All right, you can return in
your Bibles to the 62nd Psalm, Psalm 62. 246 years ago today, several
men, and I don't know how many actually were involved, my history's
not that good, but I believe they were in Philadelphia,
and they signed a document by which they declared their independence
from England or Britain. They called it the Declaration
of Independence. Now, don't worry, I'm not making
a political speech this morning. I know in a lot of churches there's
going to be a lot of flag waving and they'll sing the Battle Hymn
of the Republic and all that kind of stuff. I love my country,
but we come here to worship Christ. And we can wave flags tomorrow
if we want to, but I'm telling this little bit of story for
historical perspective as also as an illustration of something.
But these men who wrote that document, They consulted. They were brilliant men. Educated. Men of remarkable talents. And they worked together to formulate
just what they wanted to say. And it was Thomas Jefferson that
did most of the writing because he was known to be a good writer. But of course they had to approve
the way he had written this Declaration of Independence. But they were
very careful in the words that they chose. Because words have
meaning. And they wanted to be clear as
to what they meant. So they called it the Declaration
of Independence. They didn't call it the Declaration
of Separation. They didn't call it the Declaration
of Rebellion, though from a political viewpoint, that's what it was.
They called it a Declaration of Independence. Now, why is
that? Well, they understood that the
authority that the crown exerted over them was supposedly based
upon the fact that the colonies depended on the crown. If you depend on someone for
something, that grants them authority over you, at least with regard
to whatever you're depending on them for. For example, children
in the home are dependent on their families, or if I mean
on their parents, for virtually everything. Consequently, their
parents exert almost dictatorial control over them. This is expressed
in many ways, but as long as you live under my roof, you'll
obey my rules. Or another way, as long as your
feet are under my table, you'll obey my rules. Dependence grants
authority to the one on whom you are dependent. It acknowledges
their right to tell you how to live. So when the writers of our Declaration
of Independence wrote that document, they didn't put it in terms of
authority. They put it in terms of dependence,
for they knew that in no longer depending on England, they had
deprived England of any right to exert authority over them. Now, we hope that when our children
grow up, they eventually move out. Sort of. We miss them when they do, but
you know what I mean. We raise them to be independent. And once they move out, We as
parents no longer have authority. We can advise, we can grant our
wisdom, but we can't tell them what to do with threats of punishment
if they don't. Why? They are independent. Now I've said all of that because
the title of this morning's message is The Declaration of Dependence. In verse 7, my salvation and my honor depend
on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Now I am certainly glad that
I am a citizen of the United States of America. I can't think
of another country I would prefer to live in, even as we watch
many of the things we appreciate about this country being taken
away. And part of it has happened because
those in power have very carefully, cleverly, and sometimes I think
quite deceitfully, made the people dependent on the federal government. And of course, that granted the
federal government the right to tell them how to live. But
still, as far as I know, it's the best place in the world to
live. Extremely blessed. I'm glad those
men wrote the Declaration of Independence. But this morning,
as citizens of heaven, as citizens of the kingdom of God, we write our declaration of dependence. Our salvation and our honor,
our glory depend on God. In fact, we depend on God for
everything. Most people don't realize how
dependent on God they are. I'm sure that we, even we as
believers, don't really understand our dependence on God. We don't
realize that we depend on God to be able to go. We depend on God to eat. We depend on God for houses to
keep the rain off our head. We depend on God for the rain. We depend on God for everything.
But most clearly is this dependence shown in our dependence upon
him for salvation and for glory. Most of religion, even those, most of those versions
of Christianity in some way depend upon natural man, the self, for
salvation and glory. But the believer in Christ can
say this, my salvation and my honor depend
on God. We probably understand this.
I mean, you and I, many of us, we've been together for a long
time now. Been preaching and hearing the same message. But
we love to preach it over and over and love to hear it over
and over. But we understand this principle. But you know, when
the church gathers like this, it's not to learn something new.
