Brethren, if you will, open a
second John. Second John. If you'll entertain me for a
minute this morning, I want to give you just a real short history. I think it'll put us in context
a little bit of what we're going to look at today. And don't amen
me just yet. The title of my message is Doctrines
or Doctrine of Grace. Now back five, six, seven hundred years
ago, all those old writers, those reformists and stuff, they had
the five solas. That means the five onlys, the
five alones, the scriptures alone. That's our source. The Word of
God. Grace alone is how we're saved. Through faith alone. Where do
we get all that? Christ alone. And the only person
that gets all the glory is God alone. We always talk about eating
an elephant. Those are bites we can chew on,
isn't it? And then along came a man named
John Calvin. He was used greatly there in
Europe. He lived till the late 1500s. And whenever he died, there was
a man that was about five year old boy, Jacobus Arminius, Jacob
Arminius. And he lived for about 45, 49
years, something through there. And after both those men had
died, they'd been dead for a while. Arminius for about 10, 15 years,
and Calvin for 40, 50 years. They had the Synod of Dort. These
men come out, those followers of Jacob Arminius, and they said,
here's what we believe. And the word they used is a strong
protest for their document. They come out with five points.
And I said, these things are true. The first one was that
man is totally depraved. That's misquoted a whole bunch.
That's the first thing they said. There's total depravity. But
in that, man's got a free will. It's up to man to choose. Now
they openly admit, there's a contradiction that stops it all. If you're
depraved, you can't choose. You're saying your will's evil,
because your heart's evil. They said man's totally depraved.
And then they said God elected some people, because that word's
in the scripture, we've got to deal with it. He chose some people,
but it was conditional. He saw their faith, that he looked
down at the angles of time, and he's one of them palm readers,
and he saw what was going to happen, and that's who he hedged
his bets on. And I said that that atonement that Christ made,
it wasn't limited to a people. It was for everybody. And that
His grace is not irresistible. It's not invincible. That God
could come to somebody and reveal who Christ is to them, and if
they so chose, they could resist God. And then the perseverance
of the saints. I said some saints are going
to persevere all the way to glory. The question on that becomes,
can God lose someone that Christ died for? Can someone take a
sheep out of God's hand? So they had that Synod of Dort.
They got all these men from across Europe together for six months.
They sat down like a lawyer. They looked at this proclamation
and they looked at the scriptures. What does the scriptures say?
What does it say about salvation? What does it say about man? how
the Lord does this. And they come out and they said,
what we call, a lot of people call the doctrines, plural, the
doctrines of grace. God is sovereign in all things. Man is totally depraved. Our hearts are ruined from birth.
We fell in at them, we fall on ourselves every day. Without
anything in that fallen man, God chose a people, a remnant,
a small portion of people to save. And those people, there
was atonement made in Christ's blood, and it was limited to
those people. It's not limited in power, it's
limited in number. A lot of people call it particular
redemption. Then, invincible grace. We've
tried to resist it when we first hear it, don't we? We fight against
it, our old flesh does. And then after we've been a seasoned
believer a long time, boy, we fight, don't we? We try to, but
it's invincible. God's going to win. He sets out
to save somebody, He's going to overcome them, and He's going
to save His people. And then perseverance of the
saints. Those ruined, fallen people that the almighty, all-powerful,
all-sovereign God chose to save in Christ, sent Christ here,
His blood redeemed them, He's going to keep them forever. Forever. Now, every one of those things,
it's taught in the Word of God. It's plain. You can go look it
up. It's in black and white English, and we ought to believe them.
Ain't no reason not to. The Scriptures say so. Each point's
cut and dry. Barnard preached that message
for Brother Henry back in 1950 and it's cut and dry. God's sovereign
or he ain't. Man's either graveyard dead or
he ain't. God's going to keep his people
forever or maybe he won't. It's cut and dry. It's one or
the other. But all the major confessions of faith people quote
all the time, Westminster and all these things. The foundation
of those, they get to talk about other things, but the foundation
of those are these points, are these facts, these doctrines. All the great preachers of old.
