I appreciate that nice introduction. I'm so encouraged by the things
that's been said about Brother Paul. He said some wonderful
things about him. I didn't get here late yesterday
afternoon. I'm going to leave early in the
morning. That just thrills me, so encouraging
to me. I'd like to think that they talk
about me that way at home, but I don't think so. I don't think
so. But of course, I'm not like Paul
either. I knew him before he ever even
thought about preaching, you know, and I loved him. First time I ever met him, he
was so serious minded. And he had the Spirit of Christ
in him, manifested such a Spirit of Christ, and so longed to be
like his Master. And he has, the Lord has made
him some kind of a preacher. He has really made him, and I
love him. I don't know, I just, I just love him dearly. We've
been friends for a long time, and I just soon hear him preach
as anybody I've ever heard. A delight. The Lord has blessed
him so with an ability to preach expository. He can take 15 verses
and go through them in 40 minutes, tell you what they mean, honor
the Lord in it, exhort you, prove you, rebuke you, correct you,
instruct you, and honor the Master, and create something in your
heart when I listen to him to make me want to be more like
the Master and adhere to what he speaks. And if I took the
same fifteen verses, it would take me a month to preach them.
And I wouldn't do near as good as the Lord has just blessed
him. He's a wonderful man. I'm sure the Lord's using him
in Mexico today. But here in Colossians chapter
one, starting at verse twenty-five, the apostle talks about being
made a minister according to the dispensation of God. which
is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God." He said, God
made me a preacher for one reason, gave me a dispensation of time,
an amount of a ministry. Called him, saved him, called
him on the Damascus road until he died. He said, God's given
me a dispensation of the ministry, and he gave it to me for you.
He gave me this for you. for the children of God, for
the saints of God, particularly the Gentiles, is what he's talking
about. And he said, he gave me this
ministry for you, to be a blessing to you, to teach you, to instruct
you, and to do this to fulfill the Word of God. To fulfill the
Word of God. To bring to pass, and everything
that God says is going to come to pass. You can mark that down.
And this is the fulfilling of the Word of God that He has given
me this dispensation of the gospel for, even the mystery, the mystery,
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now
is made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among you Gentiles,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's the fulfilling
of the Word of God, making known the mystery of the riches of
the glory which is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. You see, people like mysteries.
They like to learn there's lots of mysteries. The Scriptures
is full of mysteries. There's the mystery of the faith, the
mystery of godliness, the mystery of iniquity. The mystery that
has been hid from generations but now is made manifest. But
the gospel, the gospel is the mystery of mysteries. It's a
grand secret. It really truly is. It is the
mystery of all mysteries. And the riches of the glory of
this mystery, the riches of the glory of it, this mystery has
glory to it, and it's full of riches. And the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, among Gentiles, you
and is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And you see, look over
here in Ephesians with me. Let me show you what Paul is
saying here about this mystery that's been hidden. And this
mystery of Christ in you, the riches of this mystery, and this mystery of Christ being
in us, the hope of glory, was hidden from ages, hidden from
ages for generations and generations. But this mystery is now made
manifest to God's blessed saints. And Paul said here in Ephesians
3, 3, he said, You've heard about the
dispensation of the grace of God that's been given me for
you. Give this to me for you. That's what he said. You know,
he said, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life
or things present or things to come or even death, it's yours.
And you're Christ and Christ is God. And God gave me this
dispensation of grace for you. And you know how, that by revelation,
he made known unto me the mystery. And I've wrote to this, about
this to you before. He made known unto me the mystery.
What is it? In verse five, which in other
ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now
revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. And
this is the mystery. This is the mystery, that the
Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers
of His promise in Christ by the gospel. The Jews, the world,
for thousands of years, nobody but the Jews, God manifested
Himself to. They had the prophets, they had
the Messiah, they had the tabernacle, they had the sacrifices, they
had the priesthood, they had the scriptures. God left everybody
else in darkness, exercised His sovereign right to do what He
will with His own. a bunch of high-minded Jews, and it's hid
all the way through the Old Testament. But it was hid that from generation
after generation and from ages and ages and ages that you and
I, Gentiles, would ever believe the gospel, would be a partaker
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the promises of the gospel, that
we'd be members of his body, that he'd be the head of the
church and we'd be in that church, his body. And when And when Paul
began to preach that, and when our Lord began to teach that,
that He came not only to save Jews, but God so loved the world,
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever loved all kinds
of men, in every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every kindred,
and He came to save them. They got angry, tried to kill
Him, and eventually did crucify Him. And they hated the Apostle
Paul for even going and preaching to the Gentiles. They despised
him for it. So this is a mystery. And, beloved,
I'm telling you, this gospel is a mystery, and it's the mystery
of all mysteries. And it's such a mystery. It is
such a mystery to every individual right now unless the Holy Ghost
would come and reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to him. Isn't it?
