All right, if you'd open your
Bibles to the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 2. beginning with verse four. As
you come to him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by
God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are
being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood
offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ. For in scripture it says, see,
I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and
the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now to
you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do
not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,
and a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes
them fall. They stumble because they disobey
the message, which is also what they were destined for. But you
are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people belonging to God. I want you to think of that definition,
that description that he just gave of everyone here who is
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We might resist saying
those things about ourselves because we I think they sound
very boastful. But this is what God said by
his apostle. This is what God has made us
to be, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of
him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once
you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Now back in chapter one, verse
15, Peter had written, just as he who called you is holy, so
be holy in all you do. Now that exhortation to be holy
in what we do, in the way we live, actually is fleshed out
throughout the rest of this letter. Now normally speaking, at least
in my experience, when religious folk begin talking about holiness
of life, they quickly turn to useless rules and regulations
by which they believe that you know, the people of God will
stand out from the rest of the world. But holiness, just like
everything else in matters pertaining to God, this holiness that Peter's
speaking of is not what the world thinks it is. Now, we are holy,
or to act holy, because the God we worship is holy. But we have great motivation
to do that in this, that he has, and we find these things in the
previous chapter, he has privileged us to be able to address him
as father rather than judge. Now consider how great a blessing
that one thing is. The disciples said to the Lord,
teach us to pray, and the Lord began with, our father. Now that, that's a remarkable
thing. You know, in the story of the
rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man was in torment, and
what did he say? Father Abraham. And the Jews of that day, that's
who they looked to, his father. The Lord said to the Pharisees,
I believe it was, the Pharisees says, you claim Abraham's your
father. Do you know who we claim as father?
God. He is our father, not only in
that he is the source of our life, he is our father in all
those tender relationships that a good father has with his children.
As the psalmist said, as a father pities his children, so does
the Lord pity them that fear him. He knows we are dust. And therefore in his dealings
with us, he deals with us as dusty people. He knows we're
easily blown. He knows we're fragile. You don't expect of your children
what you expect of adults. You don't burden them with adult
things. And that's how God deals with
us. So he's our father, not our judge. The judge part's been
taken care of in Christ. We're motivated to this holy
living that Peter speaks of by the precious blood of Christ.
Think of what was paid for you. I saw one statement, you know, that somebody
come up with. I thought it explained our situation perfectly. He said, I ain't worth much,
but I sure cost a lot. We cost the precious blood of
Christ. It's an amazing thing that our
God was willing to spend it to get us. But if he was willing
to spend that to get us, would we not then want to live in a
way that reflects favorably on him? And then the word of the
gospel has been brought to us by the spirit of God. The good
news has been preached to us and God has called us to Christ. He did not call us to ungodliness. He did not go to all this effort
simply so that we could continue being what we were before. Now,
none of these, or none of this exhortation to holiness of life,
nor any of the explanations of what that means, none of it is
given to us to describe what we must do in
order to be holy or to be accepted by God or to be redeemed or anything
like that. These are ways of life that we
should be happy to do. In fact, there's nothing that
the apostle tells us to do that a believer doesn't want to do.
He just doesn't get it done very well. So Peter further describes the
blessed privilege and status to which the people have been
called. They are a royal priesthood. We just read that. You are a
chosen people, a royal priesthood, a royalty, and a priesthood that
has come to us because of our connection to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is a royal priest. He's a priest, the Bible says
in the book of Hebrews, he's a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now we don't know much about
Melchizedek. He only shows up in history,
in the Bible history once, and that's when he met Abraham coming
back from the slaughter of the kings. And it calls him Melchizedek,
and by interpretation, that means interpretation of his name, he's
king of righteousness, And evidently the city in which he was considered
to be the king was a city named Salem. Some believe that was
an early name for Jerusalem, Jerusalem. And Salem is simply
an anglicized version of Shalom, the Hebrew word meaning peace.
