I don't know how to thank everybody
enough for your kindness to me, not just this weekend, but for
almost 40 years. I'm thankful for those of you
that I've known for so long, and I'm thankful for His grace
to you that I can see you again. and see you still holding fast
to the truth, worshiping the Lord in spirit and truth. I'm
thankful for those of my family who've been my family since eternity
that I've just got a chance to meet for the first time this
weekend. Just thankful. And I'm thankful
for these brethren. I was just sitting there thinking
about these preachers, and I really don't know why I'm here. I'm a little bit like the mouse
that stood behind the lion when the lion roared a great loud
roar. And the little mouse said, me
too. That's all I can do is just say,
me too. But I'm thankful for all of you,
and I ask you to pray for me and my family in these days. I want you to turn, if you would,
to 1 Timothy, and the first chapter. And I want to read to you one
verse. And that verse is verse 15. The Apostle Paul, writing to
Timothy, says, this is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. My title this morning is The
Confession of the Chief of Sinners. And I may be the most qualified,
the most suited to preach this message than I ever have been
any message. Paul refers to himself here as
the chief of sinners. And I'm sure in his day, especially
since the Spirit of God led him to write that, I'm sure that
he was. But that was before I came along. Before I came along, I had been
a sinner all my life. As a matter of fact, if you really
knew me, you probably wouldn't hear a
word I said this morning. If you really knew who I was
in myself, you'd probably run and hide from me, never have
anything to do with me. Because I found out that I was
a sinner, all my life long before I knew I was. I was blind to my sinnerhood. I was self-righteous and proud
and like Adam trying to hide in my fig leaves. in the fig
leaves of self-righteousness, supported by false religion,
and I was very pleased with myself, very satisfied in this sinnerhood,
resting, and I had assurance. But one day I found out that
I was a sinner. Not by searching. I wasn't looking to find out. But God came looking for me. As Adam and Eve, as he sought
them out in the garden, He did not say, Adam, where art
thou, in order to get information, but in order to show Adam where
he was, what he was. And His Spirit showed me, the
Spirit of God showed me, first of all, that I was a sinner. And the amazing thing is, I didn't
know I was a sinner until he gave me faith. Faith to believe what God said
about himself. You see, in his light, we see
light. Until we see something of who
God is, we don't really know who we are. Isaiah said, in the
year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up,
and he beheld those creatures saying, holy, holy, holy. And he said, then said I. Woe
is me. Woe is me. And preachers, I do believe,
are wasting their time trying with words, illustrations, and
so other many various ways, trying to show and describe the awfulness
of sin. I've done it. I've heard it. But describe it as you would. Describe its awfulness as you
would or may be enabled to do. You can't touch the hem of the
garment. And the only way that a sinner
ever finds out for sure that he's a sinner is when God enables
him to believe what God says about him. We're sinners not because we
feel it. I didn't come to know it by feeling. I only came to know it by faith. to believe God when he says that
we are what we are. We didn't hear it from our mothers
or our fathers. We don't hear it really from
preachers or they would not prescribe the remedies that they do so
superficial. We only know ourselves to be
sinners. We're so self-deceived, heart-deceived,
religion-deceived, we're sinners who only find that out when we
are enabled to believe God. To believe God, who says, all
have sinned. If you turn over to the book
of Romans in chapter 3, you see, we would never allow ourselves
to feel, or we would never by nature think or evaluate ourselves
as the Spirit of God leads Paul to describe us here in Romans
3. Romans 3. In verse 9, he brings in all
of humanity who fall under two categories spoken of by God,
identified by God, Jew and Gentile. It doesn't matter who you are,
you're either Jew or Gentile. And he says, what then? Are we
better than they? No, in no wise, for we have proved,
both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. And then he speaks and he says,
as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is as an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of asp is under their
lips, whose 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 have they not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes. And not one son of Adam will
ever know anything about what they are. because we cannot be
honest with ourselves, and false religion will not be honest with
us. We'll only know when the Spirit
of God enables us to believe such things as we have just read. None, none that doeth good. None that seeketh after God. None that are righteous in themselves. All those whom the way of peace
they do not know and the fear of God, they don't know anything about. They don't know anything about
the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. You see, when we read the Bible,
if the Spirit of God is pleased to open our eyes and understanding
and give us some knowledge as to what He's saying in this book
about us, there is just one conclusion that we'll come to, and that's
that we're sinners. Sinners. You see, I found out that I've
never had a sinless thought. I've never had a sinless motive. I've never performed a sinless
work. And I never will in this life. Never will. You see, when the
Spirit of God made me honest with myself, I found out that
in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. I had to quit saying, there's
not much good in me, and begin confessing there's
no good in me. No good thing. And what I found
out from the word, I surely didn't find this out from a preacher
or from somebody in this world or my own self, I found out that
I sinned before I was born. That is, in Adam, in the head
of man, in the head of that race that I'm a part of, I sinned,
and Paul writes in Romans 5, he says, wherefore, by one man,
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. I found out I was a prenatal
sinner. I was born in sin. I was shapen in iniquity. I came forth from my mother's
womb speaking lies. I didn't have to be taught how
to lie. I didn't have to be taught to
be jealous or possessive. Soon as I was able to play around
other children, I began to say, mind. When my mother asked me, what
did you do? Did you do that? I said, no. I didn't have anybody to teach
me that. Why'd they do that? Because I'm
a sinner. And I found out in this book,
God showed me in this book, I found out that God must punish sin. and that all sin is against him. I found out that God is just,
that he is quite different from what I thought and what I had
been told. I found out that the chief focal
central attribute of God is not simply love, but it's his justice,
it's his righteousness. He says, there's none beside
me, And I am a just God. He's not just a God of love.
