All right, OK. I hold my breath until I get here. Well, I haven't got there yet. Just a second. There we go.

Before we begin the message, we'll go to God in prayer. And I do ask your prayers. I stand to preach the gospel to you. It is with an overwhelming sense of inability. I know that I cannot effectually make this real to the souls of men. I know that this text I'm going to preach to you is true and right according to the Word of God and academically you can acknowledge that, you may see that. But the text today is going to deal with something much deeper than our academic understanding, something that touches the heart and the soul of everyone who believes in Christ.

how much or how much it affects the soul and to what degree, I can't tell. I can't make it that way. I ask for your prayers that God would be gracious to stand with me and in me and give you what is necessary for your soul. for the comfort of your soul in the midst of our afflictions and trials that are many and great. God's people's trials and afflictions are not to be minimized. My hope today is that you see the purpose. arbitrary trials that we face, they're specifically designed for every believer. They're given particularly to every one of his children, and we're going to see the purpose in our text, the purpose of this, and if God the Holy Spirit would show us, I think it would comfort us. shore up are the inner man and may not doing it's not gonna do anything the outer man. But for the inner man, the new man, it should give us hope, confidence.

So I do ask your prayers for me. It's encouraging to me, I'd listen to a man preach from this text. And I was encouraged. I don't know who he is. Never heard him before in my life. And it was just a wonderful man. I just thoroughly enjoyed it. Don't know who that guy is. Some guy out there in obscurity somewhere. Just preaching the gospel of Christ, just like he was standing here. And it was a good message to my heart. And just so I let you know that This message is not new. It's amazing, it's astounding. This word's been here for centuries. And to let you know, I stole this message. I stole it. It's all right. It's very comforting and very assuring to me, and I hope it will be to you today.

Remember, God's men, wherever they pray, Remember them in your prayers. Churches without pastors that God would raise up man. This is something we should be in constant prayer about. It's not an aside. This is necessary. We desire more of the gospel to be preached in our day. And we ask him to send men to thrust men into the field. Pray for those that are sick. Not just physically sick, but those of God's people who become spiritually sick. Isn't it astounding that the Lord told his disciples, how is it that you had no faith? And when they had that storm and he was down there asleep, they had the Lord God in the boat. And he was not troubled. You think that that should have affected them? They should not be troubled? And yet he said, how is it that you had no faith? God's people can be there. We can have hard hearts. We can be indifferent to the things of God. Pray for your brethren that are indifferent. If you're indifferent, then may God break that heart. Let's go to Him in prayer.

Father, we come to Thee with one heart, with one mind, with one spirit desiring to worship. We come seeking power and grace of Your Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and our hearts, cause us to bow before You. And this we do in the name and blood and righteousness of Your Son. We dare not come in our own name, but only in His, who to our souls is precious, I confess my need of you today. I have a message, but without you I cannot preach it. These who desire to hear it cannot hear without you to give ears to hear it, to receive it, to believe it. And we ask that all that is done in this place redound to the glory and praise of Jesus, our Savior and our King, whose right it is to rule over the hearts and minds and body of His people. I pray today, if there be any who are in rebellion against Christ, that you would even put down that heart of rebellion and set up the throne of Christ in them. and in thy people, that ye would continually put down the old man and his sin, and that ye would exalt Christ in the new man.

" Father, for those churches who are preaching the gospel today, those men who are preaching, we ask what we ask for ourselves, we plead for them. What we ask for this congregation, we ask for their congregation. For those of us who are sick, we plead for healing, for strength, for those that are weak, those that are feeble, those whose heart is hard and cold and indifferent to the things of God that you would even now break it. Break it by the love and the grace and the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Please, Father, forgive us our sins and cleanse us of our unrighteousness. Set our affection upon Christ. In His name we ask. Amen.

