Ephesians 2. I want you to be
there. Ephesians 2. Look at verses 12
and verse 19. This is the text and title. Verse 12 says, At that time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants. Verse 19. Now, therefore, you
are no more strangers. Strangers no more. That's the
title. That's the theme, I guess. We ended this last time at verse
10. And all of you love Ephesians
1 and 2, especially the first 10 verses. But it's all together
in it. It all goes together. Ephesians
2 talks about who we were and what we were, dead. Now this
is talking to the saints. This is talking to those who
have believed, those who have been raised, quickened together
by the Spirit of God through the priests and the gospel. That's
who this is talking to. There's nothing I'd like more,
though, for the Lord to use this message to open somebody's heart. That's what John prayed tonight.
So he's talking to believers. He said, we were dead in trespassion
and sin, walking with the world according to the way the world
walks, just like it, according to the prince of the power of
the air, captive to the God of this world, the things of this
world, but God. And tells us what God has done
for us. And in us, in Christ. And so verse 11 he says, wherefore
remember, you need to remember this, don't ever forget, that
you, read on verses 11 and 12, you in time past Gentiles in
the flesh are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision.
In other words, you were Gentiles and the Jews called you uncircumcised. Dogs is what they called the
Gentiles, dogs. And he said, verse 12, you were
aliens, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, from the state, the
union of God's people, strangers from the covenants of promise,
no hope without God. And to where? Don't ever forget that. Don't
ever forget. If we ever forget, who we were,
what we were, where we were, what we were not, what we did
and what we did not do. If we ever forget that, Christ
will cease to be precious to us. The gospel will be no longer
good news to us. To assemble together with the
saints will no longer be our highest joy. If we forget. If we forget. Don't forget. I
heard a story. A man back in the 1800s, we believe
he was a member of Metropolitan Tabernacle where Charles Spurgeon
was the pastor. He's a wealthy man, and the Lord
made him wealthy before he saved him. He's a wealthy man, but
he came from very poor, very poor upbringing. Very poor. And he had a huge home, an estate
there in England, and in the back of his estate he built a
cottage just like the one that he grew up in. just like this
little one-room cottage that he and his mother and father
and several siblings lived in. One-room cottage with a fireplace
and a wood stove and an outhouse and he built a little replica
of that in his backyard and every now and then he'd go out there
and just sit in that cabin and remember where he came from. And somebody asked him, somebody
came to see him one day, a business associate or something, and they
told him he's out in the back in that little cabin, and they
came out and said, what are you doing out here? He said, I don't
want to ever forget where I came from. Because I had nothing to
boast in. Nothing. I was nothing, I had
nothing, and I'm still nothing. It was all given to me from above. What do I have that I have not
received? And who made me to differ? He said, I have no room
for boasting. So he tells us, don't ever forget. Don't ever forget. Remember where
you came from. Verse 11, circumcision, we've
spent whole messages on this, right? And Romans 2 talks about
the heart. This is talking about the heart.
We need our heart operational, not the flesh. God's people were
given a new heart. And, you know, as I said, the
Jews called the Gentiles dogs, uncircumcised dogs. And we were
no better, I was no better than a dog. You know, dogs eat and
drink and sleep, and that's all they think about it. Isn't it?
Well, that was me. Dogs don't think about God. They
don't look up. They never look up. I didn't
either. I never gave it a thought. Did
you? I'm uncertain. I'm a heart. It's a heart of
stone. In the world, Gentiles are the
world. In the world, I was in the world,
and I was out of the world. Following the course of this
Word. Only thinking of the Word. Was that you? Such were some?
Such were all of you. All of you. Verse 12 says, Without
Christ. I was without Christ. Didn't
know it. Didn't care. I knew who He was in my head.
I grew up hearing about Him. But I had no thoughts. I had
no need. I didn't need a mediator. I didn't
need an intercessor. I didn't need a substitute. I
didn't need Christ. Oh, yes, I did. I needed to know that I needed
to. I didn't know I needed to. Aliens, said aliens, strangers,
aliens. You know, an alien, a stranger,
is someone who's different. Someone comes into town from
far away, and that's what this talks about. You were far off.
Someone comes into town from far away, a different state,
or New York, or some strange place like that, or a country,
a different country. They sound different, don't they?
