Mornin' everybody. It's good
to see y'all again. I was excited to come back here. Thankful y'all asked me. Turn
if your text you would to Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6. We're going to look at the first
three verses. It's going to be a Bible study this morning. Hebrews chapter 6 and pick up
in verse 1. Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and
of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on
of hands, and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. And this will we do if God permitted. Now, the majority of the message
this morning I want to spend actually examining these six
foundational principles of the doctrine of Christ. That's what
I want to look at this morning. But before we go on to those,
we need to understand the context that the writer of the Hebrews
is saying these things. So what does he mean when he says, leaving
the principles? Now what are these principles?
These principles are the foundational truths of Christ, of the Gospel. Now, let's say a man is going
to set out to write a book, right? Does he come out of his mother's
room and just start writing a book right off the bat? Say, no, of
course he doesn't. He's got to grow up. He's got
to first learn the alphabet. He's got to learn the ABCs. And
before he can ever write a paper, before he can ever write a word
or a page, he has to know those ABCs like the back of his hand
where he doesn't even have to think about them. And these are
those foundational principles of the doctrine of Christ. They
are the ABCs of the gospel. Now when the writer says, leaving
the principles, what does he mean? Does he mean, well, once
you get all that down, we're just going to leave that alone.
We're not going to talk about that anymore. Well, no. Are we ever going to stop
talking about repentance from dead words? Are we ever going
to stop talking about faith? No, these principles, these six
foundational principles of the doctrine of Christ, they're going
to be in every gospel message. The message isn't preached, the
gospel isn't preached unless they're there, sometimes more subtly
than others, but they're there. Now what does he mean? He says,
leaving the principles, what he's saying is leave them alone.
The issue of the Hebrews wasn't that they just clung too tightly
to these foundational principles, the issue was that they weren't
grounded and settled in them. They were squabbling over them.
They always had to go back to the foundational principles and
they couldn't go on. They couldn't build the superstructure. They
couldn't move on from there. They were immature. They were
spiritually immature. That's what that word perfection
means. When he said let us go on to perfection, he's not talking
about getting more holy or anything like that. What he means is we're
going to go on to maturity. We're going to build a house.
But you have to start with a strong foundation. And you can't keep
on digging up the foundation. Once the foundation is laid,
leave it alone. Be grounded and settled in these things. And
let's move on. Let's build. Let's build a house. Let's move
on. Let me show you that. This verse of scripture in verse
1 here, it begins with the word therefore. So what does that
mean? It means we've got to go back to find out what is therefore.
What he's talking about. So go back to Hebrews 5 and look
at verse 12. For when for the time ye ought
to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which
be the first principles of the oracles of God. He's speaking
the Hebrews. And I'll become such as have need of milk and
not strong meat. For everyone that useth milk
is unskillful in the word of righteousness. That's the gospel.
It's the word of righteousness. It tells how an unrighteous man
like me can be righteous before a holy God. That's the gospel
right there. For he is a babe. He's a child. He's an infant.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even
those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern
both good and evil." They can rightly discern the Word. They
can discern truth from error. Gospel from a false gospel. They
can rightfully discern. Now, we're thankful for babies,
aren't we? We love our babies, don't we?
But we don't want them to stay babies. You want to have a baby. You take care of your baby, you
love that baby, but you want them to grow up. And you don't want
to have to feed them formula for the rest of your life. You
want them to grow up so they eat the same strong meat as the
rest of the family, right? So what is this strong meat?
What's the strong meat of the gospel? I'll give you one example. One example. A verse of scripture
that is used by false religion is twisted around and can be
confounding to people. I'll give you this one. James
2.20. It says, But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith
without works is dead? Somebody says, I thought we were
saved by grace. What do you mean faith without works is dead?
It's a very simple statement. All it's saying is, if the Lord
has done something for a man, if the Lord has saved a man,
he's given that man saving faith, it's going to bleed out on him.
That's it. Love always accompanies action. Love always acts. And if the
Lord saves a man, he's going to take some action. So what
kind of action is he going to take? He's going to get himself
under the sound of the gospel. And he's going to get himself
under the sound of the gospel. He won't be able to do without it.
