visit some old ground this evening,
the book of Ephesians chapter 1. Let me speak to you on this
subject for a little bit. Saved by grace. Saved by grace. Let's look at verse 3 of chapter
1 of Ephesians. It begins, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That word blessed means
eulogized. We go to a funeral and usually
there's an individual who stands and reads or he gives a eulogy
of the one who is deceased. He talks about him or her and
brags on them, tells some good things of their life. Well, this
is what is meant by this word blessed. It's eulogized. We gather to eulogize God. Let God's name be eulogized tonight. We gather to brag on the Lord.
We have no desire that any flesh should get any glory in this
building. Let God be exalted. Let God be
glorified. Let God be magnified in the trinity
of His persons. There is none like to our God.
Absolutely holy and reverend is His name. For the glory of
His grace, He chose a people unto salvation. He redeemed those
people. He irresistibly drew those people
and is drawing those people to faith in the Lord Jesus. Salvation
is of the Lord. Who else are we going to eulogize?
There's nobody else to be eulogized. There's nobody else to be bragged
on. Shall I brag on you? Shall I brag on myself? while
we're just unworthy worms. We're just sinners saved by God's
free and sovereign grace. I say, and I know all of you
say, let God's name alone be eulogized in this house. And
should there ever come a day when God's name ceases to be
eulogized in here, burn the house down. It has no more reason for
existing. We gather for one reason alone,
to worship our God through Jesus Christ the Lord. Let God's name
be eulogized. This is what the Apostle says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us already. He's already blessed us. Well,
with what did He bless us? All spiritual blessings, Well,
where did He bless us? In heavenly places. And in whom
did He bless us? In Christ. I'd say then these
blessings are secure, wouldn't you? I'd say that these blessings
are everlasting because they're ours in Christ Jesus. Look at
the fourth verse. According as He had chosen us. What an amazing, amazing statement. God has chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we who are unholy, that
we who drink iniquity like water, that we should be holy and without
blame before God. Oh, how can I be without blame
before God? I'm to be blamed for everything.
Why I must center up one side and down another. From the bottom
of my feet to the top of my head, there's only wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. How can I be blameless before
the eyes of Him with whom I have to do? God who sees things as
they are. And make no mistake about it,
as God sees things, that's exactly how they are. Lord, am I blameless before you? Lord, this fallen son of Adam, conceived in sin, speaking lies
from my mother's womb, vile and wretched, a rebel against you? Can it possibly be that this
sinner would be blameless and holy in your sight? Oh yes. What glorious good news for us
sinners. In Christ Jesus, we are holy
and without blame. So that we read, who can lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Who can bring up a charge
and he'll register on me? Who can throw mud at me and he'll
stick on me? Nobody can. Why not? I'm redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb of God. And my sins have been washed
away. And I stand accepted in the Beloved,
as the Apostle goes on to say here. And we're blameless before
Him. We're as blameless before God
as God's own Son, for we stand before God in Christ Jesus, robed
in His righteousness as you prayed, and clothed with the garments
of God's salvation. And it's a salvation that really
saves It's a salvation for sinners. Oh, how great is this marvelous
grace of our God that lifts up the fallen from the miry clay
of sin and degradation and lifts us all the way up to be princes
of His people. Who establishes our going, He
sets our feet on a rock, the rock Christ Jesus, and will never
sink. It will never sink. I am holy and I am without blame. Boy, those are big words unless
you got something to back it up now. Right? That's a big statement
for somebody to say, hey, I'm holy and I'm without blame before
God. Well, how can that be? Only by grace. Only by God's
free grace. He has chosen us. And I just
like to think of it this way. He's chosen me. You know, it's
one thing to talk about God's electing grace to all of His
people. That's a wonderful thing. I'm
going to talk about it in a little bit. But let's narrow this down
a lot. Let's pinpoint this electing
grace. He chose me. If you're a believer
tonight, if you rest your soul upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
if you know Him whom to know is life eternal, if God's given
you faith in Him to rest in Him totally, if God's given you faith
to turn away from your idols, and to desert all of your dead
works, and look to Jesus Christ for life and salvation and forgiveness
and righteousness. If you're a believer, I'll tell
you why you believe. Because He chose you to be holy
and without blame before the foundation of the world. And watch this in verse 5. Having
predestinated us, wonderful word, predestinated us. He predestinated me. He predestinated
you who are believers. Your faith is the evidence that
you've been chosen and the evidence that you've been predestinated
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will And watch this, what he says,
"...to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath
made us, He hath made me accepted in the
Beloved." And by the way, that verse 6, that word made, if you
look it up, And nobody, and we're not Greek scholars or anything
like that, but we can read Strong's Concordance and books of that
nature. That word made us, accepted,
is literally graced us. He's graced us. And what he's
saying is, and I'll give you my, this is my translation of
this. To the praise of the glory of
His grace when He has graciously accepted us in the Beloved. Not outside the Beloved now.
