It is very good of our Lord to meet
with us each and every time we gather together, and we believe
that He does, because He says where two or three are gathered
together in His name. that he'll be in the midst, and
so I'm thankful he's here. I'm thankful you're here, and
we welcome those who are watching by way of the internet. Well, I've got one verse I'm
going to read to you in just a couple of minutes, but let's
see God's face once again. Lord, how good of you to bring us together this morning
and enable us to read the Word of God with some understanding
and then be reminded that you're always with us as we begin another
year. Specifically, Lord, we ask you
in these moments together that you would speak to us by your
spirit. Bless all who are within these
walls, and Lord, bring us all into the walls of salvation.
It is with thanksgiving we bow before you for the Savior. And we ask today that His name
would be magnified as we may speak to all of these. And Lord,
I hope that You have something good for us today. We're so dependent
on You, and we understand Certainly, we realize our own
inability to receive anything unless you give it to us spiritually.
So, believing that you're with us and trusting that you'll speak
to us through the word of truth, we go forward through this message. For Jesus' sake, we ask these
things. Amen. I've got a verse I want to read
to you. It is the 22nd verse here in
1 Corinthians chapter 15. And really, this is just a beginning
spot for me. I'm not going to in any way expound
this portion of scripture, but just kind of start here. And
here's what we read in the 22nd verse. For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ. He says, shall all be made alive
in Adam, in Christ. What I want to talk to you about
this morning is the believer's condition. Our condition is by
nature a very upsetting one. It's very sad. because we're
alienated from God. That's a sad thing. We're a very
sinful people. And the scripture says we're
filled with wickedness and evil. You know, when the Word of God
comes to us with some understanding, then we're made to know that
in our natural state, the Word of God, it sets before us a very
bleak picture. We're ungodly and enemies against
our Lord. And I'll say this to all of you
and to all who are watching by way of the Internet, Each of
us falls into one of two groups of people. Actually, the whole
race of men and women falls into one of two groups. Those who
know God and those who don't. That's the way it is in this
congregation. There are those who are known
of God, And there are those that God doesn't know. There are those
who believe the gospel. There are those who don't believe
the gospel. The scriptures are very specific
in this. It just tells us we're either
living in the Lord Jesus or we're dead in Adam. That's the only
two groups there are. There are those who believe the
Lord Jesus, who believe the Savior. He's all of their confidence.
He's all of their hope. He's all of their righteousness.
They don't count on anything they've ever said, done, or thought
as a reason why God would receive us. We understand that our acceptance
is in Christ Jesus. There's the one group who understands
that. In the Lord Jesus Christ, I am
accepted. And then there's the other group
who don't see that. There's the other group who has
no understanding of the gospel of God's grace. That there is
no acceptance by God except in His Son. There are those in this room
who believe on the Son of God to everlasting life. And there
are those who don't believe. There are those who have been
quickened by the Spirit of grace, and you're very much spiritually
living. You're alive. You're alive to
God. You're alive to the Bible. You're
alive to the gospel of God's grace, to the blood of the Lord
Jesus, and all the things of God. It just means the world
to you. And then there are those who,
well, you can take it or leave it. And you know you really don't
have any heart interest in these things. They're just two groups
of people. Those who are living and those
who are dead, that is spiritually. Those who love the Lord Jesus
as he set forth in the scriptures. You love him, you embrace him,
you believe him as prophet, priest, as that one who is the very king
of kings. You bow at his feet, he is your
prophet to teach you. You receive what he has to say. And you understand he is the
only high priest. He ministers to God for you.
He's the one who died for you. He offered the sacrifice to God
for your salvation. God's justice demanded death.
Christ Jesus died for our sins. He is your high priest and he's
your king. You bow to him. You worship him. You reverence him. You honor
him. And then there are others. You
don't know him as prophet. You don't know him as priest.
And you don't know him as your king. I want to speak to those of you
who say you believe God, who believe the scriptures, who believe
on the Word of God. And I want to set before you
your condition. I'll set before you your condition
in Adam by nature. And then I'm gonna show you your
condition by grace in Christ Jesus. And then I'm gonna show
you your condition out in the future. One day you'll be with
Christ Jesus. Or to put it another way, the
scripture as it speaks of you and me, it sets us forth as being
by nature without Christ. by grace in Christ Jesus. And according to the purpose
of God, one day we'll be with Christ Jesus. So we're without
him by nature. That's all of us. And we're in
him by grace and by God's grace. God's purpose
will be with him one day forever. Well, let's consider our condition
in Adam without Christ. And this is true of all of us.