Their speech is different. Their ways are different. Their
characteristics are different. And people around here would
probably say, you ain't from around here, are you? Strangers. Aliens. That was us concerning
the things of God, concerning the Church of God. The people
of this world, and such were all of us, are strangers to the
truth. Truth is strange to people. Strange. You start talking about the God
of the Bible, When you just start reading the Bible, Romans 9,
Ephesians 2, Isaiah, just start reading. In the world, that's
a different God than we're used to hearing. Different God. God who is God. Not a God you
let be God. God who is God. God who lets
you know He's God. You don't even know He's God.
You don't know God. Man has a conception of God. Man has his imagination
of God. Man has God the way he wants
Him to be. But God is as He is in the Scripture, as He declares
Himself. And that's why preachers don't preach the Scriptures word
for word, line for line, precept for precept. It's too clear. It has God on the throne, man
in the dust, salvation completely, 100% in the hands of the Lord.
And man doesn't have anything to do with it. And man doesn't
like that, so he parries it down. Takes away the offense and he
has God like us. Wanting to save us and can't
save us and church can't be church without you. And then a man gets up and preaches
God as he is. Oh yes, church can be church
without you. Church has always been church without you. Church
doesn't need you. You need church. You need Christ.
Start preaching God as he is, man as he is, a filthy worm in
the dust, unworthy to be saved. Helpless, hopeless, damned, doomed,
dead. That's what the scripture says.
It's plain as a nose on your face. And people say, that's
strange doctrine. Where'd you get that? Bible.
That's where Brother Donnie Bale always got permanently, I think,
on their church sign up front, read your Bible. Strangers, strange God, this
strange doctrine. Why should it be thought strange?
Paul preached this one time. Why should it be thought strange
that God, who created everything, He's in absolute control of all
things. He's not like us. Not like us. He doesn't need us. Strangers. Strangers to the covenant of
promise. Verse 12 says covenant of promise. Years ago, you remember,
there was a movement all over, started here in this country,
promise keepers. Anybody remember that? Promise
keepers. What it was, was an organization
of men that got together who'd been unfaithful to their wives
and been, you know, drunks and this and that and the other and
failed and all that. And some preacher got them all worked
up that they could all get together and collectively as a group and
strengthen numbers, you know, we all get together and we'll
make these promises. We're going to promise from here
on out to be better husbands and better this and better that.
We're going to quit this and quit that. Promise keeper. You've
heard it, haven't you? But it was real strong for a
while. Have you heard of it recently? It's gone. Why? Ain't nobody
can keep that promise. This covenant is not a covenant
you and I make. It's not based on promises you
and I make. Salvation is not based on anything
we do. It's based on a promise that
God made with His Son before the world began. A covenant. You and I weren't even around
when God made this covenant. And our salvation is dependent
on Him keeping His promise. Did He? Will He? God who promised us eternal life
cannot lie. And He put this all in the hands
of Jesus Christ and put us in Jesus Christ's hands. Now, that's
our hope. There's no hope in us keeping
the promise. Verse 12 says, no hope. Some of you were in religion,
a religion that you, of that God that I was talking about,
of Jesus you accepted and made Him your Lord of your life. Right? Jeanette, she was in that one.
Some of you were too. There's no hope in that. We sing
this song and we'll never quit singing it. I never get tired
of it. My hope is built. on nothing less than Jesus Christ's
blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame or feeling or anything, anything, but wholly lean on
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. On Christ the solid rock I stand. Rock solid. All other ground
sinking sand. All other ground sinking sand.
It is now. It is. without hope, without
God in this world. If you believed in a God, you
did. Some of you believed in a God that wanted to save you
and couldn't unless you let Him save you. That's a God who can't
save. And our Lord said that. They pray to a God that can't
save. And you were without God. You believed in God, but you
didn't have a God. But now. Don't you love the buts
in Scripture? But now. But now, like but God
in verse four. But now, you who sometimes were
far off, way out there, are brought now. by the blood, by the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. Go to 2 Samuel with me. 2 Samuel. I was going to have us read this
as a Scripture reading, but I thought, no, I'll just read it with them
during the course of the message. 2 Samuel 7. I love this. Like
that man sitting in that cottage remembering where he came from,
David went in and sat before the Lord remembering this. The
Lord sent a preacher, Nathan. God didn't speak to David out
loud, he spoke through a preacher. And Nathan, verse 5, the Lord
said, Go and tell my servant David, thus saith the Lord. That's
how he speaks to all his people, through a preacher. Don't you
know that David loved Nathan? Oh, and David sinned against
the Lord. You know, Nathan came to him, rebuked him. Thou art
the man. He cut him to the heart, didn't
he? He repented. But you know what the first thing
he said to him was, John? The Lord's put away your sin, David.