but in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, and it's all according to the riches
of his grace. Yes, our subject is saved by
grace. And we know that the primary
and principal sense of the word grace is free favor and unmerited
kindness. Grace must therefore stand in
opposition to worth and worthiness and works. It's got to stand
in opposition to that. Look over at Romans chapter 11. The book of Romans chapter 11.
And these are verses that are well marked in your Bible, I
am certain of that. Romans chapter 11 and verse 6. And if by grace, verse 5 he talked
about the remnant according to the election of grace. And if
by grace, verse 6, then is it no more works. Otherwise, grace
is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is
it no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. Grace in its strictest sense
always presupposes unworthiness in the object. Therefore, when salvation is
given by the God of all grace to any son or daughter of Adam's
fallen race, it has to be of grace. Grace and worthiness cannot
be connected at all. The one must necessarily give
way to the other. From the apostle's reasoning,
therefore, it is evident that whatever is of works is not of
grace at all. And that whatever is of grace
is not of works in any degree. In the apostle's view of things,
and he's inspired by the Holy Ghost to write this, works and
grace are essentially at opposite ends of the pole. They are like light and darkness. You see, when darkness came tonight,
Somebody was talking before the service about how dark it is
tonight. Well, when darkness came in this
evening, light had to give way to it. And when light arrives
in the morning, darkness must give way to it. So it is in the salvation of
sinners. In the salvation of undeserving
sinners, once you bring in human works or merit or worthiness,
grace goes away. There's no more grace. And once grace has been established,
works and merit and worthiness goes away. They cannot coexist. It's an impossibility. That grace, therefore, about
which we speak this evening may be defined this way. It is God's
everlasting and absolutely free favor manifested in the granting
of spiritual and everlasting blessings to the guilty and to
the unworthy and only through Jesus Christ the Lord. Grace is giving us, is God giving
us, what we don't deserve. Arthur Pink wrote this. years
ago, and I'll quote it to you. He said, divine grace is the
sovereign and saving favor of God exercised in bestowing blessings
upon those who have no merit in themselves and from whom no
compensation is demanded. I like that. No compensation. This is not let's make a deal.
