Isaiah chapter 52. The title of the message is this. The gospel. The gospel. We have good news. That's what the gospel is, to
preach. And as I was writing and thinking of the message,
this came to me. I get to preach the gospel this
morning. There's no place I'd rather be than right here. Preaching the gospel of the grace
of God. But as I was thinking of this
message, I was thinking first, the first
thought came to me was evolution. I was thinking of
evolution. And evolution says that man evolved
and all this evolved and that we evolved from the monkey, which
is a real slam on the monkey. That's a real slam on the monkey.
I believe if the monkey could talk, he'd say, don't lay your
mess on me. And I got to eat this rotten
banana because of you. Because of your sin. You know,
we brought this mess into the world. Adam did, but we were
in Adam. If Adam hadn't have done it,
there's the wisdom of God. Adam let us fall, or God let
us fall in one man, Adam. We all fell in Adam. If Adam
hadn't have fell, I would have. that chance of me falling would
still be here. So God in wisdom, let us all
fall in one man so that he could save us in one man, the second
Adam, Jesus Christ, he's called the second Adam. That's the wisdom
of God. That's God's wisdom. But as far-fetched
as evolution is, it does not address the issue of sin and
evil in man and how that came to be. You know, if we look at
history, whether we look at it through the history written by
men, or we look at it through the scriptures, the one thing
that we will see that is consistent throughout history is the evil
of man. War after war after war. One nation trying to take over
another nation. not being at peace, but war,
war and war and war. That's history. That's the history
of the human race. And evolution cannot explain
and does not explain that evil that's in man, that sinful nature. Where we find the explanation
of this in detail is in the Word of God. in this book right here. There's no other book written
where we find in detail why we are the way we are. How we came
to be and why we are the way we are. I want you to look over
in Romans chapter 5. In Romans chapter 5, there's no other book written
that tells us what this book tells us. In Romans chapter 5
in verse 12 it says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the
world. That's how sin came in. Adam
was the door to sin. It came into this world through
his rebellion. Sin entered the world and death
by sin. That's how death came about.
This is why we die. We don't die because we have
cancer. That might be a means that's used, but that's not the
root of it. That's not the root of death.
The very root of it is sin. That may be a heart attack. It
may be the effects that sin has caused on this body, like cancer,
heart attacks. Sin's the root of it. It's the
root of it. You know, when you read an obituary,
and if they tell you in there why the person died, they will
not say he died or she died because of sin. That's the real root
of it. That's the real problem. But
here, this book tells us, "...Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned." We all sinned in Adam, but we've
all sinned individually. We sin because we want to. Nobody
makes me sin. The devil made me do it. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. I did it because I wanted to.
I may have been tempted by Satan, but I did it. The choice is mine.
I made the choice. And the only place we find this
out is in the word of God. Now in all this sin and evil,
that's in the world and that's in us. There's a world of that
just in me, in my heart. I know this. I know what goes
on in there. And even though there is this
in us, there's good news. There's good news. From the same
book that tells us the bad news, we have the good news. And the
good news is not good news until you understand the bad news.
Until you hear and understand the bad news, then the good news
becomes good news. But until then, the gospel doesn't
mean anything to you until you understand who and what you are
by nature before God and who God is. And this is what we'll
look at this morning. Now, there are many things I
cannot understand that's written in the scriptures, a lot of things.
I can't understand. For me to understand God, I have
to be God. He said, my thoughts are not
your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. As far as the heavens
is above the earth, so are my thoughts and my ways above yours.
I cannot think upon the level that God thinks upon. God is
spirit. God is on a far, far higher level
than I am. And there's many things that
I don't understand, but I tell you what I can do. I can believe
God. I can believe God. By faith, I can take God at His
word. Paul said this in the book of
Acts, "'Sirs, I believe God, that it shall be even as He told
me.'" David said this, "'I had fainted, And it's in this order,
this is important. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see, not see and then believe. You see in the spiritual realm,
it's to believe and then you see. You believe God and God
gives you understanding. Then you start to say, oh, I
see now, I see. David said, I had fainted unless
I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. Faith comes first. And the scripture says this,
and here's some things we need to learn. We need to learn to
let the secret things of the Lord, we need to leave them to
the Lord. He says here, the secret things
of the Lord belong to the Lord and the revealed things belong
to us and our children. There are things in here that
God has revealed about himself, about his son and about us and
about salvation. And there are things he has not
revealed. Many things he's not revealed. I can't understand
sin. I can't understand the mystery of sin. I can't understand it. But I do know this. I know how
God put it away. I know how He put it away. I
like what Spurgeon said one time. He said, we shouldn't concern
ourselves so much about how the thief got in the house as much
as we should concern ourselves how to get him out of the house.
