O foolish Galatians, who have
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you!
This only would I learn of you, receive you the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith. Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He it therefore that ministers
to you the Spirit, and works miracles among you? Does he do
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even
as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him, imputed
to him, reckoned to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith the same are the children of Abraham. And the
scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through
faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee
shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham." There in Galatians 3, I've got
two places I want you to see here. The title of my message
is, They Which Are of Faith. They Which Are of Faith. It says there in verse seven,
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the
children of Abraham. Verse nine, So then they which
be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. There's a people
in this world that are of faith. They walk by faith. They live
by faith. And these people who live by
this faith and have faith, They're in Abraham's family. You remember
in our Lord Jesus, in John chapter 8, he told the Jews. He said,
you know, we'd not be born of fornication. He said, if God
were your father, you'd love me. And if God, if Abraham was
your father, you'd do the deeds of Abraham. You'd do what Abraham
did. You'd believe me. You'd believe that I came forth
from God. You'd believe that I came forth from the Father.
And these people who are the children of Abraham, the inheritors
of the promise, these is the true Israel. These people that
are the children of Abraham. People that have faith. God-given
faith. Faith that's not natural to the
human heart. The faith that God gives a man.
And we'll see that it is a gift. That that faith that God works
in a man, gives a man, enables him to believe and trust the
Lord Jesus Christ. They are the true Israel. They're
the only true Israel on the face of this earth. Now, he's not
a Jew. He's not a Jew that's one outwardly,
but he that's one inwardly. Circumcision of the heart, not
of the letter. Whose praise is not of men, but
of God. Now, if you're a Jew after the
flesh, and you trust Him in the flesh, then your praise would
be of men. But when a man trusts God and
has been given a new heart and a new spirit, his praise comes
from God Himself, who says, these are my children, these are my
sons, these are my daughters. And what about these people that
are faith? What about them? What makes them
different? Well, there are several things here that I'm looking
at, and I want to hopefully, by God's grace, make them understandable
tonight. They which are of faith. Let
me tell you something about them. The first thing I want to say
about them is this. They have heard, they believe, they embrace,
and they love the gospel. And they know, they know without
a shadow of a doubt that it ain't war. Ain't that what it says
there in verse 8? Look what it says. And the scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith. preached
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, Indeed, shall all nations
be blessed." Now, beloved, Abraham, God preached the gospel to him.
And the same gospel that Abraham believed is what I believe. And
what was the gospel that God gave to Abraham? Well, let's
look at Genesis chapter 15, and I'll tell you something, beloved.
This is the first place where faith is mentioned in the Scripture.
And there wasn't nothing that anybody done, but this is what
God, this is where God preached the gospel to Abraham. This is
where he came and he told Abraham. Look in verse 1. This is where
God preached the gospel to Abraham, and he preached it to him in
several places. He preached it to him when he took his son Isaac
up on the mountain. He preached it to him, beloved,
when he gave him his son by promise. He preached it to him when his
son came into this world. And after these things, the word
of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram,
I am thy shield, thy seeming great reward. Abram said, Lord
God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the
steward of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? And Abel said, Behold,
to me that hath given no seed, and lo, one is born in my house,
is mine eye. Now listen to what he says now.
And then the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This servant
shall not be your heir, but he that shall come forth of thine
own bow shall be thy heir. And he brought him forth abroad,
and said, Look now toward heaven. Tell the stars, if you've been
able to remember them. He said unto him, so shall thy
seed be. Now how in the world is a man
who's only going to have one child going to have that many
seeds, that many children? And he believed the Lord and
he counted to Him for righteousness. He hadn't even had a child yet.
But that's why God preached before the gospel unto him and gave
him a promise that through your seed, your seed, you'd be heir
and father of many nations, that your seed would bless the whole
world, that your seed would be the salvation of your people. And beloved, and I'll tell you
something back over here in our text. And this is the thing about
it. How could God be just and justify
the ungodly when he preached the gospel to Abraham? When Abraham
was a sinner, Abraham was a lost man, Abraham committed plenty
of sins after he was converted, after God called him. And yet
he asked, how can God be just and justify the ungodly? Well,
Abraham said here in verse 6, he said, even as Abraham believed
God. That's how God justifies a man.
