Thank you for this opportunity. You know, I felt a real warmness
and friendship here in this church that is very unique and you just
don't find it in all churches. But I have been very much impressed
by the warmness and fellowship of you folks. I was talking to
Jim one day and I said, I said, what in the world did you leave
that church for? He said, I don't know. I said, I don't know. Probably getting off the subject. But what I was trying to express
was that Paul knows what I'm talking about. And it's the spirit
of Christ. That's what it is. We're all
of the same family. You know, tonight I would like
to have something that would be a blessing
to you, and stir my own self up. We need to be stirred up. We need to be wakened up, and
we need to be stirred up, and we need to stay up. We just get
down, don't we, get down. We take things for common. I want you to look in Acts, chapter seventeen, verse sixteen.
It says in verse sixteen, Now while Paul waited for them at
Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city holy
and given to adultery. Now Paul was there in Athens,
Greece. If you know anything about Athens,
Greece, you know what the top of the city was. It was just
full of pagan temples. They had temples everywhere.
Someone said it was easier to find a god there in Athens than
it was to find a man. They just had all kinds of religion.
And Paul had gone there by himself, and he was waiting there in Athens
for his companions to come. But as he waited and he looked
at the city wholly given to idolatry, he was stirred. He was stirred. His spirit was stirred in him.
In Spanish it says, his spirit burned within him. And then he
acted just—without his companions, just only one man stood and preached
the gospel. Now, you on your jobs, you're
just one man. You're in places where it's just
paganism, all kind of ideas about God. Idolatry in this day and
time here in the States, there's not so much images like in pagan
lands, but it's man's own imaginations of what God is. They make a god
like themselves. And they say, my God is, this
is the way I look at it, that's my God. So that's idolatry. And we feel like we're all alone,
but we're not alone. And we're all missionaries. You
are missionaries. Rocky Mountain, Virginia, South
Virginia, right? Y'all are missionaries. Y'all
are ambassadors. We are ambassadors of Christ.
Here we are on the mission field, all around us is idolatry, people
falling after—they call him Jesus, but it's not the same Christ
in the Bible. There Paul was in Athens, and
he was in this pagan land, and they were so religious, and he got stirred up. That's what I don't want. I want
to be stirred up. I don't want to get complacent and lose the
vision, the burden, to realize that we're on a mission here.
Y'all are familiar with the Great Commission. In Mark 16, 15, the
Lord says, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
preacher. Now, if you're in the military,
or you're on a job working, it doesn't take a person long to
learn that the thing that's important is what the boss says. I was
a young man, and it took me a little while to learn that. But I found
out that it wasn't what I thought about, it was what the boss said.
That's what's important. And if you're in the military,
it doesn't take you long to learn that. It's not what you think
about it, it's just what the sergeant says. We're talking here in this scripture
of the Great Commission, and we need to be concerned with
what the Lord is concerned about, and he gives this Great Commission
to all of us, to his Church. Did you know that our Lord Jesus
Christ was, in one sense, he was a missionary? In Hebrews 10, 9, it says, Then
said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." He's talking about the Lord coming
to do the will of the Father, to redeem His people, His elect
people, to bear their sins. And He came to do the will of
God, to glorify the Father in all of His obedience. He was
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. So the Lord
was on a mission to redeem and save our souls of His sheep. And John 17, 18 also says, and
the Lord in His high priestly prayer, He said, As thou hast
sent me, praying to the Father, as thou hast sent me, even so have I also sent them
into the world. So we are sent, them. referring
to all of those that are His. We're sent into the world, and
you've been sent right here to Rocky Mountain, South Virginia,
and you're an ambassador of Christ. Paul said, now we are ambassadors
of Christ. You know, that is all down in
Mexico, and that always gave me a boldness to be able to stand
and say, I'm an ambassador for Christ. And I'm sent here with
a message. I have a message for you. And
I could do that in places where the people had never seen me
before, where they'd never heard a preacher before. They didn't
know what to expect. One place I went to, I remember,
they thought I was some political candidate. They really did. They
thought I was a—there was a political campaign going on at the time,
