Jim, I appreciate what little
you've done. I notice some new additions here,
but the one that I notice biggest is that great big clock on the
wall back there. You're not trying to tell me
something, are you? First of all, let me say thank you to
this church 13th Street Baptist Church. I've had the privilege
to preach here many times since 1978. For your kindness and your generosity
towards me and toward the work there in Cherokee, North Carolina. And thank you for the large and
abundant gifts that were sent to help relieve those who suffer
greatly in this flood by Helena. This church, along with other
churches, people called me and I said, we're all right here
in Cherokee, just, you know, move my lawnmower around a little
bit and wash some wood away and took my LP tank and took it to
the Atlantic, probably. But other than that, we didn't
suffer a great deal, didn't come in the house or the church and
went behind. You and several other churches have sent money
for Fretta Leaf and as of last week, thirty thousand dollars
has come in. Isn't that amazing? We're going
to use it all to help folks who already spent about eighty five
hundred of it helping folks who lost things, lost houses, mothers
who are having to live in hotels with babies who are taking diapers
to them and stuff like that. And I want to thank you. I thank
God for the people of God. Grace churches, a couple of them
I'd never heard of. sent money. I got $3,000 the
other day from a church I'd never heard of. I knew where it was
at, but I didn't know the pastor. I don't know him. So that's something,
isn't it? That's a wondrous thing. It speaks well of what the grace
of God does for a fellow's pocketbook. It really does. But enough of
that. Let's turn to Romans chapter
3. And let me also say this. We have some folks here from
West Virginia. Some of you folks from West Virginia. The West
Virginia miners have come down to the aid of those folks in
the mountains that lost everything in the flood. And some of them
lost everything. And them boys know how to build
roads. They know how to build bridges. Them and the loggers
of North Carolina have done marvelous things. We don't count much on the revenuers
up there. So thank you, you folks were
kind enough to be helpful and continue to be helpful for us
up there. Paul says in Romans chapter 3 and verse 8, And not
rather, as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm
that we say, let us do evil that good may come, their damnation
is just. Paul is talking to folks who
have been raised under the old covenant, a covenant that was
conditioned upon the obedience of men in order for the man to
receive any blessing. Disobedience would cause a curse.
You read it from Deuteronomy 30 this evening. And sadly, in
this day and age, a lot of what is called New Testament churches
and even some grace churches still travel with language from
the Old Covenant. But your obedience and my obedience
is nothing. In fact, we are to bring everything
to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ according to 2 Corinthians
10. And maybe we need to stop saying
things like God is ready to forgive. It doesn't say that in the New
Testament. He hath forgiven. He hath redeemed. He hath redeemed. He hath saved His people from
their sin. That's why He came to do it.
We declare a report, a record of what has been done, what has
been accomplished. And if there's one of God's sheep
out there, it'll stir him down to his bones to find out that
God is coming to this world to save sinners. For if the Holy
Ghost has graced him to understand what he is, he'll say, I'm the
chief. And that message is meant for
me. Lo, I come. And Paul in this verse is declaring
that he's been slandered by those who despise the grace of God.
the fact that salvation and justification and sanctification is the sovereign
and sole act of the unmerited favor of God Almighty. The manner
in which He is being slandered is twofold. First, those who
oppose the gospel that He preaches accuse Him of preaching that
people ought to sin, that grace may abound. Secondly, and tied
to the first, is that they are accusing Paul of saying that
a man's sin glorifies the righteousness of God. Now, the result of their
thinking, the natural course of the pattern of their thoughts,
is that Paul is making God to be evil, ultimately, especially
evil if He is sovereign and punishes anyone for sin, because they
are saying their sin makes them righteous. This is the age-old argument
of self-righteous, that to preach grace, to preach pure, unadulterated
sovereign grace opens the floodgates of sin. To this Paul replies
that such a statement not only proves that God is true, but
also proves that men are liars. The only way that my sin glorifies
God, if such a thing could be, is that it was put away by the
grace of God the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary
s tree, and it does not hinder God s ability or justness to
save me, because He has received full payment for my sin at the
hands of His dear Son. Now, what has primarily caused
the ire of the religious men here to slander Paul is that
he had put all men both Jew and Gentile alike in the same category. They re all included under sin. They re all lost or without hope
in themselves, and the Jews couldn t abide that. They couldn t abide
that. They believed that the rite of
circumcision declared them to be descendants of Abraham, And
since they adhered to those things as tokens of the favor of God,
they refused to be put in the same category as the pagan idolaters,
the Gentiles. They were religious folk, sort
of. If you read the prophets, you'll
find that they weren't very religious, except when they got in trouble.
