be by God's grace back in the
pulpit. But look what he said here in
verse 8 of Ephesians 2. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
words, lest any man should boast. I want to ask two questions.
If not Christ, who? If not grace, what? When I was
up there, I met several people that had come out of Reformed
Baptist churches and had one couple and his wife and him and
his wife and his three kids went to a church up in Brooklyn, New
York. And they heard the gospel and found out it was down in
New Jersey, quit their jobs and moved down there. A young man
named Rabbi Dunath Because he says that this fellow up there
is supposed to be preaching reform and grace, but he said it was
nothing but works. So he moved down there to where
the gospel was preached. Talked to another young couple.
They had been raised and been in reformed churches for years.
And they both told me, especially the woman, she said, I never
could live as good as they told me I ought to live. and the preacher
even came, now this Calvinist preached God's sovereignty but
they preached holiness and with your own righteous, righteous
living that even the preacher would come to the houses and
observe them and see if they were the wives was doing what
she's supposed to be doing, the husband was doing what he's supposed
to be doing Because he said he wanted to present a faithful
church to the Lord. So these people lived in misery.
And she said, I know something was missing. And my mother heard
Clay somewhere, and she heard what
he had to say. So she started going, and she
told her daughter, she said, and her husband said, you know,
here's this wonderful place over here, and this is what this fellow's
preaching, you got to come and hear it. And eventually they
went over there, and she found, she said, I know there was something
missing, said she went and heard Clay a couple of times, she said,
I found out what was missing. Had all my doctrine right, trying
my best to live right, but she said, I found out what was missing,
Christ. She said, when I heard Clay preach,
all he did was preach the Lord Jesus Christ. And she said, I
knew right then and there, that's what I was missing. I was trying
my best to get some peace, but when he heard the gospel, she
said, that was what was missing. And that's what I want to talk
about. If not Christ who, then if not grace what? J.C. Ryle is an old preacher and got
lots and lots and lots of his books in there and he's a very,
very good preacher and I've used a lot of his stuff and I know
a lot of other people have. But he was an authority on the
Reformation. He said that the Reformation
was based upon three propositions and that's why I thought about
these people talking this thing and they had to go to these reformed
churches but the Reformation was based upon three propositions
and what led to the Reformation was that Catholicism so ruled
and so reigned and men were so bound by superstition and then
the scriptures He wrote the scriptures and they started getting into
people's hands and Martin Luther one day He was crawling on his
feet and on his knees and beating himself and doing all kinds of
things. And then he read, he was reading the scriptures and
he read Romans 3, 24, 25, and 26 where it said, For if by being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God sent forth to be a propitiation through
faith in His blood, that God might be just and justifier to
them which believe in Jesus Christ. And he says, the light come on. And he studied the scriptures
and he began to read through Galatians and he went and knelt
on the cathedral door at a place called Worms or Worms in Germany. 95 propositions he put up there
and that's where the Reformation started. John Knox was in Scotland. John Calvin was in Switzerland
and in Geneva. So here's what was going on.
But it was based on three propositions. Scriptures alone. What do we
mean by that? That this Bible alone was all
we need for what we're to believe. Not only is it what we believe,
but it actually produces faith in us. The Scriptures actually
produce faith in us. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing
by the Word of God. Faith is not something that somebody
else can give you. So the Scriptures alone as to
what we believe and it works faith in us. And many people
say, well, what faith are you? I'm a Catholic or I'm a Baptist
or I'm a Presbyterian. And we say, what faith are you?
We say, we're Bible believers. We believe the scriptures. We
believe what God said about his son. This is the record that
God gave of His Son. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son hath not life. That's the record that
God gave us. Our Lord Jesus Christ said this.
He said there ain't nobody coming to the Father but by Me. You
want to talk to God? You got to come through Me. The
Father said nobody knows the Son except the Father reveal
Him. And there ain't nobody coming to Me. No man can come to me
except my Father which sent me draw him. And he that hath heard
and learned of the Father, he's coming to me. And so we say,
well, and Clay was dealing with this at the bank the other day.