and when I came in there, they thought—they missed It took me
for one of the political candidates, and they were taken aback when
I was preaching the gospel to them. But when we really get
hold of that and realize that we're ambassadors of Christ, I think I know a little bit about
it, but I'd like to be stirred up more to realize that we're
ambassadors of Christ and we're on a mission. Even so, I have
sent them into the world." Now, this commission is a sovereign command, and I know
that the Holy Spirit is not going to be turned aside from this
commission, this command, this purpose, to call out a bride
for for Christ. And there's an example of that
in the Old Testament. In Genesis, chapter 24, we have
this account there. It's the history of Abraham sending
out his servant to get a bride for Isaac. And that's a type
of the Holy Spirit being sent to call out a bride for Christ
in this world. And it says, if we read that
in Genesis, would find that he was put under covenant, under
oath. He was put under oath to swear
unto Abraham. And the servant went into a far
country, and when he got there and was dealing with the people
about the bride for Isaac, they wanted to detain him. And he
said, I will not eat until I have told my narrator. Now, he had
made a long journey, and he was hungry. I'm sure he was hungry,
but he would have liked to have eaten. But he was more concerned
about his errands. He wouldn't be turned aside.
And later on, you find he says, Hinder me not. Hinder me not. He was there on a home basis.
And I believe the Holy Spirit is represented in this example. And he's not going to be turned
aside. We may be turned aside, but he's not going to be turned
aside. If we're turned aside, we're going to lose out. We'll
miss that blessing. But he'll never be turned aside.
Now, this mission is not a suggestion. It's a divine commandment. And
it has all authority and power behind it. I was amazed as I
saw on TV that war of the desert storm, they call it, and all
the firepower and all the money and the banking that was behind
that war. It was a short war, but it was
awesome money. It was awesome. But that's nothing. That's nothing in comparison
to the authority and the power that's behind this commission.
And it's given to us. It's given to us. The Lord says
in Matthew 28, 18, All power is given unto me in heaven and
in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations. So that power is not talking
about something that's limited. We're talking about all power
in heaven and earth. The same power it said that said,
Let there be light, and there was light. And by His Word, He
spoke this universe into existence. And by that same Word, He holds
all things and upholds all things by that same Word. All power. I'm having difficulty getting
my words. I'm going to keep on plowing on, because I know what
I'm trying to say. I said that this is not a suggestion. It's not a matter of, well, let
me think about it. It's a command, and it's not
a suggestion. Love constrains us, but also
we're commanded. And I'm going to give you an example
in the Old Testament that has always impressed me. In 1 Corinthians
11, It's in the account there of David, King David, before
he was raised to the throne of Israel. He was out in the wilderness,
and he was holed up in a cave somewhere outside of the city
of Bethlehem. And the Philistines had the city
of Bethlehem surrounded, where they had it under their
power. And there was a well there in Bethlehem at the gate. And
David was out there in the wilderness, and he was thirsty. Now, the
other day, about a month ago, I found out what it is to be
thirsty. I got lost. I got lost in the woods for eight
hours. No water. And I was thirsty. I thought I was going to die
out there in the woods. It was hot. And I tell you, when you're
thirsty, you can't think about anything but water. And David,
he longs. And David longed and said, Oh,
that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem
that is at the gate. Now, in his men that were following
him, he had some mighty men of valor. And three of these men,
they heard that longing, and David said, Oh, I wish I had
a drink of that water from Bethlehem, from the well. And they took
it as a command. And they went into that city,
risking their lives, got through there some way, got their water,
and got back to David. And David was so impressed that
he just poured it out on the ground. He wouldn't drink it.
He poured it out as an offering unto the Lord. Now, what has
impressed me in that is that that was not a command. That
was just a longing, a wish, wasn't it? But this great commission
of our Lord is not a Not a longing. It's a command. It's a sovereign
command. Solemn command. Another thing
I want to point out about this Great Commission, it's aggressive. He says, go. Go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every preacher. It's aggressive. We've got to
go. Another thing I want you to notice
in this is every creature preaches the gospel to every creature.