If he believes God. And it was accounted to him and
puted him for righteousness. You don't do anything to become
a sinner, and you don't do anything to be made righteous. We made
sinners by one man's disobedience, we're made righteous by another
man's obedience. And, beloved, if you believe
what God says about you, that you have no hope in yourself,
that you was like Abraham, you dwelt in Mesopotamia, you dwelt,
you had your idols, you dwelt there among all those idols and
heathen, and God comes to you and begins to speak to you and
tells you to come out. And he makes you a promise that
I'm going to save you. Look at all that. I'll make you
one of them stars. I'll make you one of them stars
up there. And if you'll believe God, God will justify the man
that believes God. And, oh, beloved, I tell you,
there's no... You see, look what it says here in verse 21 of Galatians
chapter 3. You see, this justification,
this gospel that we love, that God preached before unto Abraham,
that God, when He says, take your son, your only son, go up
on that mountain, that was God preaching the gospel. When God
said, I'm going to make you a son, make you a promise, and I'll
come at this time next year and your son will be a supernatural
born son. I'll do that. And I'll tell you
what to name him. And so on and on and on where God preached
the gospel to him. And then look what it says here. It's not of
the law. It's not of any doing that a man is justified, and
this gospel has nothing to do with the law. Is the law, then,
against the promises of God? That's what everybody says. He
said, you all preach free justification, you preach free grace, that God
saves whom He will, how He will, through the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that Christ died for His elect. Well, what about the law?
What about the things that I've done? What about my obedience?
Well, what about? Is the law then against the promises
of God? God made promises to Abraham.
Made promises to Jacob. Made promises to Isaac. He's
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now watch this. God forbid. For if there had been a law given
which could have given life, verily righteousness would have
been by the law. If there had been one law that
God could have given and said, listen, you keep that one law
and you'll be righteous. But the scripture has concluded
all under sin. Oh, wait a minute. Everybody's
under sin? Who concluded that? The scriptures
did. God did. That the promise, by
faith, of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. God promised Christ to them that
believe. But before faith came, we were
kept under that law. Shut up under the faith which
should afterwards be revealed. You see, we are all the time
trying to justify ourselves. And then we were kept under this
law. And then when the faith afterwards were revealed, for
the law was our schoolmaster. To bring us under Christ. Now
listen to it. That we might be justified by
faith. But after that faith has come,
you don't need a schoolmaster anymore. Don't need a schoolmaster. The law did what it was supposed
to do. Supposed to shut us up and bring us to Christ. To show
us that we couldn't be justified by the law. That the deeds of
the flesh, nobody can be justified by anything we thought, said,
or done. We could not be justified. But
after faith has come, don't need a schoolmaster anymore. Now listen
to this. You're all the children of God.
How? By faith. in Jesus Christ, by faith in
Jesus Christ. You see, that's what we preach.
It's called the gospel of faith. That's what's called the gospel
of faith, not the gospel of doing. Not the gospel of when God gives
you a chance, if you'll cooperate with that chance. Not the gospel
of you obeying. Not the gospel of doing the best
you can. Not the gospel of coming up front. Not the gospel of what
your daddy taught you years ago. The gospel that preaches Jesus
Christ and God says the man that believes on his son, he'll justify
that man. Clear him of all guilt. Because
you're looking outside yourself. And then look what he says over
here in verse, he said, look what he said in verse We're accounted by righteousness
by hearing of faith. And we're accounted by righteousness
by hearing of faith. Look what he says there. This is only what I learned of
you. Receive you the Spirit by the
works of the law, for by the hearing of faith. How did the
Holy Spirit come to you and reveal Christ to you and bring the truth
to you? Somebody start preaching the law to you? Or did somebody
start preaching Christ to you? So faith comes by hearing. By
hearing. And look what he says down here
in verse 11. Oh, I love this right here. They which are of
faith, but that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God,
it's evident. It's like sin. For the just live
by what? By faith. And the law has nothing
to do with faith. Nothing to do with it. And then
not only do they believe and love and embrace the gospel,
that only one gospel. And that's why Paul said back
over here in Galatians chapter one, look what he said. In verse
six, I'm marveled that you are so
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel, which really is not another gospel.
There is never another gospel, only one gospel. But there be
some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
How do you pervert the gospel of Christ? Add anything to Christ. Put anything you've got to say.