We can stand and quote them from the first and second century
to all the way up to Gil and Calvin and Edwards and Barnard
and Mahan and everybody today. They taught these truths, these
doctrines of grace. And there's a lot of people in
the world, though, that use these doctrines. They speak of these
doctrines. People standing behind a pulpit like this, and they
tell people from the Bible about these doctrines, about these
truths, these facts. And a lot of people say, well,
that's just high doctrines. That's the heresy. that we're all under the umbrella
of Protestantism. We're all Christians and this
is an in-house debate against that half of the camp and this
half of the camp. Not so. This ain't a bone that
theologians can chew on and keep them busy until the Lord comes
back. Some people say these things don't have much to do with the
Gospels. Somebody just believes Jesus Christ and he's saved forever. make a confession with your mouth.
That's what they're saying. But the message of who God is,
who man is, the message of who Christ is, what he accomplished,
and where he is now, that's the good news. That's the gospel. But can you preach the gospel
without preaching these doctrines, without telling people these
truths, without telling them God's holiness? man's complete
and utter inability, his fall, his wretchedness, what Christ
finished on that cross, what he came to do and what he accomplished,
and where he is now, and who gets the glory for all of it.
Can you preach the gospel without saying those things? Absolutely
not. It comes out, doesn't it? It has to. It's part of it. But a man can stand in a pulpit
and preach doctrines, plural, of grace and never preach the
doctrine of grace. They can tell you fact and never
preach the doctrine of grace. A man can know the law and not
be saved by it. You can know a lot of scripture
and think you have life in them and not be saved by it. You can
know the doctrines of grace and not know the grace of the doctrine. It might sound complicated, doesn't
it? Is that confusing? Is that scary? Let's see what
John wrote. 2 John verse 9. It's one chapter. 2 John verse
9. That one sentence is what I'm
trying to get at today. Take those two commas in there
for a compound sentence. That means you can remove that
and still have a sentence. Whosoever transgresseth hath not God. What's the difference? That's
all of us, isn't it? Have you ever transgressed? Has anybody
ever transgressed? You don't have God. What's the
determining factor? And abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any
unto you, And bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house, neither bid him Godspeed, for he that biddeth him Godspeed
is a partaker of his evil deeds." If someone comes and preaches
something other than Christ is all, than the doctrine of Christ,
that's how people are saved. That's our only hope, Him. Don't
let them in your house, and don't say, oh, safe journeys, because
you're a partaker in their evil ways. I don't call Armenians my brother. I don't call Catholics my brother. Because they don't come preaching
the doctrine of Christ. That's hard for a lot of people. It ain't if you know the doctrine
of Christ, is it? Look at another man. Look at him. Now all the
truths of the gospel that we can digest, those little bites
we can take, every one of them point us to Christ the truth.
Turn over to Romans chapter 8. It's like spokes in a wheel. A lot of people use that illustration.
You can't see the forest for all the trees. And I actually
had that happen with a man one time, an officer in the army.
He's looking at a map and he said, I can't find this forest.
He's so frustrated and we're standing right in the middle
of it. Trees all around us. But when you're lost, A lot of
times all you can look at is one tree at a time, isn't it?
But when you're made to see the whole forest, them trees didn't
change. One tree came or went away. You
just see the big picture, don't you? You see the forest. Look
here at Romans chapter 8 verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called,
them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. That's true, isn't it? And not
a one of these facts, not a one of these truths can stand all
by themselves. You can't take justification
only and it stand alone. It has to have all of it, doesn't
it? And if you have all of them,
you take one out. They have to stand together, don't they? All
these truths make up one truth. All these truths, plural, do
not set men and women free. They don't save people. It is
the truth that saves. Christ the truth. Christ saves. Someone can teach and preach
that God is sovereign, but not tell you of Christ who is sovereign. They can teach particular atonement. They can teach perseverance of
the saints, but not teach you about the one that does not fail.