You know, we know that Scripture teaches that God has an elect
people, that Christ died for them, that only his elect will
be saved. But here it says, preach the
gospel to every creature. I believe we should presume that
all people are elect, until they show otherwise. Otherwise, you
know, preach to them. You don't know. Spurgeon said
that you put a mark on the elect, and I'll preach only to them.
Well, that would be disobedience, wouldn't it, really? God said
preach the gospel to every creature. And we don't know who they are,
but why should we presume that somebody is not God's elect? We should presume that they are
until they I preached the gospel to them, and some—who would have
ever dreamed that Paul would have been one of God's elect?
I'm not talking about this Paul here. Well, you could say that,
too. I knew Paul before the Lord began to get a hold of his heart.
But I'm talking about the pastor Paul. He hated Christ. He hated the Christians. He was
killing them and putting them in prison, and he went to Another
town was Jamaica. I forgot where it is, but anyway,
to get some more of them and put them in prison. And the Lord
sent Ananias to him after the Lord had knocked Baal off his
high horse and humbled him. Well, Ananias, boy, he was afraid
to go, wasn't he? That was one of God's elect.
Who would have ever thought that God would have chosen old Jacob? Thy worm, Jacob." That's what
the Scripture taught. He's the worm, and that's Jacob,
the mama's boy. Who would have ever thought that
Jacob would have been God's select? And on through the Scripture,
who would have ever thought that the thief on the cross would
have been one of God's select? Who would have ever thought?
And there's people on the job that are around you, and maybe
you thought, well, he couldn't be one of God's select. Who knows? Pursue that they are God's elected
until they show otherwise. And even after that, they may
be, because God's elected king resists the effectual call. They may kick, they may fight,
they may get mad, and then they get sad, and then they get glad.
But a lot of times, Paul began to kick I believe there was something
happening to him when he began to kick against the goal. He
was kicking against, I believe, conviction of some kind. Maybe
he was, I don't know. But he sure was in rebellion. Well, now, another point I want
to make in this is missionary work, and our mission, It's militant. It's militant. We're messengers
of peace. We preach peace by Christ Jesus,
and in Christ Jesus we're peacemakers, and our message is a message
of peace. But we're a militant. We're soldiers,
and we're in a warfare. The Lord said in Matthew 16,
18, talking about the confession of faith that Peter made, saying,
Dr. Christ. That means Peter said,
You're a prophet, you're a priest, you're our king, you're the Christ,
the Messiah. And the Lord said, Upon this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. Now, what I want to point out
in this is that we're on the move. We're aggressive because
we're going against the gates of hell. When the army's battling
and they're going against another city, they're going against their
gates, they're on the attack, aren't they? They're aggressive. Another scripture, 2 Corinthians
10, 3 through 4, Paul says, We do not war after the flesh, for
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds. and bring into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ. We have weapons, the Word of
God, and we have a warfare. We're soldiers. We're not fighting
in a carnal war, but it's a spiritual war. It's a—our mission is a militant
mission. They're not going to come bombarding
our church. We're going to have to—we're going to have to be
witnesses wherever we are, wherever God has placed us. Like old Black
Paul, his heart was stirred up, and he had to say something. I'll get to that, about what
he preached. He preached Christ, he preached
Jesus and the resurrection. Now let's look back at the text.
Acts chapter And verse 16, 17, he said, Therefore
disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout
Persians, and in the marketplace daily with them that met with
him. Now, he earnestly contended for the faith. Disputed, that
word means he reasoned, and he earnestly contended for the faith. Verse eighteen said, Then certain
philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered
him, and some said, What would this baptist say? Others, some,
he seemed to be a set-apart of strange gods, because he preached
unto them Jesus and the resurrection. Now, I'm not going to go into
what the Stoics are or the Epicureans. I could spend some time explaining
that, but you can look it up. It's not all that important anyway.
what men think, their ideas. And that's all it was. It was
human philosophies of trying to—human religion. But they said—he's setting forth
a strange God. He set forth a strange God. He
was strange because, I tell you, the Christ of the Scriptures
is has to be manifested, has to be revealed, and has to be
declared. And the Word of God has to be
declared in order for Christ to be known. But he preaches. He preaches Jesus and the resurrection.
