Let's take our Bibles, please, and turn to the book of Ephesians. This is a continuation of what
we were on last Sunday. Our reading for last Sunday was
like the first chapter of Ephesians, and our first reading this morning
will be in Ephesians chapter 2. So this is sort of like a
home base, but there might be two or three of those, but if
you can mark it, I got so many markers now, I have trouble figuring
out which one is which, and I'm probably worse off for it, but
that's how it has to be for now. I don't remember how long it's
been, I think the last time I preached
at Greg Elmquist in Florida was something like 2008, if I remember
right. And I preached some of these
same statements in Scripture at that conference as I did prior
to that time when I preached it here. I don't see any sense
if a message is is worth very much, you know, preach it wherever
you get to preach. And if they've heard it one time,
it won't hurt them to hear it again. And when you get as old
as I am, at least mentally old, you'll understand that you forget
a lot of things. And I hope it doesn't ever start
with you, and maybe you can make it all the way to 90 without
it. We take whatever the Lord gives
us and trust Him, rejoice in Him, worship Him. Alright, before we read this
statement, Oh, I don't know if this title is going to make it
past Miss Betty, but she's already pretty well written it down.
It's the Gospel Cure for the Disease of Phariseeism. And there's more Pharisees today
in all the religion of this world than there's ever been. That's
true of Baptists, and Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Pentecostals,
and everything else from the Jewish religion, just as corrupt
as it was when Christ was here in the flesh, and a dozen others
that I don't want to spend time on just mentioning. You can figure
it out for yourself. The gospel of God's grace is
the only cure for every sin. The only one. Oh, but this is
a little sin. There ain't no such thing. Sin
is against God. That has something to do with
the awfulness of it. It's against God. David certainly
said that in Psalm 51. when he killed Bathsheba's husband
so he could take her to wife? He said against one of his statements
in Psalm, I don't remember the chapter,
but 4161, which is it, Craig? You're supposed to know that.
I done forgot it. Okay? Anyway, I'll give you the quote
if I can remember it now I took it off my tongue. Against you
speaking to God, against God and God only, have I sinned and
done this awful deed. Sin is first and foremost against
God. Now let's see what Ephesians
chapter 2 has to say. My Bible heads this, the method
of Gentile salvation. Gentile. It is the message of
salvation, no matter what race or color we are of. It's one
and the same. Sin is the same. The gospel is
the same. God is the same. Ephesians 2, beginning at verse
1, Paul is writing to the Ephesian church. And you has God quickened,
that is made spiritually alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sins, whomever God saves. When He saves them, He saves
them out of this dead in trespasses and sins. Not dead physically. Dead toward God. Dead spiritually. That's where it is. We're dead in trespasses and
sins. Now some of those people were
as moral as people can possibly live in this world. But their sin is of a different
nature of those that, you know, you find at the clubs and the
bars and all this other stuff. And there's all kind of roads
in between that. We're apt to be heard to say
these words. Well, I might do that, but I've
never done this. you know, making us look better
in our own eyes, but that ain't where it is. Dead in trespasses and in sins,
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prints of the
power of the air, That's camouflage for the devil. We're his servants
and his slaves until God redeems us and delivers us. According to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children
of disobedience. And it doesn't matter if their
mother and their father and their uncle and their grandfather and
their grandmother are all wonderful people and were well respected
where they lived on this globe. And the church that they went
to think they're the most perfect people they've ever heard of.
And yet without Christ, They're in worse shape than a great many
people that actually do things that they regret. And God meets
them on that account. Among whom also, the reason He
says what He said is to tell these Ephesian believers and
to tell us among whom also we all had our conversation, I prefer,
or manner of life, in time past, in the lust of our flesh." Now, it's one thing to lust in
an evil sense, but I don't know if it's as great as lusting for
things that you want to have so people will bow to you and
listen to you and make you sound like somebody. I don't know that one is worse
than the other. One's in the gutter and one's high and lifted
up. Fulfilling the desires of the
flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
just like everybody else. Everybody else, no exceptions.
