And of course, I made this observation
to the Bible class this morning, that we tend to go right over
that first part, right to the more difficult section of the
verse. That's because we're curious
as to what does that mean. And indeed, we tried to deal
with that in our notes. But oh, how blessed a statement
the Lord Jesus made when he said, all manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven, shall be forgiven men. I'm so thankful that's in
there. And you can dwell on the more
difficult part of the verse if you like. And it does need to
be addressed. But while we might have some
difference of opinion on the last part of the verse, hopefully
we don't have any difference of opinion on the first part
of the verse. God is in the forgiving business. In fact, that's his name. If
you read in the book of Exodus, chapter 34, the Lord identified
himself gracious and merciful. Those are his names. Here in
Ephesians, the first chapter, this portion of scripture is
certainly not unfamiliar to all of you, nor to those of you I
suspect who are watching by way of the internet, We love to study
this and read this portion of scripture. I'll begin at the
third verse. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, this one who hath blessed us
already, past tense. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. Where are the blessings of God
to be found? They're to be found in Christ
Jesus and nowhere else. God doesn't have anything good
for folks like us except in His Son. He is the reservoir of all of
the mercies, of all of the grace, of all of the salvation, of all
of the blessings that he has for poor, sinful folks like us,
our Lord Jesus is at the reservoir of them all. If you have Christ
Jesus, you got them all. If you don't have Christ Jesus,
you have nothing. You're the poorest of the poor
if you be without the Son of God. The fourth verse, according as
he had chosen us in him, that is, in Christ Jesus. Well, when did he do this? Before
the foundation of the world. Romans 9 says, before we did
anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to
election, might stand. God hath in Christ chosen us
before the foundation of the world that we should be holy
and without blame before God. That's an awesome thing that
we could stand before God, that we in God's eyes would be holy
and without blame. Listen, he's the only one whose
judgment matters. And God has chosen a people in
Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world for this purpose,
that we should be, that everybody he chose should be holy and without
blame before God. Before God. No matter how we
might appear before men, I know how we appear before God if we're
in Christ Jesus. This is how we appear. Holy and
without blame. That's how we are in Christ Jesus. As God, as our God sees things,
that's the way they are. Right? That's the way they are. We're gathered here this evening,
we're sinful people, we know that, we realize that. Yet, before
God, we're without blame. In fact, we read in Romans chapter
eight, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? Christ
died. Christ died, and yea rather He
rose again, who also makes intercession for us at the right hand of God. It's almost too good to be so,
but it is so. It is true. We're before God
in the eyes of God as we stand before God. Not when we stand
before God at the judgment, but as we stand before God right
now. Right now. We are holy and without
blame. I wish I could fully rejoice
in that like I ought to. Oh, I tell you, it'd make all
these little temporal issues of life to be insignificant,
mean nothing. This is the way I am before God.
God who's absolutely holy. God who, he charges the angels
with folly. Even the heavens aren't pure
in his sight. But I am. You are. Before God, we're holy and without
blame. Before Him, in love. Now watch
this. In love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself. And this is all according to
the good pleasure of His will and is to the praise of the glory
of His grace. Wherein He hath made us, literally
graced us. It's the exact same original
word for grace. He has graced us. He has made
us, He has graced us in grace. That word accepted is also grace. He's graced us in grace. This
is full of grace. I tell you, anywhere you look
at salvation, at any reference point, it's always a matter of
grace. That's why we read in Romans
chapter 11, if of grace, it's not of works. If it's of works,
it's not of grace. It can't be both ways. He has graced us in grace. In the Beloved. in whom we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace. Verse seven, verse seven begins,
in whom. Those words, of course, direct
us to take things in its context. And you gotta go back to find
out in whom, who is that? Well, the last statement of verse
six, the beloved one, who is the beloved one? God's beloved
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, here at verse seven,
verse seven is a very important verse, and they're all important,
of course, but this is a transition verse. That's what verse seven
is. It transitions us from the work
of the Father into the work of the Son of God. Because you see,
and you know this, in the book of Ephesians, the first chapter,
we have the work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the
work of the Holy Spirit. Now the Father has ordained this
in His eternal purpose. Here's what His purpose to do.
His purpose that we should be holy and without blame before
Him. Here's what he did in his purpose,
that we would receive the adoption of children unto himself. Here's what he has purposed.
He has purposed that we should be to the praise of the glory
of his grace. And here's what verse seven does.
Verse seven tells us how it is that God is going to fulfill
his purpose. You see, verses 3, 4, 5, and
6, they tell us about the purpose of God. Starting in verse 7,
now He's going to tell us how's God going to fulfill His purpose.
