I've seen a lot of pastors get
up here at times and they'll say, well, I'm going to try to
keep this short, and they'll be watching that clock all the time. Most
of you know me. I have problems keeping it long. I tend to get through it in a
hurry sometimes, but that's kind of why I appreciate being able
to stand before you and bring God's message that He laid on
my heart for the Day of Communion. Pastor, it's good that we keep
it kind of short that way. Turn to John chapter 10, if you
would, please. When the man that my Lord gave
me to call Dad passed on, some of you may recall you were here
for his services, my mother asked three pastors to give a sermon.
And sure enough, all three of them stood before the people.
And at the end of those services, many, many, many people walked
out saying, oh my goodness, that was just way too long. All three
pastors stood here from this pulpit reading from different
parts of scripture and said the exact same thing. I was blessed. That's exactly what I'm going
to do today. Brother Steve, Brother Lee, Joe
in the men's meeting, and our pastor have all stood before
you today and spoke about Jesus Christ. Lord willing, he'll give
me the words to stand before you and do the same thing. John chapter 10, verse 1. Our
Lord says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not
by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way,
the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the
door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out. And when they putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. Verse 6, it says, this parable
spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they
were which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again,
verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All
that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the
sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. Our Lord clearly declares, there
is only one way to be saved. And that's the title of my message
this afternoon. There is only one way. And He
has done so since the beginning. In Genesis 1.1, our Lord declares
in the very first verse, In the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth. He declared Himself to be the
Sovereign One of all things. All things. In the beginning.
He was the only one there. There was nothing there to give
Him advice on anything. It was Him and Him alone. Christ
Jesus and Him crucified is either spoken of or pictured by parables
from cover to cover. You'll notice that a lot of the
words that I'm reading from my notes to you this morning are
the exact same words we've heard from our pastor, or Brother Steve,
or even Lee in the devotion. I didn't even see their notes
before. I didn't know what they were going to say. Our Lord leads
us to talk about Him. You see, the entire Bible is
a love letter to God's people, revealing who Christ is, what
Christ has done for His people, and what He's doing right now.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the God-man, the
creator, the supreme controller of all things, and all things
are at his feet. He came to this earth to pay
the price, to pay the price for all of those that the Father
had given him before the world was. He sacrificed himself to
pay the ransom for the sins of his blessed blood-bought chosen
people. He is revealing Himself to His
chosen people in His time, by His power, and as He sees fit,
coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit, giving us a new
heart, a heart to believe the Gospel, giving us faith that
the Word is true. There's only one way to be saved,
and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ, according to Scriptures.
The gospel has been brought before God's people since the beginning
of time, yet we have all tried to do it in our own way at one
time or another. For 40 years, I walked this earth
thinking I was doing it my way. You probably thought that was
Elvis' song, huh? Or was that other guy before him? No, I was doing it my own way.
If you were to ask this woman sitting back here, I call my
mother, many, many times over the years she would come to me
and talk to me about the Lord. And I would say, that's okay
mom, don't worry. God and I have our own little
thing going. Right? It wasn't until I was 40 years
old when the Lord showed me that there was no other way but through
Christ Jesus the Lord. I was a fool in thinking that
I was doing anything my own way. Adam and Eve were the first in
the garden. to try it their own way. They would not do it according
to God's way, and that plunged the whole human race into sin
and death. You see, Scriptures say that none are righteous,
none are good, all have turned their own way. These are the
words of the Lord through Scripture, yet we don't want to believe
them. We would rather believe that
there is something we can do to take our lives some direction,
or some way to earn or deserve our salvation. We come into this
world enmity against God and His law, dead in trespasses and
sin, yet we would rather believe that we have a free will, that
we can choose our own destiny. You see, this is the nature of
man. To see himself as a God who controls his own way. Turn
to Genesis chapter 4 if you would, please. The devil was right when
he said to Eve in the garden, in chapter 3 verse 5, He said
to Eve, he said, for God doth know that in the day that ye
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil." Notice that it says, as gods.
The devil had it right. He didn't say we would be gods,
he said we'd think we were gods. And that's the way we were born.
Thinking that we have control of our own destiny, thinking
that all we have to do is be a better person and we're going
to be a better person. Our Lord gives us an example
here in chapter 4 of Genesis of two men. One who decides he's going to do
it his own way, and one who has been given faith to do it God's
way. Chapter 4 verse 1 of Genesis
we read, And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bear
Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord, And she
again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of
time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground
an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain In
his offering, he had not respect, and Cain was very wroth, and
his countenance fell." I can imagine how Cain must have felt
at the time. Here he is out tilling the ground,
he's been working and sweating, watching the stuff grow. Have
you ever had a garden of your own? It's kind of neat. Leah
and Shirley and I were talking about them taking plants to Colorado. That's a long way to try to take
live plants. But you watch some plants. I
was thinking, I might want to take a couple of my plants, because
I've had a couple of my plants for a long time. I'm kind of
proud of those plants. They're growing. Gene must have
felt the same thing. He must have had the same, I
don't need that fatling thing over there, those sacrifices
of the animals. I've got this wonderful stew or vegetables
that I could present. He didn't want to do it God's
way. He wanted to do it his own way.