He said that that fellow asked him about his bylaws and all
that. He said, we ain't got none. All we got is the Bible. He said, you mean you ain't got
laws and constitution? No, that's it. No, we've thrown
it all away. He said, you know we ain't got nothing but scriptures
and that's what I told them here when we was buying money for
this building. They said, we got to have something more than
that. I said, well, Floyd write out something. He was the secretary
then. I said, just write out something where we had a meeting
and we all agreed to build a building. You know it, and so the Scriptures,
that Scriptures alone for our faith, for what we believe, for
what we understand. And we believe that it actually
works faith in a person. And secondly, that the Scriptures
are alone what we're to practice. No church, nobody has any right
to impose any practice on us. How we live in this world is
we live by what this says, not what a church says, not what
a preacher says, not what some rabbi says, or somebody tells
us how we're to live. We say that this book right here
is sufficient to tell us how we're to conduct ourselves in
this world. It tells us where we can go and
where we can't. Everybody has their own, everybody
has their own liberty according to the Scriptures and the right
they have to do what they will. You can go where you want to
go, do what you want to do, be who you want to be, and your
life will be, character and conduct will be based on what you understand
about the Scriptures. Is that not right? There's no
use in me telling you where you can go. No use in me. I've tried
that for years and all I end up making a bunch of mean Pharisees
and I was the meanest in the bunch. I was the high-mindedest
one in the bunch. Oh, I was the meanest one. Yeah,
that's all it does. That's all that law will do.
It works wrath in you. It works anger in you. It works
bitterness in you. It works judgment in you. It makes you judgmental, critical,
bitter. So scriptures alone. That was
the first proposition in the Reformation. The second proposition
was grace alone. Grace alone. And what do we mean
by grace alone? That grace, like it said here,
for by grace are you saved through faith and neither one of those
of yourselves. It's the gift of God. And so
grace alone means that no works enter into it whatsoever. No
works cause God to save you. And there's no works that you
do in order to get a blessing from God or get anything from
God. Works do not help us before and
does not help us after we're converted. Because if you do, then somebody's
got to decide what the works are. Now who's going to decide
what the works are that you have to do? Who's going to decide
what you do and the works that you do in order to get some blessing
from God? Who's going to decide that? I'm not going to decide it. But that's what people do.
They just talk all the time about, you know, I've seen a thing today,
said, you know, if you want blessing from God, you know, be obedient.
God will do this for you. But listen, we're saved by Christ's
righteousness and Christ's obedience and that's why it's by grace.
Not of works. If it was of works and works
enter into it before or after salvation, just as sure as you
and I live, you know what we'd do? We'd tell somebody about
it. We'd brag about it. And we would condemn and pass
judgment on those who wasn't doing the same works we were
doing. Is that not right? And now not only does it grace
alone and not worse, I'm telling you, I'm telling you this, that's
what it says. If this Bible says anything,
if it's by grace, look over in Romans 11. Look in Romans, excuse
me, yeah, Romans 11. Look in Romans 11, just a minute.
Look in Romans 11.5. Yeah, 11.6, excuse me. And it's free grace. I've seen an argument the other
day about people talking about, you know, yes, I believe that
you're saved, and then after that, you have to have some works.
Well, you know, it said over there, and I just quoted it to
you, read it to you there, it said, We are created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. Now, whatever good works in,
God says, He said He would ordain us to walk in them. And just
as minute as you and I think we've done a good work, it's
not a fight that quick. And so we go on living our lives
by the Scriptures, like I said, and we do what we do, and it's
just a natural outcome of a believer's life. But look what it said here
in Romans 11, verse 6. And if by grace, then is it no
more of works? Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
If it's by grace, then it's no more of works. That's what he's
saying. If it's grace, then there's no
works. Then he says, if it be of works,
then it's not grace. No more grace. Otherwise, work
is no more work. So it's either grace or works,
one or the other. You cannot mix them up. They told me that, I said, I've
never understood this after I've learned the gospel. You know, I preach works just
out and out works. But after I learned the gospel
and the grace of God, I cannot for the life of me understand
how anybody can have the grace of God and preach grace and then
bring this reform and then bring the law right back into it and
works right back into it. But they do it. Multitudes upon
multitudes do it. I heard a fellow say one time
that there's two righteousness. We have two righteousness. We
got the righteousness of Christ over here. Unless we go off the
deep end on that, the righteousness of Christ, he said we have our
own righteousness that God gives us in our nature. And if we go too far this way,
we'll get off balance. So he said we're walking a tightrope
with our righteousness over here and righteousness over here.
And so we got to walk a tightrope, keep the balance in them. Ain't
no balance to be kept. I done fell. I done fell off
that wire. But that's what he means here.