Now, everybody's preaching Jesus, aren't they? But he preaches Christ and the
resurrection. Over in Romans, it talks about
the that Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God in Romans chapter one, verse four. Verse three says, Concerning
his Son Jesus, talking about the gospel of God, concerning
his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of
God with according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection
from the dead. The Holy Spirit is testifying
to the resurrection of Christ, not only through the word but
through your lives. He's testifying to the resurrection
of Christ and the power of a living Christ and the resurrection of
Christ. He preaches Jesus and the resurrection. He preaches
all that Christ was. all that the Scripture says he
was, all that the Father, in the Old Testament, how God has
set him forth before the foundation of the world to be the surety
of his people and the covenant of grace. I'm sure he probably
preached all the doctrines of the person of Christ—not all
of them, but, you know, the major things. And the resurrection
declares that Jesus is the Son of God. That he's the one that
the Father has set forth to be our surety and the covenant of
grace. He's the one that all the Old
Testament promises spoke of and the prophets. He's the one that
was pictured in all the types and sacrifices of the Old Testament. And then he was set forth on
Calvary As a mercy seat for sinners, I'm interested in the mercy seat.
I love to talk about the mercy seat. Christ is our mercy seat,
where the blood was shed before the Father. It was shed before
the Father to make atonement for our souls. I love to talk
about the mercy seat. That's the only place we can
worship God. We meet with Him at the mercy
seat. But Paul didn't just preach Jesus and the Resurrection. He
preached concerning Christ and the Resurrection to declare His
that all that Christ is, and that the Scripture says He is, and what He did on Calvary, and
that He was affectionate and sufficient, and He was raised
up from the dead, and seated at the right hand of the Father
with all power. Now, it goes on It goes on down—I'm
going to skip some verses and get down there—where they took
Paul to Mars Hill. And verse twenty-two, Then stood
Paul in the midst of Mars Hill and said, You men of Athens,
I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. That
means religious superstitions. You can put religious there.
They're too religious. And he said, I perceive that
you're too superstitious. superstitious, religious, but
pagan religion. And any pagan religion is just
man's own thoughts and ideas about God. That's pagan religion. He says, For I, passing by and
beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription
to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship him declare
unto you. to the unknown God. I believe
the closest person to the truth in that whole town was the one
who wrote this inscription on that altar, to the unknown God. You know, that's about as close
to the truth as an unregenerated man can get, I believe. He's
come to places that I don't know God. Who is God? I want to know
Him. I had a man tell me that one
time. I was on my way to Aztec. I've been to hundreds and hundreds
of places preaching where the church has never developed. For
every church that has developed, I've preached to places, maybe,
I don't know, I've said 20 other places for several months or
maybe six months and gone to places, but they've never developed
into a church. But I was on my way to Aztec.
The reason I'm saying that is we don't have a church in Icebeck
now. We never did have one there. I just had a preaching station.
But on the way to Icebeck, I had to go through bookshops, and
I got through that town. I got on a little old trail,
and it was dark. Everything's dark down there at the end. They
didn't have electricity. But I'd been going there for
about a month, once a week. As I was going down the road
one night, I saw three men standing out in the road, and they stopped
me. I didn't know what they wanted,
but they had gotten word who I was and what I was doing. So
this man, Feliciano is his name, he asked me if I would come back
to his house and preach and talk to them about God. So I told
him next Saturday I'd be back. So I came back and went to his
house. And to make a long story short, the man confessed faith
in Christ and was later baptized. But his testimony was this. I asked him, I said, why did
you stop me? He said, my little daughter died. She's my oldest
daughter. He said, I was so sad. He said,
I knew there was a God, but I didn't know. I knew there was a God,
but I didn't know who He was or anything about Him. And said,
I was so sad, and I just wanted to hear about God. And he knew
he didn't know God. So that might be as close as
an unregenerated man ever gets to knowing the truth, you know.
