First Peter 2, and let's begin
reading in verse 1. Wherefore, laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that
you may grow thereby. If so be, you have tasted that
the Lord is gracious. Now we begin our text. Verses
four through eight. To whom coming as unto a living
stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore, also
it is contained in the scripture. It's written in the scripture.
Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto
you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. But unto them
which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed,
The same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word
being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. He
said, Unto you that believe on him, he that believeth on him. This stone is Christ. This stone is Jesus Christ. God the Father chose Him to be the head of the corner,
the chief corner stone in all the building of God. He said,
Behold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. I'm choosing
Him. God's choice is completely wrapped
up in Him. He is the foundation. He's the foundation. Other foundation
can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. No other
foundation. He is the stone. Verse 4 says,
He is the living stone. Verse four says, to whom coming
as unto a living stone. Disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious. Just like that rock that was
smitten in the wilderness. God told Moses to smite the rock
for the people. The people were dying, the people
were thirsty. And God told the law to smite
the rock. And out of that rock flowed life,
living water. That living rock. He is the living rock. That rock is Christ. Verse 5
says, you also as lively stones. This is amazing. As the rock
is, As this stone is, this chief cornerstone, as Christ is, so
are His people. Just like Him. Made to be what
He is. Those chosen by God to be given
to Him. They are lively or living stones. built up on Him. God has placed all of those people
on Christ. They don't build themselves up. It's like that tower of Babel. Why don't we build ourselves
a tower to reach God? They don't build themselves up.
They are built up by Him, on Him. Made to be a spiritual house. where he dwells. Verse five says,
you also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. He dwells in them. And as the
great high priest of his people, he offers up in them spiritual
sacrifices, spiritual intercession acceptable to God by him. Now, many people don't want him. A lot of people do not want him. They do not want a chief corner
stone. They think they want Jesus. Who
doesn't love Jesus? But I tell you what they do not
love is a chief cornerstone. They don't want a chief cornerstone.
They want to be their own cornerstone. I want to be my own chief cornerstone. They don't want to be built up.
They want to build themselves up. They don't want to be acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. They want to be acceptable to
God on their own. They won't have Christ by himself
purging their sins. They want to purge their own
sins. They want to work their own way. They want to be their
own contractor. That's what it boils down to.
Everybody wants to be his own contractor. His own builder. They want to build their own
house. I'm going to do it my way. So they disallow God's chief
cornerstone. They reject it. They deny it. That's what that means. It's
just a stone of stumbling to them. It's just a rock of a fence. But in the end, every person
who does that, every soul that does that is going to be confounded
for it. Every soul. That means put to
shame. And not just shamed, not just
disgraced in front of All eternity. Our Lord himself said, ground
to powder. That's what he said. Turn with
me over to Matthew 21. Matthew 21, verse 42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye
never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders
rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? This
is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore
say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and
given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof. Now watch
verse 44. And whosoever shall fall on this
stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall,
it will grind him to powder. That's what it's all going to
come down to. That's what it's all going to come down to. Either
a sinner is going to fall on God's chief cornerstone, or God's
chief cornerstone is going to fall on that sinner. Either way,
sinners are going to be broken. Either way, every sinner that
walks this earth, every soul that walks this earth is a sinner.