Now, we know this, whatever God has purposed, He's going to fulfill
it. He's going to do whatever it
is He sets out to do. And we might rightfully ask this
question, well, how is God going to achieve His purpose? We've
already said His purpose is that we should be holy and blameless
before Him in love. We've already said that God has
purposed that we receive the adoption of children. We've already
said that God has purposed that we should be to the praise of
the glory of His grace. Well then, how is God going to
bring this all to pass? And then entering into the picture
is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all dependent upon a work
that He must do. And so, the apostle is led to
say now, in whom we have redemption. Well, how do we have that? through
His blood. This is complicated. This isn't
rocket science. But it's a whole lot more important.
It's a whole lot more vital. In whom we have, we, the saints
of God. That's who He's writing to. He's
not writing to everybody. He's not writing to the world. He's not writing to those who
don't know God. He's writing to the saints of
God. He's writing to those who are chosen. He's writing to those
who are predestinated to be adopted into the family of God. He's
writing to those who will arrive at God's predestinated purpose
to the praise of the glory of His grace. In whom we have redemption
through His blood. And here's what we have. The
forgiveness of sins. Well, if we, through the redemption
that is in the blood of Christ Jesus, receive the forgiveness
of sins, what is the origin of all of this? What is the very
basis of all this? What are you gonna trace all
of this to? The riches of His grace. the
riches of His grace. Now, I recognize the fact that
we're all different in a bunch of ways. We come from different
backgrounds, different areas. Some people watching on the internet
that we'll never meet. Don't know them. unless they
write to me, and many do. And by the way, to those of you
who watch us on the internet and we hear from you from time
to time, we appreciate that. It's good to hear from you. But
a lot of the people who watch, we don't know and we won't meet
them, not in this life anyway. Or maybe this message You will be blessed by it, those
of you in the congregation, those of you who watch, you'll be blessed
by it, and you'll ask, Brother Ron, could I have a CD of that
message? That message on forgiveness through
the blood? Could I have a DVD copy of that? And then you'll give it away,
and maybe somebody is listening to this message, and you've received
it that way, and I'll never know you, and we'll never meet together.
But I know this, we've all got two things in common. I do know
this, maybe we don't know each other. Or maybe we do know each
other, but we still got two things in common. Number one, we're
all sinners. Now we got that in common. And number two, we need forgiveness. Yes, sir. We need forgiveness. Let me tell you several things
about us sinful people. Number one, I'll try to be brief,
but I want to be direct. Number one, we're all sinful
people by imputation. Imputation. We had a representative
in the Garden of Eden that was Adam. Not Eve, but Adam. Eve
didn't represent anybody. Adam represented everybody. Okay? When Adam sinned, as our representative,
here's kind of the theological name, our federal head, there's
the federal headship of Adam. That just means he represented
everybody. He's the head of the family,
okay? He's the head of the family of
mankind. And what he did in his action
had a devastating effect upon all the family, upon all of his
sons and daughters, of which we're just a few of them right
here tonight. The scripture says in Romans
5 and verse 12, wherefore, as by one man, Sin entered into
the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men
for that all have sinned or literally all have sinned in Adam. And his sin charged, it was charged
to our account. Okay, we're sentenced by amputation. Number two, we're all sinners
by birth and practice. David said this, Psalm 51, behold,
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Psalm 58, verse three, the wicked
are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born, speaking lies. We're sinners by birth and nature. We're born this way. Born this way. Number three. We're all sinners, not only by
imputation, that is the sin of Adam charged to us, not only
by birth and nature, but we're all sinners by choice and practice. Choice and practice. Read Romans
3, 9 through, oh, 18. None good, no not one. None righteous,
no not one. None seek after God. No fear
of God before their eyes. On and on he goes. We're sentenced
by choice and practice. Don't ever say, you know, well
it was just a little sin. There is no such thing as a little
sin because there is no such thing as a little God against
whom we've sinned. Okay? There are no little sins. God will damn you for one sin. If He finds one sin on you or
me, that's going to be it for us. As Brother Scott used to
say, we'll be a gone Jesse. We'll be gone. We'll be gone
forever. Okay? And I'll tell you something else.