I take your Bibles and turn with me to Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 21. My text will be found in verse 27. I've entitled this message, God's Overturning of Self. God's Overturning of Self. Verse 25, let's begin reading there, it says, And thou, profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come when iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem and take off the crown. This shall not be the same. Exalt him that is low and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is and I will give it him.

Now we know this according to the word of God that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. For what? For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. And here is no different. This text, though historical, though factual, though a prophecy that had actually taken place, I desire today that the Holy Spirit would show us what is intended here, the greater meaning. God is not giving us a history lesson and facts just concerning prophecy fulfilled. That's part of it. God's showing His power in overturning this king. But there's a greater intention here of the Spirit of God to show us Christ. To show us Christ, to show us the salvation of our Lord, spiritual truth.

So first I'm going to give you the literal so then I can show you the spiritual. You've got to understand what's happening literally here because God the Spirit is using this as an analogy, an allegory, a picture of something spiritual. I'm going to give you the literal meaning here and then the spiritual. First, the words here are spoken to King Zedekiah, who is the ruler of Judah. This man was made king by Nebuchadnezzar. After Nebuchadnezzar came in, he wanted to set up a king, a puppet king basically, to rule in his stead over the people of Judah. And he set up this man, Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar made this king to swear an oath before Jehovah that he would be faithful to serve King Nebuchadnezzar. Well, this king was a wicked king. He was an evil man. And he broke the oath that he swore to God. And God, because of that, we have this text here, He said, Zedekiah said, Profane and wicked prince, whose day has come when iniquity shall have an end.

He broke his oath to God. It didn't matter if he made this oath to Nebuchadnezzar. The problem was he made it toward God. And when he broke this oath, God swore this. He said, Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, take off the crown, and it shall not be the same. In other words, God was going to, at this point, cast down the king, the nation of Israel completely. He was going to remove the kingship and kingdom of Israel when He removed this man, Zedekiah, from the throne. And He was going to do this until Christ came. That's what He said.

Look at this, He said, I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more. He's talking about the Kingdom of Israel, as it is a nation with a King, until He come, whose right it is, and I will give it to Him. In other words, the King that God swore to give it to was Christ. And if you go back to Genesis chapter 49, I believe this has reference to that, that a lawgiver should not depart from the feet of Judah until Shiloh come. Until Shiloh come. And God had promised to remove the kings of Israel. And listen, until that time, until Christ came, every governor and king after, there was governors, God set up governors to govern Israel, but no more kings. There were no more kings of Israel, legitimate kings.

Now you had Herod, which was not a son of David. He was not a legitimate ruler. So none of the sons of David ruled after Zedekiah. God says, I'm going to tear it down and it's not going to be no more until what? Until he who is really king. comes, who is Christ. You remember what was said of Him at His birth. When the wise men came, they asked the question, where is He that is born King? Born King. And so now we see the removal of the whole, really not just the kingship, but the whole system is going to be removed. The whole system of the religion of the Jews, all those types and shadows are going to be removed when he comes. When he comes, the rightful king.

But now let us look at the spiritual application. That's an easy physical application to understand. Everybody can grasp a hold of that. But I want to see the spiritual application. The analogy of the Spirit. Now, the nation of Israel is a picture of true Israel. We know this from Romans chapter 9. That not all they that are born of Jacob are true Israelites. But the seed was counted as a promise. He's talking about the elect. The election of God. You that are chosen of God. You are the true Israel of God. And so whatever Israel is, it's a type of us. It's a picture of us.