I mean, it's like going over there and somebody breaks into
my house, and they're in there stealing jewelry and all the
whatever stuff that I have, and I'm standing outside, and I said,
I wonder how he got in there. Did he go through the window?
Did I forget to lock the door? Did the alarm system fail? No,
just call the police and get him out of the house. Get him
out of the house. And that's what my concern, my
concern is not, Why sin is, it's how it's gotten rid of. And then
whenever I'm in eternity and we are given the mind of Christ,
there are things that I'll understand then that I can't understand
now. The Lord said to His disciples, He said, the things that I tell
you now, you can't understand. He said, but later you will.
There are a lot of things you and I are going to understand
when we stand in glory and we have the mind of Jesus Christ
that we cannot understand now with these little old finite
minds of ours. The finite cannot comprehend
the infinite. It can't be done. Not right now. Now, the gospel. Let's get to
the gospel. What does it mean? Well, the gospel means glad tidings. It means glad tidings. It means
good news. It's a message of good news.
It's grace for the guilty. It's grace for the guilty. It's
what it is. And this good news is from God. It's of God. It's
from God who created all things. Our creator. He purposed the gospel and he
sent it to us. It's from God. It's from heaven.
Now what does the gospel set forth? The gospel sets forth
the very being and character of God. We cannot preach the
gospel and not preach God is. And we cannot preach the gospel
and not preach who He is. The gospel brings before us the
fact that God is. This is what we have to face.
God is. Every last person that has been
born on this earth or ever will be born on this earth has to
deal with God sooner or later. We got to deal with Him. You
can't go around Him, you got to deal with Him. And the fact
though, listen, the fact that God is, is good news. That's
good news in and of itself. We're not floating along on the
sea of fate. We're not floating along on the
sea of fate at all. or some other foolish idea. The
good news is there's one who is in control. There's one who's
in control. There's no one at the wheel in
evolution, there's no one at the wheel. But God is. And God is in control. Nothing is out of control. Humanity is not out of control.
It's under God's control. And God is bringing about His
eternal purpose that He purposed before He created the heavens
and the earth. God created this with a purpose. He didn't just
create it like you wind a toy up and then let it go. He created
it with a purpose, and the purpose is to populate that new earth
with a people just like His Son. That's what He said. He's gonna
conform them to the image of Jesus Christ. Perfectly like
Him in every way. This is a fact. Here's a truth.
God is. Now you would think that his
creation, you'd think that we, his creation, would want to know
him, wouldn't you? Man has a thirst for knowledge,
but here's the part that shows his depravity. He has a thirst
for knowledge, but not the knowledge of God. He wants to know about
the moon, the sun, you know, and the earth, and study all
the plants and all these things, but not the One who made them.
Isn't that amazing? That's how dead we are by nature.
We are spiritually dead by nature. We don't have an interest in
God. It says in Psalm 14, the fool has said in his heart, no
God. There is no God. In other words,
and the better translation of that is, the fool has said in
his heart, no God for me. You see, that makes me responsible.
I want to be my own God. I'll be the captain of my own
ship. Well, that's just not so. Okay, what you want, God is,
and we're responsible to him. And you think we want to know
him. you'd think we would be thankful and grateful to Him
instead of blessing ourselves. The Scripture says in Genesis
1.1, in the beginning, God, that I want to know Him. And I thank
God He's given me an interest in knowing Him. I want to know
who He is. Well, the Gospel tells us who
He is, what He's like. Listen to Proverbs 30 verse 4. Who hath ascended up into heaven
or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in
his fist? Who hath bound the waters in
garment? Who hath established all the
ends of the earth? Who has established it? Listen,
what is his name? What is his son's name? If thou
canst tell, do you wanna know that? What is his name? What's the name of the one who
created all this? What's his name? What's his son's
name? Well, we know that in the gospel. You can't know that anywhere
else. You can read all the Greeks and
all the writings of the intelligent men, so to speak. I don't know
how intelligent you are if you don't believe God. That's not
very intelligent to call God a liar. And that's what it is
not to believe him, not to take him at his word here. Well, the
scripture tells us this, and we have to start here, we have
to start here. God who is, is holy. He's perfect in every way, in
every way, in every attribute. You know, if a person has attributes,
like I have attributes, you have attributes, God has attributes. Every attribute of God, God is,
the scripture says God is love, God is light, But all of his
attributes start with this, holy. Holy, aren't you glad? I'm glad
God's holy. There was a time I didn't. There
was a time I wasn't glad. There's a time God meant nothing
to me. But I am glad he's holy. You know what that means? You
know what that assures me? He will do right. I want God to
be holy. I want him to do right. One devil's
enough. You sure don't want God who has
all power not being holy. That power would be used in an
unjust manner. You give a human being absolute
power. You know what you have? You have
absolute corruption. That's what you'll end up having
every time. Every time, you'll end up with nothing but corruption.