Most people that don't know God think they do know God, in that
order. I tell you, God's going to send
a strong delusion on people to believe a lie that they might
be damned if they don't accept His testimony concerning His
Son, who He is, and what He did on Calvary and where He is right
now. But let me go on. I need to go on. He took this
text and said, Him declare I unto you. the unknown God, Him declare
unto you." Now, who had he been preaching? Jesus, was that it? Well, I'm a little Spanish. Jesus, if he's preaching Jesus,
and he says, Him declare unto you. Now, he's preaching the
unknown God, and he's declaring Jesus unto them and the resurrection. And he says, God that made the
world. and all things therein." So he's preaching that Jesus
is the Creator. He's the Creator. All things
were made by Him, and without Him not anything is made that
was made, or was made that is made. Y'all excuse my English. So he's preaching God that made
the world, that He's Jesus. And he's declaring it. He's got
to be declared. He's got to be declared. You know, you can't know God
in nature. You can know there is a God.
Only a fool would look at nature and this creation and say there's
no God. Only a foolish person. A person
that would do that is denying their own intelligence and their
own reason. They can look at nature and say
there's no God. They're denying their own right
to Jesus Christ. Now, he's preaching
here that Jesus is creator, made the world and all things. But
I want you to point out this. I believe that Paul was preaching
the person. I love doctrine. The truth concerning Christ is
sound doctrine. And it is—I love the doctors
of grace. Y'all know what tulip is. But
you know, a person can get a hold of Dr. Tulip without the—without
the person of Christ. And that tulip would just be
poison oak. It'd be poison oak, But anyway, he was declaring
a person, not just a doctrine, but he's saying this Jesus that
he's preaching, he's Lord of heaven and earth. He's not saying,
won't you make him Lord. You men of Athens, won't you
make Jesus, let him be Lord, your Lord. He's saying he is
Lord. We don't make Jesus Lord, do
we? He's Lord over all flesh. He's been given
power and authority over all flesh to give eternal life to
as many as the Father has given Him. But He wasn't preaching. He wasn't
preaching the Christ that's been preached today. being preached
today is entirely different. And he goes on to say that this
Jesus that he's preaching, he's God, he's Creator, he's sovereign
Lord over all, and he dwelleth not in temples made with hands. You know what I think about in
that? The Lord Jesus Christ, he's God,
and he's omniscient. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of Christ. He's here to glorify Christ. He's God, the Holy Spirit's
God, the Holy Spirit. But He's the Spirit of Christ
because He's on a mission, and He's here to glorify Christ. And He's not here to glorify
Himself. And if we have the Spirit of
Christ, if we're His and we have the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit
of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells within us. And he doesn't dwell
in temples made with hands. But the point here that I—they're
in Athens. They had their temples, and they
had their doctrines, and they had their ceremonies, and they
had their rituals. And it was all according to their
own thoughts and imaginations. Paul later on said it's ignorance.
But they thought they had God shut
up in their their temples. I see this in Mexico. People
walk in front of a cathedral, and they cross themselves. God's
right there, right there, they think, in that side of that building,
a building made with hands. But today, here in the States,
there are groups that think that they have God in their little
You know, to have him confined in the walls of this church.
Here he is in this sanctuary. No, he's not in here. He's in
the hearts of the believers. And God is not bound up in any
associations of pastors or an organization. No man has control
over God. He's sovereign. He's omniscient. He dwelleth not in temples made
with hands. And all religions try to give
the impression that they have some control over God. They have
some control over the grace of God. That's what the Catholic
Church teaches, that they control grace. They can dish it out to
who they want to. Well, the Baptists do, too. A
lot of Baptists do. They all do. Religious men think
that they have in their sacraments, or in their ordinances that they
have, or in their covenants that they make, that they have God
all bound up. But God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy,
and He doesn't—He's not bound in any—He's not bound in any
human organization. I can't I can't think. It won't come. It's in Spanish.