It's to be reminded of something old. Because we forget, don't
we? how quickly we forget. We know how to recite the doctrines
that we believe, and I'm not saying we don't believe them.
And if someone were to ask you, on what do you depend for salvation? You would say, I depend entirely
upon God in Christ. I have no other hope but Him,
and I've rested my entire soul on Him. Yet we fear, we doubt, we fail and
therefore wonder if we're really saved, which shows that there
remains in our flesh this principle, my salvation and my glory depend
on me. While the preachers and teachers
of my childhood would never admit to this, many of the things they
said made salvation and glory dependent on me. During the so-called invitations
that they would have at the end of nearly every service, they
would plead with people to make a decision for Jesus, to ask
Jesus in their heart, to pray the sinner's prayer, and all
kinds of things. ways they would phrase it. And they would say
this, God has done all he can. It's now up to you. What's that
say? It depends on you. Now how would you like your salvation
to be resting on something about you? I wouldn't want my salvation
resting on me. The Lord said that the foolish
man built his house upon the sand, and that represents anybody
who builds his hope of salvation upon anything about himself,
his works of righteousness, his ceremonialism, his doctrine,
anything about him naturally, even his so-called decision for
Jesus. That is a house built on sand
which it may look like a fine house, it may look better than
the houses of some believers, but it's on a shifting foundation
and when the storm comes and the waters rise, it'll undermine
that house and it will fall. And it'll kill everybody inside
of it. Says a wise man, he dug deep. He dug past all the shifting
sands of human effort and human righteousness and human doing
and human willing. He dug down to the bedrock of
Christ Jesus. It was a whole lot of work that
didn't show much when I was a builder. My favorite part of building
a house was the framing part because In that, and this is
the phrase we'd use, in those few days, there was a lot of
show. I mean, in just a few days, it went from foundation sitting
there and you have the structure of a house. And at the end of
the day, you could walk away feeling like you'd accomplished
something. But you know, digging a foundation is just not like
that. Particularly in the days when they had to dig by hand.
Whole lot of digging, not much show. You had to dig the foundation
and the men would come and back then they laid block instead
of poured the foundation. It'd take them several days.
And if it was a deep foundation, you know, people looking on,
they might not see any block coming up above the ground for
days. And much of what we do in our
approach to God and our pursuit of the things of God is underground. Laying a foundation, or building
upon the foundation, the rock foundation of Christ. And the
world can't see it, and so they think there's nothing to us.
And I'll agree with them, there's nothing to us. But there is something
to the foundation we're laying, despite the fact they can't see
it. despite the fact sometimes even we can't see it. My salvation and my honor depend
on God. It depends upon him in every
way. There is not a particle of my
salvation that in any way depends on what I do. What I do does
not direct the course of my salvation. My salvation directs the course
of what I do. You realize that? If you have been saved, then
God knew you before the world began. He chose you in Christ. He ordained all things good for
you. He ordered all of the events
of this universe to bring about your salvation and the salvation
of all the rest of the elect. And even when you were still
lost, you weren't lost to him. He knew where you were, but you
didn't know where you were. But all the things that happened
to you then, that was God. arranging things to bring about
your eternal good. I know a lot of people, once
the Lord saves them, you know, they'll say, oh, all those years
in false religion, wasted years. They weren't wasted, God was
using them. I realized, you know, on one hand, we regret our unbelief
and all of that, but friends, whatever God ordained in your
path, Well, you can't take credit for it. You wouldn't glory in
it or anything like that. Don't fret over it. He ordained that
you sit in false religion. Why? That you might more appreciate
the truth when you heard it. That you might more quickly see
the stark difference between what you formerly heard and what
you hear now. You say, well, I wasn't raised
in false religion. I don't want to brag, if you
were raised in this church, I don't think you were raised in false
religion. But I'll tell you this, you were in false religion until
God saved you. Because no matter what you heard,
you were believing something else. Everybody is in false religion,
false religion of their own invention, even though they may use the
words Jesus and Christ and grace and all of this kind of stuff,
they're in false religion until God saves them. But God was not
wasting those years. I've heard especially of older
people whom the Lord saves in their old age and all those wasted
years. No, they're not wasted. They
redound to the glory of God. That thief on the cross, his
years of thieving and murdering were not wasted. They were sinful. They were wicked,
they weren't wasted. Can you imagine? I doubt there's,
well, I guess in heaven all of us will have a perfect understanding
of grace. But when it comes to experience, there can't be anybody
in all the universe who understands salvation by grace and grace
alone better than that thief. Because God didn't save him until
he was, in every aspect, utterly unable to do anything. a criminal
of the worst sort nailed to a Roman cross. What's he going to do?