Teach you about Him. We can teach about faith, but
we can never see the one who is the object of our faith. It's
not these individual spokes on this wheel. It's the whole wheel,
isn't it? He's the wheel. Turn over to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. I've referenced
this. Wednesday night, but we'll take a look at it. Here's a lesson
that Martha was taught by our Master. Martha and Mary's brother,
Lazarus, had died. And they'd sent word to Christ,
and He waited a couple of days, didn't He? And then He came.
And Martha knew some truths. When the Lord taught her something
that was more than just truths, He revealed the truth to her.
He revealed Himself to her. Now, some say, well, Martha knew
Him before. We need today's bread, don't we? You who are the children
of God, we need forgiveness today. We need comfort today. We need
God's grace today. I'm thankful for the mercies
yesterday. I'm confident the Lord will give me mercies tomorrow,
but I need mercies today. There's a fellow down in Florida
years and years ago who was faithful to the work and faithful to the
gospel to the day the Lord took him home. But I heard him one
day say, after the service, he told the pastor, he said, I think
the Lord saved me again today. But we knew what he meant. I
don't think this is something that never happened, but it's
fresh, isn't it? Manna for today. Look here in
John 11, verse 20. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary was still in
the house. What did Martha have? Zeal. Oh, she was motivated,
wasn't she? An earnest motivation. She ran
out there. Her sister didn't, but Martha
did. Verse 21, Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died. She stated the truth. You
are sovereign in all things. You are all-powerful. Verse 22,
But I know that even now, whatsoever thou wouldst ask of God, God
will give thee. You are one with Him. You're
his son." She said a truth, didn't she? Verse 23. And Jesus said
unto her very simply, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha kept
on. Martha saith unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
She stated a truth. Lord, the people you died for,
they're going to be raised at the last day. They're going to
be preserved to the end. I know this. I know that fact.
I know that point. Verse 25, Jesus said unto her,
I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live. The resurrection of
the saints of Christ is not a doctrine, it's a person. I can't think of a plainer way
to put that. Life is not a doctrine, it's
a person. We can write all the books we
want about physical life. And that doesn't make you go... It's a person. It's something
we have. The scriptures teach the person
and the work of Christ. Christ's person is what makes
His work effectual. Who He is. That man. Who's greater? The builder or
the building? We've seen a lot of big, like
the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. Boy, those
things are nice to see. They're nifty. Are they greater
than the one who built them? If it wasn't for the one who
built them, they wouldn't be there, would they? You wouldn't
have no building. You wouldn't have no statues. We don't just
look, trust in the blood, in blood itself. We trust in the
one that shed the blood. That's how these aspects start
becoming revealed. The physical blood of Christ,
what was in His flesh and that body. You know, think about the
man that whipped Him. Think about the man that drove
the nails in His arms on that tree. He got blood all over Him,
didn't He? Didn't do Him any good. Why? It wasn't for Him. That blood was necessary for
the redemption of sins for that particular people. But it was
not just the fact that it was blood. Blood was required, but
it was whose blood it was. Who it was for, who it satisfied,
and who received the glory for it. The work of the blood got
the job done because of who the blood came from and who purposed
it. Christ. We've looked at the Lord's table
recently. That's not a sacrament. The wine and the bread don't
physically become cross body and cross blood as it goes into
us, and it doesn't do any good to have that put into us. We
don't receive grace by drinking that thimble of wine. What we're
doing, we're declaring that the Lamb was worthy. who it is that
we're declaring. It was for his people. It was
invincible. It was forever. And he receives
all the glory for what he accomplished. That is the doctrines, but it's
all concerning and magnifying the doctrine of Christ, of Him. It's what it all points to. Look
here in verse 25 again. And Jesus said unto her, I am
the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me shall never die. Believest thou this? Do you believe
Me, Martha? Not things, not a creed, do you
believe me? That's what he's asking her.