He'll use it in a corrupt way. Sooner or later, he or she will
use it in a corrupt way. God is holy. Listen to Psalm
99, verse five and verse nine. Exalt ye the Lord our God and
worship at his footstool for he is holy. Exalt the Lord our
God and worship at his holy hill for the Lord our God is holy. Here's where we have to start.
Our God is holy, holy, holy. That's what the angels cry day
and night there in Isaiah. They don't cry, love, love, love
is God. They don't cry that. They don't
cry day and night that God is powerful, powerful, powerful.
They don't do that. They cry, holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty. Because that's the bright and
shining star of all God's attributes, is that they are holy. His love
is a holy love. His power is holy power. His
grace is holy grace. And then God is just. He's just. He can do no wrong. You say,
I don't understand why God allows sin. I don't either. But I understand
who God is. I understand who God is. I understand
that He's a just God. He can do no wrong. I understand
that. Listen to this. "'Tell ye and
bring them near,' Isaiah 45, 21. "'Yea, let them take counsel
together. "'Who hath declared this from
ancient times? "'Who hath told it from that
time? "'Have not I the Lord, and there is no God else beside
me, "'a just God and a Savior?' In that order. He's just first. He'll save in a just way. He
will not save in an unjust way. You see, we have a lot of judges
sitting on the bench who acquit men in an unjust way. They will
acquit men and women. They'll go make a plea bargain
in the back room and they'll come out and they'll let them
off in an unjust manner. God won't do that. What God does,
He does in a just way, and I'm glad because you know why? I
don't ever have to worry about Him turning on me. And I don't
ever have to worry, I don't ever have to look over my shoulder
wondering what's coming down the road. Because I was released
in an unjust way. No, I was released in a just
way. God taking my place. We'll get
to that in a minute. It's written in Revelation 15,
3, and they sing the song of Moses, a servant of God, and
the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works,
Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
Just and true. God's a just God. But He's also
a gracious and merciful God. He delights, the Scripture says,
to show mercy. He delights to show mercy. Anybody
here delight to have mercy this morning? God delights to show
it. He delights to show it. Listen
to Nehemiah 9.31. You and I are here this morning
because God is gracious and merciful. You're hearing the gospel. And then the Gospel tells us
who and what man is. The Scripture tells us and teaches
us that man, as I read to you over there in Romans already,
man is sin. That's what we are by nature.
Sins is what we do. The actions, that's what we do
because of what we are. Sins does not make me a sinner. Sin, what I am, is what makes
me. I was born a sinner. I don't become one at a certain
age. I was born one. And then the actions of it started
coming out as I grew up. We are sinned by nature. We are
sinned because our first father Adam sinned and passed that nature
on to us. You know, I have the nature,
the genetics of my mother and father. There are certain traits
they passed on to us, on to me. My parents did. They passed some
traits on to me genetically. And then they got that from their
parents, and their parents, and their parents, and all the way
back to Adam. All the way back to Adam. And
that's where it started, right there, from Adam. Adam and Eve. Adam fell. And he passed on to
us that sinful nature of his. The Scriptures teaches us in
Genesis, listen now, like begets like. A dog begets a dog. A cow begets a cow. A sinner
begets a sinner. And that's all they can do. That's
all that can happen. The scripture teaches us because
of this that man is at enmity with God. You know we are born
at war with God. We don't come into this world
in love with God. We have a natural enmity in us
against God. We are naturally at war with
God. When we start to say, well, why this, why that? You know
what that is? That's that enmity coming out. You know, when Adam
fell, when he fell, God made him a perfect woman. God created
Adam innocent and perfect. He didn't, listen, God did not
create Adam as a robot and give him artificial intelligence.