Mr. Spurgeon said, if there's one minuscule thread of your
own making in the righteousness that you stand before God with,
that'll be enough to make God damn you forever. It's going
to be all of Christ's righteousness and all of His doing, everything
that He did, and nothing of ours. And they come and pervert the
gospel and say, well, you're justified by faith, but you've
got to go back to the law to learn how to be sanctified. You've
got to have these things. You've got to do these things
to prove that you've got faith. If you'd seen Abraham go and
lay a drunk at his tent, would you have said, boy, that boy's
got some good faith, don't you? Everyone of you said, that fellow
don't know nothing. But God said he found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. And he was justified how? By
faith. What did he do? God said, prepare
an ark for the saving of your house. And that day he went to
cutting timber and started building a boat. God didn't see him that way.
God saw him the way He sees all of us in Christ. And he said,
look what he goes on to say now. And though we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you, than that we have preached,
you let him be accursed. I don't care who's coming preaching
to you, if he brings anything and adds anything to Christ.
Preach any obedience to the law, any deed to be done, any work
to be accomplished, any move to be made, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed. And so the
just, the just, they live by faith. Let me tell you something
else about it. Not only do they love and embrace
this gospel, this gospel of free grace, this gospel of justifying
faith in Jesus Christ. Now, right now, right now, right
this moment, And yesterday, and the day before, and if God lets
me live tomorrow, the only justification I have before God is that God
will accept me and receive me as Jesus Christ. God sent Him
forth to be a propitiation and atoning victim that through faith
in His blood, we would be justified freely by His praise. And I'm
telling you, there's Then you talk about one of the most humiliating
and humbling and abasing things that I can no more do anything
to add to my salvation now that I could at the beginning. I'm
still utterly and absolutely dependent upon Christ and Him
alone. It was His obedience, not mine. It was His death, not mine. It was His blood, not everything
that was done to satisfy God. I looked to Him and Him alone,
and I cannot do anything now to make my salvation better or
more perfect. All I can do is mess it up. I
can mess it up, but I can't make it any better. How could I mess
it up? Start talking about what I do.
What a good life I live, how obedient I've been, how many
scriptures I read, how much we pray, how dedicated, how devoted. Start talking about all the wonderful
things that I do, and then all of a sudden what? Christ is null,
Christ is void. Huh? Christ is void. I don't frustrate the grace of
God. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ gave name.
Huh? Oh, listen, and everybody here
that knows this, you know this. The only place you find any rest
and peace is that one point right there. That Christ did it all,
all to Him alone. And you cannot do anything now
to change your standing whatsoever for God. I love it like that. Because if it could be messed
up, I would have done that years and years and years ago. I'd
do it tomorrow if I could mess it up. I'd do it tomorrow. But
you know, God won't have me mess it up. You know why? Because
I didn't do anything to get it. So how can I lose it? Passed. And God set him forth and I believe
him. I believe what God said about
him. All right, let me give you another point here about they
which are of faith. Not only do they believe the
gospel and love it and embrace it, They've been redeemed, look
what it says down here in Galatians 3.13. They've been redeemed,
been bought and paid for. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. That's out of Deuteronomy. Cursed is every man that hangeth
on a tree. You see, they only hung people
on a tree that was traitors, or criminals, or treasonous,
or enemies. And that's what they counted
our Lord Jesus, a blasphemer, a traitor to Caesar, treasonous
to the Roman government, and blasphemous because He said He
was God, and a criminal. And so they put Him there on
His cross. King of the Jews. We know there
ain't but one King Caesar. And we know the King of the Jews,
he ain't got no throne. He ain't got no robes. He ain't
got no kingdom. He ain't got nobody but a bunch
of rebel rousers. He's got about ten or twelve
little old fishermen following him around, and none of them
know how to read or write. They don't know nothing. And oh, beloved, listen, but
oh, He redeemed us from the curse that loathed and cursed us. Oh,
I have cursed us. And look what he says. He has
redeemed us from the curse of the law. And let me tell you
something. This redemption, there's three
things about redemption. First of all, there's a ransom.
Whenever somebody's held in bondage, you hear the ransom. They send
you a ransom notice. This is what it costs you to
get set free. Now, if you want this person
back, free, released them, said, this is what you'll have to pay
to get them. Well, we were held in bondage. We were held in bondage
by sin. We were under the curse of the
law. And, beloved, we weren't held by Satan. Satan didn't have
to. No, the law did. The justice
of God did. And we were under that curse,
and the Scriptures tell us that. God said, now listen, if you
want these fellows to be released, then you pay the ransom for them.
