The apostle is saying farewell
to the saints at Ephesus. And he says there in verse 17
that he called the elders of the church, called them all together. And then when they got there,
he said to them, you know, from the first day that I came into
Asia, the first day I come into town, the first day I got among
you, After what manner I've been with
you in all seasons," he said, from the first day, he said,
I've served the Lord with humility of mind. Now, not many people
can say that, humility of mind. But he said it, and it was true,
because the Holy Ghost wrote this down here. And I served
the Lord with many tears and temptations, which befell me
by the lying in wait of the Jews. Now the Jews want to destroy
me and destroy the gospel. It's not so much of Paul, it's
the gospel he preached. Because it tore down everything
that they believed in, every hope that they had. It destroyed
every foundation that they were looking to. They looked to law.
No salvation in law. They looked to Moses. Moses spoke
of Christ. They looked to their rituals.
And all riches fulfilled in Christ. Look to the ceremonies. Christ
fulfilled them all. Look to the sacrifices. Christ
was the end of all of them. And so he says, and I kept back,
verse 20, nothing that was profitable to you. Whatever was profitable
for you, that was to your spiritual prophet, eternal prophet, the
prophet that you would have before God himself. And I showed you,
not only did I preach it to you and showed it to you and lived
it before you, but I showed you, I showed you from the Scriptures,
from the Word of God. And I taught you publicly. When
I preached to you like we are today, and when I went to your
house and any of your houses, this is what I've done. I've
testified to the Jews and also to the Greeks, those who were
looking for signs and those who Gloried in their wisdom, he said,
I retestify that they made no difference. Repentance toward
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. You change your
mind towards God and faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit. The Spirit of God has
found me and told me and pressed upon me to go to Jerusalem. And
I don't know what's going to happen to me when I get there.
But I know this, that the Holy Ghost witnessing everywhere I
go, saying that bonds and afflictions are waiting for me there. But
now listen to what he says. But none of these things move
me. Neither count I my life dear
unto myself, but so that I might finish my course with joy in
the ministry which I have received of the Lord." To testify of the gospel of the
grace of God. What Paul says, wherever God's
providence has taken him, and wherever it might take him if
it takes him to Jerusalem, whatever his circumstances might be, whether
he's bound or whether he's free, I have one mission, and that
is to finish my course, my life. What's that? For me to die as
Christ. It's a great gain to me to go
be with the Lord. And I don't count my life here
unto myself so that I might finish my course. We had a course. Everybody
knows what a course is. You know, you set out a path,
and you run that course. Well, God gave him a course,
and we all got a course. And one of these days, we've
got to stay on that course. If you get off that course, you're
in trouble. And that's why he says, so I
might finish my course with joy. Wouldn't it be something to finish
your course with joy? I read something this morning
that when you lay there ready to go into eternity, you don't
want to look at the law. You don't look at that and see
yourself in light of that. If you don't be looking to the
Lord Jesus Christ in faith, you're going to go into eternity with
a great burden on your heart. That's why Paul said, I want
to finish my course with joy. And he says, if I'm bound, he
said, you know what? I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
And he says, if I'm free, I'm a bondman of Jesus Christ. So
whether I live or whether I die, I'm the Lord Jesus. And he said,
I received, and this is what he received. He said, I never
earned it, didn't deserve it. I received of the Lord Jesus,
and this is my ministry, to testify of the grace of God. And, O beloved,
that's what he wants to talk about. This is the same mission
and message of everyone who receives a ministry from the Lord Jesus
Christ. God's never sent anybody to misrepresent
Him or to lie on Him in any way, shape, form, or fashion. And
as long as God lets time live, at last, in this world, God,
somebody will be preaching the gospel of God's grace somewhere.