It's all in Spanish. Do y'all understand what I'm
saying? Isn't that the truth? They think they got God's control
of it. And when we realize that God
will have mercy on whom He will, like that old leper came to Jesus
all eaten up, and he said, fell on his knees and said, Lord,
if you will, you'd make me whole. He knew that it all depended
on the Lord's will. He didn't say, I've decided,
I've made up my mind, I'm going to let you heal me, Lord. Or he didn't say, I've called
on you now, Lord, you're obligated to heal me. But he said, if you
will, you can make me whole, and I love this. The Lord stretched
forth his hand and touched it. He said, I will. Isn't that wonderful? I will. That's a wonderful place
to be when a person is shut up to that, the Sovereign Lord,
to have mercy on whom he will. That's not an awful place. That's a wonderful place, because
that's the only place you're ever going to find mercy. That's
the only place you're ever going to find salvation. When everything
is knocked out from under you, when you're shut up under God,
shut up under Christ, And you look to Him by faith,
Lord, if you will, and say, save me, Lord. I can't shut men up. I've tried
to. But I tell you, the Lord, when
He begins to work on the heart, He won't let a person, if he's
one of His elect, they try to get away. They go hide off in
some refuge over here, over in Gaza. He'll run them out of there,
and they'll going to some other refuge, and he won't let them
rest in that. And I'm so thankful that I tried
to make so many deals with God. You did, too, didn't you? How
many deals did you try to make with God? I tried to make a bunch
of them with Him. He wasn't happy with that. He
wouldn't let me. I'm thankful He didn't let me go. I'm so grateful. But here's another point here. Paul is just preaching the gospel
here, declaring who Jesus is, declaring who God is. And he's
really not doing all that much of a polemics. You know what
polemics is? Polemics is important in this
place. But I tell you, the gospelism,
someone said, it's like a line. You don't have to defend a line,
you just turn it loose. Just turn it loose. The Bible
says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation
to everyone that believe it, in Romans 1.16. So, the power
of God, you don't have to defend the power of God. The gospel
is the power of God. We don't realize that, do we?
We just don't realize that. He said, how can we? I'm just
one person. You know Christ, you know the
gospel, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto
salvation of everyone that believes. Down in Yucatan, this word power,
they say it comes from the word that means dynamite, but dynamite
don't have any power. power in comparison to God's
power. But I want to give you this example. Down in Yucatan, people use dynamite
to dig wells, and they're familiar with it, and they get pretty
careless with it. And we went down to Metida, they
use that dynamite out on the city streets, and I've walked
right by them packing those caps down into sticks. People just
walking all around them, and they just But one day I was in
the bank, and the guy standing in front of me, he was from the
Pueblo, India, and he had one of those transparent bags that
was woven. I could see through it. And he
had it on his back like this, standing in a line. I guess he
was going to chase some money or something. Well, I was behind
him, and I could see through the bag, and I could see he had
about 20 sticks of dynamite in that sack. And not only that,
he had a roll of fuse. I could see the fuse. And here's
what really disturbed me. He had a box of caps in there.
Y'all know that when you separate the caps from the dynamite, that's
not all that dangerous. But boy, there was the caps that
fused everything. And he was standing in a bank
with about 26 dynamite on him. Well, I said to myself, I said,
this is ridiculous. I knew he didn't know what he
was doing. I said, I'm not going to stand. I called the guard
over there, I'll motion for him, and I pointed at him. I just
had to point to him, and the guard tapped him on the shoulder
and said, you have to go out of here. You can't bring that
in here. Well, the reason for that example is that he'd just
become—it's just a common thing with him, dynamite. And he just
said, Callus, Well, I think that we just lose
our—we don't have the realization, or we lose it, that the power
of God and the salvation is in the gospel of Jesus Christ, declaring
the person of Jesus Christ who he is, what he did, where he
is right now. We don't need to defend it. Just
proclaim it. The Resurrection declares it,
the Holy Spirit declares it, and the Word declares it. But the Holy Spirit declares
it through the Word, doesn't He? But Paul went on to say in verse
twenty-four, in verse twenty-five, "...neither is he worshipped." Neither is he worshipped. with
man's hands as though he needed anything, seeing that he giveth
to all men breath and all things, life and breath and all things.
