Thank you. Let's go to Ephesians
this evening, Ephesians, the first chapter. Our subject this evening is redemption,
successful or unsuccessful. Redemption, successful or unsuccessful. You are quite familiar with this
portion of scripture. I'll begin in verse three. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We eulogize
the name of God. We lift up his name. His name
is the greatest of all names, the name of God. It's sad that
people use God's name in vain, take His name in vain, use His
name in a cursing manner. But I'll tell you, His name is
magnificent, all glorious. We bless Him. We bless God because
He is God. He's not a pretend God. He really
is God over all. He really reigns. He's sovereign
over all things. He's omnipotent. He's omnipresent. He is infinite, infinite in days. He's the ancient of days, the
scripture says. All of his glorious attributes
make him to be our God. God's in his holy temple and
lets us keep silence. Let's remember whose presence
we're in. I get so aggravated watching
religion on television. There's no reverence of God,
no respect of God, no adoration of God. When we enter into these
doors, we come in here for a worship service. That's what we're in
here for. We're here to honor our God, to magnify him, to speak
of his greatness, to speak of his of great glory. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're here to brag
on God. We're not here to brag on the
flesh. We're not here to boast about anybody or anything that
anybody's ever done. We're here to make our boast
in the Lord. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ eternally. He is the eternal Father and
Christ is the eternal Son of God. He hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now if this
infinite God has blessed us, then He has blessed us infinitely. And if He has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings, then the blessings that we have are
awesome and without number that are ours in Christ Jesus. The
Lord has not blessed us in a very limited way or a small way. He's blessed us with all spiritual
blessings. You who are the people of God,
you have every blessing that God Almighty could give to anybody. You got them all. All blessings
and salvation. No wonder he goes on to talk
about adoption. He speaks about God choosing
us under salvation to be holy and without blame. He speaks
about redemption. While the blessings of God to
us are spiritual, they are eternal, and they're blessings that far
outnumber and are greater in value than the material blessings
that God gives. We all recognize the fact that
God blesses us temporally. He has mercies upon the just
and the unjust. But these spiritual blessings
that God has, all of them are for a specific group of people. And these people were blessed
with all of these blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Outside of Christ Jesus, God
has no blessing for anybody that's of any worth. All spiritual blessings
are in Him. And then He begins to speak of
some of them, according as He had chosen us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. He chose us, we didn't choose
Him. The only reason I can think of
anybody arguing against God's election of some people unto
salvation is because they want to steal His glory. They want
to rob him of the greatness and the majesty of his choice of
some sinners unto salvation. They would rob him of the attribute
of his sovereignty. The Lord says, cannot I do what
I will with mine own? You do what you want to with
your own. Would you deny God the same right
that you hold dear to your own heart? Whatever you own, whatever you
possess, you do with it according to the good pleasure of your
will as much as life in you. Well, God owns all things. And
all of His creation being under His dominion and reign, He will
do with all of His creation in a manner that suits Him and fulfills
His eternal purpose. and He will use everybody and
everything to fulfill that purpose. There is no limitation to the
extent of the reign of God. He reigns over all the elect
angels and He reigns over the devil and all the demons of hell. He reigns over all of His saints
All of those that He chose unto salvation before the foundation
of the world, He reigns over all of His people, and He reigns
over all rebels too. He reigns over the Pilates of
the world, and the Herods of the world, and the Pharaohs of
the world. He reigns over all the Judases
of the world, just as He reigns over all of the saints of God. He chose us. This is what Paul
says. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. You see, the Son of God was God's
first choice. God chose Him to be the Savior. Who was it? Maybe you told me.