Because he was proud of what he had done. He was proud of
what he had grown. In Jude 1.11 it says, Woe unto
them, speaking of the men who creep into churches for this
very reason. Woe unto them for they have gone
in the way of Cain. and ran greedily after the heir
of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Kor. 1 John
3.12 we see where it says, and wherefore slew he him, speaking
of Cain, why did he kill his brother? Because his own works
were evil, and his brother's were righteous. Interesting the
difference between the two offerings of the men. One of the hands,
What was the other one? Abel, all he did was kill. He took the life of an animal. He killed His offering. Did anybody see that? We may not have been there when
the Lord Jesus Christ was hanging on that cross, but our sins took
Him there. He hung on that cross for us.
We're just as guilty as the people who hung Him up there and put
those nails in His hands. God had respect for Abel's offering
because it was a picture of what was to come. Abel believed that his offering
was nothing more than a picture of the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. He believed God would provide
Himself a sacrifice for his sins, Abel's sins, that is. Hebrews
11.4 tells us, by faith, catch that? By faith, Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. It wasn't anything
to do with the blood of goats and animals. It was the picture
thereof. This is God's Word, people. God
said Abel had faith. The same faith that you and I
have, and that all of God's children will have when the Holy Spirit
comes to them and enlightens them. Give them a heart to believe
God's Word. We believe God's Word. At some
point, God came to Abel just as He comes to each and every
one of His children, just as He says so to them, to His blood-bought
children, and gave Him faith to believe. You see, faith is
God's gift to us. It is not our gift to God. Abel
knew that the blood of animals didn't save anything, and that
is what the sacrifice represented, Jesus Christ our Lord. The same
thing that we are going to do this afternoon, which has been
pointed to by each and every one of the men standing before
you today, this table has nothing to do with your salvation. It
has to do with what saved us 2,000 years ago, reminding us
of the one who fulfilled what needed to be done, reminding
us of the blood and the flesh that hung on the cross and paid
for our sins, reminding us of who we killed. Christ is our sacrifice. Hebrews
10, 12, it says, but this man, speaking of Christ Jesus our
Lord, after he offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God. God in the flesh offered himself
a sacrifice. Ephesians 5.2 says, as Christ
also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. The only way
to salvation is through Christ Jesus the Lord. We have nothing
in ourselves to offer. Nothing in ourselves to offer
God. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. I know I said this last time,
but it bears repeating. We're not talking about dirt.
We're talking about dung. The most vilest filth you can
think of, that's what our righteousness is to God. The only righteousness
that we might have in us is the righteousness of Jesus Christ
that He put there. Yet He has reserved a people
unto Himself. A people that will spend eternity
singing the praises of the Lord, how merciful thou art, thou art
full of glory." Hebrews 13, 15 it says, By Him therefore let
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the
fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name, the Lord Jesus Christ. I love that song more about Jesus. I was really, really blessed
when all three preachers got up here and preached about Christ.
It really tickled me. Folks, you may wonder sometimes, why
would God come and choose one son, one child, Abel, and not
the other, knowing that it would cause strife? knowing what Cain
was going to do. This world teaches that God loves
everybody. They can't read Matthew 12, 30
and say that. I wonder what they say when they
do read it. He that is not with me is against me. And he that
gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Or in Matthew 10, 35,
For I have come to set man at variance against his father.
and daughter against their mother, and daughter-in-law against their
mother-in-law? What about Luke 12.51-53 where it says, suppose
ye that I have come to give peace on earth, I tell you nay, but
rather division. For from henceforth there shall
be five in one house, divided three against two, and two against
three. The father shall be divided against the son, the son against
the father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter
against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law,
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Justice Kaine was angered by
jealousy to kill his brother, so is the world around us. They say things like, I will
not have it his way. I skipped one, sorry. They say
things like, don't tell me I have nothing to offer. Don't tell me that I'm not a
good person. I've never killed anybody. The Bible says even
a man who's out plowing his field, if he doesn't do it for the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, he's wicked. He's an abomination. They will not have it His way,
and as a matter of fact, it makes them mad. It makes them mad enough
to kill. Again, I say, since Adam and
Eve, people have been saying, I'll not have it, that God, to
rule over me. But thank God, He has taken that
old stony heart of mine, that heart that would have stood there
and said the exact same thing, That heart that was completely
depraved of any life, and He has given me a new heart. One
that is a life for Christ. One that believes the Lord Jesus
Christ. Thank God that He has an irresistible
call that goes out to His sheep because I wasn't looking for
God. He called me. He brought me down to my knees
at a point And He showed me Himself. Not a point of trouble in my
life, but a point of me seeing who I was and what I was. Through
His Word I saw the blackness in my own soul. And called upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God He has made an atonement
for those whose names were inscribed in the palms of our Lord Jesus
Christ. before the world was. Thank God
that His love toward His own is not based on anything that
they have done. No, it's unconditional love.
It's a love that was there before the world was. Thank God that He is upholding
His saints and giving us perseverance even though we walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. And He has done all this for
Christ's sake. The Lamb that was slain before the foundation
of the world. The only way to salvation. What a wonderful peace you have,
young lady, that God gave you just now. The only way anyone could have
that kind of peace that you described It's just the Lord came to you
and assured you that He's in control. It's all of Him. I know this, that my son and daughter, who have
no desire for the Lord at all right now, if they're one of
God's people, my peace is that God will bring them the only
way. through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you have that peace?