You may not have been brought to faith in the Lord Jesus, and
so you can't say you're in Christ Jesus, and you have no confidence
whatsoever that you'll be with him someday. But this you can
very much lay hold of, and you must believe this, that by nature,
here's your condition in Adam. You're without Christ. You're without Christ. Look over
in the book of Ephesians. Ron read to us just a few minutes
ago from the first chapter. But look in Ephesians, and I'll
look at the second chapter, please. Chapter two. And look at verse
12. He has spoken of the natural
condition of the Ephesians. And of course they were Gentiles
and they didn't know God. They didn't believe Christ Jesus.
They didn't even have the word of God given to them. And he
begins by saying, you were dead in trespasses and sins. Back
in the very first chapter, he spoke of their election in Christ
Jesus, being predestinated in Christ Jesus, being redeemed
by Christ Jesus, being brought to faith by the work of the spirit
of grace. And then he goes into the second
chapter and he begins to set forth to these Ephesian people
and to you and me, Our natural condition. And he has this to
say, and for the sake of time, I'll just go to verse 12. He
says, at that time, that is when you were in unbelief. And there
was a time when all of us were in unbelief. You were an unbeliever
before. You remember, some of you might
remember Brother Barnard telling this story. He was at a bank
and he asked the bank teller, a young lady, he said, young
lady, are you a Christian? And she said, yes, I'm a Christian. He said, well, how long have
you been a Christian? She said, all my life. He said,
that's too long. That's too long. No, you haven't
been a Christian all your life because at that time you were
without Christ. If you're without Christ, you're
not a Christian. You're not made to live in the
Lord Jesus. That at that time you were without
Christ. That's a serious condition. That's
an awful condition to be in. Is this you? Am I speaking to
a person here and this rings true in your heart? And you say,
oh my goodness, I am without Christ. And without Christ, that
means you're without righteousness. That means you're without life,
you're without forgiveness, you're without God, you're without hope. Look how he reads here, that
at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel. And furthermore, he says you
were strangers from the covenants of promise, and you have no hope. There's no hope for you. If you're
without Christ Jesus, you have no hope. No hope of life after
death. No hope of spending all of eternity
with the Son of God. You have no hope. No hope. I remember my dad was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 1975. They took him to surgery, and
we all were going to go down and get a cup of coffee. We got
called back to my dad's room, and the surgeon met us in there,
and we'll forget him. Probably you won't either, will
you? The little short fellow bald-headed surgeon. Very nice. He sat down on the side of the
bed, and he said, there's no hope for Mr. Byrd. In fact, his
exact words were, His is a desperate condition. That's what the scripture
says about us. That's what the scripture says
about the heart. The heart is desperately wicked. You know what that means? There's
no hope. There's no hope. And when he said, Mr. Byrd is
desperately wicked or desperately sick, I knew exactly what he
meant. There is no hope. There is no
hope for recovery. That's all of our condition in
Adam by nature. No hope. Having no hope. No hope of happiness after death. No hope of life after death. No hope of entering into heaven
after death. No hope of enjoying the presence
of God after death. No hope! That's an awful condition. Is that your condition? I'll
tell you, if you're resting in any other method of grace or
of salvation other than the person and the work of the Lord Jesus,
His bloody sacrifice, He died for sinners. If you have no trust
in Him, if you have no confidence in Him, no heart, love for Him,
no dependence upon Him as your Savior, you have no hope. Oh my, how I pray for you. No
hope. Look at the next expression.
Without God. Oh, without God. That's a terrible situation to
be in. without God. If you're without God, you're
without blessing. You're without salvation, without
God. Some of you have said to me when
someone dies and They're very close to you. They mean so much
to you. And you'll say something like
this. You'll say, I don't know how people can get through a
time of grief without God. Well, they'll manage to get through
it. But if they are without God, They're without the very breath,
the spiritual breath that's necessary, the spiritual life. They're without
the grace of God, without God, without hope. It says in verse
13, but now in Christ Jesus. Oh, you have blessings in Christ
Jesus, but outside of Christ Jesus, you don't have any blessings. You don't have any blessings.