Somebody told me that they heard a preacher say one time that
God could have saved sinners anyway. He could have just snapped
His finger and saved people. Why would anybody ever make such
a stupid statement? Why, you're accusing God of acting
recklessly in killing His own Son. You're accusing Him of an
injustice. That is beyond description. If
He could have saved sinners some other way, if He could save sinners
in the same manner that He created all things, He spake and it was
done. Why did He kill His Son? Why did He bruise Him? Joe read
that passage of Scripture. I had Ron read that here just
a couple of weeks ago. Why did God bruise Him? Why was
he battered by divine justice? Why did he have to endure not
only the mockings and the taunting and the crucifixion of men, but
why did he have to suffer the injustice of the rebels and the
enemies, but also suffer the wrath of God in his soul if God
could save sinners some other way? Anybody who says that doesn't
have an understanding of the gospel of the grace of God. God
saves sinners by substitution. He saves sinners by sacrifice. He saves sinners by satisfaction
to his justice. And snapping his fingers, he'd
snap his finger and then speak the world into existence. but
he can't snap his fingers and do away with sin. It's gonna
take the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ to do that.
You insult God when you suggest there's another way God could
have saved sinners. You mean he could have spared
his son the agony of the cross? You mean Christ didn't have to
bear the wrath of God? You mean our sins didn't have
to be judged in the person and in the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ? I tell you what, the only way
we can be holy and without blame before God is in the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And see, God chose us to be holy.
and without blame. And that's an amazing thing right
there. How can a sinner be without blame
before God? How can we be blameless? And how can we be holy? The Bible
says we drink iniquity like water. Well, how can we be holy? This matter of being holy is
not a progressive thing. You either are holy or you're
not holy. You're either full of blame or
you're blameless. Now, which way is it? It isn't, well, you're not as
much to blame as you used to be. Because of our Lord Jesus and
His work of redemption on the behalf of His people, we are
holy in Him. Read again, I Corinthians chapter
1. I love that passage of Christ,
who of God, Christ of God is made unto us. Wisdom, righteousness, Sanctification,
there's your holiness. And redemption, that according
as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. He chose us to be holy and without
blame before him, before God. It's just not a holiness we try
to kind of act like we're holy in front of others. This is a
real holiness before the eyes of a real God. And if you could ever grasp this
in your heart, and me too, Oh, what peace we would have in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We stand before our God who sees
all things. The God who charges His angels
with folly. The God of whom it is written
that the heavens aren't even pure in His sight. But in the
Lord Jesus Christ, before the eyes of this holy God, we are
holy as he is, because he is our holiness. And we have no
blame. You see, somebody that has no
blame, somebody that's blameless, they don't have any sin. And in Christ, we don't have
any sin. What good news is that? Well,
read on. Here's some more spiritual blessings.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
He predestinated that we'd be adopted into his family, that
we'd be his children. And if we're his children, we're
heirs of God. And we're joint heirs with Christ
Jesus. We're in the family. The family. It's called the family of God. And that's according to the good
pleasure, to the good delight of His will. I'm in the family. I'm in the family. I'm in the
family of God. And that's all according to the
good play of his will, look at verse six, and it's to the praise
of the glory of his grace. Why did he choose me and bypass
others? Well, it's to the praise of the
glory of his grace. Why'd he ordain you to everlasting
life? when he bypassed others and left
them to the just reward, the just wages for their sin, which
is death. It's to the praise of the glory
of his grace. We don't talk about merit. We
talk about grace, because that's what the Bible says. And it says, wherein he hath
made us accepted, he has graced us in the beloved, in Christ. And then he says this of the
Lord Jesus. He says, in whom. This is what
Paul says. In whom, in Christ, we have redemption. We have it right now. Well, how's that? Well, it's
through his blood. Through his bloody sacrifice,
through his death. Well, what does that mean? What
does his death mean? What did his death accomplish? The forgiveness of sins. You
see, where the death of the Son of God is, when he died, our
sins were forgiven by his death. You don't have to be a Bible
scholar to read that, understand that. If he paid our debt, we're
debt free. We have the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace. We stand in amazement at the
three great works of God, no question about that, in creation, He spake and it was done. In six days the Lord made the
heavens and the earth and all that in them is. I wouldn't bother to listen to
anybody who attributed creation to a series of indescribable
and super mysterious evolutions that's been going on for billions
of years. I wouldn't bother listening.