What is the ransom? your blood, your death, your
obedience. You being made a curse in their
stead, instead of them being cursed, you bear their curse.
Instead of them bearing the wrath, you bear it for them. And Christ
said, well, and that's what he says, if they gave his life a
ransom for many. And what is, they paid the ransom.
Well, when the ransom's been paid, And the person who receives
that ransom, he's got nothing else to do. Justice says, law
says, the curse that somebody else has birthed says we'll let
him go. Sure enough, the law lets us go, justice lets us go,
wrath lets us go, curse lets us go. We've been ransomed. We've been released. And the
door's been tore down and we've been to go out and go free. Look at Hebrews 9.12. Oh, we get to go free. Christ
didn't get to go free, but we did. Hebrews 9.12. And you know this is the horriblest
thing about it. Folks do not understand the curse
that they're under. the curse that they're under.
I do not want God to be against me. I don't want to be lost. I want to know Christ. I want
to know God. I want to desire God. I want to see the King one of these
days in His beauty. And oh, I don't want to, when
it's all said and done, to hear that awful curse. Depart from
me, you workers of iniquity. I never did. Take them and bind
them up as sheaves and throw them into outer darkness where
there's weeping and wailing and nagging. Where the fires never
quench and the worm never dies. But oh, look what it said here
in Hebrews 9.12. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but
by His own blood He entered once into the holy place, went behind
that veil into the very presence of God, and put that blood there
on that mercy seat just like the high priest did. And He was
the mercy seat. And He entered into that holy
place once with His own blood. And He come back out. What did
He have for us? Eternal redemption. So you see, I've been paid for
for all eternity. Nothing can bring us back into
bondage. We can never go back under the
curse. Justice cannot come and demand any more. Can't do it. It just can't do it. And the
reason we've been redeemed, it says there in verse 14, from
the curse of the law, is that we might receive the blessing
of Abraham through Jesus Christ. That's that promised seed of
His. We're going to receive the blessing of Abraham. What blessing
are we going to get? It comes through Jesus Christ.
And we receive the promise of the Spirit because of Christ. And Abraham, that blessing that
God said, I'll bless you, and in blessing you, I'll bless you
above everybody else. And God blessed us in Abraham.
The same blessing that Abraham had, we got it. And then let
me tell you something else we've seen. Let me hurry on. Back over
here in Galatians 3. Look what it says. Not only we
love the gospel and embrace it, believe it. That one gospel. Not only have we been redeemed,
but we've seen Christ crucified. Look what it said in verse 1.
These are they which are of faith now. O foolish Galatians, who
have bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you."
Oh, we've seen him crucified. We're not turning away from anybody
else. Evidently, we've seen Christ
set forth crucified. We've seen Him by faith. We saw
Him as our substitute, our representative, our mediator and beloved. It's
for everyone for themselves. And look what Paul said in Galatians
6.14 here about this business. And you've got to see Him taking
your place. Your place. I can't see Him for
you and you can't see Him for me. You've got to, by the Spirit
of God, by the grace of God, by some act that God does in
regeneration, you see Christ on the cross. And if there's
one thing that will touch you and move you and break your heart
when you understand, And you see, by God's blessed grace,
that Christ bore your own sins on that tree. Your sins. Your
sins. It don't become a theory, it
becomes personal. Whenever you, by faith, you see
Christ. How can it be? How can it be
that thou, my God, should die for me? For me who Him to death
pursued? And those who have seen Him,
once they've seen Him, they see Him as their all in all. They
see Him as all the promises in the Scriptures. All the promises
of God in Him are yea and amen. Let me give you some of the promises.
God promised, first of all, Christ to come into this world. First
promise in the Scriptures is that the seed of the woman would
come and bruise, crush the head of the serpent and bruise his
heel. That's the first promise. Then he promised us that he'd
send the Holy Spirit. Then he promised us that Christ
himself would bear our sins. He'd bear our sins in his own
body. He was wounded prior to transgression. He promised us
faith, promised grace, promised mercy, promised life, promised
justification, promised forgiveness, promised everything that we have
in Christ. And all them promises are in
Christ. You've got faith. God promised
that He'd give us faith in the Old Testament. And then we see Him all in the
prophecies. To Him, all the prophets give
witness. And we see Him in the Old Testament
in all the types. The Lamb, when Abel took His
Lamb and slain Him. That was our Lord Jesus Christ.