He's going to pitch his tent. He's going to make his camp with
the Lord's people. Sheep are only comfortable in a herd. A
sheep out by himself will do no good. He's unprotected. He's
only comfortable in a herd. Man won't tolerate a false gospel.
And he's not going to make exceptions for any man who believes a false
gospel. Well, Uncle Joe, he's just a little confused about
his doctrine, but he's saved. No. He's either looking to Christ
alone, or he's an arrogant. And that's it. He's going to
take some action. That's all that means. The Lord saved a
man. He's going to bleed out on him. That's it. But if a man
is not grounded and settled in this foundational truth that
salvation is completely and utterly by sovereign grace alone and
has nothing to do with the man works, that meat's too strong.
He can't eat that. And he has to go back to the
milk of the Word. Now, before we get into these six principles
of the doctrine of Christ, I want to address how the writer of
the Hebrews refers to them. He calls them the doctrine of Christ. And I want to ask you all something,
for me. God forbid that I preach to you
today a set of doctrines. Just simple truths, and I fail
to preach the man, Christ Jesus. These are the doctrine of Christ.
And I hope that the Lord would allow us to view these principles
in the light of who Christ is. I don't want us just to see a
set of facts today. I want to point you to a man,
Christ Jesus. I pray you remember us as we're
going through this. Now, what's the first thing that's
said here? The first one is repentance from dead works. What is the
world's definition of repentance? If you go to the average religious
person, what do they say repentance is? So repentance is when you
feel really bad about your sin, and you promise never to do it
again, and the depth of your sincerity is seen in whether
you commit that sin again. Right? If you commit that sin
again, well, you weren't genuine in your repentance. Well, if
that is repentance, then you and I got a big problem, don't
we? Because when have we ever stopped committing a sin in our
heart? Now, a man may make attempts
to clean up the outside of the cup. Let's say a man is engaged in
an adulterous relationship, right? He's cheating on his wife. And
he sees that, well, this is destroying my family. It's tearing my children
apart. He recognizes it's destroying
his life. And he's like, I'm going to stop doing that. And he cleans
up the outside of the cup. And he stops doing that. But when does
that man ever stop lusting in his heart? When do I ever stop
lusting in my heart? Never. He can try his best to
clean up the outside of the cup. But the inside of the cup is
still black. It's still dark. It's still evil.
That's it. So what is repentance? What does
it mean? Chiefly two things. It's a turning and it's a change
of mind. I'm going to give you a scripture
here. Look at Jeremiah 31 and look at verse 18. I'll show you
where I'm out of. Preaching the gospel is a lot
like math. You can come to the right answer
but you've got to show your work along the way too. Jeremiah 31, pick up in verse
18. What's repentance? It's a turning and a change of
mind. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning
himself thus. This is what he's saying. Thou
hast chastised me, and I was chastised. As a bullock unaccustomed
to the yoke, turn thou me, and I shall be turned. For thou art
the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned,
I repented. And after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh.
I was ashamed, yet even confounded, because I did bear the reproach
of my youth. Now, first question, when were
they turned? Turn thou me, and I'll be turned. They won't turn until the Lord
turn them. What's the point there? A man does not bring himself
to a repentance state. A man doesn't make a decision
to repent. A man does not repent of his own free will. A man must
be brought to repentance. This is the work of the Lord.
