I go back to 1 Corinthians with
you. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Look at these few verses again. Verse 1, Paul called to be an
apostle. Verse 2, to the church of God
at Corinth or Rocky Mount, wherever God's people are. To them that
are sanctified in Christ called to be saints that in every place
call on the name of the Lord. Verse 9, God is faithful by whom
you were called. Verse 26, you see your calling,
brethren. So what this message is about
is the call and how God calls His people and those who are
called and how they call. They call. Our Lord said, My
sheep hear My voice. Our Lord's in heaven. He doesn't
speak out loud. He speaks through His Word. That's
what the Word says. He speaks through His Word and
He calls preachers to preach the Word and miraculously Amazingly,
mercifully, graciously, our Lord speaks through these earthen
vessels His Word, mind you. It's not their words. It's His
Word. It's His power. They preach Christ,
and Christ, He said, My sheep hear My voice. Oh, may the Lord,
the Great Shepherd of the sheep, call His sheep this morning. Salvation is to be called and
salvation is for the Lord to keep calling you and never quit
calling you. Because like sheep, we sing that
song, come thou prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave
the God I love. And we do and we will wander
and we wouldn't come back if he didn't call us. We wouldn't
come in the first place if He didn't call us. He said, All
that the Father giveth me shall come unto me. And that's by the
Gospel. Now, every one of us knows what
it is to call someone. Oh, do we ever. These phones that we're tied
to, man, oh man, they're both a blessing and a curse, aren't
they? But you can easily get a hold
of someone when we call someone on the telephone. That means
you want to speak to them. You call them, you call them
on the phone. A call means to cry out. Have you ever hollered at somebody? I mean, you really wanted to
get their attention? You'd cry with, hey! Stop. Have you ever been lost? You know what you'll do? You'll
cry. You'll call. Help. Gabe reached a message on that
one time, what to do if you're lost. First thing, cry. Call. Everybody knows what it is to
call on someone. It was an old country saying
years ago, I guess people still say it, I'm going to pay them
a visit. I'm going to call on them. It means pay a visit. It means come see. Well, this
is a good picture. And that's what the Lord does
to all his people. He calls them. He calls them. And he visits them in mercy and
grace and salvation. Salvation is to be called by
God. By God. Preacher, soul winner,
so to speak, he can't call anybody. He can't bring anybody. But Christ
said, My sheep hear My voice. He's able. Salvation is to be
called by God. For whom He did foreknow, He
did predestinate. Chose Him. He elected Him. Gave
Him to Christ to come save Him. Whom He did predestinate, He
called by the Gospel. This is how He
calls people. He doesn't call people sitting
up on the mountain with their legs crossed, you know, meditating
and all of that. He calls through the Gospel.
It's the Gospel calls. Preaching of the Gospel we just
read, men call it foolishness. I don't need that. Yes, you do.
I did. I am the prodigal son. I would
not be here right now. I would not know God. I would
know Christ. I'd probably be dead. But God, I heard the gospel. A man God raised up just happened
to be my father. And that was a miracle, because
I've told you my story so many times, that I heard message after
message after message after message. That's just my dad. He's a preacher.
That's what he does. And as soon as I could, I'm out
of here. I'm tired of this. I didn't have ears to hear. I
didn't have a heart. I'm out of here. I was a prodigal son.