Actually, it takes more faith to believe what these nincompoops
believe and teach than it does just believe the word of God.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There
you go. We didn't start off as a one-celled
whatever and then split and doubled and quadrupled and all of that
kind of stuff, and then we became piece of mud, and then we come
forth out of the mud, and we've made progress all along. I just believe what God says, and
I'm not going to listen to the fools that teach other than that.
Were you? I'm not going to. Why? I wouldn't
give them time of day. I don't have any interest in
what they have to say, because if they believed the word of
God, they wouldn't say that kind of junk. I would enter into a debate with
them. The truth of God is not debatable. And the Bible settles the issue
for everybody who believes the word of God. And secondly, we
stand amazed at the work of God's providence. The God who purposed
all things is working every day to bring to pass that which he
predestinated to happen. Bring to pass his purpose. I received an email. Not a week
goes by when I don't receive an email with a question. And
people who email me, I welcome your emails. You can ask me anything. You may not like my answer, but
you're free to ask me anything. And I'll answer, and if I don't
know the answer, I'll tell you I don't know the answer, but
I'll get back with you. But I received an email a couple
of weeks ago, and it had to do with God and the origin of sin. And in my answer, part of my
answer was this. Over the 6,000 years that creation
has been in existence, give or take a few, Ever since man has lived in this
world, what's the most awful thing, most horrible thing? The vilest actions of men. What's the worst thing that's
ever, the most evil thing that has ever happened in this world? The most horrible thing that's
ever happened? I know there have been many vile
and despicable things, that have taken place, but I do not hesitate,
not for a second, to say the vilest thing that man has done is to butcher, to crucify the
Son of God. Man killed his creator. What a horrible, horrible thing. How vile must we be as the human
race when our creator leaves the very throne of his glory
and comes into this world and everybody whose anybody turned
thumbs down on him and say, we're not gonna have this man to rule
over, not this man. We'll have Herod, we'll have
Pilate, we'll have Caesar, but not this man. And we want him
taken care of, we want him to die the most despicable, horrible,
excruciatingly painful death that anybody can inflict upon
another mortal soul. That's the rottenest thing man's
ever done. But he was ordained of God. That's
what I wrote in the email, was ordained of God. The Savior said
in Luke 22, 22, the Son of Man goeth as it was determined, but
woe unto that man by whom he's betrayed. You say, Jim, I don't understand
how God could ordain the death of his son. And of course God
did that because he's a lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. I don't understand how God could ordain the death
of his son and actually put him to grief as Joe read to us in
Isaiah chapter 53. How could God do that and then
punish the men who carried the deed out? The ways of God are beyond comprehension. I know God did it. I know God
purposed it. And I know that everybody who
carried it out, they're guilty of the bloody death of the Son
of God. I can't explain the infinite
will of God and the purpose of God, how God fulfills His will
in all things and performs His will, and then that He blames
man and holds man accountable for the vile things that they
do. I'm not in explaining business.
You may explain God to you. I can't explain God to you. I
just say God is. And God does his will. And everything
that happens, somehow or another, mysteriously, God has ordained
all things. He's directing this whole machinery
of creation to the end that He's already ordained. And those who
do evil along the way, He's going to use them to fulfill His will
and then hold them accountable for the evil that they do. That's just the way it is. And if you have a problem with
that, take it up with God. But if I was you, I'd watch my
tongue and watch your attitude before Him. When I, with the eye of faith,
when I look at the cross and see the Lord of glory, my Savior
who left throne of life for the tomb of death. As I think of him hanging on
the cursed tree. And I think of him covered with
his own blood and mixed in with that blood the spittle of vile
men. I have to ask this question.
Why in the world did he die? Why did he die? Why bear the agony? They said, if you're the Christ,
come down from the cross, save yourself, save yourself. We'll believe you. You saved
others. I don't think you can save yourself.