Is he going to get baptized? No. Is he going to witness for
Jesus? Well, he did, but he didn't realize
he was doing so. He wasn't saying, I'm going to
go out and witness and win souls. No. He had nothing. I say he had nothing, he had
grace. God gave him grace in that hour to see past all the
blood and the gore of our Lord's body and see a king coming into
his kingdom. And he said, remember me. The
Lord said, today you will be with me in paradise. And you and I are as dependent
upon God in Christ as was that thief. We could do nothing and
we still can do nothing that will either start or improve
upon the salvation that we have been given. My grace, my salvation
depends on God alone. The fact that I am among God's
elect depends on God alone because He's the one that chose. I was
always told I had to choose, and I'm not going to deny the
fact that everyone God chooses, chooses back, if you will, in
time. But they only do so because God chose them and gave them
grace to do what no one else can or will do. But it was not
our choice that started this process, and it's not our choice
that moves it along. God chose me, and he chose me
before he made the heavens and the earth. What did I have to
do with that? Not a thing. And some people think God chose
this person because, you know, He took out His divine binoculars
and looked down through history to see who would believe and
chose them. Friends, without Him choosing
us, we'd have never believed Him. If He'd have looked out through
time before He chose people, He wouldn't have found anybody
believing. Our Lord said, when the Son of Man comes, will He
find faith on the earth? Not if He doesn't create it. Why are there elephants on the
earth? Because God created elephants. Why is there faith in the earth?
Because God creates faith in the hearts of His people. We
depend on Him. in our election. We depend on
Him in our redemption. I've heard people say, put the
blood upon the door of your hearts using the illustration of Passover
when the Jews were told to take the blood of that slain lamb
and put it on the doorposts and then on the lentil across the
top and then go inside. What they fail to realize is
in accordance with the customs of the day, the father was more
or less the priest of the house. It was the firstborn son whose
life was in danger, not the father's. But the father's the one that
put the blood on there. You don't put the blood on the
door of your heart. In fact, the houses really weren't
pictures of a person's heart. They were pictures of Christ
and Him crucified. And everybody inside that Christ
and Him crucified house was safe. But it was the Father who put
the blood there. And it's the Heavenly Father
that shed the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and put it upon
the house of God's people. My redemption, my atonement,
my deliverance from the wrath of God depends entirely on God. My calling is entirely dependent on God.
And I don't mean my calling as a preacher. I mean my being called
to Christ is entirely dependent on God. I couldn't make him call
until he called me. I wasn't interested in him calling. In fact, he gave the general
call, as some people call it, simply that he sends out preachers
preaching the gospel. And that call I ignored. But
there came a day, and I can't tell you what day it was, and
I don't even care. I just know it had to happen because I believe
him now. There came a day when he called me. He didn't call
me because he said, you know, He grew up, he was one of the
better ones in Sunday school. He memorized more verses than
anybody else and boy, he was pretty faithful. And he's, look
at there, he's going off to Bible school. Okay, I'll call him.