That's our condition in Adam. Let me tell you something. Let
me tell you a few things about our condition in Adam. We were
born in sin. That's what we are, sin. What is sin? Here's an easy definition
for S-I-N, sin, missing the mark. That's what sin is. Missing the
mark. What is the mark? What is the
bullseye? Perfection. That's what God demands. And God will not settle for anything
less than perfection. That's the goal. That's the target. And yet we're all born sinners,
missing the target. In the core of our being, we're
sinful. No wonder the Savior said evil
things that come from the heart. The natural man is enmity against
God. It's never subject to God. We're
all born sinners. Sin isn't something we learn
to do. That's what we are. We are sin. We're shapen in iniquity. We went forth from the womb,
the scripture says, speaking lies. And then we were all born
under the curse of God's law. The wages of sin, Romans 6.23,
is death. That's what the wages are. And
we're all born in a state of spiritual death. Here in the
second chapter of Ephesians, verse one, and you have be quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin. Well, preacher, I'm not
dead, I'm alive. I know you're alive to this world,
you're alive to the flesh, you're alive to physical things, but
you're dead to God. You're dead spiritually, you're
dead to the gospel. You're dead to everything that
is truly good for you. You're dead to them. And then we were all born in
a state of spiritual darkness and ignorance. Our understanding
is dark. And I know we're wise about many
things. We're wise when we've got college
students in here and high school students and elementary school
students and you're not ignorant of many things. You have math,
you have understanding of math and history and grammar, and
you've learned foreign languages, you're not ignorant about many
things, but you're ignorant of the most vital things, that's
spiritual things. That's the worst kind of ignorance
there is. To not know God, to not know
the Lord Jesus, who's the only Savior, That's the worst kind
of ignorance there is. This is a spiritual darkness.
The understanding has been darkened, Ephesians 4.18 says that. We're ignorant of those things
that have to do with life and salvation. And I know we have
to be instructed by a preacher. Somebody opens up the Word of
God, but there's another kind of instruction you must have,
and that's the instruction only the Spirit of God can give you.
Only He can teach you what you are. and who God is in his purity,
in his holiness, in his righteousness, in his demands. I know somehow
and other people, most people, and what I'm going to say is
based upon the fact that they hear so much error from their
pulpits. But they think God is like a
great big Santa Claus in the sky. And He's just waiting to
dole out gifts to you. He'll give them to you if you'll
just ask Him. The God of the Bible, you must
understand, is absolutely sovereign. He reigns. He does His will. And He gives His grace to whom
He will. He doesn't owe you anything. and he'll do what he wants to
in this world, and he doesn't give an account of his matters
to anybody. We were talking about this a
while ago. Marty and I were talking about God ruling and reigning
and God in control. And I told her, and we were both
talking about this, God could turn the world upside down and
he will to fulfill his purpose. This virus is being experienced
throughout the world. Now, why has God done all this? I don't know. I don't have the
answer. but I do know who's doing everything.
Now, don't you attribute to the devil all the control of this
world, the rule of this world. Our God reigns over all things. He's sovereign. People don't
know that. They're ignorant of that. They've
heard from the pulpit so long that, well, God wants to do this
for you, and God wants to do that for you, and God wants you
to be wealthy, and God doesn't want you to be sick. And when
you start talking about a God like that, I say, that's a poor
God. You got a real poor God there, who needs you to do something
for Him, so that Him, He will, in return, do something for you.
Poor God! Little G. The God of the Bible
is not like that. The Lord said to Israel, you
thought that I was just like you. That's your mistake. He said, I'm not like you. He
puts it on a level we can understand. He says, if I was hungry, I wouldn't
ask you for something to eat. The cattle on a thousand hills
are mine. If I was thirsty, I don't have
to ask you for a cup of water. All the fresh water lake in the,
in all the world, all the fresh water, that's his water. He's
not making any more water either. He just recycles it. This is
our God. Luther said to his friend Erasmus,
your thoughts of God are far too low, too small. We got little thoughts of God.
Shame on us. Me, you, and everybody else. Ignorance. Ignorance reigns in
spiritual things. I know you're smart. You're as
smart as can be. on many subjects. But when it
comes to the Word of God, may God the Spirit bring you
to see you're absolutely ignorant. I've been pastoring since 1975. Spent most of my time studying the
Word of God. And after all these years, I
feel like there's a lot more I don't know. You'd say, well,
preacher, surely after all this time, you're an expert on the
Bible. Nobody's an expert on the Bible. Nobody gets a master's degree
in God. Nobody gets a doctorate in theology,
nobody. Because if you put all of our
knowledge of spiritual things, knowledge of God, knowledge of
self, knowledge of Christ Jesus, put it all together, it wouldn't
fill a thimble compared to the ocean of God's knowledge. I'm up here trying to speak about
things that's way over my head. I'm in deep water, waters to
which we swim by faith. This is our condition. And like, I'll give you another
one, like the Apostle Paul, we were in the Jews' religion. Yeah, that's what he says. He
says that in Galatians chapter one. He said, I was in the Jews'
religion. Well, guess what? So were we.
Because what is the Jews' religion? Salvation by works. That God will look at what you
do and God will say, all right, you've done the best you can.