Remember at its conception, remember God was king of Israel at its conception. It had no natural king. All the other nations had kings except Israel. Israel was governed by God. But you remember the time after the judges, they rebelled and they said, we want a king. God said, you're going to regret it. But he gave him a king. He gave him a king. And for a time, all this time of the kings, God put up with it. He was long suffering during the time of the kings. But listen, now that time had come to an end. Isn't it so with us? that when our father was created, when Adam was made, God was king. But the time that Adam rebelled, the time that Adam rebelled, he said this to God, I will be king. And from that time on, all the children of Adam have rebelled against God being king. And we said within our own selves, I will be king. This is the thought and the heart of the natural man to say this, I will not have God to rule over me. I'll do what I please. This is the heart of every man. And this is the heart of every elect. Every one of God's people. By nature, we are no different than any other man. We all have rebelled, we all have sinned, we all have set self as king. We have rebelled against God. And you know this, that God for a time was long suffering with us. Until such God came to us and said this, I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. and it shall be no more. And at that time he came to us and overturned self. He overturned the rule of the natural man. What did he do? He set Christ in our hearts. He set the throne of God in our hearts and Christ became what He was always, the rightful ruler of our hearts. Conquered us, saved us by His blood and righteousness and by grace. We have believed in Him. God took that which was exalted and abased it. Isn't that what He said? He said, I will take that which is exalted and make it low. Isn't that what He did to you? He took that which we exalted, self, and He brought it low. And He took that which we deemed low, and what did He do? He exalted it. This is a prophecy of what He does to the heart of every one of His people. Now then, there are two things. Now, I'll give you an overview of it, but I want you to look at this. I want to see two divisions of this text. First of all, let us look at the work of God in overturning. What is God overturning? When He overturns the natural man, what does He overturn? And then I want us to see the effect of this overturning in the heart of the child of God, and then I want you to see the conclusion of it. I want you to see the end of this overturning. There's an overturning, then there's an overturning, and then there's a final overturning. First of all, let's see the work of God in overturning. I want you to notice it's mentioned three times. Why? Why doesn't God just say, I'm going to overturn it? If God said, I'm going to overturn it, Well, when God mentions things more than once, usually it has to do with certainty. In other words, when God is telling us something three times, when He says, Verily, verily, He's saying, Truly, truly, He's saying it over and over for the certainty of it. Now that He's telling us three times, definitely, that's true. He's definitely showing us the certainty of the salvation of His people. It is certain. But if we look closer, I want you to notice this in the history. Again, we go back to the history. There were three overturnings of this kingdom. There were three distinct kings which were overturned. The first was Jehoiachin, the second was Jehoiachin, then the second was Jehoiachin, and then Zedekiah. Now, if you want to look that up in 2 Kings 24 and 25, you can't. I'm not going to take the time to go through all that history. But there were three distinct overturnings, and so I want you to see this, that there are three distinct overturnings of God the Holy Spirit in the heart of his people. Now, the first overturning is the work of grace. When God comes in grace, he puts down self and exalts himself. That's the first work of overturning. We're born dead in our sins. That's where God finds us. And he overturns the rule of sin. He destroys all of our false gods, and he raises up upon the heap and ashes of self. He raises up his throne and sits on his throne on our hearts. Yet we know this, that there will be no allegiance between Christ and the natural man. Though God has overturned the natural man, the natural man is not yet eradicated. He's not yet removed. And so what Christ must continually do is what? He must continually overturn and overrule this old man. He must continually destroy our schemes and the desires of self and always set himself to be all in the heart of his people. This is the warfare that must continue. And there's a final third overturning and that is the overturning of the flesh completely. There's going to come an end to this, this old man. And when