Salvation is not a let's make a deal. Salvation is God giving you all
things in Christ Jesus and it doesn't cost you one thin spiritual
dime. It's altogether free. Grace is
unmerited. Grace is unsought. Grace is absolutely
unattracted to anything within us. In other words, there's nothing
attractive in us to draw grace to us. Otherwise, it wouldn't
be grace. Grace cannot be bought. It cannot
be earned. It cannot be won by anything
done by us or anything that is within us. For if it could be,
it would cease to be grace. Grace as it is set forth in the
Word of God, and grace as it is understood by most people,
are altogether different things. You see, most of the religions
that we are familiar with, they talk about salvation by grace. But few understand the true character
of grace as set forth in the Scriptures. And with most religious people,
when grace is set forth in biblical terminology, then man's opposition
to it rises to the surface. Grace. Grace and mercy are different. The mercy of God, it says in
Psalm 145 verse 9, the mercy of God is over all of his works. But the grace of God is only
upon His elect. Mercy is universal. You see,
all men partake of and are the recipients of God's daily mercies. For everybody drinks God's water,
breathes God's air, and eats God's food. that He provides
mercifully to all mankind. Everybody and everything is a
recipient of the mercy of God used in a general way. But not
God's grace. God's grace is never used in
a general way in the Bible. It's always for a specific group,
the elect of God. You see, the mercy of God is
life on this earth. Whereas the grace of God is eternal
life. That's a big difference, isn't
it? The mercy of God is life in this
world. Receiving from God every day
the things that we need. But the grace of God is not universal. Every man is not a recipient
of the grace of God. The grace of God is reserved
only for a remnant. A remnant according to the election
of grace. Somebody said, mercy is anything
short of eternal wrath. But the grace of God is eternal
salvation. Grace is the single solitary
source from which our salvation flows to us. It's always grace. It's always grace. Oh, to grace,
how great a debtor. I'm a debtor to grace, aren't
you? You know you are. To grace. Now the source and
the fountain of grace is God the Father. here in, go back
to Ephesians chapter 1. The source and fountain of grace
is God the Father. He's the one who purposed in
Himself the everlasting salvation of an elect multitude before
the world began. And on behalf of that elect multitude
made a covenant of grace with His beloved Son that is ordered
in all things and sure. David said of that covenant of
grace, this is all my salvation. It is all ordered in that covenant.
God the Father is said before us as the fountain, the source
of all grace. It was God the Father who in
the covenant of grace proposed redemption. devised the way of
redemption so that He could be true to all of His attributes. It's God the Father who selected
the people to be saved by His almighty grace and gave them
over to His Son for safekeeping the surety of that covenant. It was God the Father who found
the way whereby His banished ones would not be expelled from
Him. And then in the fullness of time,
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
to redeem them that were under the law. And He saves us, He
redeems us in a way that magnifies His grace and gives Him all of
the glory. And then the channel of all grace
is God the Son. The grace of God is revealed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace and truth are fully
revealed in the substitutionary sacrifice of our Savior. You see, the Lord Jesus has been,
is now, and shall forever be the solitary channel of God's
grace. Grace doesn't come through the
church. Grace doesn't come by partaking
of the Lord's Supper. Grace doesn't come in the waters
of baptism. Grace doesn't come by some vile
earthly priest telling you that your sins are forgiven. Grace
comes from God the Father through one conduit, through one channel,
always through one channel, the Lord Jesus Christ. In this chapter, chapter 1 of
Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us 14 times that everything God
does for sinners and in sinners is in Christ Jesus. And apart
from Him, there is no grace. Am I chosen unto salvation? I'm chosen in Christ Jesus. Am
I blessed of God? I'm blessed of God in Christ
Jesus. Am I predestinated by God? I'm predestinated by God in Christ
Jesus. Am I adopted of God? I'm adopted
of God in Christ Jesus. Am I accepted of God? I'm accepted
of God in Christ Jesus. Am I redeemed by God? I'm redeemed
by God through the blood of Christ Jesus. Am I forgiven by God? I'm forgiven by God in Christ
Jesus. Do I know God? I only know God
in Christ Jesus. Do I have an inheritance with
God? I only have an inheritance with
God in Christ Jesus. All the blessings that God has
for His people are all in Christ Jesus the Lord. Do you see what
I'm trying to say? All grace comes to us through
Christ. through Christ alone. There is
no other way the grace of God can come to a sinner except through
Christ. And then the one who reveals
grace to us is the Spirit of God. And before I get to that point,
I jotted down something I wrote I read, excuse me, that John
Bunyan wrote, obviously years ago. He was thinking about the
graciousness of our Savior. Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress.