Then they got real religious real quick. But the rest of the
time, they carried their idols around in their pockets. all
idolaters. Read Jeremiah, read Isaiah, read
Amos the prophet. They cannot and will not accept
it. Paul says God has asserted specifically that those religious
staples are of no true eternal value. Paul tells them that they
indeed had an advantage as a people. Of all the people upon the earth,
they were the CHOSEN of God naturally, They weren?t chosen SPIRITUALLY,
but they were chosen NATURALLY in ALL the people of the EARTH!
He only dealt with this nation, and He only dealt with their
SIN one day a year in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cubicle! Think of the AREA of
the EARTH, the number of PEOPLE that were on the the number of
Jews that were on the earth, and God met with one man one
time a year on the Day of Atonement in a square no bigger than this
right here. They were a privileged people.
There was no doubt about that. They had an advantage. They were
given the Word of God, but through unbelief they disregarded the
message of which throughout declares from Genesis chapter one all
the way through to Malachi, the coming of the Savior, the coming
of the Messiah to die in the room instead of his people and
put an end to sin and finish transgression and bring in an
everlasting righteousness and seal up the prophecy of this
book. Their advantage had been squandered away because they
opted for their own obedience. as that which justified them
before God. In the first two chapters, Paul
puts all that to rest in the first two chapters of the book
of Romans. He said, The gospel, the good news, it s news because
it s accomplished, it s good news because it s what God has
done. And that gospel, he said, that
s the power of God unto salvation. I can't do it. Gary can't do
it. Jim can't do it. Norm can't do
it. All we can get up here and do
is tell the report. We can tell them, folks, what
God's done. Somehow, in a wondrous, miraculous, glorious way, God
takes that blessed Word and causes it to find purchase
in the heart of His elect. and brings them to the Lord Jesus
Christ, gives them spiritual life, where suddenly and miraculously
they understand a book that's 3,500 years old. They look at
this book and they're amazed and full of wonder that every
page speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. And even when they don't
understand, when the preacher preaches it, they say, that's
it. How come they say that? Because God said part of this
grand scheme of His to save their soul. He wrote His Word in their
hearts when He saved them. It's there. And that's why when
they hear it, they go, Oh yeah, that's it. That's right, because
it's already in their heart when He saves them. The Gentiles denied
God by making themselves gods. Jews denied God by saying they
kept the law when they did not, claiming they were entitled to
the blessing of God because circumcision tied them to the blessing of
God promised to Abraham. The self-righteous always operate
under a sense of entitlement. Read Isaiah 58. Oh, we pray,
we fast, and God don t pay attention. That s what they said. In Luke
18, the Pharisee stood before God and he prayed thus with himself,
I'm glad I'm not like other men. I fast twice a week. I pay my
tithes. I do all I'm supposed to do.
I'm not like that old publican standing over there. Our Lord
led into that parable by saying he's one who loved his own righteousness
and hated others. Paul puts an end to such thinking,
making a bold and scandalous statement that shut Jews and
Gentiles up to the sovereign dispensing grace of God. He is
not a Jew who is one outwardly, but is one inwardly, whose circumcision
is the heart and not of the flesh, whose praise is of God and not
of men. These slandered Paul and lied on him and lied about
what he was declaring because to the natural man, to the moral
man, to the religious man, grace declares. Grace declares that
nothing about you or me and nothing that you do or I do is even considered
by God. That's tough, that's hard on
the old man still, isn't it? still a hard on the old man.
