Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. Our message today is going to
come from the book of Revelation, chapter 22, if you would like
to turn there in your Bible. While you're turning, I'll tell
you that The outline of the Scripture, all of the Bible, Genesis 1 to
Revelation 22, the outline that you will find everywhere you
turn in the Scripture, no matter where it is, is this. It's always the same. which is all men, all women,
all boys, all girls. Mankind is completely sinful. I know that we all wish that
was not the case, but that is the case. Man has fallen into
sin. Mankind is completely sinful. Not partly sinful, and this is
why it's so important, mankind is not partly sinful or mostly
sinful, totally sinful. Completely, completely eaten
up with sin, totally ruined. That's what mankind is. Now somebody
will hear that and say, I don't look ruined to me. Well, unfortunately, God says
that we look ruined to Him. That's what God says about us. When He sees us, He sees absolute
ruin. Ruin in sin. But the outline of Scripture
goes on to say, it begins by saying all mankind is totally
sinful. But then it goes on to say, that
God chose to save some of those ruined sinners. God, in His mind
and heart, elected a people to bring out of ruin, to save. You know, people talk about,
you know, we need to be saved, but they don't really understand
what they need to be saved from. Why do we need to be saved? Because
we're completely ruined. We can't save ourselves, we need
to be saved. And the scripture goes on to
tell us that God chose to bring some out of ruin and restore
them back to the perfect state that He created them in. And
the only way that was possible was through the death of God
the Son. There was only one way to redeem
ruined sinners, through the death of God the Son. You see, the
law said, and God is holy, God is just, God can only do what's
right. God can only do what's in agreement
with the law. He's holy. He's just. The judge
of the earth. He must do the law. And the law
said, the wages of sin is death. If a soul sins, that soul must
surely die. That's what the law said. So
the only way these elected ruined sinners could be redeemed was
if the law was satisfied. The law had to be fulfilled. So God the Father made God the
Son. He took God the Son and caused
Him, made Him to be the deliverer of every ruined sinner that He
chose to save. Every single one of them. And
Christ did that by trading places with them. He came down so they
might go up. That's what happened. He traded
places with them. He did not just pay a debt for
them that they could not pay. He became the dead. He fully traded places with Him. He became what the Scripture
calls the atonement, the bloody victim, the slain
sacrifice for sin. And when He did that, those particularly
redeemed from ruined people, every single one of them became
the righteousness of God. As soon as he laid down his life
and became the atonement for sin, became what his people were,
as soon as he took that upon himself and dealt with it, they
became what he was, the righteousness of God. That entire transaction
is called grace. That's what the transaction is
called, grace. God's people were saved by grace. Salvation is not something they
took part in. None of God's people took part
in salvation. It's something that happened
to them. Something that was freely bestowed on them. They were not
even offered the opportunity to accept it or reject it. They
were never given the choice to accept it or reject it. It was
sovereignly bestowed, irresistibly given. In the same way that all of those
people took no part in their first birth, you and I know good
and well we had no say in the matter on whether or not we were
going to be born into the world or what parents we were going
to be born to. or what year, month, day, and
time we would be born in the world. We took no part in that.
We were just born. Life was given. And for quite
a while, we didn't even know about it. One day down the road,
we got old enough to start understanding, I'm alive. And it was told to
us, this is how it happened. Something that happened in the
past and it's already done. You're alive. We're just notified
of life. Well, that's the same thing that
happens in the spiritual birth. God's people do not take part
in the spiritual birth. They're dead. God gives life. And after a given amount of time,
they're notified of it. This is what God's people are
notified of. This is the notification of Scripture.
It's done. The great transaction is done. You are your Lord's and He is
yours. That's the notification of Scripture.
If God gave you to Christ, and if Christ traded places with
you, it's done. It's done. And what God has done
is forever. That's what the Scripture says.
Whatever God does, it's forever. It cannot be undone, cannot be
changed. If Christ saved you on that cross, You're saved all the way to the
end. You will persevere through Christ keeping you all the way
to the end. His faithfulness will keep you.
It will keep you. You will not be able to lose
your salvation. People threaten and scare by
telling the lie. Now, you better stop doing that.
You'll lose your salvation. Not possible. You didn't earn
it. You're not keeping it, and you
can't lose it. If Christ did it, it's done.
kept by the power of God. You will not be able to ruin
it. God gave life to Adam. God gave life to man. Adam and
Eve, and they ruined it. And God has rebirthed, re-given
life. And through the accomplishment
of Christ, no sinner will be able to ruin it. you will not
be able to reject it. When the message of life comes
to you, you will not be able to reject it. If he saved you,
you're saved. Now that's good news, isn't it?