Probably several of you have read that. Maybe some of his
other sermons as well. But he was thinking about the
graciousness of the Son of God, and he wrote these words, All
thou Son of the Blessed, Grace stripped thee of thy glory. Grace brought thee down from
heaven. Grace made thee bear such a burden
of sin, such burdens of a curse as are unspeakable. Grace was
in thy heart. Grace came bubbling up from thy
bleeding side. Grace was in thy tears. Grace
was in thy prayers. Grace streamed from thy thorned
brow. Grace came forth from the nails
that pierced thee and from the thorns that pricked thee. Oh,
here are the unsearchable riches of grace. Grace, listen to this,
grace to make sinners happy. Grace to make angels wonder. Grace to make devils astonished. Grace. And it's ours. Have you ever gotten over that?
No, you haven't. Neither have I. And we never
will. Saved by grace, oh hallelujah. This is the only channel of grace,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The fountain of grace is the
Father. The channel of grace is God the Son. And the only
revealer and bestower of grace is God the Spirit who Zechariah
refers to in Zechariah 12 and verse 10 as the Spirit of grace. He's the one who takes the gospel
and applies it to the hearts of chosen, redeemed sinners with
saving power. He's the one who quickens God's
elect, who are by nature dead in trespasses and in sins. The Spirit of God is the one
who conquers our rebellious wills, and He melts our hard hearts,
and He opens our blind eyes, and He gives hearing to our deaf
ears. He enables us to hear the voice
of Christ. He gives us a mind to understand
the gospel of substitution and satisfaction. And He gives us
eyes to see what we are, and eyes to see the beauties and
the glories of Christ Jesus. And He gives us a new heart to
believe the Savior. The fountain of all grace is
God the Father. The channel of all grace is God
the Son. The revealer of this grace, the
one who brings this grace home to our hearts, is God the Holy
Spirit. He takes the things of Christ
Jesus and shows them to His people. He quickens those whom the Father
chose. He reclaims those that the Son
redeemed. And He leads us to the Good Shepherd. the good shepherd of the sheep.
One old writer said, he conquers the stoutest of hearts. He applies the blood of the Lord
Jesus to our conscience, making us know and realize all is well. He opens the sin-blinded eyes. He unstops the sin-closed ears. The Spirit of God reveals the
grace of the Father and He shows us Christ is all. That's what the Spirit of God
does. Grace. It's so necessary, isn't it?
It's so necessary because of what we are by nature. We talk
about total depravity. We're corrupt and perverse. and sinful throughout. And when
I use the expression total depravity, I'm not saying that every man
is as bad as he could possibly be. As bad as we are, as bad
as we act, as bad as we talk, as bad as we think, we could
be worse. We could give greater vent to
our depravity. Thank God He restrains us. Isn't
that wonderful? He restrains us. We're all vile
and ungodly. We're all capable of doing anything
that any other son or daughter of Adam has ever done. And if
we haven't done what anybody else has done, the vileness and
the wickedness and the wretchedness, it's only owing to God's restraining
mercies. You say, this world is mighty
vile. Yes, it is. But thank God for
His restraining mercies that keeps it from being worse. Why, we'd be killing each other if it wasn't for His restraining
mercies. Another expression for our condition
is total inability. We have no spiritual ability.