And then when you die, he said, well, just come on up here. I
know you put forth a good effort. I know you worked. I know you
took soup to the hungry and to the sick, and you gave your charitable
contributions, and you gave to the American Cancer Society and
the Lung Society and the Heart Society and all of these things.
You did a lot of good. Yeah, you made some blunders
along life's way, but it's OK. Come on up here. God's not like
that. Ignorant of God. That's our condition by nature
in Adam. But secondly, our condition according
to the purpose of God in Christ Jesus. Ron read to us from Ephesians
chapter 1. Let me give you several things
real quick. Number one, all spiritual blessings are in Christ Jesus.
Chapter one, verse three says that. All spiritual blessings are in
Christ Jesus. And when he blesses, nobody can
curse. God's already blessed us with
everything we need. Sometimes we will say, and we
certainly mean well, we'll say, may the Lord bless you. In fact,
that's the pronouncement of the high priest there in Numbers
chapter 6. The Lord bless thee. Well, He's
already blessed us. And He's blessed us with everything
He can bless us with. There's nothing more that he
can give us because he gave us his Son. And in his Son, we have
all things. He's blessed us in Christ Jesus. He's blessed us with Christ Jesus. In fact, he even says this over
here in chapter one in verse number four, he chosen us in
Christ. This is a very foundation blessing. Two things I'll give you. Election
is a Bible doctrine. The Lord turned to his disciples
and said, you didn't choose me, I chose you. Acts 13, 48, as many as were
ordained to eternal life believed. Go all the way to the end of
time. The scripture says, and whosoever
was not found written in the book of life was cast in the
lake of fire. Election is having your name
written in the Lamb's book of life. That's before the foundation
of the world, Revelation 13, eight. Election is a Bible doctrine.
Number two, election to salvation is a blessed doctrine. A blessed
doctrine. No wonder David said in Psalm
65 verse 4, Blessed is the man that thou choosest. That's a
happy man right there. That's the man to be envied.
Not the man who's got the wealth, not the man who's got everything
his heart could desire in this world, but the man whom God chooses
and causes to approach unto Him as a humble sinner needing grace
and mercy. That's the blessed man. He may
not have two dimes to rub together, but he's blessed of God. And the scripture says, blessed
is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen
for his inheritance. Blessed, well off, happy, to
be envied, is the person that God chooses. Now I'll tell you something else,
predestination's in Christ. Look here at Ephesians chapter
one, right at the end of verse four where it says, without blame
before him. Most of the language, those who
are knowledgeable of the original languages say there should really
be that the words in love go with the next expression, having
predestinated us. In love, having predestinated
us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. You
see, the world hears the word predestination and they don't
think about love. That's furthest thing from their
mind. They think about harshness, cruelty. No, God in love has predestinated
all of his people to the adoption of children. In other words,
he has marked out ahead of time in love everything that will
ever happen to you. Listen, I know some of you even
now are going through trials, tough times. A lot of God's people
are sick, sick with the virus, sick with heart disease or cancer. but to know that your God who
picked you for salvation, He set you apart. He chose you. To know that He has marked out
your path through life, that ought to give you a lot of joy. It's like that woman Mr. Spurgeon
wrote about. He said she was so active in
his congregation. And her name was Betty. And he
said, then Betty got sick. Said she got a terrible, terrible
cough. And he went to see her and she
said, don't come too close. She held a handkerchief or something
over her mouth. Just coughing all the time. He
said, I'm so sorry. You've got this terrible cough. He said, well, or she said, well,
for years and years I didn't have a cough. And I blessed God
for everything. Now I'll just lay here and cough
and bless Him now too. I'll bless Him for the cough.