God puts this old man in the ground, that is the final overturning. It'll never happen again. When God overthrows that, then what? We know and see Christ is all to his people. Now, let's see this first work of overturning. We see that there are three. But now I want you to see the first work of overturning And there are three types here, I think, of self. First of all, when God comes in the act of grace, He must overthrow immoral self. Immoral self. I know that when God comes to His children in mercy, He finds many of them in the very teeth of rebellion. In open vileness of sin. Go to I Corinthians chapter 6. The apostle reminds this church of where God found them. He reminds them of their estate when Christ came in I Corinthians chapter 6 and look at verse 9. He said this, Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Isn't that what you learned? You that were overturned, you learned that, you knew that. God's not going to accept sinners into his presence, 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. Listen to this, and such were, what? Some of you. Such were some of you. But you changed your ways. You cleaned up your act. That's what religion would say, isn't it? You were that way. You were an adulterer. You were a fornicator. But now you're not. That's not what he says. Here's the hope of them that were. You are washed. You are sanctified, you are justified in the name by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord by the Spirit of our God. When God the Holy Spirit comes and He reveals His holiness, doesn't He? He exposes our guilt, the guilt of our sins. That except we be as holy as God we shall never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And then by the power and grace of God, you hear the gospel and you believe on Christ and what you realize this. My hope is in this, not that I've changed my character, not that I've changed my ways. My hope is in this. He washed me. Notice, I like these definite articles. You are washed. You that believe you are washed. You are sanctified. You are sanctified. You are justified. On what grounds? By the authority of Jesus Christ. By His blood. By His righteousness. By His obedience. You are made acceptable before God. By the power and grace of God, you heard of Christ, you believed on Him, and now You're saved. And what is the result of this salvation? Well, I'm no longer those things. Those things I once loved, now I hate. The sin I once embraced, now I loathe in myself. I despise it. And what constrains me? Looking back at chapter 5, and you can see that in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 14. Paul said this, for the love of Christ constrains us. When one is overturned, when the immoral self is overturned, who becomes preeminent? Christ does. We believe in Christ, we trust in Christ, and we no longer love the things that we once were. And what constrains me from going back? It is not the law of God, but the love of Christ that constraineth me. It's the love of Christ that constraineth us from sin. So we overturn immoral self. But listen to this. He also must overturn moral self. Because once we are, once our immorality is exposed, what do we do? We turn to morality. Well, that has to be overturned as well. That has to be overturned as well. Now, many of God's people are found in the very teeth of wickedness, but others are found in churches. Others are found living in morality and trusting that their moral self will make them acceptable with God. Well, that has to be overturned. That has to be put down. The Pharisees were like that. Listen what our Lord said about the Pharisees. He said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whited tombs. You ever been in some of those those graveyards with those tombs that are so beautiful? I mean, they've got these highly decorated tombs. They had that then. Carved works of angels and all sorts of things on there. Very beautiful. But man, you open that up in the stench. He said, But inside is full of dead men's bones. You appear on the outward beautiful, but within are dead, full of dead men's bones, of all uncleanness. You also are outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within are full of hypocrisies and iniquities. These are men who go to church, very religious, they strive outwardly to live by the law, they feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, and by their good works expect God to receive them. No, friends, this must be destroyed. If God's going to save a man, his immorality must be cast down and his morality must be cast down. Paul said this, they have a form of godliness. And I'll tell you this, you can look at the religious, the Church of Free Will works religion today and you can find many moral people. Outwardly good. But listen, if that morality has not been cast down and Christ exalted in their hearts, then