So this Melchizedek is king of righteousness, king of peace. And it says he's priest of the
most high God. And that is our Lord Jesus. He's priest of the
most high God. He's the only priest now that
is the only priest to offer sin offerings. He's our great high
priest and there's only one of those. But it's odd in the old covenant,
it was not allowed that a person be both king and priest. In fact, one of the kings And
he was a godly man, but like all godly men, he could mess
things up pretty bad. And he went and offered a sacrifice,
and God struck him with leprosy for it. Why? There was only one
person in whom the office of king and priest would be joined
into one person, and that's Christ. He was born of the tribe of Judah. That's the tribe of kings. The
tribe of Levi is the tribe of priests. So when Jesus Christ
is called a priest, well, he's not a priest after the order
of Levi, nor the order of Aaron. Aaron was of the tribe of Levi,
and his descendants were the high priests. He was not of Levi,
not of Aaron. He comes from Judah. So he's
a king by birth, but he is a priest declared on oath by God to be
a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He has a priesthood
of Melchizedek, it says of him, without mother or father and
without end of days. And some have speculated that
this Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus.
I don't know. It could be that that was kind of hyperbolic language
and exaggeration. in describing Melchizedek, when
it says without mother or father, it didn't mean he didn't have
a mother or father, it means his priesthood didn't come from
his mother and father. And without end of days, that
is, so long as he was alive, he was the priest. That may be
all that was being signified by that. But in our Lord Jesus
Christ, he certainly fulfills that. As to his humanity, he
had a mother, But he's been our priest since
before the world began. His priesthood did not arise
from who his natural mother was. His priesthood arose from God's
oath. You are a priest after the order
of Melchizedek, and we are kings and priests in him. What kind
of kings and priests? Same kind he is. Not to the degree,
but I mean of the same order. We're priests and kings after
the order of Melchizedek. Our priesthood and our kingship
in this world, and the Bible says, we shall reign with him
a thousand years, and it's talking about this gospel age. And our
kingship didn't come from our mom and dad. Our priesthood certainly
didn't come from our mom and dad. It came from Christ. But
we are kings and priests, royal priests to it. Now, here in verse four, it starts
with, as you come to him. Now let's strip down this verse. In fact, it goes on through two
verses. Strip it down to its one main statement. And It's very simply this, you
are being built into a spiritual house. Everything else in verses
four and five just qualifies and adds some detail, but the
bare bones statement. is you are being built into a
spiritual house. Now, who is it that's being built
into a spiritual house? Well, the immediate description
is it's those who come to Him, who come to Christ. Now, there
are many who come to religion. There are many, and I don't think
it's wrong to say this, they come to God, but they don't come
to God by Christ. They come to God by way of their
church. They come to God by way of their good deeds, you know.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost
them that come to God by Him. So there's lots of people this
morning coming to God, but they're coming by the wrong path. They're
not taking the right road. But those who come to Christ
or come to God through Christ, these are being built into A
spiritual house. Now, as I said, lots of people
coming to God, not everybody coming to Christ. But that's
the description that he's given. Now, this means those who are
continually coming to Christ. Now, the religion of freewillism,
at least as it's developed over the years, It makes everything
about this momentary, one-time decision that you made to, quote,
let Jesus into your heart, or ask him to save you, something
like that. And they invent this doctrine they call eternal security. And believe me, believers are
eternally secure, but not the way that free will says that
they're eternally secure. They say they're eternally secure
simply because that's the rules. That's the way it works, once
in you can't get out. They say God's a gentleman and he wouldn't
force you in, but somehow or another he forces you to stay
in once you get there and he remains a gentleman. But they
believe that you make your decision for Jesus at some point and it
doesn't matter what you do after that, you're in the door. Well
see, faith is not just some decision made at an emotional crisis point
worked up by a preacher. Faith is a lifelong thing. Remember that the people in Hebrews
chapter 11, speaking of going all the way back to Cain, excuse
me, Abel, who by faith offered a better sacrifice than his brother
Cain, going through Enoch and Noah and all these, what people
call heroes of the faith, but I don't think that's a good term
to describe them, but I don't know what else to call them. But it
says of them, these all died in faith. They died believing. With them, believing is not something
they did way back yonder. It was not a decision like that
song, I have decided to follow Jesus. Well, good for you. Do
you? Following is not a one-time event.