Starting with this one. And every sinner on this earth
is going to be broken. Every one. Either broken unto
salvation or broken unto damnation. But every soul must deal with
God's chief cornerstone. Every soul. Now, let me tell
you what my prayer is. This is a sincere message for
me. This is my honest prayer. This
is my desire. This is my greatest desire for
every person in this room. There are a lot of things in
this life that are important to me. But I really do believe
this is my greatest desire for every person in this room. No matter what happens throughout
the rest of our walk on this earth, who knows how long we'll
walk this earth. Who knows if this is our last
day or if we're going to be here another hundred years. No matter where we go, no matter
what we do, This is all my desire for every
single one of us. I want us to fall on this stone. I want us to fall on this stone. Kids, it doesn't matter how old
or young, We are. Doesn't matter how old the kids
are or how young the kids are. Doesn't matter how old the adults
are. Remember your Creator in the
days of your youth. Remember this stone right now. Before the evil days draw nigh. And you rebel against your parents. And you rebel against God. And
you say, I have no heart for these things anymore. I think
this is all ridiculous. I've gone to church. All I'm
going to go to church. I've listened to that man. All I'm going to
listen to that man. I'm done. And you have no heart to worship
God, to present yourself before him and bow before him. and you
have no heart for His stone. Remember the Creator because
we all must deal with Him. We all must deal with this chief
cornerstone and our only hope is to fall on it. This is the
only hope. Fall on this stone. I say this
to myself, Come the end of this life, I don't want to be known
for being a great anything or having a great anything. May
the Lord just let this be written on my tombstone. He fell on the
chief cornerstone. He just fell on Christ. What
did he do? What was his great culmination in life? He fell
on the chief cornerstone. Now what is it to fall on this
stone? I can tell you what it's not.
It is not just to acknowledge that there is a stone. That is
not falling on the stone. It's not just to acknowledge
that there is a God or there is a Christ or there is a hope. It's to cast your all upon it. It is to cast your all upon it. It is not just to believe in
it. It's to believe on it. No proud sinner is going to do
that. Not one proud sinner will fall until he sees his own need
to fall. God must reveal to us first. I can tell you that falling on
this stone starts with God, ends with God. Everything in the middle
is by the grace of God and by the doing of God. But God first
must reveal to us that we cannot stand. We're going to fall. We're going to. And then He must
reveal to us the rock to fall on. What a strange visual. If you're going to fall, nobody
starts looking for a hard surface like a rock. You want something
soft. But what God reveals to a sinner is, my only hope is
to fall on the rock. Because God will reveal to a
sinner that rock is Christ. That's the only safe place to
fall. And after he does that, after
he opens our eyes to see that we cannot stand and we're going
to fall, and after he shows us the rock to fall on, and after
he shows us that rock is Christ, he must give us the faith to
let go of everything and fall. I mean let go of everything and
fall. He said, whoever does, will be
broken. That's his promise. Whoever does
will be broken and that's a wonderful thing. That is a wonderful thing. Let me show you why in Psalm
34. Go with me over to Psalm 34. Psalm 34 verse 18 says, The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. How does a sinner receive a truly
broken heart? By falling on the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord is near every sinner
that casts his all. And I'm going to tell you this
too. If we cast our all, he quickened us from death unto life to cast. The Lord is good from start to
finish in salvation. But if we cast our all on the
chief cornerstone, the Lord is near that soul. The Lord is near
that sinner who casts his all. When a sinner falls on Christ,
it breaks everything. It breaks his pride. Oh, we're
so proud, aren't we? It breaks his self-righteousness. It breaks his self-worth. It breaks his works. It breaks
everything he's holding in his hands. It leaves him with nothing
to bring. It's all broken. In my hands,
no price I bring, it's all broken. And I'm broken. To fall on Christ is to have
no support of your own, literally. When you are falling, you've
jumped off of something before. Everybody's jumped off of something.
When you are in the process of falling, you have no support
of your own. I mean nothing. Nothing. When a sinner falls on Christ,
all of his support is broken out from under him. Everything.
To fall on Christ is to have nowhere else to fall. Men fall
into this and they fall into that. And God channels them to the
only saving place to fall. After all that's over with, there's
nowhere else to fall. The disciples said, Lord, to
whom shall we go? He said, Are you going to go
away also? Lord, where are we going to go? Where are we going
to go? I'm broken. I have nowhere else
to fall. My only hope is to fall on you. Throughout the scriptures,
the Lord revealed to us men and women who fell on Christ, cast
their all. That leper that came to Him, that was a broken man. That man cast his all on Christ. He said, Lord, if you will, this is all I have. If you will, Lord, you can make
me clean. I am falling on you. I'm falling
on you. I know I'm not worthy. But I'm
falling on you. Blind Bartimaeus, man, that was
a broken man. I love that man. I can't wait
to talk to him. That was a broken, poor man. He cast his all. He started crying, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. I wonder how half-heartedly he
cried that. As they said, the Lord is passing
by right now. Here he is. He's walking away
right now. There he goes, right now. I wonder
how half-heartedly he was crying. Jesus, if you have a minute.