Now, he called me because he wanted to. And when he called
me, I heard and I responded. Why? Often our Lord spoke and
says, he that has ears to hear, let him hear. Not everybody has
ears to hear, only those to whom the Lord gives such ears. The
calling of the Spirit of God unto salvation is not just the
declaration of the message. It's when the Holy Spirit has
that message of the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed and adds
to it his divine power to create spiritual life, spiritual understanding,
spiritual sight. And all at once we see what we
never saw before. And we scratch our heads wondering
why we didn't see it before. but it depends entirely on God.
My perseverance in the faith depends entirely on God. One of the great doctrines that
came out of the Reformation was the perseverance of the saints.
God's saints do persevere, and those that do not persevere in
the faith, they're not God's saints. But just like the other doctrines
in that five-point system, you know, when we humans come up
with titles, usually they're pretty bad. It's not the perseverance of
the saints. It's the perseverance of God. That's why we persevere. Why do we believe? Because God
began a good work in us. Why do we persevere? Because
He who began the good work in us will perfect it, bring it
to perfection to the day of Christ. Week after week after week, you
and I come here and worship. And like I said, we're not listening
to a different message. We're not coming here finding
out new information. Why in the world are we doing
this? Why haven't we found a more exciting
church? I mean that in the fleshly sense
of the word. How come we haven't gone to a bigger church? Because God has worked in us
to stick with the truth. Now, I'm not saying coming to
this church is the same thing as salvation. That's just one
aspect of it. There are other churches that
have the gospel too. And I'm not going to go out trying to
figure out which ones they are. I know some of them that don't
have it, because it's pretty obvious if you listen to them.
But why do we stick with this message? Why are we so glad to
sing, without hesitation, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that
saved a wretch like me. It really galls me when I hear
people change the words of that song. It was 25 years ago, one
of the popular Friday night situation comedies had a family and they
were in church and they were singing Amazing Grace. And they
sang Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, and everybody got
big smiles on their face, that saved a soul like me. And I said, well, you all just
can't admit, can you? Oh, amazing grace. As we were
singing, And Can It Be, you know, you get to that last couple of lines that are
sung kind of like a chorus, amazing love. And I thought, you know,
it's remarkable, it's amazing that two of my favorite hymns
use the word amazing prominently. Amazing grace, amazing love. If you're not amazed by grace,
if you're not amazed by God's love, that's kind of evidence you don't
know what it is. Now, I know we've got our ups and downs emotionally,
but when you think about it, imagine that. The God who spoke
the universe into existence loves you. That's true of every believer.
It's true of all the elect, whether they've believed yet or not.
But I don't have the right to tell anybody that God loves them
without describing the people whom God loves. He said, Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I hated. So obviously God doesn't love
every individual. But if you are a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ, you can be certain of this, God loves
you. Not because you believe, you
believe because he loves you. He said, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. Therefore, I have drawn you with
loving kindness. Everlasting. There never was a time when he
started loving me. And there'll never be a time
when he quits. Everything about my salvation
depends on God. My glorification depends on God. It is written in Colossians chapter
3 verse 4 that the Lord Jesus Christ shall
appear and we shall appear with him in glory. Now when it says
in glory it doesn't mean in heaven. You know a lot of people use
the word glory to describe heaven. And there's not a problem it's
a glorious place no question. And the glory of God is manifest
there. I don't have a problem with them
saying that. But you can misunderstand that scripture if when you hear
the word glory like that you think of heaven. What he's talking
about is when Christ appears in glory so shall we. Christ came here in an inglorious
state, that is, inglorious to the natural eye. There was no
beauty that we should desire Him, no majesty, no glory, no
refinement. He was just a common man to the
eye of the flesh. The religious leaders wouldn't
follow him. They were expecting someone who rode in on, you know,
a white horse or something, whatever would have served for, you know,
a military animal in that day. And would have presented himself