So we are coming to him all the time. And that's kind of one
of the proofs as to whether or not a person is truly a believer. Someone was talking to me because
they were troubled, you know, had no assurance. And I said, well, let me ask
you this. When your faith seems to be gone and when you are most
troubled with doubts, where do you go? Here's the odd thing
about a believer. When he doubts his salvation
the most, you will find him pursuing his savior the most. Yeah, you say, well, that's kind
of crazy. Yeah, well, we are. We are kind of crazy, aren't
we? The very thing we're most doubtful of is the thing we cling
to most of all in the midst of our doubts. Now others, when
they experience doubts, particularly when their doubts arise because
of some notable sin or because they don't feel anything within
themselves and all this, you know, what do they do? They go
out and try to work up what they feel they are lacking.
So they try to go and find emotional experiences somewhere. or they
try to do some good to make up for the bad they did. What does
that show you? They're not really believers. Now, I'm not saying we don't
ever do that, but we will end up going to Christ. In our flesh,
that might be our knee-jerk reaction. We find ourselves feeling guilty
and cut off from God and everything, and immediately, just like from
the time we were born, we think, what do I gotta do to fix this. And then the spirit of God works
in us to remember how it was we got connected to God in the
first place. It was by the work of his son. And we run to Christ
in all our doubts, clinging to him in faith. That's just the
way it works. We come to him. But this also
can be taken in this way. As his people come to him one
by one, like living stones, they are being built into a house. So this one comes, God lays him
into the house, you know, and another one comes, another stone. But it's all this, they come
to him. But again, it includes everything
he has said up to this point. Those who call him father rather
than judge, they're the ones being built in this household.
There is not Spiritually speaking, there is not a single legalist
in this house. There's not a single one in this
house that is relating to God as judge. Now, again, I feel I have to
say these things unless you make something out of what I'm saying
that I really don't mean. I know that we struggle with those thoughts
in our mind. That's not where our heart is. We know our God
is our Father. We know that our sins have been
taken care of in Jesus Christ, and God is no longer relating
to us as a judge relates to criminals. He says there are sins and iniquities
I will remember no more. That's not what a judge does.
A judge is there to take into account one's crimes. It's those who have not only
have called God Father, but have been redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ, who have had the gospel preached to them and
have believed it. He says in verse 22 of chapter
one, now that you've purified yourselves by obeying the truth,
so that you have sincere love for your brothers. They obeyed
the truth. The word there, I believe, actually
very strictly means you've been persuaded of the truth. Sometimes
translators, in trying to get the sense of it, will use the
word believe or obey, but its root meaning is to be persuaded. So they've been persuaded. And
all four of these things are revealed in how they respond
to those things, they come to Christ. You see, the work of
God cannot be seen by men, but they are revealed in the
response that these works produce. Now, you take, for instance,
election. We believe the doctrine popularly
called Unconditional election. But there are some people who
feel that they must first be convinced that they are the elect
of God before they have a warrant to come to Christ. But that's
exactly backwards. Our Lord said, all that the Father
gives to me. Now in another place he explained
who they were. They were the ones the Father chose. He says,
they were yours and you gave them to me. All that the Father
gives to me will come to me. There's only one way to prove
you're the elect of God, and that's to come to Christ. And
if you're waiting until it can be proven to you that you're
God's elect before you'll come to Christ, you're never gonna
come to Christ. That's the only proof of it there
is. Redemption. How do I know that I have been
redeemed? The Lord Jesus says, and I, if
I be lifted up, and this is in the book of John, and John makes
it clear that he was describing not being lifted up, you know,
like in preaching as we glorify God, he means being lifted up
on a cross. If I be lifted up, I will draw
all men to me. Now, he didn't mean every man
individually. He meant all kinds of men. He was trying to get
it across to those Jews. I'm not just the Savior of you
Jews. I'm the Savior of all spread across this globe whom God intends
to save. I'm the Savior of the Jews. I'm
the Savior of the Gentiles. I'm the Savior of Romans. I'm
the Savior of the Spaniards. He could say to them, I'm Savior
of those you don't even know exist. The savior of the Chinese
over there. I doubt they called him that
then, but you know who I'm talking about. He draws redemption. It's proven in this. Men are
drawn to and come to Jesus Christ. People argue over whether or
not Jesus Christ died for every individual. Here's one thing
I know. Everyone for whom Christ was
lifted up is gonna be drawn by him. And that word draw doesn't
mean just, you know, why don't you come? The word means dragged.