I left. I'm gone. Boy, was I. Boy, was I. I want to be free
from this. Oh, far from free. Until I ended
up in the pit like the prodigal son. But God called me by His
grace. Brought me back in His providence
to sit under the sound of the gospel. And one day I heard My
dad. But it wasn't my dad. It was
the Lord speaking to me through the gospel. Paul said to the Thessalonians,
he wrote, I'm bound to give thanks always to God for you brethren,
beloved of the Lord. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. Nobody chooses God. He must choose
us. Has chosen you through sanctification
of Spirit, Spirit of God, rounding you up. You know, the lot is
cast in the lap. What am I going to do? This is
what I'm going to do. Well, you may think that. But the whole
disposing there of the Lord. Proverbs 7. He rounds them up,
the Holy Spirit. God says, bring my sons, bring
my daughters from my... Bring them to where? To hear
the Gospel. To hear my voice. Bring them
and sit them down. Now to give thanks to God for
you, Brethren and Beloved of the Lord, because He chose you
from the beginning. He chose you to salvation through
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. A lot
of lies, a lot of false religion out there today. It's the truth
saved, the truth that will make you free, the truth, the true
God, the true Christ, the truth of who you are, the truth of
how God is saved, the belief of the truth, whereunto He called
you by our gospel. That's what it said, 2 Thessalonians
2, 13 and 14. Is that how you were called?
You didn't know God until you heard the truth, did you? No, you didn't. If someone thinks
they do, they haven't. They don't. Because this is what
it says. It pleased God by the Buddhists
as a preacher. There are many reasons for that,
but we don't need another reason other than that God said so.
Okay? Salvation is to be called by
God through the Gospels, to be called from death to life. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespass and sin. That means dead. Oh, very much
alive to the world, very much living in the world, and everything
in the world is your life. And it's really death, because
everything is dead and dying, and we are too. Everything in
this world is dying things. And we live for it, until, unless
God calls us from death unto life. There was a ruler in the
synagogue named Darius. He had a daughter. He said, she's
near to death. How's that? Well, maybe she's
out in the world. Maybe she's hooked on this and
that and the other. Maybe she's so controlled by the things of
this world that she's going to die any day now, expecting to
get a call that we found her dead. And Darius came to the Lord and
said, Lord, if you can do anything, please, And well, she died. And the other people, my parents
thought I was dead. They didn't know where I was.
Didn't know where I was. And I didn't contact them for
a long time. How could I do that to them? But God. Christ went to visit
her. And He said, Talitha Kumai, maid,
arise. And she got up. And she ate. Which is a picture of the Gospel.
Now she needs the Gospel. She's hungry. She's alive. Oh,
He would do that for our daughters, huh, brother? They're dead. He calls from death unto life. He calls out of darkness into
light. John 3. Go over to John chapter
3. He calls from darkness to light. Now here's condemnation. That light has come into the
world. Christ the light. God is light. But men love darkness. John 3. John chapter 3. Men love darkness
rather than light. Why? Because their deeds are
evil. Anybody in here used to live
for the night? Nocturnal? That's mankind. Man loves darkness. All, you
know, most evil, well, all evil is done in the light of God,
His eye. He sees it all. But man really
plots and plans and gets really mad at night. He thinks he's
under the cover of darkness. No, not covered at all. Light
and the darker light come to God, it sees it all. Light coming
to the world, the light of truth. You know, light exposes, light
reveals things. And that's the Word of God and
that's the Gospel. You know, people have come here to
visit for whatever reason, God brought them. And they hear the
truth, they hear God's Word, because this is the only thing
that saves. So we preach God's Word. And I see it in the faces sometimes. People, oh, I don't like that. Oh, that makes me feel. I'm not
that bad. Or God's not like that. Yes,
He is today. You're just reading what it says
about Him. Just saying what it says about Him. And I see, and
they leave, and it's because I don't like that. It makes me feel bad. The Gospel
is not good news to anybody unless they feel bad. Brother Barnard used to say,
I'm not trying to get people saved, I'm trying to get them
lost. The first thing the Gospel, the
Word God does is convict of sin. And only sinners need a Savior.
Look at verse 19, John 3. This is condemnation. Light has
come into the world. Men loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds were evil. Everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light. Neither cometh to the light lest
his deeds should be reproved. We had a neighbor, a couple.
We like them a lot. We do things for one another.
We kept talking to them to get them to come. They finally came.