That's good news. Well, he said, you go tell David,
thus saith the Lord. And on down, verse 8, he said,
Thus saith the Lord unto my servant David, thus saith the Lord of
hosts, I took thee from the sheep coat, from following sheep, to
be ruler over my people. David, I found you in the sheep
pen. Some of us he found in the hog
pen. Right? Some of you in the religious
pew. which is more stinking than the hog pen, the God. He said,
I found you in the sheep pen and made you ruler over my people. My, my. And I was with thee,
whithersoever thou wittest. We just read, even while we were
dead, even when we were dead in sin, watching over us, saving
us, keeping us, reserving us for the time He's going to make
us kings and princes. Verse 9, I was with you wherever
you went, and cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and
made thee a great name, Son of God, like unto the name of the
great men that are in the earth, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Son of God. Look down at verse 12, And when
thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,
I will set up thy seed after that. He went on to say in verse
14, I'll be his father. He'll be my son. Verse 15, my
mercy shall not depart away from him. Wouldn't that be something
if the Lord saved our children? He's going to have to do it,
isn't it? Oh, man, what would be... Look at verse 17. According to
all these words he spoke, so did Nathan speak unto David.
Then went King David in." Where? Into the sanctuary. And sat before
the Lord. Brothers and sisters, I hope
that's why we're here. Sit before the Lord. Sing as
how? Unto the Lord. And he said, Who
am I? Oh Lord. God, what is my house
that you built me here in the tomb? My, my. And he went on to say, is this
the matter of man? No. Promised all these things. So go back to the text. So don't
forget. We come in here and sit before
the Lord and try to remember. The Lord reminds us. The Lord
will remind us. I'll remind you where He found
us and where we are now. But now, verse 13, now in Christ
Jesus. How many times I went back again
and looked, in whom, in whom, in whom? In Christ, in Christ,
in Christ, over and over again. Did you ever hear that in religion,
Jeanette? Did you ever hear that? Boy,
it just rings out to you now, that. In Christ. We know what that means, don't
we? Not like we ought to or want to, but we do know that, like
Paul, I want to be in Christ and be found in Him. Under His wings. Covered by His
righteousness. In Him. Like Noah and his family
in Ark. They'll tell you. Noah, Shem,
Ham, Japheth. Why did the wrath of God not
fall on you? Because it fell on the ark. How
did you get in this ark? God brought me in. Did you ever
want to get out? He shut me in. So you're telling me that you're
saved solely because you were in the ark? That's right. That's
right. But it could be plainer. Every
one of those animals, including the people, are fetched, brought,
shut up, shut in the yard. And so are we. I never get tired
of saying that. You ain't cryin'. Who were far
off, made nigh by the blood of Christ. Far off. How far off
were you? I talked about those in religion. They think they're near to God.
No. But their God, that God I just
described, you're as far off from knowing the true God as
that God no more resembles a God than a candle, the sun that shines
in all its strength. You may have been in the pew,
but you were far off. Far off. Can somebody be too
far off for God to save? Too far gone? Somebody addicted
to drugs or addicted to religion? Same thing. Have to have it and
can't get off of it. And nothing you can say to convince
them otherwise. Nothing you can do. Nothing anybody
can do. Can somebody be too far off,
huh? You know what the scripture says in Hebrew? He's able to
save the uttermost. One time the Lord walked many
miles to the farthest reaches of the kingdom of Israel. Tyre
and Sidon. Ain't nothing good in Tyre and
Sidon. They destroyed that city one time years ago. Well, he
went all that way, walked 50, 60 some miles, 70 miles, wherever
he was at the time, to save one woman's daughter that was vexed
by the devil. And he saved her and went and
walked back. His arm's not short, is it? You
know anybody that's far off? Your brother? Her brother's in
prison right now. My brothers in the world, same
thing. Captitude. One's this far off,
one's that far off. I was far off. Aren't you? Far off. John and I sing that
song when he reached out for me. How far did he reach for
you, John? I'm glad his arm's not short,
aren't you? No, someone can't be too far off. He can't. He
brought an eye, it says, by the blood of Christ, the gospel of
Christ. He's our peace, verse 14. When we finally hear the
gospel, when we finally hear who God is, just and holy, and
by no means clear of the guilty, and shall be perfect and accepted,
and we find out what we are, and rebelled against God, Never
gave him a thought. Never gave him thanks like he
deserved. Loathed to worship him. And we
thought, oh, he ought to kill me. He said, and we find out that
there's one way we were brought now. There's one way we've come
now. There's one way that God will accept us. One way that
God will not be angry with us at the blood of Jesus Christ,
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our peace. He's our peace. My preacher never did ask me
to make my peace with God. He never did. He never did. He destroyed my peace. And he preached Christ. Now bow. Kiss the Son, lest ye be angry.