Verse 27, she saith unto him, yea, Lord, I believe that thou
art the Christ, the Son of God, which succumbeth to the world.
She said, yes, Lord, I believe you. Not believe in Christ, she
believed Christ. We don't want to just learn the
doctrines of grace. We want to learn the doctrine
of Christ. We don't want to just be found knowing some things.
We want to be found knowing the person of our Savior. Knowing
Him. Believe in Him. Verse 22. Verse
28. And when she had said so, she
went her way. All that fretting was over, wasn't
it? You think she left comforted?
You think she left at peace? content. Everything she had said
prior to Christ pointing her back to Himself, it was so. Everything
she said leading up to that, it's true. It's truth. But when
she was pointed to the person of our Savior once again, turned
to Him once again, peace came. She wasn't fretful over every
little thing. She went her way. Her brother Paul Mahan said this. I'm going to quote it as close
as I can get it. When a person sees that all these
many truths together are the one essential truth, they simply
tell us who Christ is, what Christ did, and why Christ did it, where
Christ is now, and they tell us of our inability and hopelessness
without Christ. They tell us He has made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And only then
will a man truly repent, believe, trust, and commit all to Him
alone. And then we see that the doctrines
of grace are simply the declaration of the person and the work of
Christ Jesus. Everything we see, everything
we learn, it points to Him. He's our salvation. Some people
say though, well, it does a man good. It's good for a person
to know that God's sovereign and all things. If they come
to that knowledge, that's progress. We're doing better. Brother Bob
showed us that this morning. If we don't repent to a person,
we're all going to die the same way, no matter who you are. Those Orthodox Jews in Paul's
day, every one of them believed that God's sovereign in all things.
In our day, many Muslims believe that. I watched a man hold his
daughter in his arms. She just had died. And he said,
the Lord willing. It's the Lord's will. Inshallah. Didn't do him any good, did it? Well, what about a person coming
to believe that God chose people? Oh, they believe in election.
That's good. That's a good thing. Moving in the right direction.
Got a head knowledge of election. Does that profit anything? Every
Orthodox Jew In Paul's day, they believed in election, didn't
they? God had a nation, and they was part of it. Didn't do them
any good. That one truth didn't do them
any good. What do we have that's different than these people that
believe some truths? We have a living union with the
person that purposed our salvation. We have a living union. We're
made one with, have life with the person that purchased us. The person that makes all things
come to the pass and the person that will not lose one of those
that he's died for. We're made one with him. Turn over to Job 19. We'll see
Job's testimony here. Job 19. Job told several truths
about the Gospel as he praised our Lord. Job 19 verse 25, he
said, God's alive. He's sovereign in
all things. "...and that he shall stand in the latter day upon
this earth." Christ is coming in the flesh. His incarnation. He's going to fulfill all the
promises. God's going to fulfill all the promises He made. Christ
is coming. Verse 26, "...and though after
my skin worms destroy this body, flesh is grass, totally depraved,
yet in my flesh shall I see God." I'm going to be resurrected.
A new body is going to be given to me. I'm going to be made like
Christ. Verse 27, Whom I shall see for myself. Right there goes all the denominational
solutions men have. You get a group together to believe
something. Salvation is a personal experience.
Whom I shall see myself. It's from one person to this
person. That's salvation. And mine eyes shall behold and
not another. There ain't gonna be anybody
else there. Nobody's between us and no thing is between us. See Him. See a person. And it
says, though. Though is italicized. Take that
word out. who I shall see for myself and
my eyes shall behold and not another, my reigns be consumed
within me." What's Job saying? All sin is going to be gone. Blotted out. Tucked away as far
as the east is from the west. David said that too. He said,
when I awaken His likeness, I shall be satisfied. Will that satisfy
you? Be with Christ? be made like
Him. We read about them mansions. People get tied up on that, don't
they? Oh, I want a mansion. Well, how big do you think that
mansion is going to be? I don't care if it's one of them igloo
dog houses. If I could be with my Master, if He provided eternal
life for me, for what I am, what I deserve, the death and hell
I deserve, I think whatever accommodations He makes will be just fine, won't
it? Because it will be in His presence. What more could we
ask for? We saw Joe's experience. Let's look at what Paul experienced.