They were their two sons. And sat on the back row, and
we were glad to see them. We were hopeful. And I could
tell that I thought, this is too serious. This is not like
religion today. This is not fun. It's serious. You act like this is life or
death. And it never came back. I hope
it will. But, you see, this is in light
of what, of John 3.16. You see that? A few know John 3.36, 3.18. Very
few people know. He that believeth not is condemned
already, under condemnation. Verse 36, he that believeth not,
the wrath of God abideth. Right now, not the love of God,
the wrath of God. Verse 21, look at this. It says, he that doeth truth
cometh to the light. His deeds might be made manifest
that they are wrought in God. Oh, wanting to know that God
has done a work in us wanting to know what Christ has done
for sinners or whether or not He did it for me. You come to
the light, you come to the Word, you come to the Gospel, you come
to hear the Gospel because you don't want darkness. You don't
like darkness. You've been in darkness. You
don't want to stay there. You want out. That's why the people in
Egypt, the Israelites, the Egyptians weren't calling to get out of
Egypt. Children of Israel were. Why? They wanted out of those
slime pits. And God heard their cry and He
brought them out. How? A lamb. Brought them out
of darkness into His marvelous light. Translated them from the
kingdom of this world, Egypt, into the promised land. Took them out of captivity. Took
captivity captive. His. Now they belong to Him.
Aren't you glad? You used to think I was my own
man. Completely captive to the God of this world and to myself. You know, it's like a worm, an
earthworm. You go outside after a rain.
You go outside in the morning and you see these earthworms
all over the pavement or whatever. They only come out at night because
they live in the dirt. They live in the filth. That's
their life. And you know what they're made
of? Dirt. And that's going to go back to
the dust. And that's man in. Going back to the dirt. Well,
just as soon as the light comes up, these creatures of the night
come out and what do they want? Get back to the dirt. They don't
like this light. Well, how are you going to get
a worm to like light? You have to change it. You have
to transform it. It's called metamorphosis. What happens to a caterpillar,
which is a pretty worm, caterpillar, what happens is it dies. It goes
into this cocoon. It's wrapped up like old Lazarus
in the tomb. It's wrapped up, completely covered
up, and it's dead to the world, okay? And Scripture says God's
people are crucified with Christ. First thing God, He says, I kill
and I make alive. I kill and I make alive. The
first thing He does to us is kill us before He makes us alive.
Wounds us before He heals us. Shows us what worms we are, lovers
of darkness, before He shows us the light. So you take that caterpillar
and you put him in a cocoon and wrap him up, and he's
dead. Okay? Oh, a little while later. You just wait. It does not yet
appear what that worm will be, but you will see. He'll come
out. He's coming out of there. Oh, what is he now? Butterfly. What's he do? Go bury in the
dirt? Oh, no. The flying sun. If you'd have told me 50 years
ago that I would run to the house of God and sit, and just sit
there wanting, hoping to hear God's Word, I'd have said, what
are you smoking? But God. Salvation's of the Lord. John
and I were just sitting there talking about what a miracle
we are, him and I. Salvation's a miracle. If you're
saved, it's a miracle of God's grace. If he calls you, it'll
be a miracle. But we're not worth calling. And a trillion others
just like us. God doesn't need us. We're all
just the same. My nature, rebel. 1 Corinthians
2 said, natural man receiveth not the things of God's foolishness
to him. Neither can he know it. Not interested. That was me.
