You'll find my subject in verse
5. And this has been on my mind
for well over a month. And the Lord, you know, it sets
and simmers and you think and you ponder and you wonder how
to deal with it. And He said, examine yourselves,
whether you be in the faith. Prove it your own selves. Know
you're not your own self, how that Jesus Christ is in you,
except you be reprobates. Now, the apostle tells these
folks to examine themselves. Now, that's not my, he didn't
say for me to examine. He said, you examine yourself,
and you prove yourself. And you see it down here in verse
3, this is what he says. Since you seek a proof of Christ
speaking in me, you want proof that Christ is in me, that I'm
the messenger of God, that I've sent to preach the gospel. He
said, which to you was not weak. You're the evidence of Christ
speaking in me. It's mighty in you. God's done
something for you through me. Many of you have been converted
through me. And he says, you are the evidence
of Christ in me, of me being his messenger. And the Lord Jesus
was crucified through weakness. Now that don't mean that Christ
was weak. For he was not weak. But when he said he was crucified
through weakness, he's talking about his human nature. He was
subject to the infirmities of the flesh. Hunger, thirst, weariness,
tiredness, all the things that we are, and
yet he willingly and voluntarily gave himself up to men's hands. But he was crucified through
that weak body. But yet he lives, he lives right
now by the power of God. Lives by the power of God. And
then he says, and we're weak with him, we were weak in him. He's weak, we're weak. But just
as the power of God's in him and he lives by the power of
God, we live now by the power of God. So since you want to
prove Christ is in me, since Christ was weak and is
crucified in that weakness of his flesh, and I admit to being
weak, but also I admit to this, that he lives by the power of
God, I do. You want to see evidence of Christ speaking in me? He
said, I want to see evidence of Christ in you. He said, you
want me to give you evidence? I want you to give some. He said,
you examine yourselves. You want to see if Christ examined
yourselves, whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves, and that
word prove means test it. Prove it. Test it. Put it to the test. And I, you know what, I'll tell
you something. Here's the key to this whole thing. Examine
yourselves whether you be in the faith. Not whether you have
faith, but whether you be in the faith. whether you believe
the doctrines of the blessed Word of God, if you believe the
truth of the gospel. That's how you examine yourselves,
whether you be in the faith. That's how you prove yourselves.
Now, I could get up here this morning, and I could berate people
for their prayer lives, their personal lives, their discipleship,
and all the things that preachers examine folks about and get on
to them about. How did you live last week? How
are you going to live the next week? You're going to live for
Jesus. Now, dedicated yarn, how devoted you are, how you do these
things and you don't do the other things, where you've been, how
you've been acting, what did you say? I could do that, but
that's not what he's talking about. Examine yourselves whether
you be in the faith, whether you are in the gospel, whether
Christ is in you. And you're the one that has to
prove it to yourselves, not to me. And that's why he says, you
examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. As the doctrine
of faith, the gospel that we preach, what we call the compendium
of faith, all the blessed gospel that we
preach, are you in the faith? Now, God's Word's clear about
salvation, very clear about it. And it's very clear about how
a soul comes to know God and how a soul comes to know Christ.