He's a just God. And I found out in his word,
by the spirit of truth, that what I thought was good, what
I thought was righteousness, was the worst of all. Did you know that? Well, I'm just trying to live
by the golden rule. And here's one, really, I hear
all the time. I'm just doing the best I can. I found out that's not good enough.
It may be good enough for you, it may be good enough for your
wife or your husband or your friends, the circle that you
keep, but it's not good enough for God. He must punish sin. He's a just God. And I began
to hear what Christ said to and of the Pharisees. I began to
read things like this, that which is highly esteemed of men is
an abomination of God. The man who lives right, the
man who does right, the woman who's virtuous. Well, that's
good for you to be that way. But don't depend on it for salvation. I wasn't a drug addict. I'm sorry. I'm unglamorous. I wasn't a hell's angel. I wasn't
even a drunk. I wasn't a thief. I wasn't a
whoremonger. I was a preacher. I was a pastor. But neither was the man who wrote
our verse. Neither was the man who wrote
this word and called himself in his day the chief of sinners. You see, what I found out was
this. As a sinner, what I was proud
of needed to be repented of. Do you know that's what Paul
is doing in Philippians 3? Look over there in Philippians
3. Here's a man who would make any
preacher in our day just about a great church member. If he just walked into that church
of the local free will Arminian situation,
that preacher would have laid hold on him, made him a deacon,
made him a teacher, made him on the board, everything. Because
listen to him. Verse four, he says, though I
might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh
that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. I more. Circumcised the eighth
day. Not the ninth, not the seventh. The eighth day, when he was supposed
to be. of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, that highly favored tribe, and Hebrew of
the Hebrews as touching the law of Pharisee, sat at the feet of Gamaliel,
the greatest religious teacher of his day. We might say it like
this. He was cleaner than a houndstooth. Morally. Concerning zeal. Oh, he had a zeal. But it was
not according to knowledge. Why? Because he went about to
establish his own righteousness. He said, touching the righteousness
which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to
me? That's what you've got to figure
out. And you'll never figure it out without God's grace. You'll
never figure it out until he gives you faith to believe his
word. What things were gained to me? What's gained to you? What are you planning on facing
God with? What do you base all your hope
on? You ask people that in these
days, and you'll immediately get a whole catalog of what they've
done for Jesus. I'm a member of such and such
a church. I'm a Sunday school teacher.
I've taught Sunday school for 50 years. Paul says, but what things were
gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. What I thought
was gain, what I thought pleased God, what I thought made me acceptable,
made me a saved person, made me a Christian, what things I
thought were gained to me, I found out they were nothing. until you find out that they're
nothing. Until God shows you what a real
sinner is. You'll always cling to those
things. You'll always hold on to them. There are so many people who
have an idea that this business of salvation and grace in Jesus
Christ is just merely an adding on to their old religion. Paul
said, I counted it all. for lost. He found out it was sin. That's the high treason against
God. That's why it says something
like that which is highly esteemed of God. He didn't say it was
not a good thing. He said it was an abomination
to God. Any righteousness, any imagined
works that rivals the only righteousness there is, which is the righteousness
of God in Christ, which he gives as a gift, is unrighteousness,
and it's abomination in the sight of God. Yea, doubtless sin I count all
things, but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, of whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but We may say, I know my old religion,
I know my past, and I know it doesn't count for much. Yo, it
counts for something, all right. Dung. Need I describe that further? Dung. That's all it is. We're naturally,
as sinners, just like dung beetles. And you know what they do. is
just roll around this ball all the time. Why? Because they live off of it.