The Lord must turn you. And when you're turned, you're
simultaneously turning from something towards something. It is happening
at the same time. Now when the Lord turns a man, who is he turning
towards? He's turning towards the Lord
Jesus Christ. In all His beauty, in all His saving power, in all
His sovereignty, in His shed blood, He's turning towards Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to this man. Now, who is He turning
away from? He's turning away from Himself. Particularly, His
dead works. Now, let's address this. What
is a dead work? It is any work that cannot produce
life. And that is our works before
God. They cannot produce life. Why? Because they come from a
dead man. Dead in trespasses and sins. Now let me give you
an example here. Let's say that someone brought
in a dead body with them this morning. I have no idea why you'd
do that, but let's say for example you did. And they laid it right
there on the floor. And so it just starts permeating
the air. So somebody says, you may have heard this question
asked before, what can a dead man do? Right? You all have heard that
illustration probably over a hundred times. Somebody says, I know
that one. He can do nothing. True. True. But there's also
a sense he can do something. Here's what he can do. He can
rot. He can decay. And he can fill this place with
an obnoxious odor. That's what he can do. That's
what he can do. And that's how it works before the Lord. They
have an obnoxious over their stinking. They're dead. They're
decaying man says you know when I was saved I was saved when
as an act of my own free will I chose to accept Jesus Christ
as my personal Savior that is obnoxious To God it has a foul
smell. That's a dead work, and it will
not produce life The man says, well, here's what happens. After
the Lord saves you, what you do is your works make you more
holy. You can keep on getting more holy. Progressive sanctification,
that's obnoxious to God. Takes away from the completeness
of the work of the Lord. It's obnoxious to God. That's
a dead work. Fill in the blank here. God will save you if you
fill in the blank. Whatever you fill in that blank
with, that is an obnoxious, dead work. And it will not produce
life. Now, when a man is turned, then
what happens? Well, in Jeremiah 31, verse 19,
he says, Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after
that I was instructed. He repented and he was instructed.
In short, he had his mind changed. Now we have to start here. The
natural man, the way you and I are born into this world, we
are born with wrong thoughts concerning who the Lord is and
wrong thoughts concerning who we are. Now I'll give you some
examples here. So some of you came out of false
religion, right? There was probably a time when
you believed the Lord wasn't sovereign. He believed God could
love a man. Jesus Christ could come in time
and die for that man. But unless that man did his part, that man
ended up in hell anyways. God wanted to save him. He tried,
but he just couldn't. That man didn't do his part,
so he ended up in hell anyways. What about now? You've changed
your mind. Or rather, you've had your mind
changed. Now you know if God loves a man, and if Christ died
for that man, that man cannot perish. Because the love of God
is not without effect. You repent of that, don't you?
You've had your mind changed. There's probably a time along the way
you believed you could produce a good work. That you did produce
good works. Or, at the very least, if my
circumstances were changed just right, then I could produce a
good work. If I got out of this circumstance and got over here
and if I, you know, stopped doing this and maybe cleaned up my
act here, then I'd be capable of doing a good work, right?
You repent of that, don't you? You've had your mind changed.
You see that sin isn't a behavioral problem. It's a nature problem.
It's a heart problem. It's about 18 inches from where
we think it is. We think it's somewhere up here by nature.
It's about 18 inches down. It's right here, right in the
heart. It's a dark heart. It's an evil heart. And nothing
good can come from us because of who and what we are by nature.
We're sinners. Nothing more. What about this? Maybe you grew
up in a gospel church. You heard nothing but the truth
your entire life, but the truth fell on deaf ears. Everything
you heard, yeah, it's fine. Nice set of doctrines, they don't
mean anything to me. I got a life to lead. I got places
to go, people to see. I have no need of a savior. And
one day, the Lord turns the lights on. And all those doctrines,
one day they became a man. A man, a doctrine Jesus Christ. And you had to get to that man,
no matter what, because he was your only hope. You saw that
you were in trouble. And before that man was boring,
And he was theoretical, and he was simple. But then you saw
who he was. He was revealed to you. He's the King of Kings.
He's the Lord of Lords. He's the mighty God. He is the
one you are ultimately accountable to. Had your mind changed, didn't
you? Repentance from dead works. What's
the next thing that's mentioned faith toward God? Now if repentance
is one side of the coin Faith is the other side faith and repentance
can never be separated. They always come together. What
is faith? The writers of the Hebrew, to
the Hebrews here, he addresses the Hebrews as babes. Right?
Babies. But he does it in a negative
sense. He's saying you're immature, you're spiritually immature.