That is wonderful news. That is the gospel. That is the
outline of every portion of scripture in God's book. Every time, that's
the outline. That is God's outline. one way of salvation. It's that
way every time. I would like for us right now
to see that outline in our text. Revelation 22, look with me at
the end of verse 17. It says, Whosoever will, let
him take the water of life. That's God's outline. everything
we just mentioned. That's the message, that's the
outline. Whosoever will, whoever will, let him take the water
of life freely. All right, let's start with the
word whosoever. Let's look at what is being said here. That
word is in the scripture, I believe, 183 times. If I counted it correctly
in my concordance, 183 times. Everything that our God has said
concerning whosoever will hold true. Everything He says, it'll
hold true. When He says, whosoever does
this or whosoever does that, everything He has said in reference
to whosoever will hold true. If He says it, it'll hold true.
That right there will hold true. Whoever will take the water of
life may take it free. That'll hold true. Let me show
you another one that will hold true. Look with me, if you would,
at Exodus chapter 32. In Exodus 32, verse 33 says,
And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against
me, him will I blot out of my book. Whosoever hath sinned against
me, him will I blot out of my book. God was not joking. God cannot lie. He cannot go
back on His word. That is going to hold true for
all eternity. That is going to hold true. Whosoever
hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Have we
sinned against Him? Have you and I sinned against
Him? We better be honest with ourselves.
We're going to have to be honest before God. Have you and I sinned
against Him? Well, how technical is He about
sin? What exactly does He consider
to be sin? How far do we have to go before
He considers it to be sin? Turn with me over to Matthew
chapter 5. In Matthew 5, our Lord said in
verse 21, you have heard that it was said
by them of old time, thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment. We know that, you're
not supposed to kill anybody. We know that. Look at verse 22. But I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of
the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother, Rakeh, that
means vain fellow, shall be in danger of the counsel, but whosoever
shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Whoever
gets angry. Have we ever gotten angry with
a brother? Whoever gets angry. Look at verse 27. You've heard
that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery.
We know that. If we make a vow before God to
stay with our wife or our husband, we know we're not supposed to
break that. Look at verse 28. But I say unto you that whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with
her already in his heart. Has that ever happened to any
of us? Let's be honest. Look at verse 33. Again, you
have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou
shalt not forswear thyself. That means promise. Don't make
a promise. But shalt perform unto the Lord
thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not
at all, neither by heaven, for it's God's throne, nor by the
earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it
is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy
head, because you can't make one hair white or black. People
say, oh, I swear on my mama's grave. Well, what does that have
to do with anything? Verse 37, but let your communication be
yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of
evil. Have you ever said you were gonna do something and then
not done it? Have you ever had to go back
on your word whether you could help it or not? If so, God says
that's sin. Anger is sin. Lust is sin. Worthy
of eternal death. Breaking a promise is sin. In
James chapter 2 verse 10 says, Whosoever shall keep the whole
law. How many commandments are there
in this law that God has given us? Whosoever shall keep the
whole law and yet offend in one point He is guilty of all. That's James 2 verse 10. Whoever breaks one of them. Thousands
in here, thousands. Whoever breaks one of them is
guilty of all. All of us fall into the category of being ruined
in sin. All of us. The scripture says,
all have sinned. But our text said, whosoever
will Let him take the water of life freely. So let's move on
to that next word, will. Whosoever will. Turn over to
John 5. John 5, whoever will. All right,
this is what John 5, verse 40 says. You will not. You will not come to me that
you might have life. Verse 39, our Lord said, search
the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.
He said, go ahead, search the Scripture. The do's and the don'ts
and the commandments of the law. Go ahead, try to fulfill the
law. That's what He's saying. In doing that, you think you
have eternal life. But He said, they are they which
testify of me. They're written to show you that
you've never kept God's law. But Christ kept it perfectly.
They all testify of me. and you will not come to me that
you might have life. It's all pointing to me, but
you will not come to me. It holds true that whosoever
will, that's the declaration, whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. Here's the problem for natural
man, us in our natural state in the flesh. We won't. Not on God's terms. Man thinks he will. He believes
in his heart that he is willing to take it on God's term. He
thinks he is willing to come. He thinks he is willing to take
the water of life. But once he finds out that he
must come and take that water on God's terms, he says, no,
I don't think so. That's not gonna work for me.
I don't want to come that way. What are God's terms? It told us in our text. But what
are God's terms? Here they are. He does everything,
we do nothing. He does all of the work, we do
none of the work. When it comes to salvation, we
do nothing. You know why man will not come? You know why he will not come?