Well, I'll tell you what. He can't save others if he saved
himself. Of course, there's no possibility
that he'd come down from that cross, but just for the sake
of argument, had he come down from the cross, there wouldn't
be salvation for anybody. What's it gonna take to pay our
debt? What's it gonna take to make us blameless before God?
What's it gonna take to make us holy? What's it going to take
for us to stand before the triune God and the tribunal of His justice? And God say to us, well done
thou good and faithful servant. What's it going to take? It's
going to take that bloody death. That's what it's going to take.
Don't you ever speak little of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our salvation is dependent upon Him suffering, bleeding, dying,
bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. The Bible talks
about imputation in a threefold way. Adam's sin, He was our representative. His sin was imputed to us. We're
sinners. Like it or not, believe it or
not, it don't change anything. Sin's imputed to us. And our
Lord Jesus, when He died, the sins of all of God's chosen,
those chosen to be holy and to be blameless, our sins were imputed
to Him, charged to His account. He was responsible to pay our
debt. God has never looked to His people
for the payment of our indebtedness to divine justice. He's always
looked to our surety and substitute the Lord Jesus Christ, charged
to Him, imputed to Him. He didn't do the sinning, but
they got charged to Him. I know that. He was guilty by imputation. There was no personal guilt of
his own, no personal sins of his own, but all the sins of
his people, they were charged to him. What a mass of rottenness. What a vast number of transgressions
charged to the account of our great surety. And God held him
accountable. He's got to pay. He's got to
pay. But he had agreed to do that
before the world began. Put their sins on me. Put the
charge to me. And he died under the wrath of
God, and guess what? Imputation again. The righteousness
that he established is charged to us. It's imputed to us. I
didn't do anything to get it. I can't be righteous. I'm unrighteous. But the very righteousness of
God has been imputed to me because Christ took my place, paid my
debt. I owe divine justice nothing. That's almost too good to be
true. Nothing? No. No. I'm not charged. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who can? It's God who's justified
us. It's Christ who died. He's the
one who settled the account. We're not in debt to God. Got no indebtedness. The wages
of sin is death. Behold my dying Savior. And the gift of God is eternal
life. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Christ died and paid the ransom
price. Look over at the book of Job.
Let's see if I can find it, Job 33. Look at Job 33. If he paid our
ransom price, if he paid our indebtedness, it's paid. So the
issue is redemption, was Christ successful or unsuccessful? Did he do the job, did he not
do the job? You see, His resurrection, and you know the book of Acts,
it's all about the resurrected Savior. They kept emphasizing
that because you see, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the
proof. It's the evidence. that the work
that he undertook to do upon the cross of Calvary, he did
it to the satisfaction of a holy God. God raised him from the
dead. And said, come on up here and
sit at my right hand. I'll make you into me as your
footstool. Look here in Job 33. Look at verse 23. If there be
a messenger, if there be a representative, that's who Christ is, He's our
representative with Him, an interpreter, a mediator. One among a thousand
to show unto man His uprightness. Then He is gracious unto him,
and God says, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have
found the ransom. You didn't find him. Well, I
found the Lord. No, you didn't find the Lord.
He wasn't lost. He found you. And God says, I
found a ransom. The only one who could be the
ransom, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the ransom was the son of
God himself, his own sufferings and death. That's the ransom. God said, I found it. I found
it. Christ died to pay our ransom
price. Well, was it successful or unsuccessful? Did he pay it or did he not pay
it? Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Let me give you this. I'm gonna
let you go. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews
chapter 10. Look at verse 28. Hebrews 10, 28. Hebrews 10, 28.
He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two
or three witnesses. God gave his law. It consisted
of moral laws and ceremonial laws, but just one law. God gave
his law to the people through Moses. And any person who rejected
that law, or any part of that law, or anybody who set that
law aside as being unimportant who considered the rules of that
law and the sacrifices of that law to be inconsequential, they
were put to death. Deuteronomy 17, 1 through 6 says
that. And you see, while the tabernacle
and the ordinances stood, they were binding upon the people.