Was that you? Not interested. I'm sure grateful
God took an interest in me. Not calling. Oh, I'm sure grateful. I'm sure thankful God called
on me because I wouldn't have called on him. I don't want him. Oh, I'm so thankful and pleased
God to make me his people or I wouldn't have been. Have you been called? Have you been called? Peter said
this. He said, Give diligence, brethren,
to make your calling and election sure. You know, election is truth. It's the absolute truth of God's
Word. Twenty-seven times in Scripture,
some form of the Word. And chose, not to mention all
the words and times it speaks about being chosen, chosen. Christ
said, you didn't choose me, I chose you. Elect, according to the
foreknowledge of God. It's all through the scriptures. It's true. If God doesn't elect
or choose someone, no one would ever choose or come to Him. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't. No way. Okay? Elect. Peter said, give
diligence to make your calling and election sure. You can't
look at the Lamb's Book of Life. Those names were put in that
Lamb's Book of Life before the world began. God put those names
in there, predestined them to be His people, chose them, put
them in the Lamb's Book of Life, gave them in a covenant to Jesus
Christ to come to this world and save every one of them, not
come and try to save everybody, but to save them, His people.
He said he came for his own. My own sheep. My sheep are going
to hear my voice. The others are goats. But they
were given to cry, and those names were put in the Lamb's
Book of... I'm not making this up. This is the Bible. And put
their names in the Lamb's Book of Life, okay, and sealed it.
Sealed it up, and it's not going to be open until the end of the
world. Is that what the Scripture said? And you hear these charlatans,
these false prophets say, there's a new name written in heaven.
Oh, no, no. No, no, no, no. Where's he getting
that? Says the lamb is going to come
and take the book. The lion is going to come and
take the book out of him that's sitting on the throne and open
the book and read the names. They're all going to be there.
Not one missing. Not one added. That's what it said. Well, I
can't read the book. I can't look into it. How do
I know if I'm one of God's elect? God has an elect. I hope I'm
one of them. I can't read the book. Well,
Simon Peter said, give diligence to make your calling an election
sure. My dad used to say, you know,
you're elect by the call. For all whom He chose, He called.
All whom He predestinated, He called. How? By the gospel. By what I'm doing right now.
By who I'm preaching right now. Listen to this. 1 Thessalonians
1. I know, beloved, your election of God. How do you know, Paul? Can you look in the book? No.
He says, Our gospel came unto you. Our gospel. He said there's another gospel
in Galatians 1. That's not it. Another Jesus who wants to and
tries and fails and can't. That's not Jesus Christ of Scripture.
A God who wants to save and can't unless you let Him. That is not
the God of the Bible. That is not God. That's a God
who cannot save. Our God does as He will with
whom He will just because He will. And I'm so glad. They say, well, He cannot violate
your will. He better. If He doesn't, you're
a goner. I was a goner at the end of saying,
you will come unto Me. I will not. Yes, you will. That's an effectual call. Our Gospel, it came unto you
not in word only, not in reading a sermon, not in, you know, won't
you accept, In power, the Scripture says, Holy Ghost power, that
is heart-convicting, heart-piercing, mind-changing, heartbreaking,
sin-revealing, God-revealing power. Reveal the dreadful God,
the terrible God. Oh, have mercy on me, oh God. The whole world said, oh my God.
Well, when the Gospel comes in power, you know what you're going
to say? Oh my! mercy on them. When you find
out you're in a pit, and that pit may be a pew, or it might be the pit of whatever
it is, like I was down in the earth, but it might be a pew,
that darkness is just, we got people in there just like that,
it was in religion, just like those Pharisees. But God, the
gospel came, this gospel came. And not in word only, but in
power and a holy ghost. What does a holy ghost do? Our
Lord told us plainly, told His disciples. In John 14, John 16,
all through there, the Comforter, the Comforter, the Comforter
shall come. The one whom the Father will send in my name.
He'll come. What will He do? What does He do? Well, He said
He'll take the things of mine and show them unto you. It says
He'll convict of sin, righteousness, judgment. He'll convict of sin.
What's that? You're a sinner. Not we are sinners. I'm a sinner. Like Saul of Tarsus
was in religion. He thought he was blameless.