He was created as a man in the image of God and given life and
intelligence. The most intelligent man ever
lived except for Jesus Christ was Adam. Adam. Adam was a true genius. He named
all the animals. All the animals were brought
before him and he named every one of them. And it says, no
mate was found for Adam. So God created Eve. A perfect
woman. I can only imagine when God brought
Eve to Adam, and that's what He did. He brought her to Adam. He created her out of the rib
of Adam, brought her to Adam. Beautiful. Can you imagine? No
sin. Sin is martyrdom. You see this
aging, wrinkling body up here? That's sin. What you're looking
at is a body that's dying. I'm dying. And my body is just
going back to the earth. But Eve, she had no sin, and
He brought her to Adam, and Adam loved her. Beautiful! But what happened? Adam sinned
and fell, and God said, Adam, where are you? And he said, I
was hiding, I was afraid. And He said, what happened? And
you know what He did? He said, the woman you gave me.
The woman you gave me. He blamed her, and in blaming
her, he blamed God for his own sin. God didn't make him... God's never made any man sin.
The Scripture says God never tempted anyone with evil. God's
never tempted anyone to sin. God let Adam have his free will. And he chose to fall. He chose
rebellion. He chose rebellion. And the first
thing he did was turn on his wife. Husband and wife have been
fighting ever since. That woman that was perfect and
he loved her, he threw her under the bus and then blamed it on
God. That's that enmity, that natural
enmity that's in us by nature. It's there. But here's the answer, and let
me look at Isaiah verse 7 here, chapter 52. Let me point out
a few things here, and then we'll go. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings. He mentions feet
here because it represents action. The feet is what brings the man.
It carries the man, the body, to the place. This morning, I
walked over here. I walked over here to bring you
good news. I walked over here to bring you
good news. He says here, that publishes
peace, that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation,
that saith unto Zion, the church, thy God reigneth. First of all, who's this message
to? Who's this message published to? Who's it publishing it to?
It's to sinners. It's to sinners. It's not to
everyone. You know, the scripture says,
the Lord said in the gospel, come unto me all you that labor
and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. You say, but I'm not laboring,
I'm not heavy laden, you know, I don't, that's not, sin doesn't
bother me like that. Well, I'm not talking to you.
It's not talking to you. It's talking to those who are
laboring and heavy laden. And the gospel is for sinners.
I'm not that bad. I'm not talking to you. The gospel
is for sinners. It's for the ungodly. That's
who it's for. It's for those who own their
sinnerhood, if I can say it like that. It's for those who understand
what it is to be a sinner. It's for those who understand,
I sinned against God. David said, after committing
the sin with Bathsheba and having her husband murdered, he said,
"...against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil
in thy sight." A sinner is one who he or she owns their sins
and makes no excuse for it. When you quit making excuses,
for your sinfulness. And you say, I'm guilty. You
own your guilt before God. Now that's, the gospel's for
you. It's for you. And if you say,
well, I'm not that bad. I know people worse than me.
Well, it's, I'm not talking to you. The gospel is not for you. It's for sinners. Christ died
for sinners. He died for the ungodly. You
say, it doesn't describe me. Well, there's some here that
it does describe. It's for me, it's for me for
sure, and for some of you who believe. You know it, you understand
it. You understand when the scripture
says, there's none good, no, not one. You understand that
in the light of God, in the light of God's holiness, in the light
of God's goodness, in the light of God's perfection. Now, if
you and I compare ourselves with one another, I mean, I don't
know who's good and who's not. You know, it's like, you know,
there are some people who'll make something, if it works,
it's fine. They'll say, well, that's good, and it's good enough. That's
good enough. You see, with you and me, it's good enough. With
God, good is perfection. It's perfection. And I can't
obtain that in this flesh, but I know one who did. Jesus Christ,
God in the flesh. That's who Jesus Christ is. He
is the almighty God, the one who in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. That is Jesus Christ. That is
God in human flesh. He came into the world. He came
into the world. He is the one who is our peace. He's the one who's our peace. It says here that publishes peace.
Peace, what are you talking about? Peace with God. There's real
peace with God. I have been reconciled to God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, through His death, through His
blood, I've been reconciled. Listen to this, Colossians 1,
19 and 20. For it pleased the Father that
in Christ should all fullness dwell, and having made peace,
through the blood of His cross to reconcile all things to Himself.
I say whether they be things in heaven or things in earth.
My peace with God, now listen, you and I know this. You who
believe and you've been taught, you know this. I did not make
peace with God. Make your peace with God. You
can't. You don't even know where to start. You have no idea. We have no idea where to start.