He is our peace. He is our peace, isn't He? Who
hath made both one, verse 14, made both one, Jew and Gentile,
and broken down the wall that was between us. Jew and Gentile. Verse 15, read on. He's abolished
in His flesh enmity, the law of commandments and ordinances.
He made in Himself two, one new man. And so He made peace. He
made peace. Enmity. You know, we were born
hating authority. We've been thinking about that
lately. Our children, if we don't come
down on them, they'll end up in prison because they hate authority,
hate God, hate the law, hate rules. Like a wild ass's coat. Don't tie me down. Don't tell
me no. Don't tell me what to do. Don't
do it. God's got to break down that
in me today. You've got to break him. This horse, the only way
you can ride a horse is break it. Break it. He breaks down that inmate. And
the way he does it is through the gospel. And he makes of two,
one new man. That is, Jew and Gentile. Religious
and irreligious. He makes two people become one. Now, Jeanette, I keep bringing
you up. There are others in here who
are in religion. My mother was. My mother was
in false religion. Chasing the devil out of town. All right? I was in the world,
you know, just rip-roaring, just poles apart. Okay? She's in religion. She's in religion.
I don't want anything to do with religion. Dabbling in Hinduism
and that stuff. Far off. Way out in space. Far out. Here we are again. He brought
us together. And strange as it may sound,
we've got the same story now. Just the circumstances are different,
but we're both lost. Dead. Dead. Me in the gutter, her in the
pit. Dead. But now, the one. The one. In Christ, no Jew, no
Gentile, no male, no female, no black, no white. The Virgin
Mary, her best friend was Mary Magdalene. I hear people talk
about the best friend. It better not be a person in
this world. How could you be? If you have friends, they need
to be God's people. They are. Mary Magdalene and
Mary the Virgin, who never knew a man, were deep bosom buddies. How can that be? How could they
have anything in common? Christ. Christ. blood of two, one new man, a
new creature in Christ Jesus. And verse 16 says reconcile both
to God. Reconcile to each other and unto
God in one body. One Lord, one faith, one body,
one church. The body of Christ by the cross. He slew that enmity thereby. Religion. Somebody in religion
hates God. Somebody outside of religion,
there's no God. How'd he do it? How'd we hear
about this? How'd he bring us together? Verse
17. He came and preached to you. He came and preached to you. You can't hear without a preacher.
You that were far off, and them that were nigh, that is, in religion. I came to preach peace to you. And verse 18 says, For through
Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. We both
have access. We're accepted one way. It's
on our sign out here. To the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved. That's what's on our sign. There's
a reason for that. Because every one of God's people
know, salvation's by grace. And this church is all about
the praise of the glory of His grace. Throughout eternity, He's
going to be showing us the exceeding riches of His grace. And we all
know there's only one reason God accepts that. In the Beloved. In Christ. We have access by
war. Maybe somebody hadn't heard this.
I'm sure somebody hadn't heard this. I've told it many times,
but I love to tell it. Back during the Civil War, there
was a soldier sitting on the steps of the White House, crying. Sitting there on the steps with
his head in his hands, crying. He needed, he wanted to see the
President, Lincoln. Because his mother had died and
he wanted to go home and see her. His mother was sick and
dying and he wanted to go home and see her before she died.