Even those who have received grace often find themselves thinking
along the lines of entitlement. It's not beyond us to consider
our prayers to be meritorious. Go ahead, remember how you think
sometimes when you pray. Not beyond us. When we see the
wicked prosper, we secretly think that they shouldn't because after
all, we're the child of God. The old man and the believer
will never receive grace, but thank God he is overridden by
grace. There is a part of us that operates
in the realm of the supposed human merit and will till the
day we die. I remember Scott Richardson saying
one time, and when I was a young preacher and heard him say it,
I thought, That can't be right. But it was, and I understand now. I sure hope you don't find out
what a fraud I am. down deep where we don't want anyone to
know. We hold up our morality as worthy
of recognition to the world, even to our flesh. The declaration
of salvation, sanctification, justification is by the grace
of God through the blood of Jesus Christ alone to our old man. That's scandalous. scandalous. Think with me for
a bit about the grace of God. The grace of God means, and you
know this, it means unmerited favor. It means simply that if
you receive grace, you had nothing to do with the receiving of the
grace. It means that no matter how vile and corrupt you might
be, how far you've delved into the depths of your own depravity,
that your sin cannot stop the grace of God. It means that though
you are a believer and saved by grace and there remains in
you a wicked heart, if displayed or known would be worthy of 10,000
hills, it is yet no hindrance to the grace of God. It means
that you may be morally upright and obedient and a good citizen,
that you pray and give and study the word of God. And that has
nothing to do with the grace of God. It just doesn?t. It means that
you might steal another man?s wife, get her pregnant, have
her husband murdered. You may do all that while at
the same time being shown favor by God. Go ahead and try to figure
that out. All the time being the apple
of God?s eye, all the time being a man after God?s own There's
such a man named David in the scripture. It means you've been
graced by God and yet you deny him thrice and have been delivered
by grace and you go and turn your back on the recipients of
grace and side up with those who hate the grace of God all
the while being a recipient of the unmerited favor of God. Read
about Peter at Antioch. It means you may sit in the quietness
of your room and have such blasphemous and perverted thoughts that you
doubt that you could even be a child of God and do so while
being eternally favored by God. The fact that it is our flesh
even now resists the idea of grace because we weigh it in
the light of ourselves and our circumstances, of our perceived notion of what
a Christian ought to be, which is usually based on how we esteem
our own worthiness. Somewhere in the deep recesses
of our minds and hearts, we have set up a scale, a measuring stick
of our notion of our own righteousness. And when we look at that, grace
is scandalous. With grace, what goes around
doesn't come around. Grace is the sovereign, unstoppable
act of God whereby he chooses and has chosen the vilest of
the vile to be objects of his mercy never considering what
they are and the world and its natural religion sees that as
scandalous and declares that if grace is preached in such
a manner men will abuse it. Well, men will abuse it anyway but the true abuses of it be
at the hands of those whom, even in the minutest detail, seek
to qualify grace by anything that either precedes it or follows
it, merit or responsibility. Grace, true grace, pure sovereign
grace is impossible to believe. It's impossible to believe apart
from a work of grace. And even then the believer struggles
to accept the fact that his salvation has nothing to do with anything
but God and his free unmerited favor. What is grace? Scandalous to the mind. Why is
it scandalous to the mind? Several things. Grace is scandalous
to the mind because it makes no distinction among men. It
is exercised solely by God's choice. race, color, creed, or
religion, morality or immorality, Jew or Greek, bond or free, Scythian
or barbarian, tribal or independent, moral or profligate, liberal
or conservative, Republican or Democrat, dictator or slave,
prince or pauper, are of no consequence in who receives the grace of
God. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and whom I
will I will harden. Men and women want their uniqueness
to matter. It doesn't. It doesn't. Secondly, grace is scandalous
to the mind because it puts all humanity on the exact same level.
I love y'all. I've loved y'all for a lot of
years. I see faces here who I cherish to see, cherish to see, look
forward to seeing. Some of those faces have gone
on to glory, and I miss them dearly. I miss them dearly. But the fact is that how much
I miss you doesn't matter. The fact is that you and I, you fine ladies here are no different
than the harlots that walk 42nd Street in New York City And you
men are no better than P. Diddy. Now, wait a minute, preacher.
I'm telling you, we all deserve the wrath of God
and eternal punishment. For He says, What then? Are we better than
they? Knowing no wise, for we have before proved both Jew and
Gentiles, they're all under sin. Men and women cannot believe
that their philanthropy is the same as pedophilia. They can't
believe that. But in the matter of human merit,
they're exactly the same. Exactly the same. It's scandalous to think that,
isn't it? Grace is scandalous to the mind
because religious heritage is of no value, no value whatsoever. Surely the fact that I've been
raised in and practiced the religion of my fathers carries some weight.