To know and to understand that whatever God has marked out for
us is just coming to pass, that's a great relief. My life is not in the hands of
the devil. My life is not in the hands of
luck. My life is not in the hands of
fate. My life is in the hands of my
heavenly Father, who's predestinated all things that'll ever happen
to me. If you can remember that, that'll
get you through the day. And it'll get you through those
long, lonely nights too. Predestination, it's in Christ
though, you gotta remember that. And here's the next thing, adoption
is in Christ. We were predestinated unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. We're adopted
into his family. My earthly family, my dad, my
mother, wonderful people. But they didn't have a lot of
this world's goods. My dad worked at a furniture
company. Then God called him to preach
and he pastored a small congregation. Didn't have much. And so growing
up, I didn't have too much either. I got a bicycle one year for
Christmas, but it was a used one. And when I finally got the
Bible I wanted, it was a second. It had a page that had been whipped
through the printer and got folded under. But that's all they could
afford. So that's okay. That's okay. But I have a heavenly Father
who owns all things. All things. and he will never
ever, he will not deprive me of anything that in his wisdom,
he sees that I truly need. That's why it says, seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these other things will be
added to you. You don't have to worry about, well, am I gonna
eat? Feed on spiritual bread. If you're like me, you need to
lose a few pounds anyway of the other kind of bread. We're not
supposed to eat that kind of bread anyway, are we? Some of
us who are diabetic. But we can feed on him who is
the living bread. We're his children. and acceptances in Christ. That's what he says down here
in verse six, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he's made us accepted in the beloved. Accepted has several
different meanings, graced, agreeable, he's made us agreeable to all
of his demands in Christ Jesus, who lived and died and arose
for us. And even the meaning of this
word accepted is lovely. Lovely. Now, all of you are lovely
in here this morning. Outwardly, you're dressed up
and you look nice. If I didn't wear a mask, I'd
probably say you smelled good, but I can't smell you, so I hope
you smell good. But in the eyes of God, you're
lovely. You're lovely, because you are
in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know in Adam
I'm fallen, dead, in darkness and ignorance, but in Christ
Jesus, my standing before God is secure. And I'm beautiful. I'm beautiful. Because, see if
you can comprehend this. And those of you who don't know
God, I pray that He'll teach you what this means. As a holy
God looks at me this morning. Now, in Adam, I'm fallen, I'm
ungodly, I'm sinful, I'm a wretch. But as a holy God looks on me
this morning, He only sees me as beautiful, lovely, righteous
in His Son. That is utterly amazing, isn't
it? And this redemption's in Christ. We were redeemed by His blood. Verse seven says that. We have
redemption in Him, in Christ Jesus. We're beautiful. And here's the third thing. Our
condition in glory with Christ. I know by nature I'm without
Christ, but by God's grace I'm in Christ. And one of these days,
maybe this year, be okay with me. I'll be with Christ. I'll be with Him. I think one
of the things that's beneficial to you as a child of God as you
get older, and of course you realize you don't have the strength
you used to have and all of those sorts of things, but one of the
things that really is encouraging is, well I'm not far from home
now. I won't be alone. I won't be alone. and I'll be
with Christ." That's what the Apostle Paul
said. He said, I'm in a straight between the two. He said, I'd
like to stay with you all, but I'd rather be with Christ. And that believing thief, he said, Lord, remember me when
you enter into your kingdom. I believe he believed he was
the Lord dying for sinners, dying that God might be just and justify. That man had some knowledge of
that and he believed that. He believed he's the Lord. He
believed he was going to come into his kingdom. He said, now
when you do, would you remember me? It's not too complicated, is
it? That just came forth from his heart. He said, Lord, remember
me. You're the Lord. You're the sovereign. You do
what you want to, but if you would, would you remember me?
When you come into your kingdom, I believe you've got a kingdom.
And the Savior said, Verily I say unto you, today, Not after you
go to purgatory for a little while, or after your soul sleeps
for about 2,000 or 3,000 years, but today, you will be with me
in paradise. How does that sound? That sounds
pretty good to me, I tell you. That sounds real good to me,
with Him. In Adam, I'm without Christ.
By God's grace, I'm in Christ. And according to the purpose
of God, one of these days I'm going to be with Him. And if
I die before you do, and if my wife decides she wants to have
an open casket or whatever, you can just look at this earthly
tabernacle and say, well, there's Jim's body, but Jim He's in paradise. He's with the Lord, which is
far better, far better than anything down here. Now, what about you? Ah, what about you? You gonna
be with him? Oh, may God be gracious to you.
to teach you the gospel. See, I can give it to you up
here. I can fill your head, if you
listen to me, I can fill your head with that which is the truth.
But only the Spirit of grace can send it from your mind, from
your intellect, to your innermost being where you believe Him.
That's what I want for you. I want you to believe Him. God
give you grace to do it. We thank you, Father, for this
glorious salvation in Christ Jesus. Yes, we were born in sin
in Adam and without Christ. But by the grace of God, we've
been given to Christ Jesus in old eternity, and in Him, according
to your divine appointment, And one of these days, since
you have sent to us the Spirit of grace, and we believe Christ
Jesus, we believe your word will be with Christ in glory. That's the condition of a child
of God. Without Christ, in Christ, and
someday with Christ. And we know that even now, The
Lord is with us, you're with us by your spirit, but there
is coming for each of your people a glorious day when you will
fetch us out of this world and take us into that world not made
with hands, that heavenly city, not made by man, but made by
God, reserved for us and the heavenlies. owe to be with Christ
Jesus, which is far better than anything down here. Lord, bless
your word to the good of your people and honor it, glorify,
exalt your name. We ask for Christ's sake, amen.