Very clear about that. And God's Word, what it does
is it tells men and women how to have a relationship with God,
and how that relationship with God happens. And that's what
Paul's saying here, so examine yourselves whether you know Christ
is in you, whether you know God or not. If you have this relationship,
I do know this, if you do have a relationship with God, and
God's brought you into relationship with Himself, you desire to have
a closer and more intimate relationship with Him. And I know this much
about it, if you do know God, and I ask you, if you do know
Him, how do you know Him? How do you recognize Him? How
would you describe Him? How would you refer to Him? One way you know you're not in
the faith if you say he's the old man upstairs. One way you know you're not in
the faith if you say, well, he's trying to do the best he can,
but he just, you know, it's left up to me, and I don't know whether
I'll walk to him or not. But I'll tell you, how would
you describe him? I know this, if you know him,
you can't describe him as holy. He is holy. God is holy infinitely,
eternally, immutably holy. And He is righteous. Righteous
in His character, righteous in His nature, righteous in His
dealings. He dwells in a light that no
man can approach Him through. He is light, and in Him there
is no darkness at all. And if you know Him, you know
Him as omnipotent. He's not got no weakness about
him nowhere. He's not weak in any way, shape,
form, or fashion. He is sovereign, reigns over
this world, ruling over everything in time and in eternity. And
if you ask the question, and people do, how can the world
be as it is? How can people be the way they
are if God is a God of love? How can my life be like it is? How can I be treated? How can
God treat me so bad and let so many things happen in my life
if God is just and He loves me? Because if He's just, He knows
I'm doing good. He knows I'm doing the best I
can. He knows that I intend to do right. So how can He be just
and my life be in the shadows and all the things that happens
to me if God really loves me? If you start asking those questions,
I tell you, this is man's problem. This is man's problem. And you
know as well as I do, and we all had this problem until God
saved us by His grace. We want God to shape it in our
image. Whatever we would be if we were
God, that's the way we want our God to be. You understand what I'm saying?
How we think God ought to deal with people, that's the way we
read it. That's our conception of God.
How God should deal with us, that's our conception of God.
How God should deal with the whole world, that's our conception
of God. And I remember vividly being
very, very angry with God and questioning Him over these very
things, particularly when I was 19 and 20 years old in Vietnam. I remember being very bitter
and very angry. I was bitter and angry because
of my mother and father. Neither one of them should have
had any children, but it was God's sovereign mercy that I
was born to a mother and a daddy that wasn't worth the salt that
went into the biscuits. And that's just the truth. And then I got over there and
got in a mess and a war that nobody would give you the time
of day because you were there. They ridiculed you and made fun
of you. And everything else, so and so,
I know what it is to make God in your own image. And that's where man's problem
is. But here's the thing about it.
I despise him, and this is where, you know, when a person starts
questioning God that way, because he's not like us or the way we
think he ought to be, it's because we despise him. We despise His
Word as it is. We despise His way. We despise
His Son. And it's because God is not in
our image. So that's why Paul said, examine
you. Now let's examine ourselves. I'll examine myself right along
with you, whether I be in the faith, whether Christ is in me.
I'll try to prove it by the Scripture. Now I'll tell you what, this
is the first thing. Whether you're in the faith or not. Faith, if
you're in the faith, and you've examined yourself by this right
here, salvation is a work of God. Salvation is a work of God. Jonah said, this I know, you've
said, I'm in the belly of hell. And he says, the bars are compassed
around me, and this I know, that salvation is of the Lord. If
I get out of here, God's got to get me out of here. If God
brings me out from the depths of this pit, and brings me out
from this well's belly, and God saves me, if I'm saved at all,
the salvation will be of the Lord. Psalm 3 and 8 says, Salvation
belongs unto God. And I tell you, because salvation
is the work of God, it's a miracle. It's an absolute miracle. You
think of yourself. It's a miracle if anybody's saved. And it's God that saves them.
It's a supernatural act of God. It's a miracle. And a miracle
is an action that only God can perform. Man can talk about miracles
all he wants to, but only God can perform a miracle. And what
He does is He manifests in this miracle and this salvation. He
manifests His eternal creative power. He sends His power on
a man. As old Barnard used to say, He
said, He must break in on a man. He must invade the man. And I'll tell you, just like
in creation, He created something out of nothing. There was absolutely
nothing. When God said, let there be light,
what happened? There was light. There ain't
no oceans, I'll make some oceans. There ain't no trees, I'll make
some trees. There ain't no fish, I'll make
some fish. Just fix them into existence. He creates something
out of nothing. That's a miracle. That's the
same thing He said when God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the person of Jesus
Christ. And in the New Testament, look
at our Lord Jesus Christ. Jared preached on lepers and
Brad preached on lepers here recently. And leprosy, what a
horrible, horrible disease. But our Lord Jesus Christ would
heal them. completely restore their flesh
like it had never been sick immediately just by word by fiat and walk
up to a dead man's tomb they've been dead four days and just
speak to him and say Lazarus come forth that's the creative
power of God that's a miracle and that's what God does for
us he calls you by name and says come forth and you're coming
out And then they said, take them
grave clothes off of him. Why take the grave clothes? Because
grave clothes is evidence of death. And there ain't no death
in God's people. Got to get them grave clothes
off. Oh, listen, I tell you, if he
walked on the water, took two fish and five pieces of bread
and fed over 5,000 people, do you believe that? Are you in
the faith? It took a miracle to put the
stars in place. It took a miracle to hang the
world in space. But when He saved my soul, cleansed
and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace. Oh, for a
man or a woman to talk about being good, talking about living
a good life, Talking about how moral you are
and how accomplished you are. It's to rob God of His very glory. To rob Him of His glory. To talk
about you being good, you accomplishing something, you having some worth.