And then penances, you know. I tell you, people talk about
penances, you know. Oh, that means repent of this,
repent of that. Say you're sorry for this, say
you're sorry for that. But I tell you, scriptures alone,
grace alone, and then thirdly, the third proposition in the
Reformation was Christ alone. Christ alone. Why did they do
that in the Reformation? Because they were priests. And
people went to priests. And they always, they couldn't
get anything until they went to the priest. And everybody
had a priest and they had to go to the priest. And the priest,
and that's what he said, he said, Christ alone, no more priests.
No more go between you and God. No angels, no saints, no priest,
no rabbi, no preacher, nothing. And that's why He said, Christ
alone, no more priest. And He was one. He's one of them
fellows that, you know, and how many people now call themselves
priest? Father, they have a young man,
way younger than me, and they call him Father. People who don't even believe
in God don't believe in Christ, don't believe in the Bible, don't
believe in anything. They'll call Him Father. And He dresses like a woman most
of the time. But no priest Christ is our priest. They understood
that, that we have a great high priest that's passed into the
heavens. Jesus, the Son of God. And the bread and wine had no
saving power. And that's another thing that
the people want to hold it over people. What that girl told me
up there, she says, you know, when the Lord is going to take
the bread and the wine, they would tell you, said, now you
bow and you pray, and you be sure to make sure that you're
worthy of this and that you've done, you look back over your
life last week and look back over your life since last time
we took it, and you sit there and you pray for a while and
see if you're fit to do this. You wouldn't believe how many
people wouldn't take it. And so they make bread and wine
to have some merit in it, some worth in it, some power in it. But as our Lord said, as often
as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. And that's why we cannot
hold to closed communion. And I'll tell you why we can't
hold to closed communion. It's because it's called the
Lord's Table, not the Baptist Church Table. It's called the Lord's Table.
It's not the Church of Christ. It's the Lord's Table. He said
it's the Lord's Table. That's the Lord's Supper. And
if a man feels like he knows Christ and understands who Christ
is and what Christ's death accomplished for him personally, then take
the bread and take the wine. And I tell you what, and no indulgences. And I guess you can still do
this. I'm almost positive you can still do this. If you wanted
to commit certain sins, you went ahead and paid the priest to
put it in the Catholic Church, and you paid the priest, and
you gave him so much money, and then you can go commit all this
particular sins that you wanted to do and dove yourself in it.
And then go back and then the priest would go, care of all
of them for you. As old Tim James said, he held
out his lollipop of stickers. Oh, listen, I don't have to pay
to sin. You know, I got enough of that
in me, but I have to pay. You know, I'd be so glad when
I'm done with it myself. But that's what they do. That's
what they sell them. And another thing, if you wanted
your family out of purgatory, you wanted them out of a bad
place, the more money you give, the more prayers you get, the
more candles you get burned, the quicker they get up out of
there. Money, money, money, money. The love of money is the root
of all evil. But I tell you, I said all that
to say this. If we adhere to these three things,
These three things, Christ alone, scriptures alone, grace alone,
those three things will always be fundamentally sound, will
be scripturally sound. I really believe that with all
my heart. You know, you see these people, these priests and these
rabbis and things, they bless people and they bless animals
and they bless dogs and they bless cats and all the things
like that. But I tell you what, we should
always, always look at the scriptures and reaffirm our faith from what
this blessed book says, not by what somebody else says around
it. And watch what's going on around people around us. But
now look here, let me ask you this question. If not Christ,
who would be our Savior? If it's not Christ, who would
be our Savior? Huh? Who would be our Savior?