You can believe that. And you know why the gospel of
God's grace must be preached and will be preached? Because
of the heart of man. Because man's heart, the natural
heart of man, is so desperately wicked and so legalistic I mean,
man is so legalistic, he's got his superstition, he's got his
religion, he's got his belief, he's got his opinion. And that's
why Paul says, you know, he said, if you receive the gospel, and
if you receive the gospel by the Spirit of God and by the
hearing of faith, are you now going to be made perfect by your
flesh? And oh, that's what we're talking
about, man by nature. He wants to run to something
he's done, or some belief he has, or some experience he's
had. And Paul said, all I want to do is preach the gospel of
the grace of God. It kills legalism. It kills man's
hope in himself. You see, man, that's why we've
got to As long as God's time lasts, I'm going to be preaching
His grace, the gospel of grace. You see, man by nature wants
to work. He wants to work. He wants to perform for his salvation. He wants to do something. And,
oh, beloved, God said, and man is so full of pride, that God
said that he came to stain. Stain. You look at it yourself
when you get on. Stain the pride of man. You know
where that's at? Isaiah 23, 9, but let me show
you something. You keep back and look over here
with me in Job chapter 19. I want you to see this, Job chapter
19. Oh my, this is what's got to
happen. Man's wearing a crown and he
likes his crown. He likes to earn it. He likes
to point to it. He likes to say, look what I've
done. He likes to say, boy, I'll tell you, look at what I am,
look what I've done. I may not be as bad as other
people. I may not be as good as other
people, but I'm not as bad as others. They got something to
run to, something to trust in. But look what Job said here in
Job 19 and verse 9. And this is what's got to happen
to a man. Look what he said in Job. He hath stripped me of my
glory. That's what God's got to do to
a man. He's got to strip him of his glory, because he's going
to glory in something. He's going to glory in his religion
or his irreligion. If he don't glory in Christ,
he'll glory in the fact that he don't glory in Christ. This
man's going to glory in something. And look what he said, he has
stripped me of my glory. And look here, he has taken,
he wretched got it, and took the crown off of my head. God
will do that to you, or you'll wear that crown and that glory
all the way to hell itself. Is that not right? And all beloved,
in grace, grace is defined in the Scriptures. You know where
God defines His grace at? In Ephesians chapter 2, that's
where He defines His grace. And I mean, He tells us what
grace is. You know, it's not our definition
of grace that's going to count. It's what God says about grace.
And here in Ephesians 2, and this is what God says about what
grace is. The grace is defined in the scriptures. And we're talking about the gospel
of grace. He said here in Ephesians 2.8, For by grace are you saved
through faith. Grace and faith, neither one
is of yourself. Grace is not of yourself. Faith
is not of yourself. And listen to this, it is the
gift of God. Grace is the gift of God, and
faith is the gift of God. It's not of works. Why is it of works? Because if
it is, man would boast, he would brag, he would glory in it, for
we are his workmanship. God's workmanship. God does this
work. God brings His grace. God brings
His faith. God brings His repentance. God's
the one that saves a man. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus. And so Paul is talking about,
I want to finish my course with joy, and there's no other gospel
than to preach the gospel of the grace of God. There's no
other gospel than the gospel of grace. And you know that within
50 years after the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the last
of the apostles, within 50 years after John's death, the gospel
of the grace of God almost ceased to be preached. Almost did, because
they argued and debated, and man is so depraved that he likes
his rituals and his crowns and his vestments and all of those
things, but yet God never leaves himself without a witness. You
know, Elijah got out of that juniper tree and said, Oh God,
they killed every one of your prophets. And they dug down all
the altars. There ain't nobody left but me.
I feel like that. I used to feel like that years
ago, till God showed me there's a mother and brought me in contact
with her. But you know what God said? He
said, Elijah, I've got 7,000. Ain't about to need a bell yet. They had nothing but bread and
water, but they never about to need a bell. And I tell you, God honors His
truth, and He saves His people, and that's why we say, Yea, let
God be true, and ever man of iron. Now let's talk about the
gospel of the grace of God. Now the gospel, the gospel is
able to be defined and defined from Scripture. But the gospel
is a revelation of God's blessed grace. That's what it is. The
gospel reveals God's grace. You know, different names are
given by the Holy Spirit to the gospel. A lot of different names
given by the gospel. Here, Paul calls it the gospel
of the grace of God. Over in another place, he called
it the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. But Romans chapter
1 says it's the gospel of God. You know why? Because he's the
author of it. The gospel comes from God himself.