The gospel's still a mystery. And unless it's a revelation
of God, the Holy Ghost comes and makes you know it or I know
it, it'll always be a mystery to us. It's just like these lights
being in here this morning. There's nothing wrong with the
gospel. There's nothing wrong with the light that comes through
the gospel. These lights are giving off this light. But if
a blind man's sitting here, and you describe that light to him,
tell him the color of that light and how bright it is in here,
he don't know what in the world you're talking about if he's
never seen light. So what does he need in order to see the light?
Is anything wrong with the lights? Nothing wrong with them, the
problem's in the man. He needs a miracle of sight, and that's
what the Holy Ghost does. He comes and gives the miracle
of sight, and then a man sees the lie of the gospel, the mystery
of Christ in you, the hope of glory. And there are seven words
here in verse twenty-seven of Colossians, chapter one, that
set the mystery of this gospel right out in open view. Seven
words, and what are they? Christ in you, the hope of glory. What is it? Well, the mystery of the gospel,
the mystery of the gospel, the eternal gospel, only one gospel,
always has been just one gospel. Christ our Lord stood as the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He's the Lamb that
we praise and honor and glorify while eternity rolls on and on
and on and on and on. He was the gospel in Genesis,
and as many of you are saying downstairs, all the way through
the Scriptures, Christ, Christ, Christ. And the eternal gospel,
regardless of what that one Biscopio Bible says, said there's seven
gospels. There ain't never been seven. There's only been one
gospel, everlasting gospel, the eternal gospel. That gospel's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the essence of this gospel
is the Lord Jesus himself. The gospel is the hope of glory
is Christ in you. And the hope of glory is our
Lord Jesus himself. Now look at that word there,
in the last part of that verse, it says, which is Christ in you,
the hope of glory. Now this word, there's some words
that's antecedent to it. When you look at which there,
you've got to go back and see which he's talking about. What
which is he talking about here? So which, which word is antecedent
to this? Is it riches? Is it glory? Is it mystery? Is it like this?
Is it the riches? which is Christ in you, the hope
of glory? Or is it glory, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory? Or is it mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory? Well, let's just, if it's mystery, if it is mystery, well,
our Lord Jesus Christ is that mystery. The apostles said, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, like you and I. And here's a great mystery believed
on in this world, that God was manifested in the flesh, believed
on in this world, and received up into glory. That's what he's
saying. So if it's mystery, if mystery
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, He Himself is that
mystery. I've been studying Him for years
and meditating and thinking about Him for years. And, beloved,
I ain't scratched the surface, I ain't touched the hem of the
garment. I'm still filled with awe when I think about my Master.
Thus I call His name Wonderful. Everything about Him's wonderful.
He was wonderful in eternity. He's wonderful in time. He's
wonderful in eternity to come. Everything about Him's wonderful.
He's wonderful. And if it's that word glory,
if it's glory which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, well,
our Lord is that glory. The Word, the Word was manifest
in the flesh, and we what? Beheld His glory, which is the
glory of the only begotten of the Father, full, overflowing,
complete in grace and truth. And Paul said, he said, he is
the express image and the brightness of His glory. Whatever God is
in His glory, whatever God is as He lives in His glory, whatever
God is for more than eternity in His glory, in His majesty,
in His power, our Lord Jesus Christ is that glory. Huh? Is that glory. And if it's riches,
if the riches which is Christ give you the hope of glory, do
you know where any more riches are than that's in our Lord Jesus
Christ? I don't. I don't. All the riches of God's
grace is in Him. It talks about the unsearchable
riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge is in Him. The treasures of the mystery
of this universe is bound up in a man, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it says there in Colossians
119, it pleased Him, it pleased God the Father, that in Him,
in the Lord Jesus Christ, all fullness should dwell. Everything
that God has, everything that God does, everything that God
is, everything that God purposed is in one man. And if I have
anything in this world from God Almighty, if I have anything
in the world to come that makes me anything, I get it through
Him. I get it through Him. Oh, rich
in Him. I know I'll never have a whole
lot in this world, got more than I ever dreamed I would, but I'll
tell you one thing, I'm rich in Him. It's like that old gal,
it's like that old gal, John Bunyan, went to her house one
time. They let him out of jail every once in a while, and he'd
get to go see his family and get to go preaching. He went to this woman's
house one time after he'd been a pastor for a while, and he
sat down at her table with her. She was poor, and all she had,
she set a glass of water down in front of Bunyan, set a glass
of water down in front of herself, and handed him a piece of bread
and sat down with her piece of bread. Mr. Bunyan gave thanks, and she
looked up and said, All of this in Christ, too. If it's man and woman, we've
got all this, and we've got the Lord Jesus, too. That's what
I'm talking about. Oh, if it's glory, if it's mystery,
if it's riches, our Master is every one of them. That's what
I'm saying, that He Himself is the essence of this hope of glory
which is in you. And our Lord is the mystery,
He's the glory, He's riches, He's all this, and He's this
to us Gentile dogs. That's the way the Jews still
view us. They ain't changed any ideas about us. They still view
us as Gentile dogs. But I tell you, beloved, we're
now heirs of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the essence, I've said it, the essence of this mystery is the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now, beloved, in these days,
in these days of troublesome days, perilous days, vexing days
when fools are building churches without the Lord Jesus Christ,
super churches, mega churches, mega ministries, and preaching
salvation without a Savior, crying up the free will of man, crying
down the free will of God, talking about the great goodness and
ability of man, and talking about God's inability. And while all
this is going on all around us, While it's going on, we see lies
being told on God on every hand. We'll receive people who are
seemingly unconcerned about God, about the souls, about the truth,
about the scriptures. I'm telling you that the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself is still the gospel, no matter what goes
on in this world. He Himself is not about the gospel. He Himself is the gospel. And
what I mean by that is that I, Lord Jesus Christ, in His person,
is the gospel. This is the mystery of the gospel.