But concerning faith, being a baby, being a child, being an infant,
is a good thing. I want to show you this. Turn
to Mark 10. Look at verse 13. In faith, being a child, being
an infant, is a good place to be. Mark 10, look at verse 13. And they brought young children
to him, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he should
touch them. And he and his disciples rebuked
those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was
much displeased and said unto them, suffer the little children
to come unto me. And forbid them not, for of such
is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, He
shall not enter therein. Let me ask you a few questions.
Can a baby provide for himself at all? Can he provide anything
for himself? Can he feed himself? Can he clothe
himself? Can he change his own diaper?
Can he care for himself in any way? Say no. A baby is completely
and utterly dependent on his mother to do everything for him.
Let me ask you this. Is anything expected of a baby?
No, you don't expect anything from a baby. He's an infant.
There's nothing he can do. He is absolutely and utterly
dependent. Let me ask you this. Does a baby ever ponder whether
his mom is able to take care of him or not? Does the infant
ever sit there and be like, well, I wonder if she can change my
diaper? No! He just trusts and relies. His
mother's going to take care of him. He's going to provide everything
he needs. And this is our condition in
faith. We're children. We are absolutely and utterly
helpless. And we are completely and utterly
dependent on the Lord to do everything for us. Everything I need. Righteousness,
He's got to provide it. Sin atonement, He's got to provide
it. Holiness before God, He's got to provide it. Everything
that's required of me, He has to provide for me because I'm
a baby. I'm an infant. And there's nothing I can do
for myself. You know what? That's the best place you could
possibly be. Just sitting there, leaning, clinging on and trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ alone like a child would cling to his mother
when he's scared. Any children here? Any babies?
I'm a baby. I'm a baby in faith. Next thing is talking about the
doctrine of baptisms. Now notice the word baptisms,
it's plural, so there's a couple things we have to consider here.
First baptism is water baptism, the believer's public confession
of faith in Jesus Christ alone. The next one is the baptism of
the Holy Spirit, two baptisms spoken of in the scriptures. What is the doctrine of Christ
concerning baptisms? Because we're not just going
to talk about the fact that believers baptism is a thing. And we're
not just going to talk about the fact that baptism of the
Holy Spirit is a thing. What's the doctrine of Christ
concerning this? What's the point? What's the
meaning here? Here's what I want you to do, okay? Baptisms. The doctrine of baptisms deals
with union with Christ. The believer's union with Christ.
That's the point. Well, I want to show you how
we got there. And I want to show you an illustration from the
scripture. So I want you to turn to two scriptures. I want you to get
the first one and then we'll turn to the next one. I want
to read them back to back. The first one is Galatians 3 and look at
verse 27. Once you get to Galatians 3,
turn over to Colossians 1. Look at verse 18. I want you
to hold Galatians 3 and flip over to Colossians 1. Galatians 3 verse 27. Union with
Christ for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ
Have put on Christ. There is not neither Jew nor
Greek. There is neither bond nor free There is neither male
nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus You have been
baptized into Christ. You are all one in Christ Jesus
You are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ every member of
the elect is but how real is that union? How real is this?
Is this just some theoretical union? How real is that union?
Let's look at the example. Look over in Colossians 1. Look
at verse 18. And He, speaking of Christ, is
the head of the body. See that? The head of the body.
The Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence. What a powerful
image. How real is our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ? The union of His Church, His
people, His elect, with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is more real
than your union right now between your head and your body. And
I say more real, because in a physical sense, your head could be removed
from your body. You could actually be decapitated. It is impossible
to separate the Lord Jesus Christ from His people. He is the head,
and we are the body. Now, keep that illustration in
mind, and we're going to talk about water baptism. Now, water
baptism is the believer's public confession of faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. Does baptism save? Absolutely
not. But if you are a believer, if you trust Christ alone, you
are commanded to be baptized. You should be baptized. And what
are you waiting for? You should be. The point is what it represents
when we stand above the water what we're confessing is when
he lived When he lived that perfect life when he worked out that
perfect righteousness That righteousness really is mine when he lived
I lived I was in a union with him now Let me ask you this question
think about the body in the head Is it possible for the head to
be righteous and the elbow to be unrighteous? I? Say, no, there's
no possible way. If the head is righteous, the
elbow must be righteous as well. It's all part of the same body.