My peace with God is a person. Jesus Christ is my peace with
God. Listen to Ephesians 2.14. For
He, Jesus Christ, is our peace. Who hath made both one and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition between us. But He's
our peace. He's our peace. He is the only one who could
render unto God what the law of God demanded, what justice
demanded. He's the only one who could give
it because He's God. God in human flesh, representing
me, God in human flesh honoring His own law, God in human flesh
suffering the penalty, that was against me. There was a curse
on me. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. God came into this world, took
upon Him flesh and died the death that was against me. Only God
can do that. Only God can take my guilt. You
know, I can't go into a courtroom having, so let's say, let's say
Jeremy committed murder. Let's say he committed murder.
I go into the courtroom and I take his place. I stand in his place
and they execute me. Justice has not been satisfied.
You know why? Because the guilt has not really
been dealt with, the guilty person. The guilty person hasn't been
dealt with. Here's, only God can do this. Only God can do
this. He took my guilt and made it
His. He made it His. The Scripture
says, He was made to be sin for us. Sin is what I am. He was made to be what I am.
And standing in my place as me, He took the penalty of His own
law against Himself. And now justice is satisfied
because the justice of God, as far as the justice of God is
concerned, the law of God's concerned, listen now, I died. I actually
died in Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. And God is satisfied. The law is satisfied and I can
go free. And God sees no sin in me because
he's already dealt with it and put it away. Peace. And now there's peace. Now the
gospel comes and he's declared peace. Peace with God. And then
the second thing mentioned here is salvation. There is real salvation
from sin. Now today's preaching has salvation
from hell. Hell has nothing to do with it.
Hell has nothing to do with my salvation. God's not saving me
from hell, He's saving me from my sins, the thing that kept
me from Him. The scripture says, your sins
have separated you from God. That's what He saved me from.
Now He has saved me from the wrath against my sins, but it's
my sins that He saved me from. The very thing that separated
me from God, God has Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ,
removed that sin issue. It's gone. I'm reconciled to
God. I can now have fellowship with
God. God can have fellowship with me as a sinner in Christ. That's where we meet. I can meet
God in Christ, and God can meet me in Christ, in that man, Jesus
Christ, my representative. We know what representatives
are. We have them in Congress. We have them in the Senate. We
have representatives. I've never got a phone call from
the congressman saying, how do you think I ought to vote? He'd
be so confused if he called all of us and we told him how he
ought to vote. He'd be in a mess. But here's
what we did do. We elected him to go up there
and represent us. And he's supposed to represent.
Now, we didn't elect Jesus Christ, but I'll tell you who did. God
did. God said in Isaiah 42, behold,
mine elect, my servant. God chose him before the foundation
of the world to be our representative. Adam represented the whole human
race. Jesus Christ represents the whole heavenly race. He's
our representative. We are represented, really, in
two people. Either Adam, the first Adam,
or the second Adam. That's who we're represented in. But there's
real salvation from sin. Listen in 1 Peter 2.24. Because
I want to read the Word of God to you. I don't want you to just
take my Word for it. Take God's Word for it. who his
own self bare our sins, he took them in his own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness by whose
stripes we were healed." 2 Timothy 1.9, who has saved us? Salvation is real. Salvation
from sin, from wrath is real. Salvation from sin, salvation
from the curse of the law, salvation from the power of Satan, salvation
from this old sin nature that I was born with is very, very
real. It's very real. That's the good
news. And it's had in Jesus Christ. And then last of all, last of
all, Here's the good news. The good news, there's peace
with God, salvation is real, but all of this, all of this
is made possible because thy God reigneth. Thy God reigneth. By the sovereignty of our God.
I love the sovereignty of God. It's the first thing that scared
me to death when I heard the gospel. The first thing, when
I heard the gospel in power, when I was about 23 years of
age, the first thing that stood out to me and scared me, I mean,
this is where the scripture says that the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom. And that's the first time I began
to have wisdom. I understand that God did not have to save
me. God is sovereign. He does as He will, with whom
He will, when He will, This is all His. The earth is the Lord's,
the fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein is what Psalm
24 one says. This is all His. And I realized
He could leave me alone and be a just God. He can save me to
the praise and glory of His grace or damn me to the praise and
glory of His justice, but God's gonna be glorified. And that
scared me. That's the first time in my life
I ever had a real genuine fear of God. But now, 40 some years later,
I love the fact that God reigns and God is sovereign. None can
say unto Him, what are you doing? None can stop Him or say to Him,
what are you doing? If God's purpose is to save me,
He's going to save me and nothing's going to stop Him. Not even me. Not even me. I can't even stop
Him. Thy God reigneth." Oh, this is
a note to rejoice for the church. Our God right now reigns over
all, doesn't He? Jesus Christ said in John 17,
Father, You have given me power over all flesh that I should
give eternal life to as many as Thou has given me. You've
given me power. He has power over everyone in
this room, everyone on this earth. And nobody's not under his power.