Who could possibly save us? Could Moses save us? Huh? Could Moses save us? Look over
in John chapter 5 with me just a moment. And this always, this is something
that, you know, people say all the time. And the only thing
to ask them is, why was the death of Christ, what did it accomplish
if you have to do anything to help it? What was the purpose
of Christ on the cross if he wasn't sufficient for you? But
no, would Moses do it? That's what people say. Go back
to the law, said you know you're safe from it, but yet you got
it as your rule of life. But look what he said here in
John 5.45. Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father. There is one that accuses you. He said, I'm not going to do
it. I don't have to do it. I don't have to accuse you. You
know who will accuse you? Who finds you guilty? Moses. In whom you trust. Why? For had
you believed Moses, really believed Moses, you would have believed
me because Moses wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings,
how should you believe my words? So if you say yes, I'm saved
here, but then you go back over the laws, your rule of life,
is Moses going to do it? Is some prophet, some of the
prophets going to be able to do it? Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel? The minor? Who's going to be
our Savior? Buddha? Mohammed? Joel Osteen? Billy Graham? Whoever's got all the power and
all the prestige now? Is it going to be this fella
that's trying to get 16 billion dollars so he can buy him a new
jet? Oh, listen. The apostles, let me show you
something in Acts chapter 3. The apostles, the Catholics teach
this. The Catholics teach that they
are the apostolic Catholics teaches their apostolic
succession that the Pope and them is the of the apostolic
You know Peter was the first Pope and they just they kept
it in line all the way apostolic succession They think the one
that's there now. He's right down to you just to
go from there all the apostles go right on down, but let me
look what it says here and in Acts 3 11 As the lame man, which was healed,
held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them
in the port that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering. You know,
remember where Peter lifted him up and he began to leap and praise
God and entered into the temple, leaping and praising God. And
when Peter saw it, he answered the people, you men of Israel,
why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on
us? as though we by our own power
or holiness, we had made this man to walk. the God of Abraham,
of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified
his Son, Jesus, whom you delivered up, and crucified in the presence
of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But you denied
the Holy and Just One, and desired a murderer be granted unto you,
and killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead,
and we are witnesses of it. And listen to it now. And His
name through faith in His name hath made this man strong, whom
ye see and know. Yea, the faith which is by Him
hath given this man perfect soundness. Now I said all have to say this,
that these apostles, they said there's nothing we did that caused
this man to be holy. Wasn't our holiness, wasn't our
power, wasn't our works. It was through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so, you know, if Christ is
not going to be our Savior, Peter couldn't be it. The priest couldn't
do it. And I tell you what, would a
preacher, priest, or rabbi? Oh, you wouldn't believe how many
people have got their religion in a preacher. or a priest, you
just wouldn't believe it. That's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
3, he says there, he said, some say I'm of Paul, some say I'm
of Apollos, some say I'm of Cephas. He said, was Christ divided?
They had preacher worship there. Would the church be our savior?
Would our mother and father help us? Would another Jesus, another
gospel, another spirit? Salvation is in our Lord Jesus
Christ and Him alone. I mean Him and Him alone. I never
get weary of hearing that. Peter stood and said that there's
no other name, no other name given under these heavens above
us. No other name given in heaven
above us than the name of Jesus. Huh? No other name. Whereby we
must be saved. No other name. And I don't care
what anybody says there. That's what our Lord says. No
other name. And it's the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ that we go to, we trust in, we look to Him and
Him alone. And then let me give you another
one here real quick. So if not Christ, who would be
our Savior? Would our works? Would the church
here? Would the church here be our Savior? That's what people
tell folks. If you join the church, you'll
be alright. I'm going to join the church
one of these days. I'm going to really change my way
of living one of these days and I'm going to start doing this
and I'm going to start doing that. And the thing about it
is, if they don't find what they want here, they find it somewhere
else. You keep searching, you'll find just exactly what you'll
find to be what's going to save you. You'll find where they're
at, what they're saying, what will be your savior for you.
And then again, let me ask you this question. If not Christ
who? And if not grace, what will be? What would make God to save
us? If it's not of grace, how in
the world could we be saved? How can we be saved? Look at
Romans chapter 3 just a minute. Romans chapter 3. If not, grace
what? I know you've heard this stuff,
and I know you think, well, yes, Brother Donnie, but I tell you,
this is where people's at, this is where people come out of,
this is what people, there's so many up there, that this is
what they've heard and what they've been taught, and then they hear
the gospel, and they just, you know, they said, I tried everything
in the world to find peace and comfort, until I found out that
salvation's all in Christ. That's why when they had that
church council in Acts chapter 15, and they said, you cannot
be saved. You cannot be saved unless you're
circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Paul stood up and said,
that ain't gonna happen. There ain't nothing to that.