Turn over to 2 Timothy. Spurgeon used to say, we dissect
things too much. And I think it's true. This man
in general, we like to label everything, identify everything,
make little tiny confined boxes of anything we can get a hold
of, people or stuff. We like to organize it, don't
we? And you get tangled up in the process of organizing and
getting so accurate and correct on these little aspects that
you lose the truth. We get lost in the forest again.
If we look to Christ and learn of Him, His person, we then can
see that all of these things go together. We see the truth
of all these things. And we know them to be true because
we know Christ is the truth. These things are just aspects
of Him. And what we learn of Christ today does not diminish
what we learned yesterday. If we learn a truth about the
Lord, about the Gospel today, that doesn't take away what was
the truth yesterday, does it? It just builds on it. It just
adds in our heart more of His glorious being, more of His wisdom,
more of His Lordship in all things. Now there in 2 Timothy, Chapter
1, beginning verse 9. 2 Timothy 1.9. Speaking of Christ, who hath
saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. We're all depraved. Unconditional election. but now
is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who
hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to life through the gospel." Christ redeemed his people. He
made atonement for his people and he irresistibly and invincibly
draws them to him. Whereunto I am appointed a preacher,
and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. For the witch
calls, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed. Why are you saved? I believe
election. It won't do you no good. I believe in God's sovereignty. You've got to know whom you have
believed. For I know whom I have believed
and I'm persuaded I'm completely, totally convinced that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. What did Paul commit to Christ
on that day? Everything. All of it. No matter how logical a systematic
theology is, it makes good sense. No matter how true it may be,
how factual its individual parts may be, or how many wise people
in a tribunal or a conference or something get together and
say that these things are, there's no peace in it. There's no peace
in these doctrines if that's all you're hanging on. It may
give you comfort for a season, but there'll be a gnawing on
the inside. There'll be unrest. But when you come to know Christ,
the doctrine singular of Christ, it's one man wide. And that's
who He comes to, one person at a time. That is true rest and
peace. Is that right? When we look to
Him, and we know that our Lord's reigning right now at the right
hand of God, and He keeps His people forever, what trouble
can we have? Oh, I think I got that right.
I can't remember the dates. Was it 1842? We worry about those
things. What's so and so say? Well, I
read 86 books on this subject. If we put all that aside and
we look to the one that saved us, who is the truth, get at
rest. I made probably 87 laps around
this building yesterday. I put my headphones in and walked.
And I started looking at these clouds, and I thought, man, he
leads his people by cloud in the desert during the day for
those 40 years. He still leads his people. And if I look to
him, the one who leads his people, what care do I have? And I think
I lost 45 pounds as I was walking. I walked a little straighter,
just happy. Don't need to worry. Don't need to fret. Don't need
to stick my nose in the book, try to study extra. Got to figure
this out. Got to sort it out. I look to
Him. And then you know what? Whenever
you look to Him and you rest, you're like, I want to, show
me something else about Him. How does the Lord do that? Tell
me about that irresistible grace. How do you think the Lord comes
to His people? Tell me about perseverance. Because it's Him. It's a person, isn't it? I wish,
the Lord's people will look to Him. Boy, I pray they do. And
I hope that that last one looks to him soon. Lord haste the day
when our faith may be made sight. We can be with him. Be with that
person. That's what heaven is. It's a
person. Amen. I hope that was a blessing to
you. Let's pray together.