Romans 1.16 calls it the gospel of Christ. Why? Because He's
the theme of the gospel. That's why we preach Christ and
Him crucified. And that's why, beloved, in Ephesians
6.15, it's called the gospel of peace. You know why? Because
peace is what it publishes. How beautiful upon the feet of
the feet of them upon the mount who preaches glad tidings of
good things and publishes peace! And what does He say on the sign?
My God reigneth! And there's peace in God reigning.
There's peace in God ruling. And I'll tell you what, and not
only is it called the gospel of peace, because it brings peace
to a man's heart. And oh, and it's called the gospel
of the grace of God because its source, its source is because
of the grace of God. There would be no gospel if it
wasn't for the grace of God. There'd be no salvation if it
wasn't for the grace of God. There'd be no gospel of Christ
if it wasn't for the grace of God. And grace is peculiar to
this blessed book. Grace is peculiar to divine revelation
because without it being revealed, man could never conceive of grace.
He can conceive of a thousand things, but he'll never conceive
of grace. Could you imagine? Now, all of
you have been in religion most of your lives. And before you
got into religion, you had your opinions of how man would be
saved. Is that not right? And what you'd have to do to
be saved. But you'd have never in your life, in a thousand years,
ever conceived of the grace of God saving you, without anything
you ever done, anything you ever thought, anything you ever felt,
anything you ever experienced. That grace came where you was,
and laid hold on you, because you wasn't looking for it. You
didn't know a thing in the world about it. You knew about free
will. You know about legalism! You
know about holiness! Huh? And where the Bible hasn't
gone, grace is absolutely unknown. Grace! Listen to me. You start thinking about all
the rave religions in this world, and how many of them talk about
grace. You go to India, where they worship
cows, and snakes, and monkeys, and rats, and try to wash their
sins away in an old nasty river. And you mention grace to them,
and they don't even have it in their language. Go to Buddhism,
and there's lots of people that love Buddhism. You've got to
see Dalai Lama and all that rigmarole. Grace is not mentioned in that.
You take Mohammedans and Muslims. Grace is absolutely foreign to
their religion. Foreign to it. Go to Confucianism
with all of his wisdom. Grace is unknown in it. Catholicism,
grace is unknown in it. They don't talk about grace.
They talk about Mary. They talk about saints. They
talk about vestments. They talk about post and cardinals. But they don't never talk about
grace. And you take free willism. What
they talk about, I love Jesus. I want to tell about Jesus. I
want to come to the front and tell you what Jesus means to
me. I accepted Jesus. I went on oath and I prayed through.
And I'll tell you something, even nature itself doesn't teach
grace. You break her laws by your lifestyle, and you will pay the consequences. Take your drugs, have your illicit
sex, watch pornography, and you do all the things that this depraved
nature wants to, and sooner or later, it'll tell on you, and
you can't even break the laws of nature, and it's not costing
you. Is that not right? So grace, we're in the world,
we're talking about grace now. What then is grace? Well, it's
something blessed. It's something joyous. Oh, it
is the good news. Oh, it's the good news. I'm going
to testify all the way to the end of my course, and when I
get there, I'll go there with joy. You know what he said when
he got to the end of it? He said, I fought a good fight,
I kept the faith, and now my departure is at hand. He finished
his course with joy. And oh beloved, it's the good
news of the grace of God. Let me tell you what grace is.
It's the opposite of law. Very opposite of law. John 1
17 says that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. And oh beloved, let me tell you
something. The law And I tell you, there's no good news in
the law. No good news in the law. None whatsoever. The law manifested what was in
man, sin and rebellion and enmity towards God. Grace manifests
what's in God, love and mercy and tenderness and pity and kindness
and longsuffering. The law tells a man what he must
do for God. Do this and you shall live. But
grace tells us what Christ has done for men by burying our sins
in his own body on the tree. The law brought out God to man
and said, here he is in all of his holiness and all of his glory
and all of his power. And man said, oh, how he does
it! But grace comes and brings men
into the presence of God. The law demanded righteousness
from men, and He couldn't produce it. But
grace brings righteousness to men. The law sends the living
man to death. Cursing is every one that continues
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
brings dead men to life. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sin. And you know what it says up
for? It says that, for by grace hath he quickened you together
with Christ. The law never had a missionary. The law never had a missionary.
