplished in the experience of grace when we receive
life that gives us faith in Jesus Christ. And we receive that justification. Our faith in Christ is not the
instrument by which we're justified. Our faith in Christ contributes
nothing to our standing before God. It simply receives that
which God has bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus. What does it
mean to be justified? Completely forgiven of all sin. Perfectly righteous before God
Almighty. Without the possibility of condemnation. Accepted in the beloved. Justified. Justified. Equal to all that God requires. equal to all that God demands,
perfect, righteous, justified. Let's see if I've got a bulletin
in here. Yeah. I don't know a better way to
illustrate it. I don't know a better way to illustrate it. Back years
ago, this dear lady over here used to type our bulletins. I'd
write them out, write the articles out, and she'd type them on a
plain piece of paper. And nothing was ever even over
here. It was all jagged, and it might be an inch difference
between one line and another line. And she'd take a ruler
and mark it, and count out the spaces, and then retype it on
a mimeograph stencil. And you've never had fun until
you've used a mimeograph machine, and you're typing, and you get
down to the very last line, and you make a mistake. You get to
start all over again. But she would space out the spaces. It was called justifying the
right-hand margin. Today, you look up on Microsoft
Word, you got other things, and it's done. Just like that. Justified. What's that mean?
See this side over here? Look at this one. It's an exact
reproduction. It's exactly the same space. Here I stand before God's holy
law. before the character of God's
own son, before God himself in his holiness, in his whole being. Justify. Justify. Oh, no wonder David wrote, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Here's a fifth
thing. It's 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
1 Corinthians chapter 6. God's grace is sanctifying grace. I'll wrap this up quickly, but
I've got to say this. Verse 9. Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind. nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. That
is to say, somewhere in there I got every one of you. But ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. Brother Clay, how could he say
that about these folks? These are Corinthians. Did you bother ever to read the
first five chapters? The Corinthians? These Corinthian
saints? These Corinthian believers? They
said, Todd Rutland. I don't know him near as well
as the girl sitting beside him, but I know him pretty good. And
he's sanctified? You? Sanctified? Here stands
Don Fortner. She knows me real good. Sanctified? You call that a saint? Yeah,
cause God does. Sanctified. Holy. Righteous. Before God. In Christ. One with Christ. Sanctified. Our lives are not just lives
that we have from Christ. The life we have is Christ. We live in union with the Son
of God so that who and what Christ the mediator is, we are and we
have as he has all things by God's free gift of free grace.
Most people are terribly confused about sanctification. They somehow believe that sanctification
is something that God starts in us along the way when he saves
us and then we spit, shine, and polish ourselves until at last
we're ripe for heaven and we're so holy that we just, God takes
us into glory like Enoch or Elijah. If you want more of that, you
can go to any barnyard and dig it up. We're sanctified by grace. sanctified in Christ, sanctified
by the Spirit of God, wholly sanctified, completely sanctified. This book nowhere speaks what
men call progressive sanctification. I defy you to find me any place
in the New Testament where the word sanctify, sanctified, sanctification
refers to something you do or to what you contribute to, or
refers to it as something that is progressive. We are not being
sanctified. We are sanctified. And in that
sanctification, we grow in grace. We grow in faith. We grow in
consecration to Christ. We grow in love to Christ. But
we don't make ourselves more holy. We don't make ourselves
more accepted with God. We don't make ourselves more
righteous before him. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus
the Lord. Therefore, Paul says, I present
you, I beseech you that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, because that's the only thing that makes
any sense. That's just your reasonable service. How on earth, Marvin
Stonemaker, can you and Don Fortner present our bodies, our lives,
how can we present our lives, one living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
to God. How do we as a group of people,
all gods elect living on this earth, present our bodies, our
lives in this world a living sacrifice, one living sacrifice? Because there is one living sacrifice
in whom and with whom we present our lives holy, acceptable unto
God. And that sacrifice is Christ
Jesus the Lord. No wonder Solomon said, go now
and eat your bread with a merry heart and drink your wine with
cheer. God now accepteth thy works.
Except so, we tend to think that worshiping God is what we're
doing here. This is the public worship of God. The believers'
entire life, the believers, The believer's entire life is
the life of a priest in the holy place, worshiping and serving
God. You understand that? You ladies,
next time you are changing half a dozen dirty diapers every couple
hours and you're getting sick of it, remember that changing
the diaper is just as much the worship of God as reading his
book and studying it, if you do it for God's glory. You go
to work and don't feel like going to work, but you've got to scratch
out a living for the family, feed your wife and kids. Go to
work and don't murmur. Go to work and rejoice. You're
serving God, not the man you work for. Eat your bread and
drink your wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth
thy works. All of them. Here's the sixth
thing. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. Well,
you don't need to turn there. I'll give it to you. been translated to the third
heaven. And he saw things that he couldn't put in words. Now,
you see this fellow selling books on television? They got too many
words about it. They didn't really get translated
to the third heaven. They didn't really die and come back. They're
lying to you. I don't care who it is, he's lying to you. Either
that or he's smoking something strong, one of the two. But they
didn't die and come back. Paul was translated to the third
heaven. He said, I saw things I can't
put into words. I heard things that can't be
expressed in human language. And he said, I was given a messenger,
a thorn in the flesh. I said, well, I don't know what
his thorn in the flesh was. I do. It was the devil. It was Satan. That's what he said. I was given
this thorn in the flesh, the messenger, Satan. God's messenger,
Satan. to buffet me, to beat me down. Every time I would begin to think
myself something because nobody ever saw such things as I've
seen. Nobody ever knew such things as I've known. Nobody ever heard
such things as I've heard. Satan comes and beats me in the
face with this horrid, horrid, horrid pride. And I asked the
Lord three times, God, take this from me. And the Lord said, live
with it. Live with it. My grace is sufficient
for you. Hear me, children of God. God's
grace is sufficient for you. It's sufficient for you. Whatever
your circumstance, whatever your trial, whatever your responsibility,
whatever your work, whatever your heartache, whatever your
joy, His grace is sufficient for you. He's proved it now to
this worthless piece of human flesh for 43 blessed years in
the experience of grace. His grace is sufficient, sufficient
to see you through every temptation, sufficient for you for whatever
work he has for you to do, sufficient for you in every time of trial,
sufficient for you especially when you fall. I have a favorite text of scripture.
My favorite text is usually the one that is most applicable at
the time. Mark chapter 16 verse 2, you
don't need to look at it now, you can look at it later. Those
two women come to the tomb and they find the Lord has risen.
And the man they saw there at the tomb, that angel of God they
saw there, said he's risen. Go tell his disciples that he'll
meet them in Galilee just like he said he would. And be sure you tell Peter. Be sure you tell Peter. Peter
who thinks he's reprobate. Peter who thinks he's cast off. Peter who thinks he's God. You be sure you tell Peter, I'm
gonna meet him in Galilee just like I said I would. God's grace
is sufficient. You remember what our Lord told
Peter when he said Satan's desired to have you that he may sift
you as wheat? And he said before, the cock crows twice tomorrow
morning. You will deny me three times.
Do you have any idea what his very next word was? His very
next word. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. His next word. You mean, God's grace didn't
change at all. No. Just proved itself sufficient. One more thing. His grace is
keeping grace. He will keep me till the river
rolls its waters at my feet. Then He'll bear me safely over
where my Savior I shall meet.