Oh my goodness, can you imagine? Have mercy on me. They started
crying, hush Bartimaeus. Lord, please, please, please. I'm casting my all on you." That
publican in the temple, that was a broken man. He cast his
all. He would not lift up so much
as his eyes to heaven, smiting his breast, crying, God, be merciful
to me, thee, sinner. Please, Lord, please. That woman, this precious woman,
who crawled into the Pharisee's house, knowing what she was. She came crawling in the back
door, knowing what she was, a harlot. There was a trail of tears that
led straight to the master's feet. And she sat there and cried
all over his feet, wiping his precious feet with her hair.
She was broken. And she cast her all She fell
on Christ. May God cause us all to fall
on Christ. May God cause us. May He lay
hold of our minds, our hearts, our souls, and cause us to fall on Christ. Every soul who does, Christ will
catch that soul. Christ will save that soul. Christ will stand that soul up. Build that soul up on the chief
cornerstone. Every soul. Now go with me if
you would back to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter 2. To every soul who has
fallen on the chief cornerstone. Verse 4 says, to whom coming,
as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of
God and precious. You also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also
it is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto
you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. That's how you can tell if you've
fallen on Him. That's how you can tell if you've fallen on
Him. He's precious to you. He is so precious to you. You
are so broken, and He is so precious. Now, I want to tell you a story
that I heard, and it's a true story, and it's a wonderful story,
and I'm not going to embellish it. I'm going to tell it to you
exactly as I heard it, exactly the way that I heard it. And the reason I want
to tell it to you is because it perfectly illustrates what
it is to fall on Christ our stone. The difference in truly falling
on Christ, our chief cornerstone. And for him to, as a result of
that, become very precious to us. Back in the 1950s, there
was a man who was in the military, and he was a career military
man. His name was Charlie. And he was overseas, and he had
a heart attack. He had a bad heart attack, and
he almost died from it. And he was in the hospital, military
hospital. And while he was there, the chaplain
started coming by to see him. And as men of religion do, that
chaplain started to go to work on his conscience and his mind. Well, now you know you've come
close to death now. You realize death is a real thing. And don't you want to go ahead
and accept Jesus to be your personal Savior? You know, you don't want
to go out without having accepted Jesus now. Don't you want to
be saved? Oh yeah, Charlie, I want to be
saved, yeah. So he got Charlie to make a profession of faith.
And he convinced Charlie to let him baptize him. And the military was going to
send Charlie back home. So he called, this man called
one of the churches in Charlie's hometown. a family member attended
there, and he called the pastor of that church to see if they
would accept Charlie into the church. Would you receive him
and let him come worship there if I baptize him? A lot of times
you have to be baptized into certain congregations. So he wanted to know, if I baptize
him first, will you let him come worship there? And the pastor,
who was a true grace preacher, preacher of the true gospel said,
oh yeah, he can come worship here. Send him on. So he came
and he started attending immediately. He was on fire. Had a brush with
death. He's just happy to be alive. Never missed a service. Glad
he made his decision to finally get saved. He always wanted to
be saved and now he can check that off of his his box, you
know, and he's recovering from his heart attack. As his strength
continued, it takes a little time to recover from a heart
attack. The stronger he got, the less need he had to present
himself before the Lord. He could start doing other things,
and other things caught his attention, and they saw less and less of
him until finally he was gone. Well, the pastor had a radio
program every morning. And Charlie listened to it every
morning. I'm sure to ease his conscience,
he didn't have a heart to present himself in worship, he didn't
have a heart to gather with the saints. But he listened, he sat
there and drank his coffee and he listened to the to the radio
program. It was back in the day when you
couldn't just email a file to the radio station. In the 50s,
you had to go to the radio station, preach it live into a microphone
every morning. After a period of time, one morning,
the pastor got finished with his broadcast, got his stuff,
started walking out the door, and the station manager hollered,
you have a phone call. So he came back in, put his stuff
down. Hello? He said a man was crying his
eyes out, couldn't get his words out, he's Charlie. He said, what's wrong with you
Charlie? Charlie said, I'm lost. The pastor said, I'm glad. Charlie said, you're glad I'm
lost? He said, no. I'm just glad you
finally know you're lost. Charlie said, there is no hope
for me. I don't know what to do. There's
no hope for me. The pastor said, I'm going to
come over to your house. So he did. He came over. Walked into
Charlie's house. Charlie's still sitting there
bawling his eyes out. This man is broken. Alright,
you already see the difference between this man got a little
religion and now all of a sudden this man is broken. This man
is broke like Saul of Tarsus. God told him, and I said, look
at him. Look at him. He's broken. Well, the pastor
walked into the house. He said, Charlie, let's talk
about the gospel. Charlie said, it won't do any good. The pastor
said, it might. Charlie said, it won't do any
good. I'm telling you, I have no hope. I am just a worthless,
miserable, lost sinner. That's all I am. The pastor said,
Charlie, you are the prime candidate. You are the prime candidate.