That's what we mean by total depravity. Sin has affected all
of us. It's affected the whole man. So that we're spiritually bankrupt,
we can't make any contribution to God for the salvation of our
souls. I know when we judge one another
by our standards. We do possess admirable qualities. We do perform virtuous acts. As I look over this congregation
tonight, I see a bunch of people who are nice people. And you're
nice to me. You've been good to me. You've
welcomed me and my wife. You're wonderful folks. And I'd
say, as I count goodness, I'd say you're good people. This
is just good people here. But as God counts goodness, none
of us are good. None of us are good. You see,
when judged by God's standard, what is God's standard? Righteousness. We all come up short. We're enslaved to sin. We're
rebellious toward God. We're blind to the gospel. We
don't believe the Lord Jesus Christ. We're corrupt and cut
off from God, unable to save ourselves, unable to make ourselves
ready for salvation. I've heard some people say, you
need to prepare yourself to get saved. I don't even like the expression,
get saved. People say, I got saved. Really? I got saved before the world
began. I got news for you. And I was
saved when Christ died for me. And salvation was made real to
me at conversion when the Spirit of God quickened me. And now
is my salvation nearer than when I first believed. But we didn't do anything in
this saving business. We were running from God. And
the Lord found us. He pursued us in loving kindness. According to His grace, He came
and He fetched us, us Mephibosheths. who are lame on both feet. And
the king sent out word, fetch them. Fetch them. Ah, fetching
grace. That's the only kind of grace
that will help me. You can talk about your free
will. You can talk about easy believers. And you can talk about
decisionism. From now on, I need free and
sovereign grace to fetch me. That's what I needed. Because
I know a little bit about my depravity. I don't know much.
And I got news for you, you don't know much about depravity either.
But what little bit I do know, I had to be fetched, Bill. The
Lord had to come after me because I'm such a rebel. Salvation's got to be by grace.
It's just got to be because of our condition. That verse over there in Romans
3 verse 9, what then? Are we better than they? Are
Jews better than Gentiles? No! In no wise, for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin.
We are all under sin, aren't we? We are all under sin. And in order to be under something,
that means something has got to be over us. sins over us. We're under its
dominion. We're under its authority. We're
under its power. We're under its guilt. We're
under its control. We're under its condemning power. Born in sin, practicing sin,
without having to have been taught how to sin. I tell you, we're pretty good
at this sanding business. No instruction needed. We're real gifted at it, aren't
we? Your children. Put two children in a room, one
toy. Watch out. You don't have to
teach them to jerk that toy away from one another. Give it to
me, it's mine. Well, you don't have to teach
You don't have to teach selfishness. Why, that's bred into us. You don't have to teach a child
how to lie. Oh, they're not as good at it as we are. We've been
at it longer. We're more polished. We can just
kind of shave the truth off a little bit. They're more blunt. You don't have to teach them
how to lie. What do you have to teach a child? Tell the truth
now. You've got to tell the truth now. You've got to share your
toys. What is the problem here? S-I-N. That's the problem. All of it. We're under sin's
dominion. And I say to you, who are the
people of God, You have children, bring your children to hear the
word of the gospel, bring your grandchildren to hear the gospel
of Christ Jesus, read the word of the Lord to them, set before
them an example of someone who loves the things of God. But
remember this, all of those things will not give them an advantage
spiritually over other children. It won't give them a leg up. Because you can't educate your
children into the Kingdom of God. They must be born into the Kingdom
of God. And I'm all for educating our
children into the things of the Lord. Don't misunderstand me.
But let's not make little Pharisees out of them. Be careful of that. They're vile and ungodly just
like mom and dad's vile and ungodly. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? No. Can the leopard his spots? No. Then may you also do good
that are accustomed to doing evil. I call on everybody here,
repent of your dead works. I call on everybody here, repent
of your idolatry. You have not believed the God
of the Bible. I call on everybody here, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners, the only mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. But you'll never
repent and you'll never believe apart from the grace of God. We are debtors to grace, aren't
we? Therefore, we read in the Bible
of an election of grace. Romans chapter 11 tells us that. A sovereign free election of
grace. God chose to save some, and He chose not to save others. Those who were not chosen unto
salvation were passed by, left alone, left to their own will,
left to their own choices. God could have left you Rightly
so, He could have left you to your own perverse will. He'd
still be God, still be glorified, because whatever God does is
right. Don't you agree with that? Whatever
He does is right now. He's right when He saves, and
He's right when He damns. He is right when He chooses unto
salvation, and He is right when He passes by. The fact of the
matter is, nobody has got a claim on His grace. But for the glory of His grace,
He chose a people unto salvation. And if you are a believer tonight, you are living, walking, believing,
witness and testimony of the sovereignty of His grace. He
chose you unto salvation. That's an unconditional election.