It's to rob God of His glory. In 2 Corinthians 13, look with
me over in Jeremiah 8. Here's what I'm talking about.
God must act upon a man. This is what we're talking about
when we're talking about being in the faith. Examine yourself
whether you be in the faith. And if you're in the faith, faith
is in you. God's got to act on a man. Look
what he said here in Jeremiah 18 and verse 2. I'm talking about God, this miracle,
this supernatural act of God working on a man. Salvation is
a work of God. He said in Jeremiah 18 and 2,
Arise, go down to the potter's house, and there I'll cause thee
to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's
house, and I stood there and watched him, and behold, he wrought
a work on the wheel. He put some clay on the wheel
and went to working at it. And the vessel that he made of
clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again. and made another vessel as it
seemed good to the potter to make it. But it's the potter
who made the clay. It's the potter who did it. Romans
chapter 9 says God said, Am I not the potter? Can I not make one
vessel under honor, another under dishonor, one a vessel of mercy,
one a vessel of wrath? But still it's God. I remember
Tim James years and years and years ago. We were preaching
a meeting Him and I, we were staying in the same room, and
we went to the cave art one day. He said, I've got to go to the
cave art. He went over there and bought some clay. And he preached from
Romans 9 that night, and he had that clay. He used that clay.
He said, now I'm going to give you an object lesson. I bought
this clay. It belongs to me. I can do anything I want to with it. He said, I'm just going to
throw this in the trash can. He said, I'm going to keep this,
and I'm going to really make something pretty out of it. That's
the way, you know, but it's still a supernatural act of God. And
oh, let me show you something else in John chapter 3. John's
Gospel chapter 3. Here's what I'm talking about.
Prove it. Examine yourselves whether you
be in the faith, whether Christ is in you. And oh, here's another. This
is what I'm talking about. Look what he said in verse 2. Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews,
Pharisee, came to Jesus, this Nicodemus did, by night, and
said unto him, Rabbi, didn't call him God, didn't call him
master, didn't call him Lord. We know that thou art a teacher.
That's what a rabbi does, teaches. We know that thou art teacher,
come from God. You've come from God. We don't
know actually about being God or not, but you come from God.
For no man can do these miracles that thou doest." Now see, they're
miracles. Talking about miracles now. Salvation and the work of
God. Except God be with him. Now, Nicodemus had been watching
our Lord Jesus Christ. Watching Him do these miracles.
Watching the things that Christ did. And he was probably going
to continue asking questions about, saying, how do you do
these things? What's the power that you're doing about it? How
do you perform these things? He's probably getting ready to
ask Christ to explain some of these miracles to him. But our
Lord interrupted him. Interrupted him. What did He
say to him? Truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born
again. Born again? He can't see the
Kingdom of God. Oh, what did Nicodemus say? He
said, this is not even rational. This can't happen. This don't
even make sense to me. It's unnatural. He said, can
a man be born when he's old? I'm old. I'm an old man now. Can he enter a second time in
his mother's womb? He said, this don't even make
sense to me. It's unrational. It's unreasonable. It's not logical. It is to man. But what did our Lord Jesus say?
He said, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
can't enter. He's got to be born from above.
The Spirit of God's got to come down. And that's what our Lord
said. That's just born of the flesh. You come from a fleshly
mother, you're flesh. You're a fallen son of Adam.