It doesn't, it means nothing. Even a believer who's done all
his duty must account that he adds up to zero. He said, the
Lord said, after you've done all you can, or a most unprofitable
servant, add us up to zero. You've gone
too high. You've gone too high. Surely it can't mean that, yes
it does. To the mind it's scandalous.
Grace is scandalous because it declares all of humanity to be
utter rebels and sinners against God. they we by nature and birth
are unrighteous ignorant bad lying snakes and vipers who destroy
everything we touch. He says there is none righteous no not one there is none that
seeketh after God they are all gone out of the way they're all
together unprofitable There is none that doeth good, no, not
one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Their tongues have used deceit. The poison of asthma is under
their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways and the way
of peace that they've not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. That's us. And yet God has favored the like. Humanity cannot look at the description
and see themselves. They must assign this description
to others who they hold in low esteem. But even if we do see
themselves as humanity is here described, it still has no play
in the grace of God. If we see ourselves and say,
I agree with that about myself, that didn't cause the grace of
God. The grace of God caused that. Grace is scandalous to the mind
because this is a description of the recipients of grace. Grace is scandalous to the mind
because it's not bestowed on anyone who abides by the law. For it says, now we know that
what things whoever the law saith that saith to them that are under
the law that every mouth might be stopped. And the whole world
become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law
is the knowledge of sin. The law reveals sin and keeping
it does not change the sinner or put away sin. In fact, the
only way you and I will ever keep the law is if we die. That s how we keep the law. The
law was never given for somebody to keep, except in the matter of death,
so that sinneth it shall die. That s how our Lord kept the
law. He suffered our punishment when He was made our substitute
on Calvary s tree, and the Lord imputed to Him our sin, and He
suffered our punishment in three hours of darkness. He suffered
an eternity of HELL in three hours of darkness! That didn
t save us! He lived a perfect life, never
sinned. Everything he did, he did for
somebody else. Everything he did, he did for
the glory of God, but that didn't save us. His death saved us. That's why when we're baptized,
we're baptizing to his death. And we say, we died when he died. And that's why when we take the
Lord's table, We take that cup. It's the New Testament in His
blood. He says, take this bread and eat this bread and drink
this cup for you do show forth what? My death until I come again. That's how you keep the law.
You try to keep the law, you're only gonna find out that you're
on death row. No righteousness to be had by
the law on any level. This is scandalous to think that
if I follow the Ten Commandments that it counts for nothing. It
does count for something. It counts to shut your mouth.
It counts up your absolute guiltiness before God. It has no part in
the grace of God. In fact, the law was added because
of transgression. So it ain't even eternal. It entered. It happened in time. Grace is scandalous because it
declares that if you are saved, it is wholly on the merits of
the person and work of Jesus Christ, not your will or your supposed
righteousness or your decision or your tears or your mourning
or your obedience has to do with your salvation. Your salvation
is merited by somebody else, by somebody else, by another,
and you receive salvation not by your merit but by His. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by the faith
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for
there is no difference. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation. And if you look, those words
to be are in italics. We can pull them right out. They
don't belong there. Whom God set forth a propitiation
a satisfaction, a done deal for the remissions of sin that
are passed through the presence of God. So God can declare, nor God can declare that when
He saved your soul, it was the right thing to do. He can declare that. You say,
Well, how can that be? You know what I am, because God
did it to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that
He might be just and justifier of him that believe in Jesus
and believe in Jesus. Further, it is scandalous to
the mind because God declares that His righteousness is in
the bestowing of this grace to such that cannot on any level
or any degree deserve it. It's scandalous. Finally, God graces scandalous
to the mind because there's no room ever for boasting in yourself.
Where is boasting then? Where is boasting then? It's
excluded. It's excluded. Here's what I'm saying. I was
driving up the road yesterday, or the day before yesterday,
and there's a truck drove by. And on the side of this truck,
it just had in big letters the Ephesians 2.8. I don't know what
that guy believed in that truck, but I like that. By grace, ye
are saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And you
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God has before ordained that you should walk in them.
Are you going to have good works? You betcha! you're ordained. God bless you.