This is the hope of glory that we have, is our Lord's blessed
person. Huh? Who would have ever thought,
I wouldn't have thought it, you wouldn't have thought it, an
angel wouldn't have thought it, that the eternal and infinite God
should take upon himself the nature of man? It's because the
children were partakers of flesh and blood that he himself would
likewise take part of the same? that He Himself would come down
and so identify with us, that God would send His own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, that He would have two natures,
the nature of God and the nature of man, in one undivided person,
that that man, beloved, who walked and talked and knew what it was
to work for a living till his thirty years of age, that knew
what it was, the heat of a summer's day and the cold of a winter's
night, that hung on a Jewish mother's breast, Born and laid
in a stable when he was a tiny baby, do you believe that you'd
ever thought that that child that grew up and would be nailed
to a tree would be God manifest in his flesh? Who would ever
thought? Huh? This is a great mystery
to our faith. It is to mine. God and man in
one person? God, as much as if he was not
man, and man as if he was not God? This is the greatest mystery
known to the human mind. I was at Brother Henry's one
time, and him and Scott Richardson and I were there, and I had to
preach that night, and I went back to this study, and I was
preparing a message. And I came out, and this thing
of God and man united in one undivided person was so overwhelming
me. And I come out, and I sit down
on the couch, and I said, I said, you all have been preaching,
and you've lived a long time. Tell me, what's the greatest
mystery that's ever confronted your mind? And the Bible's full
of profound truths that just dagger you. The fact that somebody
rose from the dead in their own power. Men don't do that, but
our Lord did. Women don't have children without
a man, without the seed of a man. Our Lord come into this world
without the seed of a man, through a womb of a virgin. Men don't walk on water. Our
Master did. Men don't speak to a dead man
who's done corrupted for four days and say, Rise! But our Master
did. And God don't get tired. But
our Master laid down in the hole of a ship because he was tired
and went to sleep. And was hungry and went through
a field one day and was hungry and got him an ear of corn and
started eating on it. God don't get hungry. But our Lord did. Huh? But I asked him, I said,
what's the greatest mystery ever confronted your mind? And both
of them without any hesitation said, God was manifest in the
flesh. There was no halos around his
head to distinguish him. There was nothing about him.
In fact, he was so commonplace in his look that Judas had to
walk up and kiss him to point out who he was. There was no
light to show him down from heaven around him. An ordinary looking
man. But he was God. He was God. Huh? Oh, no wonder, David said,
when I think about the stars, the heavens that thy hands have
made, and you've ordained, what is man? That thou art mindful
of him, or the Son of man, that you visit him. What is man? What
is man? The Son of the highest, born
in Bethlehem, and before he had ever suffered, before he had
ever shed any blood, before he had ever worked one deed of righteousness,
The angel sang, Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace
and goodwill toward men. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." Huh? That's the gospel. That's the
hope of glory we have is in this blessed person. This blessed
person. And it's the mystery. Y'all got
these little babies, got little babies everywhere. They have
to have to be fed and cared for and learn and walk and talk and
be taught. Our master, who was God manifest
in the flesh, had to be born. He cried just like your babies
do. Now he hears our cry. He was as helpless as any babies
that you've ever seen in this world. And now he's our help
in our time of trouble. You figure that one out if you
can. It's a mystery to our faith, ain't it? My soul makes me want
to just stop and bless His glorious name. What a wonderful Savior
is Jesus our Lord, huh? And oh, beloved, the Incarnation,
this is why they sang. They knew that the Incarnation
of our Lord was full of the riches of God's grace in this one, this
infant who came into this world for fallen, sinful men like you
and I. They knew that. And beloved,
His bone, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. And he has the
power and ability as God to meet all of our needs, and yet as
a man, he can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
And I'll tell you something else, that this mystery of the gospel
is, is Christ in you, that it's the hope of glory. Not only his
blessed person, but the wondrous and glorious work which he undertook
and finished on our behalf. He didn't come into this world
for himself. He come into this world as a
public person, as a representative. And everything our Master did,
every word He spoke, every deed He performed, everything our
Master done, He done for somebody else. He didn't do it for Himself. He was born sinless, and He died
sinless. He was born perfect, and He died
perfect, except for one thing. Our sin put upon Him. Our imperfections
imputed to His account. And our Master come into this
world to do for us what we fail to do in our Father Adam, to
keep the law and obey God. And our Master, every day of
his life, from the day he was born to the day they nailed him
to that tree in life, left his blessed body. Our Master looked
God's holy law square in the face. It was written in his heart.