they are just as bad as the immoral people. They are just as lost and condemned as those they look down on. Why? Because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because he is spiritually condemned. It doesn't matter if you are moral or immoral. Both are spiritually condemned. Paul said about his brethren, I bear them record, they have a zeal for God, according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of the righteousness of God, going about to establish their own righteousness. You see, both of these must be continually put down. They must be abased. And thirdly, the third part of self that must be overcome is self-righteous self. Because once immorality is put down and morality is put down, then what does the soul seek to do? It seeks to presume upon its own self-righteousness. Well, he comes into a church and he hears the doctrines of grace and he says, well, yeah, I believe in election. Yeah, I believe in the limited atonement of Christ. Yeah, I believe in the perseverance and preservation. I acknowledge all these things. And then he presumes upon his knowledge without it actually being destroyed. Presumptuous self has to be put down. You see, salvation is much more than an academic understanding of Scripture. Everyone can academically understand Scripture. But unless God the Holy Spirit put down all the hope of man, all his self-righteousness, all his presumption, he is lost. And so a lot of men, presume then they seem to return to the law. This is what men do when they're exposed. Isn't this the first thing that men do? They normally seek to be moral. When that doesn't work out, what do they do? They turn to the law. Well, that has to be put down, too. That has to be overturned. Paul says, as many of the works of the law are under what? The curse. Anybody want to be under the law? If there's anyone who desires to be made acceptable by the law, listen, you're under the curse. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them. But no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, for it is evident the just shall live by faith. Wherefore, then, serveth the law. Paul says in that chapter in Romans 3, he said, what's the purpose of the law? Wherefore, then, serveth the law. It was added because of transgression. Why? that sin might be exceeding sinful, that sin might be exposed. The whole purpose of the law is to expose sin. And so we see this, that immoral self must be put down. Moral self must be put down. Presumptuous self, righteous self must be destroyed. It must be overturned. And what's the instrument that God uses to overturn this? The instrument God uses is the law. The very thing men think will help to save them. It's the thing God uses to destroy our our hope in self. God uses the law as an instrument, he said. The law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that's what it has a purpose in, is to expose immoral self, to expose moral self, to expose self-righteousness to be what? Sin. That's all the law can do is tell me what a sinner I am. It can't help me. And when God puts down self in all its forms, there lies the sinner on the heap and ashes of self. He overturns everything. We trusted in everything we lean on. But I want you to know what this word overturned means. It has the idea of a building being wrecked, destroyed. You ever see those buildings in those other countries with earthquakes, an earthquake come, and it just totally destroys the building. And what's left? The rubble. Now all the bricks are still there. But now they're scattered. And this is what happens when God overturns our nature. The bricks and the mortar are all on the ground. They're in ruin. But they're still there. God doesn't remove self. He puts it down. But He doesn't remove it. Even so it is when a believer is quickened. All of self lays in ruin and then what? The Holy Spirit then creates in us a new building. In its place there is a new structure, a new nature, a new heart, a new will. And by the instrument of the gospel that is preached to us, when Christ is preached to a man who has nothing, who has no hope, who is nothing but a sinner, and then the gospel comes in, and Christ's blood and righteousness is preached to us. Then God sets up a new heart, a new mind. We see our need of a Savior, and then Christ reveals a Savior to us. I think of Job. When we were laid low, What a beautiful picture Job was. Remember, his whole house was laid down in ashes. And there he was on the top of his ashes, scraping those scabs and all that pus off of him. You know, what a picture of us when God humbles us. We're on the heap of all we trusted in. And then what? God sends the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ to us. In our ruined estate, And this gospel, this soothing gospel of Jesus Christ by the power of God creates in the center a glorious new man.