He sat down with him. He opened up the scripture. He
took him to scripture after scripture saying, Charlie, look at this.
Christ came to save sinners. Sinners. Look at David. Look at Jacob. Look at Saul of
Tarsus. Look at me. Christ came to save
sinners. He said he would show mercy to
sinners. Charlie said, Do you really believe
he will show mercy to me? The pastor said unto all who
call upon his name. He's rich in mercy. He will abundantly pardon. Well, the Lord allowed Charlie
to fall. He allowed him to fall on Christ.
Charlie fell on Christ for mercy. And the pastor said after that,
you couldn't hardly keep him away from the building. He was
there every time the doors were open. And not only that, he was early. He said he was always early.
So early he didn't have anything to do. The pastor was there going
over his notes. Charlie was just sitting out
there by himself. So he would mess around on the piano. Nothing
else to do. Just sitting there waiting. He
could hear him out there plunking on the piano. And he said he
started working on a song. He finally got a song down. Not
have I gotten, but what I received. Grace hath bestowed it and I
have believed. Boasting excluded, pride I abase,
I'm only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the
glory, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. The pastor said, I
must have heard that for six months out there. Only a sinner
saved by grace. Well, one Sunday morning, A visiting
preacher came and he preached on the subject of, do you know
Christ? And the pastor said this visiting
preacher had a lot of liberty with it. The Lord really blessed
the message. This is life eternal, that they might know thee. Oh,
that I might know him. Do you know Christ? I mean know Christ. Not just
know who he is or that he is. Do you know Christ? After the message was over, that
visiting preacher stepped down out of the pulpit. He's walking
back to his seat and he looked at the second row. Charlie sat
on the second row and he said, Son, do you know Christ? And Charlie said, I didn't used
to, but I do now. I do now. I know him now. The visiting preacher said, well,
I'm glad. He sat down. After the Sunday morning service,
the pastor went to another man in the congregation's house for
lunch. While they were eating, the phone rang. It was Charlie's
wife. She found out he was over there.
Called that house. Phoned for you. She said, can
you come quick? Charlie's had another heart attack.
So he and the man he was eating with ran over to the house. Ambulance
came. They ran him into the hospital,
ran him into the ER. The doctor came and checked him
and he said, it's too late. He's gone. Pulled the cover over
his head. The pastor looked at the man
who was with him and he said, what's the last thing you remember
hearing Charlie say on this earth? Man said, I don't remember. He
said, I do. That preacher just asked him,
son, do you know Christ? And he said, I didn't used to,
but I do now. I've cast my all upon him now. He's my all. He's my everything. He's my life. He's my all. That man left this world having
fallen on Christ. That's the difference. He left
this world, fallen on Christ. That man experienced the difference
in playing games, playing the game of religion, and falling
on Christ. Let's not leave this world only
having fallen on religion. Let's fall on Christ. Let's fall
on Christ. We have someone to fall on. We
have someone to fall on. To you that believe, He is someone
to fall on. And oh, does that not make Him
precious? Does that not make Him so precious
to you? To us, He is precious. Fall on Him. Stay there. And rest. All right, let's all
stand together.