But what about this? Can the head go, if the body
is whole, can the head go anywhere that the elbow does not follow?
Say, no. If the head goes, the elbow's
got to go right along with him. When he walked the paths of righteousness,
when he lived that perfect life, and he walked out that perfect
righteousness, we were in him so much so we were part of his
body. In a typical sense. And so, when He walked the paths
of righteousness, we walk the paths of righteousness in Him.
His righteousness really is our righteousness. It really is ours
because we are in Him. We are in eternal union with
Him. Now, when we go under the water,
We're saying when he died, that's when I died. My sins became his
sins. He bore me. He bore my sins in
his body on the tree. And when he died, that's when
I died. That's when my sins were punished.
They were punished in him. When he died, I died. And when
he was raised from the dead, when we come out of the water,
we're confessing when he was raised from the dead, completely
justified. Completely having satisfied this
father, we're raised to in him, completely and utterly justified.
and completely pleasing to the Father. All our hope is found
in union with Christ. Water baptism, the first one
that's spoken of. The second one is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Now what does that mean? What's that all about? I can
tell you what I know, okay? It has something to do with regeneration,
the giving of a new man, but it's in reference to union with
Christ. Now, If the Father loves a man
and He elects that man before time began, if the Lord Jesus
Christ comes in time and He dies for that man, then in that man's,
the course of his lifetime, at the Lord's appointed time, He
sends the Spirit to blow upon a man. He gives that man new
life. He regenerates him. But that
Spirit in the beginning is a withering Spirit. It's a withering Spirit.
It comes and it blows upon us and it burns on us like fire
and it tears down all our false refuges. All that hope we have
in our works, in our feelings, in our experiences, the Spirit
comes and He just trashes all of them. He says, nope, you can't
look at any of those. They're all dead. It's all dead works.
All dead. And He's left with this. He is
left with a consciousness that His only hope is that He is eternally
united to the Lord Jesus Christ. How real? So real that when the
Father looks at every member of the elect, He sees no one
but his son, Jesus Christ. That's a real union, and that's
our only hope. Is Jesus Christ completely and
utterly beautiful to his father right now? Completely pleasing,
he can have full communion, he loves him with all the love that
God has to love with. Is that true? Absolutely it is.
That means you, believer, you who are looking to Jesus Christ
alone right now, you are loved of God with that same love, because
you are in Christ. Now I'm speaking as a fool. I
don't understand this. I simply believe that that's what's taught
in this book. But it's a beautiful teaching. Now the next, the doctrine of
Christ concerning the laying on of hands. Now what is this?
What does this mean? We're going to look at a story
to illustrate this. Turn to Leviticus 16 and look
at verse 7. You all know the story pretty
well. This is the story of the scapegoat. Now the doctrine of the laying
on of hands, what is this all about? What's the point? What's
the doctrine of Christ concerning this? It is the transference
of guilt and it is the transference of righteousness. And it's seen
here in this thing of the scapegoat. So, on the Day of Atonement,
the high priest would do certain things. Pick up in verse 7, we're
going to see what he does. And he shall take the two goats
and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two
goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.
And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell
and offer him for a sin offering. What's the first thing we see
there? Where there's sin, there has to be death. No sin will
go unpunished. Someone has to die. This is a
very sobering thought. My sin, your sin, someone's going
to die for it. In fact, either someone has already
died for it or I'm going to die for it. One of the two. But sin
will not go unpunished. For the elect, our sins were
punished in the Lord Jesus Christ and he died. A man who's outside
of Christ, who does not believe on Christ, he bears his sin and
that man will die. But if there's sin, there's got
to be death. The justice of God has to be
satisfied. He is a just God, and he will
not let sin go unpunished. Now, look down at verse 10. But
the goat on which the lot fell to the scapegoat shall be presented
alive before the Lord to make an atonement with him and to
let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. Now pick up in
verse 20, same chapter. And when he hath made an end
of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle, the congregation,
and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. And Aaron shall
lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess
over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all
their transgressions, and all their sins, putting them upon
the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of
a fit man into the wilderness." Who is that fit man? That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. A fit man, a man who is incapable
of failure, a man who is absolutely capable, that is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Aaron would lay his hands, the high priest would lay his
hands on the head of that goat. And typically, all the sins of
the people and the iniquities of the people were put on that
goat. They were lifted off the people and put on that goat.