I count them but done, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God, which
is of God by faith. Doesn't involve anything that
I do. Doesn't involve anything that I am in myself. Why? Because I'm a sinner. Everything I do is tainted with
skin. I've used this illustration before.
I had an old copy machine and every once in a while you'd have
to change the toner cartridge in it. And I don't know if you've
ever done that before, those old ones. But when you take that
toner cartridge out, be as careful as you could and would, you would
still get some of that toner on your fingers. And then for
the next hour, just about, everything you touch would leave your fingerprint
on it, would leave the marks of that toner on it, and that's
the way it is with us as sinners. Everything we do is sinners. The reason we sin is because
we're sinners. And I found out by God's Word
and His grace and His Spirit that sin wasn't nearly so much
as what I did as it was what I am. I'm the chief of sinners. And since then, after all my
experience as a believer for almost 40 years, since then I
found out something else. I'm not improving. I'm not making progress. Sorry, that disappoints you. I'm not getting holier every
day. I was with some preachers in,
I believe it was Michigan once. And somebody asked that one of
these young preachers, he said, can you actually say that you
are holier now than when you first believed? Are you getting
holier and holier? He's kind of looked at, yeah,
yeah, I can say that. Well, I can't. Because I'm the chief of sinners.
If I confessed anything to you other than that, I know that
according to this word that flesh is flesh. I'm not progressing,
I'm still sinning, and it seems sometimes that I'm getting worse. The more I see God's brilliant
holiness, the more I find out about how He is absolutely and
infinitely perfect. The more I find out about what
it took to save this sinner, the more I find out about my
wretched state in Adam, my wretched state by nature, and I find out
by trial and error all the times that I fall and faint and fail. I'm not a recovering sinner.
I'm a continuing sinner. And this revelation, and it was
a hard one. When you find out that you're
not who you thought you were, it's a hard thing. When I found out something about
myself and something about my sinnerhood, it left me without
hope in myself. And I found out that I was not
able to change myself. I was not able to improve myself. There was no remedy. There was no self-help thing. There was no plan. There was
no decision I could make. There was nothing that could
be done for me to alter my state and condition. by earthly means. It's like being told you have
a terminal disease and there's no cure. No cure. No help in yourself. You might say, that's an awful
state to be in. You might say that's a bad thing
to realize. You might say that leaves me
helpless. That's a bad thing. Yeah, it's
a bad thing to be a sinner. But it's a good thing. It's a good thing. You see, the reason that gospel
preachers, true gospel preachers, can tell people the gospel is
like Brother Richardson said, it's just one beggar telling
another beggar where he got bread. One sinner, one just like yourself, I've got a suit on this point.
I'm standing up here higher than you are. I have charge over the
service, but I'm just like you. Where's boasting? It's excluded. There's no big I in little you. There's no holier than thou. I'm in the same boat that you
are. But when I found out that bad
news, that's when I found out the good news. You see, the one
who brought me to this despair then brought me to hope. The faith that he gave me to
see and know what I was as a sinner also brought me to see Christ
the savior of sinners. I live by a Marine base, one
of the largest in the world. And for a while, the Marines
had a slogan. bumper stickers, you know, you
could see it on every other car almost around there. This was
their saying, the Marines are looking for a few good men. I found out that God wasn't. I found out that God wasn't. You see, the gospel so concisely
said by Paul here in verse 15, is this good news. This is a
faithful, it's true, it's unchanging, and it's worthy of all acceptation
that Christ Jesus came into the world to be a good example for you. Christ Jesus came into the world
to die a martyr's death. Christ Jesus came into the world
to make you better. No. Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. And I'm here to tell you this
morning That's what He did. In His coming and in His resurrection,
that space of time in which He lived and died on that cross,
He saved sinners. Now you can talk to people in
our day. You won't talk to them long before you'll find out Well,
they're about anything but a sinner. Oh, no. I'm not as bad as so-and-so. They tell me, I'm just as good
as you, preacher. Oh, boy, what a low standard. He says we're not wise comparing
ourselves with ourselves. Here's God's standard, His Son. His Son is the standard, but
His Son is the Savior. You see, He has said that He's
God. There's none like Him. He's a
just God and a Savior. Not a just God, but a Savior. But a just God and a Savior.