Christ is the only person who has worn human flesh without
sin. And then, when he went to the
tree, all the sins of all of his people of all time were put
on Him, and He put sin away. Verse 4, but God. Some people say, you have to
take the first step and God will take the second. But this says,
but God. It doesn't have anything in front
of the but. And it certainly does not imply that you and I
can catch God's eye. God who is rich in mercy for
His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in
sin. Well, how do you know if you're dead
in sin? One of the best ways to find out is to ask yourself
if you have ever been dead in sin. Because if you say no, then
that means you still are. Does that make sense? Even when we were dead in sins,
God has quickened us together with Christ By grace you are
saved. It isn't grace plus anything. It is grace alone. And has raised, verse 6, and
has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And there's a ton of people that
you know and I know who claim to have got faith on their own. And that's why God saved them.
That ain't what this says. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that, not of yourselves. That faith is not of your own
making. It is the gift of God. Now listen carefully. He doesn't give this gift to
everybody. Somebody will stand up and say,
well, that ain't fair. Well, God can do as He pleases,
can't He? We're stupid if we think we can
get Him to do something He doesn't want to do. That's ridiculous. It is the gift of God. And it's the kind of gift that
when God bestows it, it automatically reveals itself
to that person. Otherwise, we would never come
to Christ except the grace of God bring us and the Spirit of
God bring us. So verse 9 is to be now factored
into this whole thing. not of works, lest any man should
boast." Now, I don't know what kind of
parade's going on down the road, down that road, down this road,
down this road, and everywhere else in this world, but it is
not Christianity. No, it ain't. It's a counterfeit. It's designed to get people,
not to see God save sinners. If you ain't figured that out,
you need to start all over. I'm telling you. This world is full of Pharisees
and you and I either were one or we are one. right now. For we are God's workmanship,
verse 10, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has
before ordained that we should walk in them. Now you need to
If you are truly a believer, you ought to read verse 10 a
dozen times and meditate over what you read. It is a wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful statement. Alright, the second Scripture
to which I must address you this morning is Romans 7 and Romans
8. No, I'm not going to read the
whole chapter. But I would like to read just
a little bit. There are plenty of passages
in our Bibles, not unlike the one that we have just read from,
that people cannot fathom what those
statements really mean. So they just doctor them up and
make them say anything they want it to say. But here in Romans
chapter 7, Paul was a Pharisee for a good
long period in his life. I mean, he was at the top of
the ladder too. He was so zealous that everywhere
he went that he could get the high priest to sign these documents,
he went and arrested people who actually were willing to confess
Christ publicly. And upon finding out who they
were, he'd put ropes on their necks and drag them back to Jerusalem
or whatever the closest place was to take them. But now the Lord Jesus has saved
the very one that tried to stamp Christ's name off the face of
this earth. He didn't get it done either, by the way. Romans 7. I'd like to read for you verses
18 through 25. Now, do you have a date, a chronology
for Romans chapter 7? Nobody. Well, shoot, I could
tell you it was written yesterday. My margin says AD 60, the year
60 AD. And the reason this is important
is because Paul is speaking these words in the present tense. He's
not writing about what it used to be or what it will be. He's
talking about what it is. what it is. Therefore, these
words are of great bearing. I'll try to show you this as
we go along. Verse 18, For I know that in me, this is Paul talking
about himself, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, in my
natural man, dwells no good thing." Have you ever lived at that address?