And a fit man would take that goat, and he would take him out
into the wilderness, and he would turn him loose. He was taken
to a land that is uninhabited, and that goat was seen no more.
What's the teaching there? On the cross, the Lord Jesus
Christ became the sins of his elect. He bore our sins in his
body on that tree. The Father lifted our sins off
of us and he put them in Christ. The transference of guilt, so
much so that he was guilty of my sins. How real is that transference
of guilt? It's so real that the Father
in all his justice killed him. That's how real it is. He lifted
them off of us and he put them in Christ. We also have the transference
of righteousness. Just as much as he lifted our
sins off of us and he put them in Christ and he punished them
in Christ, his righteousness really is ours. He is the head
and we are the body. And if the head is righteous,
the body must be righteous too. The transference of guilt and
the transference of righteousness, we must be grounded and settled
in the doctrine of the laying on of hands, the doctrine of
Christ. Now, the doctrine of the resurrection
of the dead. I'm going to try to be swift
here because I'm taking too much time. There's three resurrections we
need to speak of. The bodily resurrection of Jesus
Christ, the spiritual resurrection of the believer, the new man,
the new birth, and the resurrection, the physical resurrection of
every believer. Three things we have to deal with. The bodily
resurrection of Jesus Christ. What does that teach us? What
is the teaching there? What is the doctrine of Christ concerning
that? Well, here's what it is. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
raised from the dead, it was for one reason. It was because
God, the Father, was satisfied with what he did. You see, God
is just. That's a continuing theme through
this whole message. God is just. He is absolutely just. Whatever
He does is just, right, and fair, and it's simply because He does
it. You know why the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead?
Because it was just. Death could hold Him no more. It would have
been unjust. Why? Because the sin debt really had
been paid. Those sins that he lifted off
the elect and he put in Christ, he paid the debt. The wrath that
was reserved for you and me, it really was put away. And when
the Lord Jesus Christ was raised to the dead, it was the sign,
the symbol, I accept the sacrifice. The sins really have been put
away. It is finished. You tell me there's nothing left
to do? There's no works left to perform? That's exactly what
I'm telling you to do. It's finished. He's resurrected and we're resurrected
in Him. We have the new birth. This is the Lord giving a man
new life. resurrecting him, giving him
a new man. Now, like we said before, we
have to start here. We're born in this world dead
in trespasses and sins, right? Born with all the physical abilities
or the spiritual abilities of a dead man. We just can't. We're
unable. We can do exactly what a dead man can do. We can be
obnoxious. We can stink. We can rot. But
outside of that, that's it. That's what we can do. But when
the Lord gives a man life, he has the abilities of a man who
is alive. He can see. He can see the Lord
Jesus Christ. He can see who he is and what
he has done. And he can see how an unjust
man like me can be just before a holy God in Christ. He can
see that. He can hear. He can hear the
gospel in power. Before, maybe he had a logical
understanding, maybe it was just doctrine to him. But no, now
he hears and it touches his heart, it pricks him in his heart. He
hears in power and it's good news to him. The gospel is good
news and news is relative, right? What would be good news to somebody
is maybe bad news to another person. Well, I'll tell you what. What group of people is the gospel
good news to? Sinners. People who are ungodly. People who are unable. Sovereign
grace is good news to a sinner that has nothing to do with you
and has everything to do with Christ. That's good news to a sinner.
You know what's bad news to a man who wants to be justified by
his own works? Shame my works don't count for nothing? That
are all just dead works? I won't have anything to do with
that. That's bad news to me. But you can hear now, can't you?
And it's good news. Good news. This man received the centers.