When the Passover was sacrificed, called Christ our Passover sacrifice. When Noah was put in that ark,
that ark was a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. One way in.
Pitched within. No judgment could get in. Safe inside that ark. Only one
way in. Only one window. Only one way
to look up. God provided it. God kept it.
And he was safe from the wrath of God in that ark. And all beloved,
that rock that was smitten, Paul said that rock was Christ. And
our Lord Jesus Christ said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man. And he talked
about that brazen serpent. Everyone that was bit, when they
looked up and saw that brazen serpent, they were healed just
like that. Just like that. Life in a look. Life in a look. Christ is that. He was made in
the likeness of a serpent. Christ was made in the likeness
of sinful condition. And all the persons in the Old
Testament. Let me tell you something about
the persons in the Old Testament. Joseph. What a picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Hated, despised of his brethren, sold into slavery, sold into
bondage, then raised up to be the one with all the authority
and all the power. Noah found grace in the house
of the Lord. That word Noah means comfort.
We find Christ to be our God. Moses, that prophet, that mediator. Joshua, our great warrior. Aaron,
our great high priest. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you
ever seen Him crucified? All these things you see, man.
It's all in all. And then let me hurry on here.
I don't want to take too much longer. They not only love the
Gospel, been redeemed. seeing Christ crucified, that
they received the Spirit. Look what he says in verse 2. This only would I learn of you.
Did you receive the Spirit, and see how that's capitalized, the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit? When the Holy Spirit came to
you, and you received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ,
did you receive it by the works of the law, by things that you
did, or by just listening to the gospel? Actually, the answer's in the
question, by the hearing of faith. You see, it's the Holy Spirit
that taught us. They shall all be taught of God. The Holy Spirit's
the one who came and took the things of Christ and showed them
to us. The Holy Spirit's the one who regenerated us and quickened
us by the Spirit. And He's the one who bears witness
that we are the children of God. The Spirit Himself bears witness
that we are the children of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I'll go away, but I won't leave you comfortless. I won't leave
you like orphans. A real true orphan has no one. No one. A really true orphan
that has no parents, no cousins, no uncles, no aunts, no brothers,
no sisters, nobody to care for them, nobody to comfort them.
A real true orphan. And our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I'm not going to leave you like orphans. And how did you receive the Spirit?
Did you do it by fasting and prayer? Is it a second work?
By being obedient in any way? No, we received the Spirit by
the hearing of faith. When you're sitting and listening,
one day you jump up and you say, oh, I see it, I see it, I hear
it, I believe it. What caused that? The Spirit
came. You heard the truth and the Spirit
drove it home to your heart, and you said, yes, yes, that's
it. Let me tell you something. You don't wait or seek the Spirit
so you know you're believing the truth, but you believe the
truth because you've already received the Spirit. And without
the Spirit, you can't know the truth and do the truth. I'll
tell you what you'll do if you ain't got the Spirit. That's
what you'll do. This is some of this rigmarole. Courage is fear that has set
his prayers. That's what you'd believe if
it wasn't for the Spirit of God. Listen to this. When you kill time, you murder
opportunities. You'd believe stuff like that
if it wasn't for the Spirit of God. Brush up on your Bible,
the King James Version. It'll prevent truth decay. That's
why people believe they don't have the Spirit. thinking they're doing something
for God. But when the Spirit comes and you hear that truth,
you say, what? I see that too. I see that too
many times. Folks jump up and say, I heard,
I see. That's it. How's that happen? Spirit comes when you hear by
faith. And then let me tell you this. And I don't think, I won't
have any trouble convincing any of y'all of this right here.
I don't have no trouble convincing you of anything. You believe
these things. You know these things. You love these things.
But let me tell you something. They're not perfect in the flesh
or by the flesh, by no stretch of the imagination. Look what
he says in verse 3. Are you so foolish, having begun
in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? No, no,
no. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. The flesh profits nothing. Let
me tell you something about our flesh, our fallen nature. It
is no better now than it was the day that God saved me. It's no better now. My nature
is as evil now, my fallen nature, my nature that I had heard from
my father, is as evil now as it was the day I was born. Now, this flesh is as much a
burden to me now, worse now than it's ever been. That's why Paul
said, who shall deliver me from this body of death? He persuaded
this flesh is like having a dead body on his back. And when you
carry a dead body around with you long enough, it starts stinking.