But the gospel is to be preached to every man. The law makes known
the will of God, and it must be done perfectly. But the grace
brings out the heart of God to men, and shows how he gives that
perfection in Christ. And let me tell you something
else about grace. Grace is the very opposite of justice. The very opposite of justice.
You know, you go to any courthouse, any place you want to go, And
where there's supposed to be the justice. You got this scale. And it's sitting there even.
And this woman standing there holding them scales of justice
with a blindfold over her eye. Justice is supposed to be blind.
Every man's going to get his due. But all grace is the very
opposite of justice. Justice shows no favor and knows
nothing absolutely about mercy. Nothing about mercy. But grace
is just the opposite of that. Grace shows favor. And grace brings with it mercy. Grace is for the undeserving.
Mercy is for the miserable. And I tell you, justice, talking
about grace, the very opposite of justice, justice requires
that everyone should receive his due. Everybody gets exactly
what's due them. Grace, grace bestows on sinners
what they're not entitled to. It's pure charity. You hear people
all the time say, I don't want charity, I don't want your pity,
and I don't want your charity. I want both, and I want them
from God. I want His pity, And I want His
charity. Lord, if that's what You give
me is pure charity, give me all that You got. I want everything. I don't want Him. I don't want... I want charity! As old Scott
Richardson said so many times, grace is something for nothing. There ain't no free lunches.
There is in grace. In fact, there's more than a
lunch, there's a meal. Oh, right in the center of the
table is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who serves His table.
He serves it with fullness and freeness and bread and water
and life. Oh, everything we need. Oh, listen,
I tell you, the gospel is the revelation of this wondrous grace. It's the grace of God and what
God as Christ has done for sinners. You see, let me tell you this
now. You listen to me. I know what
I'm talking about here. The gospel is where God reveals
His grace. Where the gospel is not preached,
there ain't going to be no grace revealed. There can't be grace
revealed where there ain't no gospel preached. You can preach
Calvinism and still yet never see the grace of God. I just
read a testimony this morning, a fella got over on his blog
and he became an army. He was raised in a Presbyterian
church, went to a seminary and fixed to go to graduate school,
get his PhD. And he was raised a Calvinist,
believed in Calvinism. But he got in school, he got
to looking at it, got studied, he decided that he did not agree
with it, and now he's an Arminian. He said, I started reading Jacobus
Arminius and became an Arminian. Do you know why? He believed Calvinism,
raised in Calvinism, raised under the Westminster Confession. In
the 49 articles of the... And yet, beloved, Calvinism's
not the gospel. Christ is the gospel. And if
you don't preach the gospel of the grace of God, there'll be
no revelation of grace. I know, I preached for many years,
and I did not know a thing in the world about it. I knew how
to live right. I knew how to make my children live right.
I knew how to control my family. I knew how to get on an altar.
I knew how to beg people to come to Jesus, but I did not know
nothing about grace until God in His sovereign mercy crossed
my path with the gospel. And when He crossed my path with
the gospel, I said, I ain't never heard nothing like that before.
I'd heard a lot of stuff, but I heard about all this. But I
never heard about grace. I heard about living right, but
I never heard about grace. I heard about man having an opportunity
to make his own choice, but I never heard about grace. I heard about
cooperating with God, but I never heard about grace. And where did I hear about that
grace? Somebody preached the gospel. And in that gospel, grace
was made known to me. And where there ain't no gospel,
there ain't no grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He came
here talking about that justice and that law of God, that demand
of perfection and obedience to Him. He satisfied the demands
of the law. Everything that God required
for it to be done, the law of the Lord Jesus fulfilled it.
And I tell you, the gospel tells us that Christ did not die for
good people who never did anything very bad. But he died for lost
and godless, ungodly sinners who never did anything good and
never will do anything good unless he gives them grace to do it. Oh, I tell you, thank God for
grace. And the gospel is not always
a revelation of that grace, but the gospel is a proclamation
of that grace. You see, the gospel has two meanings.