What was the penalty for despising Moses' law? Death, if two or
three people, two or three witnesses saw you despising Moses' law,
showing total disregard for the law of God, whether it be the
first page of the law, relationship to God, or the second page of
the law, your relationship to other people, or the ceremonial
laws. You despise it? Two or three
witnesses said, I saw him. He disregarded the law of God.
The penalty was death. Well then, keep reading. Look
at verse 29. Of how much sorer punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God? and hath counted the blood of
the covenant." Oh, the blood of... What covenant? The covenant
of grace. That everlasting covenant. The
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20 talks
about the blood of the everlasting covenant. And those who count
the blood of the covenant, they count it an unholy thing. They've done despite to the Spirit
of grace. Let me tell you something. People who believe in universal
redemption, they've trodden underfoot the
Son of God. That's how serious the belief
in universal redemption is. You see, somebody says, I believe
Jesus died for everybody. And He made salvation available
for everybody, if only you'll believe, while they've trodden
underfoot the Son of God. And they've considered His blood,
the blood of the covenant, You see, the same people who deny
particular redemption or the effectual atonement of our Lord
Jesus Christ are usually ignorant of the everlasting covenant of
grace. They never heard of that. They've trodden underfoot the
Son of God. See, tell me who died on that
cross. I'll tell you whether it was
a successful death or not. Was that just a good man of Galilee
dying? That wouldn't do it. There were no good men in Galilee. But you tell me that's the Son
of God dying? That's the God-man dying? That's
Jehovah dying? That's God's darling son dying. That's the one who's all-powerful,
all-glorious, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful. You tell me He
died on that cross. Well, I'll tell you what, whatever
He did, He's successful in doing it. It had to be. It had to be. I'll give you this. All error regarding salvation
ultimately comes from the father of lies. Our Lord Jesus said to the Jews
there in John 8, 44, he said, year of your father the devil
and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer
from the beginning. He abode not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh of a lie, he
speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and he's the father of
them. And I'll tell you, his three
greatest lies. And people in religion have swallowed
these three lies for years and years and years. They're still
doing it. That God loves everybody just
alike. That Christ died for everybody
just alike. And that the Holy Spirit's trying
to save everybody just alike. That's three devilish lies. But they're readily and willingly
embraced by everybody, by everybody, by nature. You see, let me tell you this,
and I'll let you go on. Satan's, here's his design. Here's the design of Satan. He
wants people to trust, at least partly, in their own inherent
free will, that they need to cooperate with
God in salvation. If He can get you to believe
that, and we all believe it by nature, we come forth from the
womb that way. Everybody believes in salvation
by works naturally. You don't have to teach children,
well, salvation is by works. No, they already believe that.
What the natural man doesn't believe and doesn't know is that
salvation is altogether of God's grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. That's what they don't know. See, God chose the people into
salvation. Christ redeemed those people
and the Holy Spirit called those people. He quickened those people. I was with a fellow the other
day. try and get some help for my
headaches. And so I was in his office talking
to him, and he was trying to work with me. And he said this
to me. He said, and I don't mean to
make fun of anybody. I'm hoping he can do me some
good. But he said, I want you to know
I'm a born-again Christian. I said, is there any other kind? Is there any other kind? I tell you what, God chose us,
Christ died for us, and the Holy Spirit birthed us into the kingdom
of God, using the gospel to do that. If the Spirit of God would take
those three glorious truths and drive them home to our heart,
then I'll tell you what'll happen. In the same motion, as it were,
it'll drive out of us universal love and universal redemption
and universal calling. It'll just drive it out. No truth
in that. I just want to know the truth,
don't you? The truth that glorifies God, and it's the truth that
helps us poor sinners. I'll tell you that. Well, I'll
give you some more on this subject next Sunday night, the Lord willing.