Number four, we're all sinners in our innermost being. In our
innermost being. In our very core. Our very core. You see, the acts of sin, Hey,
we do commit acts of sin, deeds of sin. Yeah, we do. What we
say, what we do, our attitude, the way we treat people or mistreat
people, the things we do against God
when we don't obey His revealed will, those sinful actions, they're
bad, but listen, they're just the branches of sin. That's just
the branches. So I'm going to clean up my act. Well, if you need to do that,
go ahead, you need to do that then. But you can't get to the
root of the matter. You see, that's what's got to
be dealt with, the root of the matter. The heart. The heart. The Lord Jesus said, for out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulterers, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemy. These are the things that defile
a man. But to eat with unwashed hands,
that doesn't defile a man. Your problem's not what goes
in. Your problem's what's in there by nature. You're polluted
at the fountain. Polluted at the fountain. You see, we all got a bad fountain. And just because Sin doesn't
break out in equal amounts with all of us. That doesn't mean
we don't all have the same problem. We all got the identically same
problem. It's just that God, for purposes
known only to Him, He restrains some people from giving full
vent to their bad heart. And others, he says, not so far. This is as far as you go. Whereas
others, he just gives them rope. Do what you want to do. And they
do. You see, that's why it's when
we understand that our fountain is polluted just like everybody
else. We got bad hearts just like everybody
else. When we understand that, then
we'll understand that we're capable of doing anything. And I do mean
anything that any other son or daughter of Adam has ever done
because we've got identically rotten hearts. See, most people
don't understand. I would never do what so-and-so
did. Really? Really? You may be even worse in a sense
because it sounds like you've got a self-righteous problem. We're such vile sinners. I was
reading this week Martin Luther, the great reformer. He once said this, I am more afraid of my own heart
than of the Pope and all his cardinals. Think of that. I am more afraid of my own heart
than I am of the Pope and all of his cardinals. You see, sin
in its essence is a heart problem. The heart is deceitful above
all things, Jeremiah 17, nine says. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know what the heart is
capable of? It's capable of anything. It's desperately wicked. You
know what desperately means? No hope. There's no hope. I'm sure I've shared this with
you before, but in July of 1975, my dad, they took him to surgery
for, they couldn't figure out how come his back hurt so bad
and his chest So they're going to do what they call exploratory
surgery. And we went to the cafe to get
something to eat, or we started that way. And then, well, we
got there, and then they notified us to go back to Dad's room.
And we went back to Dad's room, and the doctor was waiting on
us. He was the surgeon. I'll never forget. He was very,
kind of a short guy, kind of bald-headed. Very nice man. He sat down on the side of the
bed. And he said, I opened Mr. Byrd up. He said, let me tell
you, he is desperately ill. Hey, I knew what that word in
Jeremiah 17.9 meant. No hope. That's what that word
means. And when he said desperately
ill, I knew what that meant. There wasn't any hope. 30 days
later, he died of pancreatic cancer, having just turned 51
years of age. Desperately ill. That's us. Right there. Desperately ill. And if this is to be left to
you and me, there isn't any hope. There isn't any hope. Thank God
my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I do have a good hope, that's
what Paul said, through grace, he added that, didn't he? We
have a good hope through grace. Through grace. We're polluted in the heart. I read something this afternoon.
I just had some things on my mind and I came back over to
the office and I was reading a little bit of John Bunyan.
You know, he wrote Pilgrim's Progress. Oh, he had a powerful
statement that I read. He said of sin, sin is the dare
of God's justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience,
the slight of his power and the contempt of his love." End quote. Sin's a really bad thing, you
know? A really bad thing. Another writer, William Plumer,
he said, if sin had its way, it would take God off his throne
and annihilate him. Do we even have any idea the
seriousness of sin? Sin would take God off His throne
and annihilate, just do away with God. I can't tell you how deep the
pollution is, but I know this, it's so deep, only the blood
of Jesus Christ can wash it away. And it does. It does. Oh, John Knox. You ever read
about John Knox of Scotland? The Scottish Reformation of 1560,
1561, something like that. He was a mighty preacher. Shortly before his death, he
said this, In youth, in mid-age, Now, after many battles, I find
nothing in me but vanity and corruption." Is that what you find? And I
say with Brother Knox, me too. That's what I see. In my youth, In my mid-age, and now after
many battles, there's nothing in me but vanity and corruption. Tell you what Paul said, in me,
that is, in my flesh, what's the rest of it? Dwelleth
no good thing. Nothing good. There's nothing
good in you. There's nothing good in me. You
and I, we're just a mass of sin. We have sinned. We do sin. We are sinning. And we will yet
sin. And I wish that wasn't so. And I weep over my sinfulness. And I acknowledge and confess
my sinfulness. But that's the way we are. And those people who are spiritually
ignorant, who say things like this, I'm living above sin. They're deceived. They're deceived. And they need the grace of God. Blessed is the man. Blessed is
the woman who in their heart is made to acknowledge their
sinfulness. Because you see, there is no
mercy for anybody who's righteous in their own eyes. But there is mercy, abundant
mercy, saving mercy, everlasting mercy to those who acknowledge
sin and confess it. Confess it. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us, to wash away all unrighteousness. I don't wanna say this wrong,
and I certainly don't wanna be irreverent at all. If there's ever been a dilemma
that faced God, if there's ever been a problem
that has faced God, and this isn't the right way to word it,
so may the Lord forgive me for having such a poor vocabulary to express this. But if there's ever been a problem
that faced God, it was this. How can sin be done away with? You see, God can say, and He
did say, let there be light. And there was light. But God
can't just say, I forgive you. See, this is an area where the
world gets all kind of sentimental and they don't have any comprehension
of the holiness and the righteousness of God. They picture God as saying, my
son, come home to me, I forgive you, I forgive you. And of course
they take that from the parable of the lost things, parable of
lost things. Be careful that you don't form
doctrines based on parables. They say, well, that's what the
Father did. The Father said, I forgive you. But the gospel,
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ isn't just that God arbitrarily
says, I forgive you. God is righteous and holy and
He's got to do something about sin. And nobody's going to be forgiven
until God does something about sin in a way that honors all
of His attributes. It's got to honor His justice
and His law. And the severity of His very
being in opposition against sin. We just said sin would dethrone
God. Sin would annihilate God. He
cannot just say, I absolve you of all of it. This is the way sin is forgiven.