in glorious robes and, you know, a crown or fancy armor or something
like that. And here he showed up in the
standard tunic of the day. But there's a day when he's coming,
and the Bible says every eye shall see him. And they won't
be seeing my buddy Jesus. They won't be seeing that one
they called a good man, but I don't believe he's God. They're gonna
see the glorious Son of God. God the Son. in all the brilliance of his
divine glory. And when he appears in glory,
you and I will likewise be in glory. The world will see us, not as
we are by birth, but as we are by the new birth. Not as we are
by nature, but what God has made us by grace. The Apostle John
put it this way in 1 John chapter 3. He said, what manner of love
the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the
children of God. And that's what we are. And though it's not been made
known, that is not made clear what we shall be, we know this. When He appears, when He is made
manifest as He is, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is. When our Lord returns, we will
be made like Him. And what are we going to have
to do with that? What part of that change from what we are
to what we shall be then, what part of that comes from us? Nothing. My salvation, my honor, my glory
depend on God. Now, I said we call this the
Declaration of Independence. When we declare our dependence
on God, we are also declaring our independence of some other
things. In Romans chapter nine, it says,
it, meaning salvation, does not depend on man's will or man's
works, but on God showing mercy. We make a declaration of independence
from our will. We're not going to depend on
our will and therefore our will doesn't have authority over us
anymore. So why would you say a thing like that? Well, don't
you will a whole lot of things that really aren't good? Aren't you glad your will doesn't
have authority over you anymore? Even if you, when you act according
to that depraved will, still it has no authority. Your will Even though it's yet
corrupted by the flesh, your will cannot bring you into account
for your sins. Your will can't unsave you. Your
will never could save you, never would. And now that God's will
has saved you, your will can't unsave you, or it would. Remember Don Fortner talking
about falling from grace and he made this statement, anybody
that can fall from grace will fall from grace. Who can't fall from grace? Those
who are being held up by grace. We have independence from our
will, independence from our righteousness. We don't have any righteousness,
but we think we do, but we declare our independence of it. We're
not going to depend on anything that we have done to bring us
favor with God or improve upon that work of salvation which
God has begun in us. Yes, we desire to do what is
right. We want to do what is right.
But for the most part, we don't. Therefore, we declare our independence
from our righteousness. And since we are not depending
upon our righteousness to save us, our sinfulness has no authority
anymore to condemn us. See why I brought up that dependence
and authority issue? We have declared our independence
from the whole righteous sinful spectrum of human righteousness. saying we are not depending on
our righteousness to save us because if we depend on our righteousness
to save us, that grants authority to our sinfulness to damn us. I declare my independence from
my righteousness. Much as I'd like to be righteous,
in myself I am not. Well, having declared our dependence
on Christ, on God for our salvation, what have we done? We have granted
him, he already had it, but we've acknowledged, happily acknowledged
his complete authority over us. We live under his roof, we've
put our feet under his table, and it's only right that we would
be expected to cheerfully do what he says. And what does he say? Rest. You read it. Didn't know you
were going to read that, but it works well. We rest. Well,
I better get up and start doing it. Rest. We believe. What should we do
that we may do the works of God, said the people to the Lord Jesus.
And Jesus responded, this is the work of God that you would
believe the one whom he has sent. We live under his roof, our feet
are under his table. What are his rules? Live under
my roof, put your feet under my table. And I'm happy to do that, aren't
you? I'm happy to be protected from
the natural elements with Christ over my head. I'm
glad to live in a house built upon a rock. And I'm glad to
sit at a table filled with the finest food God can make. The blood and body of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The blood and righteousness of
Christ. That's what we feed on. That's why we meet like this
week by week. Why? We want another serving. We get
hungry. We've got to eat. And there's
only one table we want to eat at. The writer of Hebrews says
we have a table. wherein the priests of the old
covenant have no right to eat. But we are all priests in this
new covenant and at this table we eat. My salvation and my honor, my
glory depend on God. Thank God, Eric.