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. I mean, you've
got a new nature in you. Marvel not that I said you must
be born again. And watch what he says here now.
The wind blows where it listens. You can't hear the sound. You
can't tell where it comes or where it goes. And that he said
is that God comes and does something within you. It's within you. You don't know how. The wind
blows. Sometimes it's just a gentle breeze, other times it bends
the limbs. Sometimes it just eases over
a man. Gentle breeze, other times it
comes like a dead old song of Tarsus on the Damascus road.
It come and so powerfully put him in the dust. And oh beloved, but sometimes
we don't know how it happens, sometimes we don't even know
when it happens. We just look up one day and we
hear the preaching and all of a sudden we say, yes, that's
it, I believe that, that's true. But all they know is that it's
happened and that they're new. They're a spiritual person from
then on. And let me tell you something
else about this, whether you examine yourself, whether you be in the
flesh. Not only is this salvation of the work of God a miracle,
but it's a complete and a radical change. A complete and a radical change.
There's nothing, nothing superficial about it. Religion is superficial. Phariseeism is superficial. Legalism
is superficial. Fundamentalism is superficial. They think if you just get somebody,
raise a hand, sign a card, commit to a budget. You know, we've
got a budget. Will you commit so much of your
money to our budget this year? If you'll come down here in the
front and accept Jesus, It's as simple as this. Here's my
watch. You know, I'll give you this watch. That's what you do. Jesus is standing here ready
to give himself to you. We come down here. It's superficial.
Our Lord says, you may clean the outside of the cup. And it's
all superficial. It's put on. It's raising your
hands. It's clapping your hands for
Jesus. All superficial stuff. But oh man, this radical, complete
change, this miracle that takes place in a person, it's a work
of the Spirit of God. Look over in 2 Corinthians 2
with me just a minute. 2 Corinthians 3, excuse me. Oh,
it's a work of the Spirit. The wind blows where it listed.
And I tell you, beloved, this is a complete and a radical change. When God does this work in you,
this miracle, this new birth, look what He said in chapter
3, in verse 2, look what He says, You are our epistle, You are
our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. For
as much as you manifestly declare to be the epistle of Christ,
you're the very letter of Christ, ministered by us. We didn't write
this on your hearts and the gospel didn't write on your heart with
ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not like Moses wrote
on the tables of stone, but the spirit of God wrote on your freshly
tables of your heart. He wrote on your heart. The spirit
of God comes and he said there are sins and iniquities. I will
remember no more. I put my laws in their hearts.
And he writes on a heart that's alive, that's fresh, that's been
made new. He said, I'll take out the heart
of stone and I'll put in a heart of flesh. And, oh, beloved, new
hearts, that's what we're talking about. If any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. He's been born again. Paul told
the Colossians, he says, that new man which is created in the
image of him, That old man's put off as a new man created
in the image of God. It's a creation. And I'm going
to tell you something, I've said this before, and this is why
I say examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. This is
why you do it, by the gospel. God in this new birth, God in
this new heart, God in the Spirit putting His Spirit in you and
writing on your heart, God brings into existence something and
someone that was never there before. There's a person brought into
existence that never existed before. What do you think he says? You
must be born again. You know who the old man is.
He says he brings into existence a new man created in the image
of him that made him. creation. Only God can create.
Huh? He brings into existence a man,
a spiritual man, just as we have the natural man, with hands and
eyes and ears and mouth and smell and sense and emotions and affections,
struggles and heartache. We do the same thing in the spiritual
sense. We have hands. It's called faith.
We have eyes. It's called seeing Him who is
invisible. We have ears. We switch to hear the gospel.
We have an understanding. We switch to understand the Bible.