Well, if you ain't, you still are there. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. Now that's an honest statement
of infinite proportion. For the good that I would, I
do not. But the evil which I would not,
that's what I do. Boy, we're messed up, aren't
we? Now if I do that that I would
not, It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. And this sin nature that sticks
to us better than all the glue this world has ever seen is going
to see us to the grave before we ever part company. Verse 21, I find then a law, as in a rule, that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. Do you have that problem? If you don't, you're lost. Verse 22, for I delight... The light just came on now on
this page. I delight in the law of God. Where? After the inward man. The new man in Christ Jesus. But I see another law in my old self. I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. Boy, that's a complex statement. Wow! So here's how this man who
wanted Christ dead for so many years, he didn't want to remember. You'll never find better statements
than these. Verses 24 and 25. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God, but with this old nature, With the flesh, I serve the law
of sin. So don't think too well of yourself. And if you truly know Christ,
don't discount yourself too much. We're right where we're supposed
to be. Now if you'll jump over to Romans
8, in my Bible I don't even have to turn a page, it's right there. Romans chapter 8, beginning at verse 7 through
verse 9. Romans 8, 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity,
that is absolute hatred against God, for it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. This natural person that
we were born, This old man that Paul keeps talking about, that
dogs every step of his life until he gets to the grave. The carnal
mind is enmity against God, for it's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. Well, what good are we? Christ has done it for us. If we could spend the rest of our
days Speaking of, lifting up, pointing
to the precious Redeemer, the only friend of sinners, Jesus
Christ the righteous. Looking at Him. Declaring Him. Oh, goodness. The very next word
here in verse 9 is but. Now this is unlike the but in
Ephesians 2. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that
the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of His. If we are believers, there it
is, talking about us. Well, I don't see how I can qualify,
and neither do I. But if I've read this book anywhere
near accurately, and I know I have since I've been reading up here
this just a little bit of time, Christ is everything. He's our righteousness, He's
our hope, He's our all. What more do we need? What more
could we want? Now I got one more. Let's turn
and we'll try to finish up there. It will come to me here in a
second. Let's see. Yes, Psalm 36. And it's called a Psalm of David.
Psalm 36. If you've got Hawker's Dictionary
and haven't read his definition of the chief musician, you ought
to try reading it. He calls it a Psalm of David,
the servant of the Lord. Now, I know you know this and I know
I'm learning it more and more every day. There's a right way
and a wrong way to read this book. You can skim over stuff and make
yourself look like an angel. But I'm telling you, this book
is full of traps trying to catch one kind of person. Namely, what
is he? A Pharisee. A Pharisee. I can do this in the space of
one verse. Psalm 36 verse 1. And here is the benefit of such statements like
this. We might react and say, what's
that doing here? But we're apt to read it as though
it had no application to ourselves. And that's deadly, just plain
deadly. All right, the transgression
of the wicked says within my heart, whose heart is this? Let me finish it. The transgression of the wicked
says within my heart that there is no fear of God before His
eyes. Of whom does David speak? You might not agree with the
answer, but I can prove it in this book. David's talking about
David's heart. And if you expect to benefit
from this book called the Bible, you'll have to learn by the grace
of God to see yourself in these awful, despicable conditions. There's no fear of God before
my eyes. In Romans 7 and Romans 8 and
even in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul talking about, I was before. Is David speaking here before
a work of grace in his soul? Or after? Obviously, it is after. We don't even have a new nature
to contend with our old nature until we're born again. And when
that birth takes place, the fight begins and follows
us to the grave. It never ceases. This is the
battle. Well, it's too early, isn't it?
Let me ask you to turn to one more, back to where we were in
the New Testament. I'm sorry about that. Let's take just, not necessarily
reading, but just looking at Romans chapter 7 again. Romans 7. The things that Paul has stated
In the verses that we read a while ago from verse 18 through 25
in Romans chapter 7, this is language that David could never say concerning himself
until that wonderful and yet fateful day on the road to Damascus. And the Lord Jesus put him in
the dust And he said, Saul, Saul, why persecute you me? And these words came from his
lips. Lord, who are you? What would you have me to do?
I'm your servant. You've conquered me. I can't
go back. I'm stranded. I have no other
hope except Christ. So it's pretty obvious then that
this struggle inside of Paul did not begin until he was born
again. And neither does it occur with
ourselves the very same way. Then in chapter 8 of the book
of Romans, Verse 7, Because the carnal mind
is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be, so then they that are in the flesh
cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so, be the Spirit of God dwell
in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, He doesn't belong to Christ unless he has
the Spirit of Christ implanted in us by the wonderful, mysterious
grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.