He's declaring that Jesus was the giver of life to all men. Every man that comes into the
world has been given the life that lighteth. Every man that
comes into the world is Christ in that life that he gives. But
that's not eternal, that's not, that's not the spiritual life,
that's just, that's just rational human life. But Christ is an
author, well, He's a, in Him is life, and He's a, gives life
to all things. The scripture says that in John.
Talks about In him was life, and life is
the light of men, and that true light is the light of every man
that cometh into the world." He's talking about Christ. And
Paul is preaching, "...neither is he worshipped
with man's hands, as though he needed anything." Now, this Jesus
that Paul is preaching is sure different from the Jesus that's
preached by the Antichrist. that Jesus is preached and believed
on in all the world is the Antichrist, that he's a Jesus that needs
everything. Oh, man, he can't... But what does the Lord need? He don't need us, does he? We
need him. That's what I want to get over.
We need him. And if all I'm saying is, you don't worship him with
your works or your hands, I'm not trying to play down worship.
We serve God and it's a privilege and it's a blessing that we can
have works, good works in our lives to glorify the Father.
That's what we desire. That's what I desire and I know
you desire. But I'm trying to get this together here. There's
so many things that they worship God by the works of their hands
and that God needs something. God don't need anything. He's
the giver of all things. What could we give Him? But we
certainly need Him. And another point, he says in
verse twenty-six, And He hath made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined
the times of the poor appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
God of providence. And He's also a God that doesn't
have respect to persons. All men of the same family, they're
under the same curse. They're sons of Adam, they're
under the curse, and none are worthy, and there's none righteous,
no, not one. And all men, all mankind in this
world has no claim on God at all, and the only thing that
God owes us is is his judgment. So Christ can have mercy on whom
he will. He's not a respecter of persons.
There's not anything—you know what? People take that—now, this
is polemics. People will take that and say,
Well, if Christ elects one to salvation and doesn't elect another,
well, that's being a respecter of persons. But they don't realize that that there's nothing in man to
merit any favor of God, and that election is to salvation, and
God doesn't let anybody go to hell. He just lets them have
what they want. That's all He does, just let them go in the
way that they want. Aren't you glad that God didn't
let you go in the way you wanted? I'm talking about your own nation. But God didn't let us go. I'm
thankful for that. But he's no respective person. There's nothing in any of the
sons of Adam that he should respect. Was anything in Jacob that he
could have respected? What amazes me is that he chose
old Jacob. I can understand why he hated
Esau. But what I don't understand is
how he ever loved Jacob. And I don't understand how he
ever loved me. But God is no respective person. He didn't
choose you because He respects your person or your works or
anything you've done. But according to the good pleasure
of His will. Amazing love. Amazing love. I can't understand
it. I can't understand it. And if you look for anything
in yourself, you'll never find anything in
yourself. It's all in Him. I like this. I like that God
loved us from eternity, and Jesus didn't come down here on earth
to die in order to make God the Father love us. Do you know that? It's because of His love that
the Father gave His Son. It's for the love of God that
the covenant of grace was made. It's for the love of God that
He chose a people. And it's because of that love
Christ came, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He came to fulfill
that covenant as the surety of his people, in behalf of those
the Father had given him. Well, let me go on. I need to jump on down and finish.