He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And he walked before
God's law and fulfilled every precept, every command. He loved God with all of his
heart. He loved his neighbors and himself. He actually prayed
for his enemies and said, Father, forgive them. They know not what
to do. He looked God's holy law, that square in the eye, and,
beloved, he honored it, he fulfilled it, he magnified it, and he held
it up there and said, This is God's law, and as a man, I've
kept it. I've honored it. I fulfilled it. And then, beloved,
not only did he obey all of his precepts, But when it come time
to die, he took all the penalties of everyone whom he represented
who didn't obey that law, and he took all the penalty of breaking
that over his own self. All of our sins and all of our
iniquities was made to meet on him. God laid on him. God put
on him, God tries to heal all of our sins, all of our iniquities,
all of our rebellion, all of our evil thoughts, all of our
hatred and all of our enmity, all of our avarice and all of
our maliciousness, and laid it on him. And when God saw that
on him, God turned around and said, I can't look and I won't
look. And he died. And I'm telling
you, that work that he undertook for us, that if my master obeyed
the law in my room instead, I'm not going to go under the law.
He did it for me. Huh? He was delivered for our
offenses, raised for our justification. Well, how do we honor and magnify
the law? I look at the law and say it's just and it's holy and
it's good. It's right. Oh, what a wonderful world it
would be if we would keep the Ten Commandments. We wouldn't
need a police force. We wouldn't need a penitentiary, would we? But that's not all,
beloved. We didn't keep it. That's the
thing. We didn't, and we took it, and it ain't changed. So
our Lord, He kept it. And so I look at that Lord, it's
just as holy, it's good, but I'm sinful, I'm sold under sin. The will is present with me,
but how to perform, I don't know how. But all of the under, I
see a substitute. I see somebody who did keep it,
and he is of such a worth and such a value and such merit,
being God and man, that God accepted what he did for me. So that's how I honor and magnify
the law. I run to the law keeper, and I hide in him. I get in that
cleft in the rock, I get in him, I snuggle up, and the only reason
I hung up to him, close, close. But then, beloved, he took that
sin, and at my sin, was put on the Master, on my Lord, then
it can't be on me. And if God punished Him in my
room instead, then God wouldn't be just to come and punish me,
would He? So I mean, our Lord undertook
a work, and He finished it. It's done. That's the difference
between our gospel and other people's gospel. They say, do,
we say it's done. They say God's trying, we say
God did. Our Master is not an insufficient
Savior, and there's a statement that men make, and it's a heresy,
and you listen closely to what I'm telling you. And they thank
their honored God in saying it. They say that, and there's Calvinists
and whatever one of them two-eyed monsters is, three-eyed monsters
or whatever, but they say that the death of Christ is sufficient
for everyone, but only efficient for the elect for whom God's
purpose is to save. You say, what's wrong with that? First
of all, if he was sufficient for everyone, sufficient means
it's done. You don't need any more. If he
was sufficient for everyone, then everybody's going to be
saved. That belittles the love of God. That belittles the death
of Christ. Belittles the blood of Christ. Who his death was
sufficient for, his death is applied to. You understand what
I'm saying? And our Lord Jesus Christ all
that he undertook on my behalf and on everybody's behalf who
would ever believe. I mean, brethren, they don't have one debt before
God. This is one of the great mysteries of the gospel. I stand
here and tell you that God took his righteousness after my sin
was put on him, and his obedience, and put that to my account. And
it's not a stuck-on, like we stick a stamp on a letter. It's
not a stuck-on righteousness. It's not pasted on. He's not
pasted on. I actually have the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have the righteousness of God
himself. It's not just a cover-up. It's
not just something that God pulls it up. He'll see that I'm not
any good underneath. I mean, as far as God's concerned,
I am as righteous as God himself is. Ain't that what the Scripture
said? We're made the righteousness of God. We're half in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I stand without any sin, without
any condemnation, without any guilt, perfectly holy, completely
accepted, holy and unblemishable before God in love. Why? Because
Christ, my Lord, done everything required of me, and now through
faith in Him, God says, I'm just to justify Donny Bell, who believes
on my blessed Son. Huh? That's the That's awful arrogant. That's not arrogant. That's just
what the Bible says. That's just true. And you're
talking about giving a poor sinner some comfort and some assurance
and some hope when he's lying in bed at night and his sins
are calling over one another's back to see which was the worst.