We have a heart that now knows God and loves God and desires
God, desires Christ. It affects the whole man. It's
called a new creation. It's called a brand new life,
new understanding. If that was a time God's Word
didn't speak to us, now it speaks to us. Does God's Word speak
to you now? God's Word, how many years did
you go and it never spoke a word to you? Now it speaks to you. Oh my, why is that? Because you've
got this new understanding, this new life. The Spirit of God takes
the things, the Scriptures, and speaks to you now. And you've
got a new outlook. Oh, the way you look at the world,
the way you look at yourself, the way you look at people around
you, the way you look at everything after you're converted, after
you're born again. The world has a... you have a
different outlook on everything in this world. Yourself, your
family, your church, your word. Life, the world, everybody you
know. It's a different outlook. New
outlook. New desires. Oh, my. New desires. New taste. We like the Bible
now. We like the Bible now. We like
the Bible. We love the Bible. We carry it
with us wherever we go. We enjoy reading it. We like prayer. We used to do
a lot of prayer. Oh my, it's prayer time. I better get back out of bed
and start all over again. You see, it becomes a ritual
to people, a prayer. We love prayer because we know
it's a communication from our hearts to God's, from our hearts
to Christ. It's the heart cry. It's something,
you know, you don't even, you can pray without even saying
words. All I can say so many times is,
Father, Father, Father, Father, Father. That's all Riley has to say to
me. I said, Because you got my attention like that. And Father, Father, that's all
we can say sometimes. Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.
That's real prayer. And I'll tell you something else,
we like being with God's people now. Like being with God's people. Enjoy them, enjoy their company,
enjoy their presence. And here's the kicker. We don't
mind a preacher. giving up saying things about
us that's true, even though we don't like it so much. And oh, let me tell you this.
Oh, are you in the faith? Examine yourself, whether you
be in the faith. Prove yourself. Do you believe anything I said
so far? And I tell you, this change, this complete radical
change, this supernatural work of God, this miracle work of
God that He does in a man, this change, this change, this complete
change that God makes in us radically changes us, radically changes
the way we think, radically changes our attitude toward God, radically
changes our attitude toward the scriptures and our desires. I
mean, it's a change. But this change, this complete
change, it's a satisfying change. It is satisfying. Are you satisfied
with gospel? Are you satisfied with Christ?
Are you satisfied with the work that God did in you? Huh? And, oh, beloved, it is satisfying
in its results and in its effects. Our Lord Jesus come unto the
cage, and I'll give you rest. Well, we've come unto Him, and
we've got rest. I've ceased from my works, I've
ceased from my labors, and I rest in Christ. I quit trying to satisfy
God once I found out Christ satisfied me. I quit trying to work to get
on God's good side when I found out Christ did all the work for
me. In Jesus I found a sweet rest
from sorrow, from sin, and from shame. In Him I'm happy and blessed. And Kim sings this song, I heard
the voice of Jesus say, Come unto me and rest. Lay down, my
weary one, lay down thy head upon my breast. Huh? In Augustine, He said this, Thou hast made
us for Thyself, and our souls are restless until they find
their rest in Thee. And when they find their rest
in Thee, they cease to be restless. It satisfies. This change, this
miracle that God works, it satisfies. It satisfies our minds. My mind
is satisfied. My intellect is satisfied. And
we all got intellects. We all got this brain. And we
all like knowledge. And we all like to read. We like
to learn. But I know this, that when you
come to God, God does His work in you, you find out God's Word
is a bottomless pit. And about the time you think
you find out how God is, and then all of a sudden you're overwhelmed
with Him. You're just overwhelmed with Him and His greatness and
His power and His glory. Somebody come to me here several
years ago I was in my office, and this early in the morning
they come here, and they said, I've come to tell you that the
Lord's done a work for me. The Lord's done something for
me. And I said, oh, well, that's wonderful. She said, oh, listen,
I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen the Lord
is just so, just so, just so great! And that was her profession.
That's right, Ava. Oh, is the Bible connected? How
many years have we studied it and read it and preached from
it and still get it's just like it's new to us every time we
open it up? Huh? It answers questions that
we ask. Where'd the world come from? The Bible answers that.
Why is man like he is? The Bible answers that. How can
man be changed? The Bible answers that. What's
there going to be in this world and what's in it? The Bible answers
that. What's going to be the conclusion of the whole matter?