Through the right, Sacrifice. Through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what it says. In whom
we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace. Something had to be done
about our sins. And it isn't that God had the
option of dealing with sin in various ways. Or even in two
ways. There was just one way. One way
whereby God could deal with sin and then fulfill His purpose
that we should be holy and without blame before Him. that we should
be adopted into His family as children and that it would all
be to the praise of the glory of His grace. And that's through
the death, the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to say or even insinuate
in any way that God could have dealt with sin some other way
than killing His own Son is to insult the very wisdom of God and to charge God with the unnecessary
death of his son. One way it can be dealt with,
and God dealt with it. He dealt with it 2,000 years
ago when his son died a bloody death. A bloody death. It doesn't say just Christ died,
but it's the blood of redemption. Because the life of the flesh
is in the blood. His life's gotta be taken from
him. And because justice demands and
insists upon vengeance being executed,
then the vengeance of God was executed upon Jesus Christ. And God didn't merely say, well,
okay, he'll just fall into the sleep of death without any kind
of pain at all. Oh no, all that pain and agony
of Calvary and the stripes that God laid upon his soul, God made
his soul an offering for sin, it shows, it indicates to us
what God thinks of sin. And I ain't gonna deal with it.
He dealt with it in a just way when Christ Jesus died. And the very origin of this is
the grace of God. The grace of God. The scripture says we're justified
freely by his grace. That means without a cause. You
can't buy forgiveness. And I don't care what these men
do. I mean, I do care, but they can
do whatever they want to do. Go around and tell people, I
absolve you of your guilt. That's foolish. And nobody can absolve, nobody
can forgive except God. David said, against thee, thee
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Nobody else
can forgive him except God. You can't buy forgiveness. I
found this poem. Money will buy a bed, but not
sleep. Money will buy books, but not
brains. Money will buy food, but not
an appetite. Money will buy finery, but not
beauty. Money will buy a house, but not
a home. Money will buy medicine, but
not good health. Money will buy luxuries, but
not culture. Money will buy amusements, but
not true happiness. Money will buy religion, but
not salvation. Money will buy you a passport
to everywhere except heaven. And it most certainly will not
buy you forgiveness. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son. That's what cleanses us, washes
us from all sin. Forgiven. Oh, what a wonderful subject,
forgiven. I got news for you. That's just
about my introduction. I got lots more. but I won't preach it next Sunday
night. But maybe the next Sunday night I will, the Lord will.
I'll tell you what I was gonna preach on tonight, frogs. You laugh? Gonna preach on three
unclean frogs from Revelation chapter 16. But not to worry,
if we live long enough, you'll get that one too. It's still
baking. OK? It's still being worked out. Well, it's been a good day to
be in the house of the Lord. We're going to miss Marty for
a few Sundays. Glad she got a very good, clean
bill of health. And we rejoice in that. And so
she's going to Virginia. A couple of other wayward sheep,
they're going to wander away too and go to the motherland. Virginia so we'll miss these
folks while they're gone be safe enjoy Your getaway, and we'll
look forward to seeing y'all first part of June perhaps okay
Rest of you looks like you're stuck with me Hey, don't laugh. I'm stuck with y'all Somebody's got to stay here and
we will the Lord willing and If you haven't signed the sheets
down here, I hadn't paid any attention to it, whether it filled
up or not. But we're going to eat together next Sunday after
the morning worship service. We'll have the Lord's Supper.
And then we'll have a meal, and we'll recognize our high school
graduates at that time. And then we're going to take
the light off next Sunday night. So those of you who are watching,
we won't be having a service next Sunday night. You can go
back into the archives. and watch another message. Anyway.