One means heralding, heralding, killing out. You know, it's like
when somebody walks in the room, and some people come in the room,
and somebody stands there, and they howl. So-and-so's coming
in the room. The President and the First Lady.
The Secretary of State and all that. And they go, oh no, here's
the, they howl the Queen of England when she walks in. Well, that's
what we do. We howl grace. We howl Christ. Christ is here. Grace is here. And all we love is howling. That's
what John the Baptist did. He howled Christ. It's the glorious
fact that the grace of God has provided a Savior for every poor
sinner who feels his need and trusts Christ and Christ alone,
and dare not find any help or hope anyplace else. Secondly,
not only is it heralding the truth and the fact that Christ
alone is the Savior and salvation is done by Him, but secondly,
it is the whole revelation. which God made of himself in
and through the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of the grace of God
is the whole revelation from Old Testament all the way through
the New Testament, how God revealed himself and made himself known
in and through his blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
the gospel declares that grace is the sinner's only hope. Reject the grace of God. Reject
the salvation that Christ himself provided. You reject the grace
of God, and there is no hope for you. You say, I don't want
grace. You know, and I've heard people
tell me, that's just too good to be true. Well, it's true. And I'm grateful
it is, but you reject grace. Salvation on God's terms. Salvation
by what Christ did. Salvation by grace alone. No merit of yours, no works of
yours, no feelings of yours. Nothing involved in it but grace. You reject that, and there's
no hope for you. Grace is God's provision for
those that are so corrupt that they cannot change their own
natures. Grace is for people that are
so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him. Grace is for men
and women that are so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf
that they cannot hear Him, so dead in sins that He Himself
must come and open their graves and give them life, or they'll
stay there. Grace reveals man's case is so
desperate So desperate, but God, God will come and undo all that
desperate condition by grace. The gospel of God's grace is
for sinners. And oh, I'd love to find one
of them here. You know, the only people I know who are sinners
are people who have already been saved by grace. Ain't that right? If you ever find a sinner, he's
been saved. Oh, if you could ever find somebody that absolutely
has no hope, no help, no strength, no ability, and there's a sinner
from the top of his head to the sole of his foot, from the inside
of his heart to the outside of his skin, if you ever find somebody
like that, you found somebody Grace already done something
for. Are you like that? Oh, it's for sinners. And listen
to me, God gives it without respect to persons. He don't care who
you are. You say, I'm a PhD. So what?
I can't read. So what? I'll make a million
dollars a year. So what? I'll make tens of tens
of thousands of dollars a year. So what? What's that got to do
with anything? He has no respect to persons.
And he has no regard to merit, because nobody has any. And he
does it without anything being required that you give to him
in return. You don't have to give him nothing back. Oh, were the whole realm of nature
mine, that are present far too small? Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all. Grace, I'm telling you,
is worthy of God. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
let me tell you, not only is it a revelation, Paul said, I'm
going to the temple and finish my course with this. Wouldn't
it be wonderful, wouldn't it be wonderful if this was my last
message and I preached on the grace of God? I hope that's what
I'm preaching the last time I preach, just what I'm preaching right
now. Not only is it a revelation, not only is it a proclamation
of the grace of God and revelation of the grace of God, that the
gospel is grace manifesting. It manifests the grace of God.
That's why Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why? Because that's where God
reveals how He is righteous and how He can make a man righteous
through Christ. That's what the gospel is. You
see, God uses the gospel as a chosen instrument to free and save His
people from their sin. Look over in James chapter 1
with me for just a minute. That's why God said, Paul says,
you know, to please God by the foolishness of preaching, to
save them that believe. Oh, it's the chosen instrument.