That's good news to me. He can love. He can love. He
actually loves God. Not the God of his imagination,
not the feeble God that's been made up in fairy tales. He actually
loves the sovereign God of the Bible, the one who chooses, the
one who rules and reigns, the one who is absolutely holy. He
loves that God and he loves his people. He loves his people.
Because we're all united too. We're all part of the same body.
Y'all know that? Always been together, me and you. It's an
amazing thought. And he can believe. He couldn't
before. He couldn't come to Christ. He
had no faith. When man is brought to life,
he comes. He comes into the feet of the
Lord Jesus Christ and simply trusts and rests in Him. Physical
resurrection. If the Lord doesn't come back
first, what's going to happen to us? I'm gonna die, right? Maybe it could be this afternoon,
maybe it's gonna be in five minutes, who knows? Maybe it'll be in
40 years from now. We're all gonna die though, right? The
Lord doesn't come back first. But what's gonna happen? There's
going to be a day, final day when the Trump's gonna sound,
and we're gonna be resurrected. We're actually gonna be brought
back to life, but not the way we are now. Right now we deal
with the sinful lust of this flesh, we deal with the evil
imaginations that cross this heart, and it's such a burden
to us, isn't it? I'm tired of it. I am. I look forward to putting
it down. But I tell you what, when we're
resurrected, it'll be in the express image of Jesus Christ,
our Savior. We will be just like Him. We
won't even know what it's like to be a sinner anymore. We won't
even have an experience of it. We'll be just like Him. Now what's
the point there? What's the doctrine of Christ
concerning that? Whatever you're going through, Doesn't that give
you some hope and some confidence and patience? The end of this
road, we know our end. We're gonna be just like him. We are right now. I recognize
that, but that is not our experience right now. Our experience right
now is we're sinners. But we're gonna have an experience of being
just like him one day. I look forward to that. Last point is eternal judgment.
Eternal judgment, the doctrine of Christ concerning eternal
judgment. God is the judge of the world. He's the judge of
the just and the unjust. Now this terrifies me and hopefully
will give me the appropriate reverence when I deal with this
subject. There is a place called hell. It's not mythical. It's not fiction. There is a
place called Hell. And everyone who does not believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ alone is going to go there. That is a real place.
And that's what's going to happen to them. And here's the point. God is just. He is just. He is right. And He is fair.
And if a man does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, if a man does
not trust Christ alone, then he is getting exactly what he
deserves. And if the Lord would have left
you and I to ourselves, and that happened to us, we would be getting
exactly what we deserve. He's absolutely just. But he
is not just just in condemnation, he's just in salvation. What
do I mean by that? When we stand before God, he's
gonna say, well done, my good and faithful servant. Anybody
here feel good or faithful? No, we sure don't. But I tell
you this, we are, because we're united to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our salvation must be because God is just, and the sin that
has been paid, and we are in Christ. And he is absolutely
holy, and he is absolutely righteous, and we are holy, and righteous,
and perfect, and in him. It is only just. that we be saved. I wouldn't dare say that unless
that was the teaching of this book. But because of our union
with Him, that's what's just. And that judgment is eternal.
It never had a beginning, and it never had an end. What's the
point there? The man needs grace. He has a
need to be saved by sovereign grace alone. He needs it to be
eternal. In a sense, I need God to have
loved me and thought of me before I ever had any thought towards
him and before I ever loved him. It must be an eternal judgment
one outside my own experience that never had a beginning and
will never have an end I can't mess it up because if I could
there's a chance I can mess it up. I would but I can't it has
always been The last or the third verse of
Hebrews 6 you don't have to turn there I'm gonna save the time
The last thing the writer of the Hebrews says, and this we
will do if God permit. Now I get kind of excited about
this because if we are grounded and settled in these foundational
principles of the doctrine of Christ, you know what we're going
to do? We're going to move on to maturity. And I want to grow
up. I want to grow in grace. I want to grow in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to grow up. And he says,
grounded and settled if God permit. And that's my prayer for us this
morning, that we would be ground and settled in these principles
of the doctrine of Christ, that we would move on to maturity.
I'm gonna get down now. Thank you all very much.