Paul said that we are created after God in true holiness. That's when this, in our text when he said, until he whose right it is comes. He makes us a heap, self is a heap, until when? Until he whose right it is comes. And what does he do? He sets up his throne in the hearts of his people. He creates in us a new nature that is created after God in true holiness.

So when Jesus is preached, what does the sinner do? What does the sinner do? The sinner flees to Christ. I think of Mephibosheth. I think that is one of the most beautiful pictures of a sinner. There's Mephibosheth, who was the son of a king! But his father's kingdom failed. What a picture of our father. He was a king and his kingdom failed. And where did he find Mephibosheth? He found him in Lodibar, house of no bread. Lay him on his feet. Isn't that where God found us? He brought us before the presence of the King, Christ, expecting death because that's what we deserved. Mephibosheth, Here am I. What can I do? Can't run. No hope. And he said, because of the covenant I made with your father, you'll sit at my table. You'll sit with the sons of kings. Isn't this how he found us? ashes of self. And He showed us Christ and He brought us to Christ and He made us sit among princes.

So all who are overturned find no hope in self, no peace in self, no righteousness in self. It is in Jesus Christ alone we come And he sets up his throne in our hearts and we believe in him. Is that not what happened to you? Did he not overturn moral, immoral self? Did he not overturn moral? Did he not overturn your presumptuous and self-righteous thoughts about yourself? And then what did you do? When he who's right it is came, he set up his throne in your heart. Just like he said he would do. This is God's work of overturning.

Now secondly, I want to see the effect of it. Now you know the work then, you see the work of God's overturning, now I want you to see the effect of it. The effect and the completion of it. He said, I will overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until him who's right, it is, come, and I will give it to him. Behold the effect of God upon one who is overthrown. Christ is come, who's right it is, whose throne it is, whose dominion it is, His glory is in power. He comes and conquers our soul.

Now, when He comes and conquers our soul, there is something that we know. We know this, it was always His right. It was always His right. You see, because we are His by gift, you that have been conquered, You know this. You are his by gift.

When was he made king? When was Christ made king? Now, I know when you saw it, there was a time that you didn't see it, and then there's a time you see it. He was always your king. He was always your Lord. Why? Because God appointed him to be your Lord. In the election of grace, God gave you to him. It was the Father's will that you should belong to Christ according as He had chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that you should be holy and without blame before Him in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, listen, by whose right it is, by Jesus Christ. You were always purposed to be His children. You are all he was always your king. He's always your king.

And not only was he your king by right of election, he was your king by purchase. He not only had the right over you, he also bought you. He would have this. This view of slavery, when it comes to Christ being the slave master, yes, I think it's perfect, I think it's wonderful. Slavery is a wonderful thing if he's your master. He's your master? Of course he is. He bought me. He bought me.

Behold, the glorious Son of God came into the world as the rightful king. As I told you before, he was not made king, he was born king. He was a federal head of all that the Father gave him to obtain righteousness that self could never make. What self could never do, Jesus Christ by His own obedience did. He made us righteous. He made us righteous. Paul said, but now the righteousness of God without the laws manifest being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is how? By the faith of Jesus Christ. How is your righteousness made? It's not a cooperative effort, is it? It's not a cooperation between self and Christ. Self must be a base. Self must be overturned. Why? So that the righteousness must be seen. It's all of Christ. All of it. Therefore we who are overturned acknowledge this, He's all my righteousness. Don't you see that? He's all my righteousness. That I don't contribute anything to this righteousness. That any service I do, any obedience that I render unto God is no addition to the righteousness that Christ made, none whatsoever. I don't want it to be. I don't want it to contaminate it. Christ is all my righteousness.

And not only this, he whose right it is to rule came and bought me with his blood. He said, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd giveth his life for who? Who does he give his life for? The sheep. Now listen to this, only the sheep, no one else. Jesus told those Pharisees, he said, you believe not because. You're not of my sheep, as I said to you. Anybody that will not believe, I want you to understand why they won't believe. They're not his. He didn't come to die for them. And they will never believe. But his sheep, they hear his voice. And what do they do? They follow him. Why? Because they're conquered by him. And he gives to them eternal life. He bought them and behold, He whose right it is to rule over them, He comes in the grace and power of His Spirit to save them. He comes in the grace and power of His Spirit to save them.

Have you been conquered by Christ? This is the effect of an overturning. Now there's a work of overturning that you can acknowledge, but has God overturned you? When God overturns you, you behold Christ as the perfect Savior. What else do I need to contribute to His work? What else do I need to add to his work? We say nothing. What can self add? What could I add? Go to Hebrews chapter 10. Look at the perfection of this work of Christ. Hebrews chapter 10. I think this is a wonderful passage of scripture. He says in verse nine of Hebrews 10. Look at the perfection of this. He said, lo, I come. to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, the law, to establish the second, the covenant of grace. Listen, by the which will we are sanctified. You sanctified, you made holy, how? By the will of God. Here's the means, through the offering of the body of Christ Jesus. How many times? Once. See the perfection of it? When self is put down, we see this, that Christ's salvation is perfect. He who's right it is has come. And God sets up his throne in his heart.