If you ever find out how he can be those two things that seem
so contrary at the first glance, if God ever shows you how that
in Christ crucified, he can be a just God, remain a just God,
and yet save sinners like you are, you'll know the gospel. That's why he came into the world.
That's what his mission was. Sin of the Father. The work he
had been sent to do. The salvation that he'd been
sent to accomplish. To save sinners. Why would we
ever want to stand on any other ground? Why would we want to
spend our time lying to God, rebelling against God, and trying
to convince one another that we're not sinners? If I said, today, on the bridge that crosses from
Ashland to Ironton, there'll be a man standing out there,
and everybody that's there, everybody that's on that bridge, he's gonna
give a million dollars. Where are you going, to Cannonsburg? Maybe Charleston? But that's how we are. That's
what sinners do. They flee from the very truth
of what they are, that God has said that we are, that we evidence
that we are, that the history of this world shows that we are. And don't stand on the one ground
that he blesses. He saved sinners. Somebody said once in a message,
they said, in order to save me, Christ had to become what I am. No. In order to save me, He had
to become what I'm not. Sinless. He had to be that sinless sacrifice. I told Jim, I said, If saving
me could be accomplished by someone becoming what I am, then half
of us could save the other half. That won't work. He says a sinless
sacrifice. He's the one sacrifice for sins. He came to satisfy the justice
of God with regards to the sins of His people. Thou shalt call
His name Jesus, for He shall what? Save His people from their
sins. And I found out why the gospel
is called good news. It's good news to sinners. We can't help but quote Brother
Scott Richardson. He was so dear to us and such
a faithful preacher of the gospel. But Brother Scott said one time,
he said, what is it that makes good news good news? He said,
bad news. The bad news is that we're sinners. The good news is Christ died
for sinners. You see, the gospel was not good
news until I found out I was a sinner and needed some good
news. And I found out in this book
and I found out also from a gospel preacher that Christ on the cross
had done everything. The lady asked me one time, she
said, you mean to tell me we had nothing to do with our salvation? I said, well, not exactly. I
said, you did the sinning, but Christ did all the saving. He finished the work of salvation. He accomplished the salvation
of his people by one offering. He perfected it. I found out
that he died for the ungodly. I found my name written in heaven
because it's written in this book. Sinner. Ungodly. He suffered the just for the
unjust. That's me. Chief of sinners. He came to set the prisoners
free. He came and He saved me from
the curse of the law being made a curse for me. How do I know
it's for me, faith? You see, you can, and the devil can, and
everybody else can, And most of the time, I can say there's
no way that's possible. But God gave me faith. And I can believe it. I shake
my head sometimes. A sinner like me, saved by God's
grace. Chosen in Christ. Redeemed by
Christ. Called to Christ. Believing on
Christ. This sinner has hope. Unexplainable hope. God enabled me to believe the
truth. Old David lay on his deathbed. He said, a king is to be this
and that and the other. And he says next, although my
house be not so with God. Yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my
salvation. A covenant salvation In the covenant
head, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only salvation that saves
sinners. In Matthew 9, he tells some people,
Christ does, he says, but go ye and learn what it means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice,
for I am come to call the righteous, not the righteous, I'm not come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Later, Christ says to some, They that are whole have no need
of a physician. If you're not a sinner, I don't
have one thing to say to you. They that are whole have no need
of the physician, but they that are sick, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So the same faith that God gives
as a gift first enables us to see ourselves as sinners, what
we are in ourselves and what we are in this flesh, but it
also enables us to see what we are and have become by grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I've discovered something
over the years. When you tell one of God's believing
people that you're the chief of sinners,
they say, whoop. Not you, but me. You see, every one of God's elect,
they feel themselves to be what they are. sinners, the chief
of sinners. And then they raise a hallelujah. And they remember that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, the chief of sinners. Paul looked at all he had been
in his life all his credentials, all his religion, all his morality. And he said, I was before a blasphemer,
an injurious person. And I did all I did in the ignorance
of unbelief. Unbelief. An old preacher said rightly
so. I won't tell you his name because
I probably don't agree with him on everything. But he said one
thing right. He said a sinner is a sacred
thing. For the Lord has made him such. You're a sinner? There's hope
for you then.