Well they decided that they says Moses has people who preaches
him every Sabbath day. If you want to hear Moses there's
places where you can go hear him. But he says not us. We believe that through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as the Jews. Now
if you want Moses, there's places you can go to hear Moses. But
you're not going to hear him from me, and you're not going
to hear him from Paul, and you're not going to hear him from Barnabas,
or any of the other apostles. You're not going to hear him
from us. That's what he said. And so if it's not grace law,
right, then what are we going to do? We're going to go back
under the law. Look what he says now in verse 19 of Romans chapter
3. Now we know that whatsoever things the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law." Now when it talks
about the law, he's talking about Eber, Jot, and Tittle in the
Old Testament. About all the things that they
said, and there's some stuff in there that if you read it,
it'd curl your hair. I see some folks get to arguing,
debating over some Old Testament things and they run to the Old
Testament and say, God said you couldn't do this and God said
you couldn't do that and God said you couldn't. He said, you
know, you can't even bring the price of a dog into the service. If you sell a dog, don't bring
any of that money you sold that dog for and put it in offering. That's law. You couldn't bring the price
of a whore in. If a woman was selling herself
and she wanted to come to services, don't bring the order you made
out of your whores and put it in the church. And I can tell you things and
just curl your hair if that's what you're going to do. That's
what he's talking about. And look what he says now. Now
we know that whatsoever thing saith the law, it saith to them
who are under the law, and all mine, that every mouth may be
stopped. I stopped mine. God shut my mouth. And all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh And that's how you keep the law,
by the flesh. There shall be no flesh justified
in His sight. You know what the law is for?
To make us understand how sinful we really are. You look at it
and say, I ain't done that. You look at it, I ain't done
that. You look at it, I ain't done that. You look at it, I
ain't done that. You look at it, I ain't done that. Oh my. And now Paul told the Galatians,
he says, you that desire to be under the law, don't you hear
it? Don't you hear what it says? You want to be holy? You hear
what the law says? You got to keep it perpetually.
You want to be righteous? Don't you hear what the law says?
You want to be accepted of God? Don't you hear what the law says? And if a holiness has to do with
how we are outwardly, then nobody's going to be holy and nobody's
going to be righteous. And oh my, and I've done said
it to our works, our works is not going to save us before our
conversion or after our conversion. Our ceremonies, our rituals,
and they still offering babies in Baptist churches, still bringing
them up, dedicating them, still sprinkling infants, But the scriptures
tells us God gave us grace in Christ Jesus, not according to
our words, but according to His own purpose, grace was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world ever began. And I know
one thing, people go on and on about their free will, but there's
not a human being on the top side of God's earth got a free
will. He don't have one. He don't. If you leave Him to
His will, you know what He's going to always choose? Sin. If He's left to make a choice
as to what He's going to do, He cannot do nothing but sin.
So how in the world is His will going to be changed? In the day
of His power, God makes His people willing. It's God which worketh
in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. And I tell you what, And a lot
of folks say, well, our heritage. They got buildings up there.
They got old church buildings and stuff up there. We went by
one. It's just an old, big wooden
building. where the churches and stuff
used to meet. And it went up with 1628, another 16-something,
another. And they're in real good condition.
And we went by one and said, you know, we checked on the price
tag and said, what did they want for it, Clay? He said $1.2 million for a wooden building where they
used to meet. Huh? But that's our heritage,
you know. We've been here. We've been here
for this many years. We've been in the church this
many years. And we've, you know, I'm following my dad, you know,
listen. Our traditions. Our Lord Jesus Christ said this. He said, you put your traditions
and your commandments and teach them for doctrines and your heart
and you worship with your mouth in these traditions, but your
heart's way far from it. And the only way in the world
a man can draw near to God is through the Lord Jesus Christ,
and until God does some work of grace in his heart. I heard
a fellow, he always says, you know, when you get saved, or
when I got saved, or when, you know, in getting saved, listen,
I'm still getting saved, if that's how you want to say it. You know,
God, God, God, it's like something you did. The salvations of the Lord. God
saved me. The Lord saved me. I didn't get
it. It got me. And if God ever gets
you, He'll have you lock, stock and
barrel. And you want Him to have you lock, stock and barrel. And,
well, bless His name. I'm grateful that we know salvations
of Christ, not nothing else. And we know it by grace alone.
And this blessed book is what God taught us to believe. And
how we're going to try by His grace to live according to that.
Amen. Our Father, oh, our blessed,
blessed Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for the
saints. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the Spirit of God. And Lord, we ask for your presence
and guidance in our lives. We don't want to be out of your
will. Don't want to go where, anywhere, do anything. Lord,
it would be out of your will. Please protect and preserve these
dear saints. Bless Obi as he preaches Sunday.
We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well, folks, I'll