And he had his head in his hands sitting on the steps of the White
House there and a little boy walked up, a young boy about
Max's age. True story. Walked up and sat
down beside him and said, Sir, what's wrong? And he told him,
he said, my mother is deathly ill and I'm afraid she's going
to die before I get to see her. He said, there's only one person
that can give me leave to go home and see her. And I can't
get in to see him. I just don't know how I'm going
to get in to see the President of the United States. And that
boy said, come with me. And he got up and they walked
up those steps, two soldiers standing there with rifles, the
gate closed and shut. That boy walked up, they opened
that gate and stood aside, saluted. Walked through that gate, walked
up to the door of the White House, two more soldiers standing there,
standing guard. They opened the doors, stood
there at attention to that boy. Walked down the hallway, two
more soldiers at the door of the Oval Office. They both stood
aside, stood up for attention, saluted that, and the young boy
just opened that door and walked right in and said, Dad, somebody
wants to see you. Tad Lincoln through his door. And the President, he got access
to the highest office on earth through the sun. The only one. And we've come boldly. Hebrews
talks about come boldly. We have free access. How? We
know. It's not anything we did. It's
not our sincerity. Lots of people sad and blue and
all that. No, no, no. It's not our promise
we make. That you come by Jesus Christ,
in the name of the Lord. And come boldly, come freely.
So we heard that through the preaching of the gospel like
you just heard. Verse 19, now therefore we are no more strangers
and foreigners. No more strangers and foreigners.
Strangers no more. I remember like yesterday, it
will be 35 years in March that we left our home and family and
everybody, and came to this strange place. I remember like yesterday. It was in the winter, day of
the winter, and we came driving down through downtown Rockwood. Where is this going? Why is this
like this? I still think that. We came into
town with strangers in a strange town, strange to the community,
and people around here talked strange. I didn't understand
hardly anything Richard and Betty Hodges said. William and Gladys Hodges. I
couldn't hardly understand a thing that Gladys said. My daughter had a little doll. You remember those cabbage patch
dolls? You used to get records, you'd get, you know, birth certificate
records. And Gladys asked us, she saw
her little dog, she said, does that dog have rackets? What? Rackets, does that dog
have rackets? I don't know what you're saying. Mandy said, rackets? Records? Yeah, yes. Strange. Went over to borrow a ladder,
I told you about that. Went over to borrow a ladder, her husband
was a painter. She said, you want a hind? What? A hind? You mean a high one? A tall ladder? Yes, I want a hind. Okay. It took me 30 years to learn
the language. But now, Now, we're Virginians, Franklin
Countians. Every now and then a man just
says something, I say, you're a Franklin Countian. You've become
one of them. And you know I have a ladder
if you want it, it's a hind. People know me in the town, I'm
a citizen of this town, been here longer than any preacher
in Franklin County. Did you know that? Any preacher. fellow citizens in this town.
They might not like us, but we're here. But more importantly, the gospel is strange. Different
language, isn't it? The UN religion. me and the world. More importantly, mercifully,
I am now a fellow citizen with the saints of the household of
God, the family of God. And we all talk just alike. Just alike. Our conversation
is in heaven. Our speech is of Him. We're He-Hathites. You heard of the Perizzites and
Hivites and Hittites? We're He-Hathites. He hath chosen
us. He hath redeemed us. He hath
bought us. He hath brought us. He hath taught
us. He hath redeemed us. He hath us. That's it. We all have the same language
now. The language of the world doesn't understand strength,
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, justification, propitiation. Propitiation. You like that sound,
Sarah? Propitiation. You know what that
means, don't you? Strangers no more. Strangers
no more. Isn't it good? Verse 21 and 22, "...in whom..."
Well, verse 20, "...were built upon the foundation of the apostles,
the solid rock, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone."
In whom? In Him. In whom? There it is
again. All the buildings fitly framed. This is the Lord's church.
He built it. He gets all the glory. Fitly framed. Knit together. Build it together. On Christ the solid rock. Growing
together. Together. Together. Together.
How many times do I say together? Together. Made us sit together.
Quickened us together. Together. I'm glad we're here
together. It's all because of Christ. We
wouldn't even know each other. We wouldn't have anything to
do with each other. It grows in the Holy Temple.
It's where the Lord is. Verse 22, "...in whom you also..."
Me? Yeah, you. "...buildeth together
the habitation of God through the Spirit." My, my. No better
place to be, is it? In Christ. With the saints. Worshipping God. But don't forget. Don't ever
forget. Remember. where you came from. Every time you come in here,
thank God He's made you sit in this heavenly place. And He found
you where He found you, and brought you afar off, and brought you
nigh to Him through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that'll make you sing, won't it? Okay, stand with me.