And he pleads to his master and says, Oh, it was the accuser.
That's the accuser in the bed and comes to his throne and just
finds all kinds of fun with him. He said, But my master, my master
done met all of my needs. Oh, knowing me, I don't have
anything. I am nothing, do nothing, can do nothing, know nothing.
But my Master has done everything, and knows everything, and has
everything. And that's where I'm pleading.
You see what I'm talking about? Oh, our gospel. Oh, I'm preaching
it. It's Christ in you, the hope
of the glory. It says a person, and it's what he done. And what
he done has worth and value to it because of who he was. It's
like I'm going to tell you a story, a true story. There's this farmer. He's a believer.
We've got lots of farmers in our congregation. I've got to
farm myself. I'm not a farmer, but I've got
to farm. And he was a bird. He had his friend who was a carpenter.
We've got a lot of carpenters in our church, too. They farm
and carpenter. Not six carpenters over here
and six farmers. They do both. But either way,
this farmer He liked his carpenter, good friend of his, liked him,
thought a lot of him. He'd witness to him all the time
about the grace of God, about the gospel of grace, about the
Lord Jesus Christ and his sufficiency, his atonement that actually atones,
his redemption that redeems. He'd witness to that carpenter.
That carpenter would always say, always say, well, that's good,
that's fine, but I don't care what you say. God don't do it
all. We have to do something ourselves.
We have to. We have to do so. We have to be good. We have to
go to church. We have to do the best we can.
Oh, and just trouble that poor old farmer. And one day he told
that farmer. I mean, that carpenter said,
I'll tell you what I want you to do. He said, see this place over here?
He said, I want to be a gate back here. I want to be a gate. He said,
you build me a nice gate, will you? Yeah. Yeah, I'll build you
one. So the carpenter went and built him a gate. Brought it
over and hung the gate and put some swags in it and opened it
good. Nice gates. He told that carpenter, he said,
come over in the morning, drink some coffee with me. We'll visit
a while. So the carpenter come over the
next morning and he pulled up out there and there stood that
fellow with an axe in his hand, that farmer with an axe in his hand.
He said, I'm standing out there looking at that gate. That carpenter
said to him, he said, what are you, what are you standing there
with that axe for? He said, I'm fixing to straighten up this
gate you made. I'm fixing to make this thing right. I don't
like the way you've done it. I'm going to straighten it out.
He said, what you're talking about, you go straighten it out.
You couldn't ask for a better gate. It may be my work, but
there ain't nobody that can build a better one. What are you going
to do to it? You're going to mess it up. He
said, no, I'm going to straighten it out. Boy, he took that ax
and he drove back and he went to work on that gate. Wow. Just
busted that gate all to pieces. And that gate was as nasty as
can be. I thought it was great. It was fine. It was wonderful.
That farmer looked back and pulled that axe down and said, what
I've done to your gates once you do the work of Christ, by
trying to add your works to it and your goodness to it and your
merit to it, you destroy it. You nullify it. And a man who
wants to come to the Lord by his own goodness and that, he
just will go to a cow field and get him some cavendure and just
start smearing it all over him. You wouldn't come into this building
looking like that, smelling like that, but that's exactly what
you do when you go to God in your own righteousness, covered
with dung. Either he'd done it or he didn't.
He's finished or it ain't. And oh, this is the mystery of
the gospel. Christ in you, his person, and
this wonderful work that's done. It's done, huh? And then our
Lord in his blessed offices. He's a prophet. How do you reckon
we'd ever know God without him teaching us about God? He's a
prophet to instruct us, to declare to us God. No man has seen the
Father at any time save the Old and Begotten Son, who is in the
bosom he hath declared and he hath told him out. That's why
he's called the wisdom of God unto us. That's why he's made
the wisdom of God. We wouldn't have a clue who God is if the
Lord didn't make him known to us, if the Son didn't reveal
him to us. If the Son didn't teach us about
the Father, we'd never know anything about it. We wouldn't know anything
about the Scriptures if the Son, as our Prophet, didn't teach
us and instruct us. Is He a great priest for us,
a great high priest? A priest has to have two things.
Well, three things. Let's say three things. First
of all, he's got to be called of God. He was. Secondly, he's
got to have something to offer that will actually put away sin.