It's because no man can come. John 6 verse 44 says, No man
can come to me, except the Father which hath
sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
What this means is, He gets all the credit. We get none of the
credit. He gets all the glory. We get
none of the glory. We remain dead in trespasses
and sins until He sovereignly chooses to save us. The commandment
is, come or you'll die in your sins. Come to me or you'll die
in your sin. But we can't come unless the
Father which sent Christ draws us. Christ has to raise us up. Our only hope is that the Father
has given us to Christ His Son and that Christ will raise us
up at the last day. That's our only hope. When it
comes to salvation, these are God's terms. We have no say in
the matter. None. Our salvation is totally
in His hands, totally by His doing. That's His terms. That's
his turn. There's a song in one of the
lines and it says, in our hand, no price we bring simply to that
cross we claim. That's it. We come on the grounds
of being at his mercy. Have you ever been at somebody's
mercy? You just stand there and just say, I'm at your mercy.
I'm just begging for mercy. I don't have any grounds to stand
here. have any merit, I don't have any, I'm just at your mercy.
That's how we come to Christ. On the grounds of being totally
at His mercy. On the grounds of His grace and
not our works. Now with that in mind, let's
go back to our text and see if we can enter in just a little
more clearly to what it's saying. Revelation 22, the end of verse
17 says, Whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. That's the condition. That's God's condition. Whoever takes the water of life
has to take it freely. Has to. That is the only way
it will be given. That's the only way. In Hosea
14 verse 4, the Lord said, I will love them freely without them earning my love.
In Matthew 10 verse 8, the Lord said, freely you have received. Turn with me over to Romans chapter
3. In Romans 3 verse 19 it says, We know that what things soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before
God. That's where we started. That's
where the outline starts. Verse 20, Therefore by the deeds
of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's what we see when
we look to the law. I can't keep it. Verse 21, but
now the righteousness of God without the law, without earning
that righteousness through the deeds of the law, is manifested
being witnessed by the law and the prophets. It's all pointing
to the only righteousness a sinner can ever have. Verse 22, even
the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe for there's no difference. Those
who totally seek Christ to be their only hope, they're just
coming to Him on the grounds of mercy and grace. Verse 23,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being
justified freely. Freely, what does all that mean?
It means in our hand no price we bring, no payment we bring,
no work, nothing to earn, we just freely receive. Freely received. Christ paid everything. We pay
nothing. Verse 24, being justified freely
by His grace, His gift, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. That particular redemption that
is in Christ Jesus. The problem for the flesh is
He wants credit. That's the problem. He wants
to share the glory. He wants a piece of the honor. But God says in verse 27, right
here, Romans 3 verse 27, where is boasting then? It's excluded.
By what law? Of works? No, by the law of faith.
Believe in Christ accomplished it. Therefore we conclude that
a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Justification is not earned.
It's only freely given. Only freely given. Look with
me at Romans 8. It says in Romans 8 verse 29,
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. and whom He called, them He also
justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified. He. He did all of that. He, He, He. That's the message of Scripture.
Everything that He did. Verse 31 says, What shall we
then say to these things? Here's what we say. If God be
for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all? Freely. Christ was given to us
freely. All of God's gifts are given
freely, called grace. Look with me at 1 Corinthians
2, verse 12. It says, Now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God. We've received the Spirit that
is of God. We have irresistibly received
that irresistible grace from the irresistible Spirit of God. It goes on to say that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God. We have freely been notified
of the things that God has freely given to us through the unimaginable
payment of His Son. This free gift cost everything. It was an infinite cost. It cost
the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It cost Him everything
so we could receive it freely. Now go with me to Revelation
chapter 21. In Revelation 21 it says in verse
6, He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give unto Him that is
a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He said, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to give this fountain to my people freely. Their flesh
doesn't want it freely, but I'm going to give it to them anyway.
I'm Alpha and Omega. I started this, I'm going to
finish this. I'm going to make them willing
in the process, willing to receive it freely, freely. They're going to take all of
their works and count them to be worthless. Everything they
think makes a payment, they're going to count it all dumb. That's
what the Apostle Paul said. They're all going to cry, we
are saved by God's free grace alone. Now, is that us? Are we willing to be saved by
free grace alone? Absolutely. Are we willing to
come on God's terms? Absolutely. If that's the case,
look with me at Revelation 22, verse 17. It says, the Spirit
and the bride say, come. The Spirit says, come, and the
bride can't help it. The bride cries, come. And let
him that heareth say, come. And let him that is a thirst,
doesn't say worthy, says thirsty, come. And whosoever will, whoever
God has made willing, let him take the water of life. I pray
God has made us willing. Till next week, the Lord bless
His Word. You have been listening to a message by Gabe Stoniker,
pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like to come and
worship with us, our service times are Sunday morning Bible
study at 10 o'clock a.m., worship at 10.45 a.m. and 6 o'clock p.m.,
Wednesday evening at 7.30 p.m. Please tune in next week for
another message of God's free and sovereign grace.