It's the same word they'd use to describe an animal drawing
a plow. Well, that plow ain't going along
with it. I mean, a plow ain't saying, okay, I'll do my part.
The plow's getting dragged along. It's a word they use to describe
someone being dragged into court. So when he talks about drawing
all people to him, he's talking about with force. And in our calling, the Lord
says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow, they come after
me. So you see, everything that God
does in salvation results in his people coming to Christ.
And that's the only proof that any of these works have actually
been done. The person comes to Christ. Our positive response
to the gospel is not what brought grace to us. It's simply the
revelation that grace has already come to us. Now it says, as you come to him,
who is this one that they come to? Well, it's the one who redeemed
them. They're not interested in following
anybody else. You know, when it has been revealed to a sinner
that Christ, that he has been redeemed by the blood of Christ,
he falls in love with Christ. That's why Paul could say, if
any man does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, a curse be upon
him. In fact, I don't know that it's so much that Paul's pronouncing
a curse, he's saying such a man is under the curse. If you don't
love Christ, it's obvious you're yet in your sins. Because the
only way you'd be out of your sins is to be redeemed by him.
And if you've been redeemed by the blood of Christ and you've
been made to know that, that's gonna make you love him. They come to him because they
love him because he was the one who by his blood redeemed them.
They come to him as the one God chose in Isaiah chapter 42. It says, behold my servant, whom
I uphold, mine elect, in whom is all my pleasure. So when we
come into Christ, now that proves that we are the elect of God,
but who are we coming to? the first elect of God, Jesus
Christ. The hymn writer wrote, Christ
be my first elect, he said, then chose us in our surety's head. Chose us in Christ our head.
We were chosen in Christ. God chose Christ and we were
in him. And that choosing of Christ chose
us. That is God's choosing of Christ.
When we come to Christ, we're coming to the one that God established. It says here in verse chapter
six, quoting from the Old Testament, see, I lay a stone in Zion, a
chosen and precious cornerstone. And the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame. So what we find is our Lord Jesus
Christ is described as like the foundation stone of a building. And this is the stone that God
chose. God called him precious. That
word means precious like in precious jewels, honorable, valuable,
of great worth. And God laid him as the foundation
stone of his living house, his living temple. And we're coming
to him. We're coming to this one God
established. We're not coming to the one that
the church says we're supposed to come to. We're coming to the
one that God has set forth as a foundation of his house. Paul
said, God has set him forth to be a propitiation through faith
in his blood. You see, we should be concerned
with the things that God sets forth. Who is God saying is our
propitiation, that is our sacrifice of atonement, the sacrifice that
puts away sin? Who does God say it is? He says
it's Jesus Christ. Who does God say is the foundation? He laid a foundation stone in
Zion. It's Jesus Christ. And when we come to Jesus Christ,
we're coming to the one that the builders rejected. Verse seven. The stone the builders
rejected has become the capstone. Now that word translated capstone
can mean one of three things. It can mean capstone, like they've
put it here. It can mean foundation stone,
or it can mean one of those stones that they use as a lintel over
the door, the cross beam over a door. But you can see that in all of
those, it's indicating a special stone. Something that stands
out. Now the foundation stone describes
the rest of the building. And the foundation stone is the
one which supports the entire weight of the building. The capstone
is the finishing of the building. It's probably the one that looks
prettiest. And the door, the lintel, what does the lintel
stone, what's it doing? It's supporting everything above
it and providing a way in because the door is under that lintel
stone. Christ is all those things. The King James said he's become
the head of the corner. And that sounds like the first
foundation stone to me. Now they didn't have concrete
back then. They didn't, you know, form a footer and pour concrete
that hardens into a new stone. They had to go quarry stones
and when they would begin a building, they would find, okay, the northwest
corner of this building or whatever is right here and they would
find the biggest stone that they could move and they'd lay it
right there at that corner. And every dimension was taken
from that cornerstone. That cornerstone defines the
rest of the building. It was the biggest, most massive
stone that could be put there. And I believe that's what it's
speaking of here. Christ is a part of the church. He's the foundation
stone, the chief cornerstone. And that's the one to whom we
have come. It's the one the builders rejected.