The Bible answers that. It answers questions that people
have been asking since the beginning of time. And it satisfies you. The answer satisfies you. Quit
looking for answers. And not only does it satisfy
our mind and our intellect, but it satisfies our emotions. It
satisfies our emotions, our heart, our love, our affections. And I'm not talking about sentimental
like reading a book that brings you to tears or a movie that
makes you cry. I'm not talking about sentimentality, sentimentality. I'm talking about the emotions
that God does when he does this. He puts a deep love in there,
deep joy, deep peace. This gospel Christ, this change,
it meets the needs of our heart like nothing ever did before. more than anything we ever thought
or ever dreamed of. Christ meets the needs of our
heart every day. Every day we can express ourselves
in our affections to Him in ways we can't express it even to our
wives and our children. And it's because of His great
love for us that makes us this great love for one another and
for our families. And oh, this great change, I'm
telling you how it satisfies. It gives us a purpose in life
that we never had before. The gospel Christ in us, this
faith, it gives us a purpose in life. We're not aimless. We don't go through life with
no objectives. We have objectives now. What
is our purpose in life? To live for Christ. To honor
Christ. To know more about Christ. to
live to hear more about Jesus, what I know, more of His love
to others show, more of His saving fullness see, more of His love
who died for me. We sung it this morning, amazing
grace, amazing grace, amazing grace, It was amazing when it came.
It's amazing today. And if God lets us live 25 years,
it'll still be amazing. Huh? That's what I'm talking
about. And oh, my. And we're looking. We have been subjected now to
this purpose in life. We're looking for a city. This
world's not our home. We're strangers and pilgrims
here. And we're looking for a city. We're going through this world
by faith. This world's not a hole. We're looking for a city whose
builder and maker is God. A place where God's not ashamed
to be called our God. Abraham found that city. And
we're the children of Abraham. We'll find it one of these days
too. And you think about this, beloved, to keep on. To keep
on in this world. To us grace that taught my heart
to fear, to us grace that brought me safe thus far, through many
dangers. How many dangers we've been through.
Through toils, all the labors that we go through. The snares. And oh beloved, listen, to keep
on. Keep on believing. Keep on trusting. Keep on trusting Christ. Keep
on needing Christ. When obstacles are in the way,
how many obstacles come in the way? How much pain comes in the
way? How much sorrow? Life! Life! New life comes into this
world, a new baby, somebody, and that life doesn't separate
us from Christ. It just makes us cling to Christ
more because we got another life to pray for and responsible for.
And there, when people that we love, people that we love, God
takes them and takes them home to be with Him. And He takes
them from this world, whether they know Christ or they don't.
What do you do? You just keep on looking to Him.
You keep on trusting Him. You keep on looking to Him. Oh,
beloved. And when God puts this life in
a man, when God changes a man, when He puts that life, that
life begins right at that moment to start growing. Right at that
moment it starts growing. When a baby's first born, if
it don't start growing, you know something's wrong with it. If
it don't have a healthy appetite, if it don't cry, if it don't
have needs, if it don't make messes. But I tell you what, it starts
growing and it quits making those messes that it did. It goes off
of milk and starts going on lighter food and it goes to meat. It
starts growing. And you can't get over how they're
growing too fast. They start growing in their intellect,
start growing in their mind. Start getting a little more mature.
That's the way life is in this spiritual life. We start out
as babies. Start out on milk. Then we start
growing a little here, growing a little there. Preachers come
along and feed us and water us and give us bread, give us water,
give us Christ. And beloved, I know this, once
God breaks in on us, we never want Him to stop. Don't stop, Lord. If He breaks
in on us, keep on coming, keep on coming, keep on breaking.
And let me tell you this. You know what? This salvation,
this miracle Work that God does. This change, this radical change,
this complete change that He makes in us that satisfies us.
You know what? It surprises us. Does it surprise
you? It surprises me. It was a surprise then. It's still a surprise. How can
it be? How can it be that thou, my God,
should die for me? Salvation is a surprise. Me? Me? Me to know the Lord? God to save me? God to take me? God to choose me? God to love me? God to call me? God to put a new heart in me?
God to change my nature? God do that for me? Oh! Does that surprise you? It does
me. It does me. Our Father. Oh, our Father.