Chosen instrument. And you know this is what's so
wonderful about the gospel. You know, whenever different
people come in, And you have business and that, boy, and religion,
and everybody starts to wonder about it. Oh, my. We need to
try to win them to Jesus. We need to try to make them feel
so welcome. We need to try to make them feel
so comfortable. I don't want people to feel comfortable until
they hear the gospel, believe the gospel. That's one of the
dangerous things in the world, to get people comfortable with
church and not with Christ. Ain't that right? And listen
to me now. That's why, you know, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save your nephew. Preaching. Preaching. You've got to start
hearing some preaching. Not some sharing. Let's all share the gospel today. Let's share our experiences. I'll share my meal with you.
share my table with you. I'm going to declare the gospel.
The gospel is a declaration. It's a proclamation. Oh, I can
hear Paul saying, telling these Athenian Jews, I want all you
elders to come around here. I want to share the gospel with
you today. He said, I've taught you publicly
from house to house, declaring, telling you. Look here in James
1, 18, talking about The gospel is the manifestation of the grace
of God. Oh, look what he said here. Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creature. What does he begat
he us with? The truth. Not a lie, not a half-truth,
but the truth. And I tell you what, the gospel
is the power of God to take his people from error You know what
saved us from error? The gospel saves us from error.
It saves us from ignorance. It saves us from darkness. And
it saves us from the power of Satan himself. And it is by the
power of the gospel in the hands of the Holy Spirit that we're
saved from our guilt and power of sin. As old Mr. Talk Lady says, be of sin the
double cure. Saved from his guilt and saved
from his power. Not only does he take the guilt
away, why is there no guilt? Because Christ took away the
sin, and when there ain't no sin, there can't be any guilt.
And where the gospel comes from, it doesn't take away the guilt,
but it takes away sin's power over you. Sin had dominion, now
grace reigns through righteousness. Is that not right? And let me
tell you something, and there's a whole bunch of folks now that's
trying to teach in churches that evolution can be accepted. That you can believe in how God
created so much, and yet evolution hadn't done it. That's not the
case. It's impossible. But where evolution is substituted for
the new birth, there's no gospel. Wherever they talk about cultivating
your character and building yourself in steam instead of faith in
the blood and righteousness of Christ, there's no gospel. There's
no salvation in that. Wherever people are talking about
the development of their willpower, exercise your power instead of
humble dependence upon God, there's no salvation there. The carnal
mind may say all of this is right and true, but it's powerless. It brings no salvation to the
perishing. There is no gospel in a system
of ethics. There is no gospel in morality. There is no gospel in evolution. There is no gospel in philosophy. The gospel is the grace of God
manifested in Jesus Christ to sinners. And the gospel comes
with that power to change a man's will, nature, and everything
about him. Would you all agree with that?
I'll tell you something. Grace works. You know that? Grace
works. It's effective. I can just look
down at you and tell you that it works. Look what it's done
to you. Look what it's done to me. Grace
works. It actually conquers men, saves
men, keeps them saved, makes them dependent upon God. makes
them and causes them willingly in their hearts to give talk
all but lowly. It actually saves a man. And I'll tell you, you which
find grace and power, the same is in the New Testament. It's
the same word, the New Testament. Wherever there's grace, there's
power. Wherever there's power, there's grace. Redemption comes by grace. Christ
redeemed us with his blessed blood, and then he brought the
power of that blood to our heart. Grace makes salvation effectual. Grace is all-powerful. If you
don't think it ain't, Saul of Tarsus, on his way on the Damascus
Road, with wards in his pocket to arrest some of God's people,
and he was written down on the Damascus Road. Do you know what
he said about it later? He said, when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace,
to do what? To reveal His Son in me. What else was going to do it?
Law sure didn't help him out. Being a Pharisee was, didn't
make him, but boy, when grace got a hold of him, grace put
him down. Here's a different man, Mary Magdalene. Down at
the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, with tears in her eyes, washing
His feet, out of whom He cast seven devils. Oh, grace works. And I tell you, they have these
anonymous meetings, you know. They've got anonymous drugs,
alcohol, weight loss. If you've made any kind of thing
that you Anonymous. You can go to every anonymous
meeting they are, but God knows your name and He knows how you're
going to be saved without it. The grace sets men free. Grace
liberates. It makes folks free from the
law or happy condition. All right, let's turn to 209
in the hymn book. Aren't you grateful for the grace
of God?