Now God, who's building this building, he chose this stone. He went out and looked. He said,
that's the one I want. This is the stone upon which
I will build my temple, my house. And he brought that stone into
Zion. And the builders of Zion, that is the religious leaders
of that day, what did they say? No, no, that's not a good stone.
Who'd wanna start a building with that stone? Doesn't look
big and heavy and massive to me. In Isaiah 53, it says, there
is no majesty that we should desire him. There was nothing
that they could see in Christ, which would make them think,
okay, this is the head of the corner of God's true temple. No, in all of their religious
engineering skill, they said, that's not a good one. We're
not gonna put that stone in the temple. They rejected it. And yet that's the one we're
coming to. What difference then is if the
world rejects him, if it's God who chose him? Now think of that. You know, because of our, inborn
nature, we want the world to think well of us. And since religion is so much
a deep part of people, you know, if they ridicule our religion,
they're ridiculing us. And if they ridicule our Savior,
we take it personal. But it should never cause us
to move one inch away from Christ, because who cares? what the world
says about Christ, God chose him. Moreover, if they rejected him and you
have come to him, they'll reject you too. Now we live in a country and
actually this particular location. has a lot of what some people
call common grace. That is, people have learned,
they've been taught, they've been raised to, humanly speaking,
act decently. And those who may not receive
and approve of the Christ we worship probably won't speak
harshly to our faces. And I'm not imputing this to
everybody in the area. I'm just saying that there's
some because there's some everywhere that reject Christ. But you can
be sure of this. If they reject Christ and you
come to him, then at least in religious matters, they reject
you. Our Lord said, the world hated
me. So if it hates you, don't be
surprised. but he was the one chosen by
God and precious to him. And this is something you almost
feel like it's too big to say, but if he chose Christ and is
precious to him, that means Everyone in Christ is also chosen and
precious to him. That really makes you think,
well, who cares what the world thinks of me then? Who cares if they reject me?
I've been chosen and accepted by God in Christ. Who cares if
the world thinks that I'm a silly nobody? God says that I'm precious
to Him. And in the end, He's the only
one that counts. The only one. How do they come? They come by faith. They do exactly the opposite
of what everybody else did. Everybody else does. The others,
they don't believe. They reject Him. We believe Him. We approve of Him. we receive
him. And again, this word means that
we're persuaded. Now, how do you know, how can
you know, if you have come to Christ? How do you know if you believe?
And you know, this is a legitimate question. Paul said, examine
yourself, see if you be of the faith. And generally speaking, I would
not have us look at ourselves for anything. Yet there is something
that we can look for in ourselves. And if we have believed, it will
be there because God will have put it
there. So we're really not looking at ourselves, our natural selves,
we're looking at what God has done. It's very simple. Look
at this here, verse 7. Now to you who believe this stone
is precious. Now I don't know what Christ
means to you, so I cannot discern your heart. I can't tell
you whether or not you believe. If you say you believe, I'm gonna
take your word for it. But you can tell. Is Christ precious
to you? What does it mean if something
is precious to you? It means it's something you won't
let go of. If you got gold coins in your
pocket, And somebody comes after you
trying to steal everything you have. What are you going to hold
tightest to? The gold coins in your pocket. Why? Because they're
the precious thing. If they take your hat, well,
you've got plenty of gold coins to buy another hat. If they take
your walking stick, get another walking stick. But you're going
to hang on to those coins. In fact, the only thing that'd
probably get you to let go of those coins is if they threatened
the one thing more precious to you than that, and that's your
life. Okay. Is Christ precious to you? What
would it take for someone to rob you of Christ? What would
they have to give you or what would they have to threaten you
with if you didn't give up Christ? It's a good question. Now, for every unbeliever, there
is a price that they will take for Christ. And in all likelihood, even if
they profess faith in Christ, even if they're good churchgoers,
God will bring something into their life And the Lord will
say like he did to Peter, do you love me more than these things?
And something's going to come along that they love more than
Christ. And you and I might not see their
departure from Christ because they might stick with the church.
Because particularly in a city like this, if you don't go to
church, you might not be accepted in polite society, you know.