He was moral. He knew God. He didn't know God. But God came with the Holy Spirit,
preaching the gospel, God's Word, convicted him of his sin, of
sin, of righteousness. That is, God is holy and holy,
holy, a consuming fire. God is righteous and just, will
by no means clear the guilty. That's the Bible. That's the
God of the Bible. Convict of sin, of righteousness,
and you'll find out, even if you are moral in religion, God
will show you through the preaching of the gospel, you don't have
a righteousness. Isaiah 64, 6, this righteousness, this holiness,
this religion that you made up is a filthy rag. It's a fig leaf
like Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with. God's. And won't
cover. And judgment. It's a judgment
to face, and you cannot face it. You cannot face a holy God
if you've got one sin on your record. Now, then the Holy Spirit takes
the things of Christ. He said, it's all about me. He'll
take the things of mine and show them unto you. He'll show you
that Christ is the sin offering, Christ is the sin payment, Christ
is the burn offering, Christ is your righteousness, Christ
is your holy righteousness, Christ is your covering, Christ is your
acceptance with God, Christ is the one that stands in the judgment
for you, Christ is the one who was judged for you, Christ is
the one who was condemned for you, Christ is the one who died
for you, Christ is the one, and you'll be found in Him In Him,
in the judgment. Not standing alone, but standing
in Him. Because He did it all. And you know it. And you're glad
of it. That's what the Holy Spirit does.
It doesn't make you talk like a blooming idiot. I call it Fred
Flintstone religion. That's fake. It's phony. Anybody
can do that. That's not it. He'll take you
and sit you down. You won't be jumping and shouting
and hanging on chandeliers and talking like a blooming idiot.
You'll sit down clothed in your right mind like that demoniac
from the Gadarene tomb and here at the feet of Jesus Christ.
And you'll be talking about what? Him. Everything that's in your
heart and your mind comes out of your mouth from then on will
be about Him. It won't be foolishness. Finally, it will be wisdom. Christ,
our wisdom. Where am I? The call. This is the Holy Spirit how He
calls through the preaching of the Gospel. The call is God's
voice. The call is Christ's voice. The
call is His Word. Oh, the Word of God. The Gospel
of God. We're born again by it. Born
again by the Word of God. And Peter said, this is the Word
which by the Gospel is preached to me. Psalm 29 says, A word
of the Lord makes a hinds to calve. Give birth. Don't you remember? You were
like Rebecca. Remember when Rebecca, the Lord, she was barren. And
the Lord put life in her. And there were two men in her
that He put in Rebecca. Why? He put these two men in
her and Rebecca was just torn up. She wasn't torn up before
until God put life in her. She was doing just fine. Now
all of a sudden she's got this life in her and the two men. And she said, why am I like this? Why am I torn up? What is wrong
with me? What has happened to me? And
our Lord said, There's two men in you. One is mine. Jacob, have I loved. The other,
I hate. Two men. There's an old man and
a new man. Christ in you is the hope of glory, he said. And there's
this old man. There's a butterfly that's waiting
to be revealed. And there's a worm. That old
man. You. That's you. That's me. We're
always going to be us. And in us is no good thing. And
God is going to put us in the grave. But that new creature
created in the image of Christ, born again by the Word of God,
someday is going to fly into the sun. And I can't wait. I'm going to
have to. Born again. The call. The Gospel
call. The call of Christ. The call. Who does the Lord call? Look at verse 26 in our text.
I've got to quit. Look at verse 26. It says, You
see your calling, brethren, not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble to call. God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world. Are you a fool? That's unwise. Have you played the fool? Have
you acted the fool? You know, to sin against God
is foolish. To reject your Creator. Man, that's foolish. To bite
the hand that feeds you. What a fool. To shake your fist
in the hands of God in whose hands your breath is. Don't you
have any sense? Oh, foolish things of the world
to confound the weak things. Weak things. Oh, when God calls
by the gospel, by the truth, God reveals the truth to us,
we realize I can't do anything. I can't pray, I can't believe,
I can't keep myself, I can't walk by faith, I can't do anything. You know what I need? I need the Lord to save me. I
need the Lord to keep me. I need the Lord to keep me all
my days. John and I were talking about what a miracle it is we're
sitting here. And if we end up in glory, man,
what a miracle! Because I'm still prone to wonder. If He called me in the first
place, what a miracle! No, He'll never come. You'll
never ride that wild ass's coach, they said to Christ. Yes, I will. And he did. All the way into
Jerusalem. And it will be a miracle, buddy.