He did. He offered himself to God without
spot to purge our conscience from dead works. He, by the sacrifice
of himself, put away sin once in the end of the world. Then
he's got to, and if he's called of God and his sacrifice has
been accepted, then he intercedes for men whom he offered that
sacrifice for. And our Lord, not only does he
intercede, but he ever lives to intercede, takes up our case
and our cause and our name. So he, in his offices, he's our
prophet, he's our priest. And he's our king. Boy, I'm glad
he is. The government is upon his shoulder.
Don't say shoulders, say shoulder. One shoulder carries the government
of this universe on it. The shoulder of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I'm sure glad that my life is in his hands, not
Mr. Clinton's, or Mr. Bush's, or Mr. Reagan's, or anybody
else's. Ain't you? As a king, he's to
prepare and provide and protect his children, his servants. And,
beloved, has he done it? When's the last time you missed
a meal? Huh? When's the last time you didn't
have gas to get to the meeting in? Huh? Is he provided for us? When's the last time the enemy
assaulted your soul and the Lord come and stood him up, backed
him off, defeated him, conquered him, put him back in the dust?
Huh? and let you go. Oh, listen, I'm
talking about Christ in you, the hope of glory. And he's our
representative, our covenant head. He's our friend that sticks
closer than a brother. He himself is our brother. He's
the husband. He's our head. He's our mother
and father. David said, when my mother and
father forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. And I know something
about that. I know something about that.
I know something about your mother and father not wanting you and
the Lord taking you up. I know something about that.
Huh? He's all and in all to us. To some people in this world,
he's everything. The verse soul breathes out with
longing for him. There's times when the verse
soul feels like it's just aching to get out and reach and embrace
the master and pull him close and just beg him to comfort me
and help me and strengthen me. I need you. I want you. I got
to have you. You don't get that in a cold,
dry, dead doctrine. You only get that with Christ
in you, the hope of glory. That's why it's a mystery to
people. That's why folk can rejoice in doctrine and miss Christ.
It's Christ. It's our Lord. And our Lord Jesus
Himself is the mystery of the gospel. He's the hope of glory,
not another, not another. That's why they nailed Him to
a tree. He's not the Messiah. He's not the Christ. There has
to be another way to God. But there is not another way
of God. There is not another hope of glory. There is not another
gospel. There is not another sacrifice.
There is not another priest. There is not another prophet.
There is not another God-man. There is only one, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Just one. Huh? And He's the life. He's the soul. He's the substance.
He's the essence of the gospel. He really truly is. And where
in the world would you and I be without the Lord Jesus, if he
were taken away, where would we be? What would we have? Huh? Where would we be? What
would we do if our great physician were taken away? Could we heal
ourselves? Huh? If he didn't finish the
work, can we finish it? You imagine the prodigal, if
you can, going home, brokenhearted. ashamed, embarrassed, low, going
to the house and saying, I'm willing to be a hard servant,
don't even call me a son anymore. And the father not standing there
looking for him, waiting for him to embrace him and to kiss
him and to clothe him and to feed him. Who would we be without
him? Who would we be? Huh? We wouldn't
have a gospel, a free grace without the Lord Jesus Christ. We wouldn't
have the gospel of the free forgiveness of sins without the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's what we preach. It's free. It ain't gonna cost
you nothing. It costs God everything. God
set the payment price. God paid the payment price. God
accepted the payment price. And where would we be? That's
why salvation's in the Lord. Where would we be without Him?
Where would we be right here this morning without Him? It'd
be awful to come here and go through the motions of religion
without Him. Beloved, now listen. If you don't
get anything else I've said today, get this right here. We don't
need something about our Lord Jesus. We don't need something
that belongs to our Lord. We don't need something that's
been procured by our Master. We don't need somebody who has
known the Lord Jesus. Or we don't need some truths
that extol the Lord Jesus. We need Christ our Master. We need Christ and him crucified.
That's what we need. Huh? And that's why he's the
mystery of the gospel. And this mystery of the gospel
is now made manifest, people like you and I. It's glorious,
ain't it? No wonder it said, this is the
mystery. This is the riches. This is the
glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And let me hurry. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Let me tell you quickly some things it doesn't mean. When
he talks of him, Paul says this is the hope of the gospel, this
is the mystery of the gospel, this Christ in you, the hope
of glory. It does not mean that you have great gifts and ability.
If it did, if you had to have great gifts and ability, then
we wouldn't have any hope, most of us, would we? Now, some men,
greatly gifted, great ability, but they're few and far between.