I've gone longer than I really wanted to tonight. Let's drop on down to verse twenty-nine. For as much, then, as we are
the offsprings of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead
is likened to gold or silver or stone graven by art and man's
devices. Talking about men's thoughts,
we ought not to think that God is likened to anything of our
own imaginations. In the time of this ignorance,
God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. God commands all men everywhere
to repent. God commands all men to believe
the truth and to repent. Regardless of whether they're
God's elect, they're responsible to repent. They're responsible
to believe the truth concerning who Christ is. and to repent. I know they don't have within
the legs God has mercy and grants repentance to them. They'll never
repent, but they're still responsible. So man needs to be concerned
about his responsibility to repent. And a man will never truly repent
without God working in him a work of grace. A person is commanded to believe. He doesn't have to believe that
he's not—he just believes the truth. He doesn't have to believe
that he's one of God's elect. Believe that Christ is who the
Scripture says He is. And repent. You can—well, a person
can never truly repent without believing the scriptures concerning
Christ, who He is. There's no repentance toward
God without faith in Jesus Christ. People have remorse, they do
all kind of penance, but there's no repentance toward God without
faith in Jesus Christ. And men have to repent of their
own thoughts about God and who God is and this false Christ
that antichrist has been preaching all over the world is surely not to Christ God,
it's not to Jesus the Bible. But notice in verse thirty, or
verse thirty-one, Because he has appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,
wherefore he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead. This assurance here is talking
about faith. wherefore he hath given faith,
or assurance, to all men. Everybody that has faith is because
God has given it to you. It's a gift of God. And God gives
faith and works repentance and faith in all of his elect. Anybody who has faith, the faith
in Christ, as the Scripture declares him to be, who he is and what
he did and where he is now, that's a gift of God. It didn't come
from your thoughts. It didn't come from your... A
man's enmity is against all the truth concerning Christ and who
He is. They'll accept a Jesus that man
fabricated out of their own imaginations, but they won't accept the Jesus
of the Bible without a work of grace in the heart. Well, and
I don't know if I'm making this clear, but He says, because he
has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man. Now that man, I'm so thankful
for a man in glory. I'm so thankful for a man in
glory. If there wasn't a man in glory, I wouldn't have a chance,
and you wouldn't either. But because there is a man in
glory, we have a representative in this man, Jesus Christ, manifested
in the flesh, and he was raised, and he carried our humanity right
there in the presence of the Father before, and was exalted
on the throne of God. This man is on the throne. All
power is given unto him in heaven and earth, and all will be judged
by him. They'll be either under his foot,
under his feet in judgment and condemnation, or they'll be at
his feet Faith and repentance. Faith in repentance toward God,
faith in Jesus Christ. When we have faith in Christ,
true faith in Christ, we have repentance toward God. It goes
together. You can't have true repentance
without having true faith. Faith and repentance is like
two sides of a paper. But this whole world is going
to be judged by Jesus Christ. He's the righteousness of God. And only those that are in Him
are going to be able to stand that test. He's not going to
judge the world by man's standards or even by the Old Testament
ceremonies or things like that. He's going to judge—they're going
to be judged by Jesus Christ. People say God's going to put
their good works on one side of the balance, their bad works
on the other side, whichever balance is out, you know. But
Jesus Christ is going to be the standard of God, His judgment,
the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He's made—God has made
us in Christ wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Well, Paul's after he had preached this message. Some of them mocked,
and some of them said, Well, we'll hear you again on this
matter. They procrastinated. They didn't love the truth, and
they didn't—but there were some sheep of God in this group. Notice
this. How be it certain men claim unto
him and believe? God's sheep hear His voice, don't
they? There they were in Athens, Greece. That's what Paul—God
stirred his heart because he had some sheep there, and he
preached the gospel, and there they were. They heard the truth.
They heard the Word. Now, they didn't just hear Paul's
voice. They heard the voice of the shepherd
calling them. They heard the voice of the Holy Spirit giving
them that fectual crown that drew them, and they claimed with
Paul. Well, I started out by saying
we need to be stirred up. I need to be stirred up. And we have a commission, great
commission. We have a reason not to be discouraged,
and we have a reason to have assurance that God's not going
to fail and His gospel will not return unto Him void. And we
just need to be stirred up. May the Lord stir my heart. We need to be waked up, stirred
up, and stay up. The Lord bless you. Well, that stirred me up.