Now, notice this. I'm going to give you this now. Once Christ overturns. Self and such is thrown in there, this is not a once and done thing. You know why? Because self is constantly trying to rebuild its throne. You see a man out there, and he's got this building, and it's in ashes, and you see him out there in his rags, and he takes one brick, and he puts it on top of the other. He's working real hard trying to rebuild that rubble. And you see King come in. He got a little structure there, all nice and neat, and King comes in and kicks it down. This is us. You understand that because self is not removed, there is a constant warfare within us. There is a new man that sees Christ in His perfection, that beholds Him whose right it is to rule me, to conquer me, to be my Savior, my King. But there is another man who is in me still trying to rebuild that old throne of self. Is this not our own experience? Have you ever had immoral self trying to rebuild? Have you ever had moral self trying to rebuild? What about self-righteous self? Do we not always have to fight against these things? Are we not always at constant warfare? with self?

So what is a king going to do with self? He's not going to abide with it. There's not going to be a confederacy. There's not going to be an equal dominion within the believer. Our Lord Jesus Christ is always going to put down self and exalt himself. Now this is painful. When God takes your dreams and dashes them against the rocks of his providence, when God takes your schemes you think are so good and so right and he leaves them in ashes, what is he doing? What is he doing? is overturning self and setting himself in his rightful place in your heart. That's what he's doing. Isn't that his right? Do you not feel that struggle within yourself to know that whatever he does is right? And I want you to understand that our Lord overturns, continually overturns self out of love. When God overturns you, how do you feel? Is it not this instant? It's just self. It has to be put down. He does it in love. Imagine what kind of man you would be if he did not overturn self. It's necessary. For the salvation of your soul, it is necessary.

Remember that hymn we sing often, I ask the Lord that I might grow in grace and love in faith and love and every grace. What did Newton say? He said, I thought. I thought in an instant. He had put away my sin and my evil thoughts. You know, everything would just be so smooth. What did he find? He crossed all the fair schemes I designed. He cut my gourd and laid me low. Who? Self. And he asked, Why? Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? He said, This is how I answer prayer for grace and faith. Anybody want grace and faith? Anybody want more faith? Anybody want to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ? What are you asking for? put down self and exalt Christ.

But there's hope for us. Listen to me. There's hope because one day there will be a third and final overturning. When God puts self in the ground and dies, then he who's righted is. will be seen in all his glory. And from that day forward there will be no more self. Christ will be all. Christ will be all. Have you been overturned? Has God overturned all your thoughts of self? Immoral, moral, and self-righteous. Has He put it into ashes and set Christ as all your salvation? That's the first overturning. The second one is a continual one. He is constantly going to have to keep putting self down because it's still here. And one day He is going to put it down forever. He said, one day it shall be no more. Isn't this what every believer desires to be like Christ? You see, one day this will be all done. Yet until that time, we have such confidence. We should have confidence that God is going to overturn self. You can be confident of that. He said, I will overturn. I've overturned it in your redemption. I'll overturn it in your providence. And then finally, I'll overturn it in your death. When I come again. So then what is the conclusion? We know this, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Why? Because God has purposed to make you like his son. Can't have self and be like his son. Self has to be put down. So now you understand why. May God he give us the grace then to bow to our king whose right it is to rule us. Let's stand and be dismissed and pray. Gracious Father, dismiss us with your blessings and mercies, I pray. I beg you, Father, for mercy and grace for those who have only self, that you would put it down in power. Lay it low. never to exalt itself again, and set up Christ, whose right it is, as Savior and King, to rule their heart. I pray that you would, by grace, continually put down self and exalt Christ. It is His right. I pray, Father, you'd keep us until such time as you bring us to yourself and finally put down this old man. Forgive us our sins. Hold us close to your side, and I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you, brother. Thank you.