But it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that you lead
a perfect, sinless life, no matter what some of these Dunkards and
Westland-Holiness people tell you. The Scripture says that
if we say we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. And if it says we say we have not sinned,
we make him a liar, and his word's not in us. That's just the way
it is. So it doesn't mean that you lead
a perfect, sinless life. The flesh lusts against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh, and you can't do the things that
you would. You come here to worship God, your spirit wants to get
taken up with Christ and get taken up with the gospel. About
time you get taken up with, you think you can't stand it, your
flesh will bring you right back down to earth. You'll hear something,
you'll say, I'll never forget that. And two minutes later,
you'll say, what did he just say? Flesh and spirit. But yet in
that flesh, it wants to go out here and do this and do that
and get involved in things. But the spirit won't let you.
Huh? I tell you, it doesn't mean this,
Christ in you, the hope of glory doesn't mean that everything
in life is going to be perfect. This idealism and this here line,
these butchers of men's souls that tell people that if Jesus
is the answer, they don't even know what the question is. They
ain't got a clue what the question is. They got a whole bunch of
sayings now. Things go better with you. Jesus
is like Tide. He's new and improved. He'll
improve your life. He's like Coke. Things go better
with you. Bunch of idiotic sayings. And they tell people that if
you got financial troubles, come to Him. He'll make you wealthy.
If you got marital problems, come
to Him. He'll make you happy. You stick, come to Him, He'll
kill your cancer. And they're lying to folks. They're
looking for a perfect life and accepting this Jesus of this
day, and they don't get Him. And that's why they're so cynical.
That's why they go back to the world. That's why they don't
care a thing in the world about hearing anything true. Right?
Huh? And, oh, beloved, in fact, a
lot of our troubles don't even begin until we become Christians.
That's when we find out, when there was just one of me, and
I just done what I wanted to do and I wanted to do it, I didn't
have no problem. You understand what I'm saying, when it was
just my flesh to worry about? I'd just done what the flesh
wanted. I didn't have no struggles. I'd feel bad in myself when I'd
waste my whole paycheck on a weekend, you know, wake up on a Monday
morning sick and had to go to work and didn't have enough money
for lunch. I'd feel bad about that. But it never kept me from
doing it until the next weekend. I didn't have no struggles, didn't
have no fights. But when God saved me and brought in that
new man, that's when trouble started. And it doesn't mean
this. It does mean you're going to
be a spiritual giant, that you're going to understand
all mysteries and have all the answers for every question. And
I sure am thankful for that. I'd hate to have to come up with
an answer for every question, wouldn't you? I'd hate to have
to have to answer to Dirk and Reba why their baby was born
without an ability to breathe or bat an eye or swallow or cry. What do you say? I don't have
an answer. But I say this, O for a faith
that will not shrink, though pressed by many a foe, that will
not slumber, will not sleep while on the brink of war. And then
I tell you what it does mean. It means this, Christ in you,
the hope of glory. We're talking about His person,
Him, Him. What does it mean? It means that
you have faith. If Christ is in you, the hope
of glory, you have faith. It may be just smoking flax and
a brewed wreath, but let me ask you this, and you get discouraged
sometimes and say, Oh, I don't have any faith. My faith is so
weak. Do you want to get shed of it? Would you part with it? Let me
ask you this. This is a good question. A good
question. Would you trade your faith for
anybody else's faith in this building this morning? You know why? Only way you got
that is Christ in you. And it's what he gave you. It
may not be much, but it's yours. It's yours. You don't know if
that other fellow is jumping benches, got any or not, but
you know what yours does. You know yours looks to him.
You know that yours embraces him. You know that you're afraid
to do anything but trust him. And you have life. I tell you,
you have life. That's what Christ in you means.
You can't have Christ. You can't be joined to him and
not have life. He's the brine with the branches. just because
he lives as we live. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet it's not I. What a mystery.
What a profound thing. I live, yet not I that lives,
but Christ that lives in me. I'm living, but I'm not living.
I have life, but I don't have life. In myself, I have no life.
In Christ, that's my life. I don't have any life apart from
Him. Oh, I moved and all that, but I didn't have life. Until
Christ came in. Till Christ died for me. Till
Christ, by faith, took up His abode in me. Huh? Oh, we're made
partakers of the divine nature. God saw us like that infant cast
into the field, to the loathing of our own person, unwashed,
lying in our blood. And He came by in the time of
His love, placed the skirt over us, and He said, I tell you,
live. Live. And we've been living. Huh? The very life of God in
us, Christ in us, is the hope of glory, when Christ, who is
our life. And I tell you this, brethren, it's this, Christ in
you is, you have motion. You have motion. People who have
Christ in them, they have motion. You're hungry and thirst, just
like you do in this world, you're hungry and thirst after Him,
after righteousness. You walk and run in this world, you walk
by faith and you flee to Him. You labor and you rest. You work
a day, go home, eat supper, go to bed at night. You labor and
you rest. In Christ you labor. In Christ you rest at the same
time. You see, faith is not an isolated act. It's something
we've done back there. Faith is a living principle manifested
every day. To whom? Coming, as unto a living
stone. We keep coming and coming and
coming. And it means this. Christ in you means that you've
been accepted of God. We've been made accepted in the
beloved. We've been reconciled with God,
made one with God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And our hope of
glory, that's what He is. Our hope of glory. The only hope
of glory we have. And let me show you one verse,
and I'll quit. John 17, 24. John 17, 24. See, there's glory
for us. Glory for us. That's why it don't
matter if we get any here. We got it coming. That's why
we seek Jesus' glory here, huh? He's going to give us glory hereafter.