So they'll keep up the appearances. But in their heart, they have
left him because they found something more precious. What's your price? Is there one? Well, here's the thing we gotta
be careful of. We know that Satan's not omnipresent,
so he can't be the one that's Tempting everybody. But we blame
it all on him anyway. There's lots of forces that can
do it, but we'll just say the devil. He's not gonna come to
you and say, here, take this and leave Christ. Why? Because you won't do it. But
he will do this. Here, you can have this, but
you know, you're gonna have to give up some worship. You know, it's just an investment. Here, if you can do this, I know
it's going to cut into your prayer time. It's going to cut in to
reading scriptures. It's going to cut in to thinking
about Christ. And you'll make a deal. And once
that little deal is sealed, a little farther down the line, another
one comes along the way. Little by little by little. It's discovered that Christ was
not precious to you. If you have a pocket full of
coins that are precious to you, they won't be able to take them
one coin at a time. You're going to protect the whole
bundle of them. Here's what I'm saying. Be careful. Anything,
anything, that start to put a wedge between you and Christ. The moment
you detect that's what's happening, stop it. Stop it. Be so jealous of Christ. Be so
jealous of your relationship with him that there's not anybody
or anything or group of anybodies or anything that would be able
to separate you from Christ. Because there's going to be a
lot of things out there trying to do just that. And I know,
you know, we can say, well, you know, doesn't grace say that,
you know, nothing can separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ? That's true. What you find out is that you Never had it. You never
were connected to Christ. That's why it was so easy to
let him go. But we can't look at it from the viewpoint of God. He sees all things at once. He
sees, you know, all of time is spread out before him. We're
going through it moment by moment. And all we know is right now,
it seems to me as though Christ is precious to me. And if I am
wise at all, the moment that anything comes into my consciousness,
that is somehow putting space between me and Christ, that with
all that is within me, I say, no, no. If I lose all else, let God have
you. As I was studying on this yesterday,
this just gripped me. If you feel yourself slipping,
and we all do, if it seems to you that things
are not like they once were, what do you need to do? The very
same thing you did at the beginning. As you come to Him, come to Him. And if someone stands in your
way on the way back, Knock them out of the way. Even if it's the person in this
world you love the most, if they get between you and Christ, you're
gonna have to tell them you need to move. Do not hinder me. If it's something in this world,
fame, power, money, pleasure, you've got to get out of the
way. You're going to Christ. Brethren, if you don't do anything
else in this life, come to Christ and stay put. And if you feel
like you've wandered, don't just sit there wallowing in your wandering. Get back to Christ. Coming to
Christ is the solution to every problem. Well, what about unbelievers? What does unbelief do? What effect does unbelief have
on the purpose of God? Nothing. Absolutely no effect
whatsoever. Jesus Christ is still the foundation
stone. He is still chosen of God. He's
still precious to God, and so is everybody in him. All the
unbelief in the world can't touch Christ, and it can't touch anybody
in Christ. That is all the unbelieving people
of the world. Those who rejected Christ put him to death, and
they thought that's the end of it. No, it wasn't. They played
right into the hand of God's purpose. Those who reject Christ
fall. Make no mistake, every departure
from the gospel is rooted in a rejection of Christ as he's
revealed in the scripture, and those that reject him fall. Now, the only reason we don't
reject him, scripture say, to him who's able to keep you from
falling. Thank God he keeps us from falling. And they are crushed. Our Lord says in Luke chapter
20, He said, then what is the meaning
of that which is written? The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone. Everyone who falls on that stone
will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. By grace, God caused us to fall
upon that stone and we were broken, broken to pieces. But interestingly enough, the
only thing that's better when it's broken is a heart, for God
is near to them who are of a broken spirit and contrite heart. We
fall upon Christ and are broken, but there are those upon whom
Christ falls, and they are crushed, completely and irrevocably crushed. I don't know what else to say,
I'll be honest with you, I don't know what else to say except this,
brethren. Come to Christ and stick. That's holiness. That's it right there. There
is no other holiness of life apart from that. Come to Christ. And whatever else you do in life,
make sure it's consistent with that, coming to Christ. And if there's anything in your
life that is characteristic of a departure from Christ, stop
it. Stop it not because you're good,
but because you're bad. And you know that if you depart
from Christ, you'll be lost. Well, the Lord add his blessing
to his word. Eric.