Brother, you and I, that's why there's going to be silence for
30 minutes. I keep bringing that up. Because
this is an unspeakable gift. This is joy unspeakable. We're
all going to be so amazed, stand amazed in the presence of Jesus
of Nazarene and wonder why he would love Me, John Newton said,
a wretch like me saved a wretch like me and here he is standing
in glory, clothed in white, clothed in righteousness, no sin, nothing
on his record, all of it blotted out, every bit of it forgotten.
While the rest of them that were, he was just like them. He was
just like those people that God said, get out of my presence,
you're going to perish forever. He was just like them. And now
there He stands, unblameable, unrecruitable, holy, righteous
in God's sight, praising His name forever. We're going to
be silent for 30 minutes. We're all going to be silent. I'm here. What a miracle. What a miracle. What a miracle. They were going to laugh. That's what Psalm 126 said. When
the Lord turned again, our captivity were like them that dreamed.
And it says, then our mouths were filled with laughter. Oh, man. I was glad when they
said unto me, Oh, I am glad, more glad now. Even at first,
that they call, I was called by His grace. And you know what? Who He calls, He keeps calling. He never quits calling. Never
quits calling. If He does, you're not His. He keeps calling them. You know,
I told you about my dog, Charlie. Abner was a good dog, Charlie
was not. He's a shih tzu. I'm sorry, he just is, he was.
But we chose him, we bought him, we brought him, we taught him,
he didn't learn very well. We taught him, we called him,
called him Charlie. We love the name Charlie. We
called him Charlie and we loved him. slept in bed with us for
15 years, a dog. At any rate, old Charlie, he
lived in the big house, you know. Abner was outside. Abner wanted
in, Charlie wanted out. And Abner despised Charlie for
his snooty, you know, laying on silk pillows and all that.
Charlie, I think he despised Abner. You know, as good as me
at both dogs. Both of them were chosen, both
of them were paid, bought and paid, kept and loved. No, no,
just dogs. I'm sorry. But Charlie wanted
out, okay. And Buddy, every now and then,
he'd get out, wouldn't he? We'd let him out. We'd let him
out to potty. And he'd destroy our shrubs. But anyway, we let
him out. And he's looking like this. Didn't he, Mindy? And Mindy would
call him, come! No! Stop! Didn't have any effect
on him. She had no authority in her voice
at all. Stop! She could get as mean as
she wanted. No! And he wouldn't stop. Well, sometimes I would holler. Sometimes I growl. Stop! The point is, he's always wanting
to run off. Always wanting to run off. But
he's our dog. We love him. We bought him. Paid
for him. We're not going to let him run
off. Why? What are we going to do? We're
going to keep calling him. If he runs, we call. If he gets
too far, to go after him. And he had little short legs.
And every now and then, one time he got out in the snow and he
had long hair and he got snowbound, had ice balls all over him. Literally, he would have died,
wouldn't he, man? He would have died. We found him. He couldn't move. Shivering, shaking, trembling.
We went out and got him. Picked him up. Put Him on our
shoulders. Brought Him home. And that's
what Christ is going to do for all His people. Every one of
them He chose. Every one of them He bought.
Every one of them He loves. Every one He calls by the gospel,
He keeps calling. And if you run too, you can't
run too far. You can hide, but not from Him.
And He's going to come get you. How? Right here. We've had people
in this room. who left for a long time. And they're back. And you know what I think about
that? It's a miracle I haven't done it. I'm just glad they're back. Because
I may run off. But if He's calling me, He'll
call me back. Now isn't that good news? It
is if you're prone to wonder.