Why do you think Rocket Man hasn't pushed the button and sent off
those nuclear weapons over in North Korea? Why? Why do you
think? You think because he's intelligent?
No, it's because God didn't let him. God has not allowed that
to happen. If God allowed it, the human race would annihilate
itself. That's how dumb we are. By nature, really. We would have
already destroyed ourselves. But God Almighty has not allowed
it to happen. Because He has a people on this
earth. He has a church on this earth. And He's not going to allow it.
He's sovereign. He has power over all. And this
is the best news a sinner can hear. Thy God reigneth, it says
in Psalm 97.1. Let the earth rejoice. Why? The Lord reigneth. We would have
destroyed this earth. It quit producing a long time
ago. if the Lord didn't rain? You know why the seasons come
about every year? Do you know why it rains when
it rains? He said to Job, do you understand
the treasure of the snow? Can you enter into the treasure
of the snow? You and I don't even know what's in it. We don't
know the real treasure that's in it. Who invented the sprinkler
system like God? picks it up from the ocean, pulls
it in the form of a cloud, then there's an ocean that actually
floats over our head. That rain that comes down, it
just gently comes down. You know why? Because the Lord
raineth. The Lord raineth. They talk about the ozone going
to be messed up and all this atmospheric climate control,
the heat stuff. They're crazy. It belongs to
God. Really. It belongs to God. Our God is in control. When all the knuckleheads have
died, He'll still be in control. He'll still be in control. When
you and I grow old and we die, if we even get to grow old, but
when we die, God will still be around. It's His earth. He'll
still be taking care of it. And of course, man, he'll still
be trying to make money off of it and fool everybody, but no,
God's still in control. Our God reigneth, and our God is Jesus Christ. And what one of the disciples
said, my Lord and my God, when he looked at the Lord. Thy God reigneth. And listen,
I never have to worry about sin. again. Why did God let sin happen? I don't know, but I do know one
thing. It's never going to happen again. I know He put it away. This thing, you know, the scripture
speaks of the mystery of iniquity is already at work. It's a mystery. It's not to God, but it is to
me. But I do know this. God has dealt with this matter
of sin once and for all, and it'll never exist again. When
God creates that new earth, and there's going to be one just
like this one. I believe that just as sure as I stand here.
When He folds this one up and does away with it, and there's
a new earth, sin will never exist again. The possibility of falling
will never exist again. It'll never happen again. He's
dealt with it. He's put it away. He's put it
away. And he put it away, how? By himself. By himself. He put it away. He has purged us from our iniquities
by himself. There'll be no more disobedience.
He can't. There'll be no more sin, no more
death, no more sorrow. That's what it says in Revelation.
No more tears, no more crying, no more pain. All that sin brought,
it'll be wiped away. It'll be gone. No wrath. And the reason why is because
my salvation, the salvation of all God's people is complete
in Jesus Christ. It's complete. Now listen, this
is important. It's completely dependent on
Jesus Christ. Salvation is not dependent upon
me. It's not dependent upon Christ doing His part and now me doing
my part. It's Christ doing all of it for me and saving me by
His grace. And God working in me and conforming
me to the image of His Son. That's salvation. That's salvation. Now do you believe this? Do you
believe this? There's some of you here that
believe it. I believe it. Thank God. Thank God. And I don't say, I believe it,
why don't you? Because I believe it by grace.
I believe it by grace. Because there's a time I didn't
believe it, didn't want to believe it. Didn't give a flip for God. But I believe. God knows my heart. Like that one man said, Lord,
I believe. Help thou my unbelief. But I
do believe. I do believe. Scripture says, in Isaiah 53
one, who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Who has believed this message of grace? And to
whom is Christ revealed? Has God revealed Christ to you? Isn't this good news? I mean, I would hate to have
to come here every week and tell you bad news. Wouldn't that be
bad? That'd be a terrible job. I'd
be like, I'd rather clean sewers than do that. Come here every
week and tell you bad news? I have good news for sinners,
not for everybody. For sinners. Christ died for
sinners. That makes this one happy. All
right.