It begins corrupting. It gets to such a weight and
such a stink and such a nostril that you say, oh, wretched man
that I am, how can I get him off? How can I get him off? Who's
going to save me from it? And I tell you why we know that
the flesh is no good, because the flesh has a tendency to add
something to Christ. And we're not, our flesh, our
flesh contributes nothing to it. The flesh is dead because
of sin. The law was weak through the
flesh. And let me tell you something,
beloved, here's the only hope we have. Now I'm telling you,
I'm telling you the truth right now. I mean, I'm really telling
you something. This fallen nature, this evil
nature, if we didn't have the gospel,
and we didn't hear the gospel regularly, and wasn't aware of
it and conscious of it, and we didn't pray for the Lord to subdue
it, if we didn't mortify it, if we didn't ask God to crucify
it, if we did not, by God's grace, listen to the gospel, this flesh
would rise up and be just a devil. That's why we come here to the
gospel, to keep this flesh beat back. Let me ask you something. Do
you ever fly off the handle? That wasn't your new nature that
done that, was it? Have you ever been covetous?
That wasn't your new nature that done that, was it? Have you ever failed to pray?
I'll show you why it wasn't your new nature that failed to do
that. That's what I'm telling you.
Oh my, if God don't subdue this flesh and keep it under control
and mortify it and let's listen to the gospel. Oh, this flesh. Oh, Paul said, I know that in
me, in my flesh dwells no good thing. And people say, oh, if
you'd have been around when Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and them
was around, and you seen Abraham talking to Bimelech and said,
now, Bimelech, see that beautiful woman over there? That's just
my sister. That's just my sister." He said,
Sarah, when we get up there, it'll be a little later. Man,
you're so pretty. He said, they'll kill me and
take you to be your wife. Just like David killed Geriah
so he could have that sheep. He said, they'll kill me and
they'll take you. So tell them you're my sister.
And if you'd have been standing there and heard Abraham tell
that lie, and Abraham trying to save his own neck and putting
his own wife along the line, you'd have said, you reckon that
fellow's a Christian? Oh, my. Have you ever seen Noah
laying there in his tent, drunk? Oh. Oh, do you think he's a Christian?
There's John and James. They're bringing a bunch of little
children around. Get them shits away from me.
Get away. Get away right now. Get them away. We ain't got time
for children. And the Lord said, oh, don't
you do that. You allow them children, you
suffer them children to come unto me, for that's the kingdom
of heaven. And except you become like a
little child, you ain't going to get in it anyway. And what
about the time? Oh, my. You think you're too filthy?
There are apostles and Christians? What about the time they were
going through Samaria, and they weren't going to receive the
Lord Jesus? Lord, I tell you what we'll do, we'll do like
Elijah, we'll call fire down from heaven and destroy this
outfit right now. Oh my, there's tons of thunder,
and that's why they lived up to the name. Now, the Lord said,
you don't even know what manner of spirit you're of, do you?
You don't know what manner of spirit you're of. You fellows
are wanting to hurt everybody and be mean to everybody, Just
because they don't talk about me and receive me and accept
me, why would you want to destroy them? And what about all them apostles
sitting around at the Lord's Supper, and you know what they
start arguing about? Which one of us is the best,
the greatest, the strongest, the smartest? Peter, you think you're really
something. Now listen, you don't love the
Lord nothing like I do. Oh, Thomas, I'll tell you what,
I really believe Him. You think you all got faith?
I really got faith. Until one day, Thomas said, except
I see, I'm not going to believe. The Lord said, here, here. And
oh, what about their pride and self-righteousness? I'll never
leave you. I'll never forsake you. Now, that's what our flesh
is made out of. That's what we're made out of.
God don't keep us in Christ. You know, our Lord told Simon
Peter, I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. You're going
to deny me. You're going to deny me three
times. John, you're going to run away naked. The rest of you
fellows are going to go hide. That's what I'm talking about.
This flesh contributes nothing. But they which are faithful,
they love the gospel, embrace the gospel. They've been redeemed
by the blood of Christ after under the curse of the law. They've
received the promise of Abraham that Abraham believed God and
was imputed to him for righteousness. We've been righteousness imputed
to us through Christ. We've seen Christ crucified as
our own. And we've received the Spirit
by listening. And we're not made perfect by
the flesh, by no stretch of the imagination, but by the Spirit.
Amen.