And then this grace is seen in redemption. Christ acting on
behalf of those people chosen unto salvation. You know Christ
Jesus came into the world and He came as the legal God appointed,
God approved substitute of His chosen people. And our Savior acting on the
behalf of His people as the servant of Jehovah lived a life of perfection
and then died a sacrificial death so that God could be a just God
and a Savior. We've already established we're
totally depraved and cut off from God due to our sins. We've already established God
chose a people unto salvation before the world began. But something
had to be done about our sins because God's not going to compromise
His love. That says the soul that sinneth
shall die. And I'm going to tell you something.
Either you're going to die or suitable substitutes already
died in your place, one or the other. And I can't tell you which way
it is, except to say this, if Christ Jesus is all to you, if
by the Spirit of grace you see this is all of grace and all
in Christ Jesus, that's good evidence your sins have been
put away. He died for you. He's talking
about the love of God back in the office. Brother Parker was.
In the book of Acts, the love of God is never mentioned. Our
message is not, smile, God loves you. Our message is not, Jesus
Christ has already died for your sins. Now in order to activate
that forgiveness, you've got to believe Him. That's not our
message. Our message is the Lord Jesus
Christ lived and died a substitutionary death for His people. God raised
Him from the dead and enthroned Him. And God has made the resurrected
Christ both Lord and Christ. Bow to Him and worship. That's
our message. We're telling people who He is
and what He's done and why He did it and where He is now. That's
our message. The fact of the matter is, the
message is not about you, it is about Him. It's not about,
we're so self-centered, aren't we? Well, what do I get out of
this? Well, bless you all, you do get
a lot. But you don't get the glory. Because He's not going to share
His glory with you or any other worm of the dust. He's going
to get all the glory. And thank God the Spirit of grace
draws us irresistibly and brings us to Christ Jesus.
It is a miraculous thing. My time is about gone. Done gone
really. But isn't it a miraculous and
marvelous thing? You sit here listening to the
Gospel or you were somewhere else listening to the Gospel
and you just didn't have any interest. You kind of keep looking at your
watch, wonder when, is he about finished now? Then all of a sudden
you find yourself listening with interest. And then you have more
interest. And then your heart is broken.
And you say, oh, I must have this Savior. He's the one I need. I need this grace. This grace
He's been preaching about tonight. This is what I need. Who made
the difference there? We're walking miracles,
aren't we? That's exactly what we are. And
this doctrine of grace, this saved by grace, you know what
it means? We're saved forever. We're saved forever. Every once in a while people
say, Preacher, do you believe in once saved, always saved?
And I usually answer this way, it all depends on who does the
saving. If salvations are not you tie
with your own fingers, then no, no, it won't last. Because either you'll untie it
or Satan will untie it or you'll trip along life's way and it
will get untied somehow or another. But if salvation is a work of
God, and it is, then we know that whatsoever God doeth, he
doeth forever. Nobody's going to take anything
away from it. Nobody's going to add anything to it. God does
it that men should fear Him. We're saved forever. He will
keep me till the river rolls its waters at my feet. And then
He'll bear me safely over where my Savior I shall meet. So that from the beginning to
the end, it's all of grace. We're saved by grace. I want you to get your song books
turned to 219. This is one of my favorite songs,
number 219. And I want us to sing it with
five stanzas. But we're not going to sing any
chorus. That chorus was written by a freewheeler. We're not going
to acknowledge him. We're going to sing the five
verses. There are three of them by Doddridge and Toplady. Is
that right? Yes. By Doddridge and Toplady, two
of my favorite hymn writers. Let's stand and sing All Five
Sins. Not too fast. I want you to get these words
now, because it's excellent. All right.