He gives us grace and glory to come. There's glory for you, and glory
for me, huh? There's glory for us, and we're
nothing but creatures of shame. But yet glory is going to be
our dwelling place, glory is going to be our right and light,
glory is going to be our crown, glory is going to be our song.
And that's what our Master prayed here in John 17, 24. Father? See, I says that, Father, before
we say Father, Father, because we have the same Father. Father,
I will, that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where
I am, that they may behold, what does that say? My glory, which
thou hast given me before the foundation of the world. You
love me. And beloved, that's why we got
to come in glory. Christ in you, if he's your hope
of glory, now you've got glory coming. Huh? Glorified bodies. I'll be glad not to get mine,
because my old head looks like it's without three bodies, but
it really ain't. It really hasn't. It just looks bad. You know what
I'm saying? It's got all that gray in it.
We're going to have glorified bodies. I took too long, but
oh, you all make it so easy to preach. Good gracious, I don't
want to quit, but I got to quit. We're going to have glorified
bodies. I know you've heard this story before about the fellow that
walked in, and there's an old guy sitting around the Potbelly
stove, an old country store. He's sitting there. He's got
him a block of wood, and he's a whittler. He's a cutter. And
all shells all around that store, stacked, laying around. There's
dogs. He's whittling out dogs, dogs everywhere, little old wooden
dogs. And they asked, they asked this fella, this fella come in
from out of town stopping at a little old country store, just
passing through, and he went in there and there was some little old
dogs all over the place. And that guy said, well, he asked him, he
said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I'm just whittling
here. He said, who done any dogs? He said, I did. He said, what
you're doing now, a dog? He said, yeah. He said, well,
how in the world you do that? He said, I just cut away everything
that don't look like a dog. And that's what the Lord's doing
with us. He's cutting away. Everything's going to look like
His Son. That's what He's doing. And not only, beloved, are we
going to have glorified bodies, but look at the sights we're
going to see. I like this world here pretty
well. I've seen some of the beautiful sights. You all live in some
of the prettiest country. I live in some of the most beautiful
country God ever made. I see some glorious sights, but, oh,
I'm going to get to see a new heaven and a new earth where
we're in the will of righteousness. I get to see the Lamb of God
face to face. I'm going to get to see, I'm
going to get to see the city of God adorned as a bride coming
down out of heaven. I'm going to get to walk in and
out. Two gates of pearl and walk on the streets of gold. That's
what God thinks about it. Everybody here trying to store
it up, God makes streets out of this stuff. Huh? In all glorious company, what
company are we going to get to keep? We're going to be with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the spirits of just men made
perfect. And a reward? My goodness, what a glorious
reward we're going to be. God said to Abraham, I am thy
exceeding and great reward. That's what we get. That's what
we get. And what a rest. What a rest we've got coming.
And I look so forward to this. I get so tired of myself and
my sin and my inability to handle things and my weaknesses and
helplessness Seemed like I'd learn one of these days, and
I'd grow. And you hear people, they come
to meetin', and they go, you know, right then that they're
under a load. That's a burden. They sigh, you know. You're layin'
in bed at night, and your wife goes, you know, she's troubled. And one of these days, the signs
gonna be done. Bless his name. I'll never feel
that weight on my chest again. I'll never be discouraged again. I'd be ashamed for being discouraged
with such a wondrous and glorious God, meeting all I need. I'll
never be depressed again. Never, never feel sad. I'll never
feel alone. Oh, my soul, we got a rest coming. We got it coming. The fellow says, well, see what
a glorious mystery he had made manifest to some of you. Christ
in you, the hope of glory. This fellow asked this guy one
time, what persuasion are you, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian,
what? He said, well, this is my persuasion.
I'm persuaded. that whatever I committed unto
Him against that day, He's able to keep it. And I'm persuaded
that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus. We've got a good hope, and you
know what it is? Let's turn to two thirty three. Number two thirty three. Depth
of mercy. Stand with me and let's sing
the first and the second stanza. First and the second. Two thirty
three. you If the mercy can there be, Mercy
still reserved for me, And my God His bread forbear, May the
tree of sinner smear. I have long withstood his grace,
long provoked him to his face. Would not hearken to his calls,
grieve him by a thousand falls. Thank you and your distance.