All right, I want to bring a
message this morning. I've titled it, Thank God for
Grace. Thank God for Grace. And to set this message up, what
we need to do is go back up in verse 16, where our Lord Jesus
Christ says, what am I going to like this generation to? What
am I going to compare the people that I'm preaching to, this people
that I'm preaching to? It's like under children sitting
in the markets and calling under the felons. And this is what
they say, we piped unto you and you wouldn't dance. Then we mourned
and you would not lament. We couldn't do anything to satisfy
you. Nothing would meet your needs. If we piped, you wanted
to mourn. If we mourned, then you wanted
to dance. And John came neither eating nor drinking, and you
say he's got a devil. Son of man came eating and drinking,
and they say, behold, a gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, a friend
of publicans and sinners. And that's what they're saying
about our Lord Jesus Christ and his forerunner, John. Then began
he to upbraid the cities, pronounce woe on them, because they repented
not of the works that he had done. Woe unto thee, Corazion! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! If
the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre
and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in ashes and sat clothed. But I say unto you, it will be
more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for
you. And Capernaum, you've exalted yourself unto heaven, you're
going to be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which
had been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have
remained unto this day. But I say unto you that it shall
be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than for thee." Now, they pronounce woe, woe and judgment upon these
people, upon this place. And if he was here, he'd say
that to America. For the light you've had, woe unto you, woe
unto you. at the Day of Judgment. Sodom
would have repented if they had had the gospel you had preached
to them. And then he turned around, and this is why I say, thank
God for grace. At that time, after he got through saying these
things, our Lord answered and said, I thank thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even
so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things
are delivered to me of my Father, and no man knows the Son but
the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will rebel. So come unto
me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." So in the pronouncing of all this judgment and all
this woe, our Lord turns around and begins to thank God that
God Almighty is going to save some out of this generation. I don't know what you think about
the Word, but I love the Word. I just love to hear it spoken.
I love to hear it read. I love to hear it preached. Grace,
oh, what a Word. What a blessed Word. Sovereign
grace, free grace. What a good Word. It's a strong
Word. It's a Word that means salvation.
Grace means salvation. It means salvation full. It means
salvation free. Grace is a word that brings comfort,
comfort to our heart, because grace brings everything that
a heart needs. It doesn't ask for nothing from
you. It gives everything to you. It brings all and it does all.
Grace. Grace. It's a word of assurance. What a word of assurance for
us. For if God in grace does it for us and did it for us while
we were yet sinners, while we were yet sinners, there's no
danger of us. ever losing it or Him ever taking
it back from us. And grace, not only is it a word
of assurance and a word that means salvation, but grace is
an eternal word. It's a word that was born in
eternity. In fact, it was a word that only God Himself could give.
So it's all the religions of the world and only the gospel
that's in this blessed book that God gives is the only religion
in the world, true biblical religions, the only religion in the world.
that has grace in it. Everything else has got works
or requirements or conditions. But grace is an eternal word.
It's a word that only God Himself can give, only God would give. It was born in the very heart
of God, and thank God it was brought into time for the guilty
like you and me. You see, beloved, grace gave
us all that we have. Everything we have we owe to
the grace of God. All we ever will have is by the
grace of God. All we are now and all we will
ever be is because of the grace of God. No wonder the Apostle
said, I am what I am by the grace of God. Oh, to grace how great
a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Every subject in the Bible,
I don't care, start in Genesis and go through, every subject
in the Bible is directly related to the grace of God except one. Except one. And that was the
fall of man. Adam's rebellion against God.
Man sinned by self. He had done that on his own.
But thank God, God had grace before Adam ever fell. God had
a Savior appointed before Adam ever sinned. And that was grace.
You see, it was God's grace that determined to save a people out
of Adam's fallen race, instead of dooming man as he did the
angels that sinned. The Scriptures tell us that our
Lord Jesus took not upon him the nature of angels, but the
seed of Abraham. He did not identify himself with
angels, he identified himself with us. It was God's grace that
made our Lord Jesus Christ our surety. He was the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. It was God's grace that gave
Christ our Lord a people in the eternal covenant of mercy. Our
Lord said, all that the Father giveth Me, when were they given
to Him? Before the world ever began. And all that the Father
giveth Me shall come to Me. And him that cometh to Me, I
will in no wise cast out. You look in John 17, and there
are six different times in John 17 when our Lord prays. He said,
Father, those that Thou hast given Me. Six times it mentions
Christ having a people given to Him. And fourthly, it was
God's grace. that sent our Lord Jesus Christ
into this world in the fullness of time. He came right where
He's supposed to, born where He's supposed to be, born of
a woman made under the law to redeem us that were under the
law, came exactly to the minute second when He's supposed to
come. To do what? To manifest the grace of God to us. He came
full of grace. He came full of truth. Law came
by Moses, but grace and truth came by our Lord Jesus Christ.
And it was God's grace that called us to faith, gave us faith, and
revealed Christ to us and revealed Christ in us. Paul said this,
he said, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. And
I'll tell you this, beloved, it's God's grace. It's God's
grace that keeps us in Christ. Jude said it this way in verse
24. He says, None to him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory
at His coming, were kept by the power of God through faith. And
I tell you something else, beloved. It will be God's grace. It will
be God's grace that will raise us and take us to glory. We will
never be left to do anything on our own, not for one moment
in time. When we get to glory, it'll be
as much, when we go walk through the portals of glory, it'll be
as much by the grace of God as everything that ever else happened
to us. When we get there, we won't look
over the door and say, well, when we get in, like some fellow
said, they get in there and look back and say, well, I'm one of
God's elect, so I made it. No, no. That last interest in
the glory will be as much by the grace of God as your election
before the foundation of the world. So it's obvious then,
in light of all I've said so far, that there's not one thing,
not one thing the Son of Adam can glory in. Nothing. What can we glory in? What have
we got to glory in? The only thing we've got that belongs
to us, lock, stock and barrel, is our sin. And our sin, if it hadn't been
for the grace of God, that would have damned us and doomed us
for all eternity. That's all we had. Let not the
rich man glory in his riches. Let not the wise man glory in
his might. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom. Rich glory in His richest, or in His mighty? Why,
if the man glories, let him glory in this, that he knows and understands
Me, saith the Lord. For you see your calling, brethren?"
God didn't call many wise men after the flesh. He didn't do
that. He called dummies like me and
you, people that are nobodies. Who are we? Where did we come
from? What accomplishments do we have
in the world? Who knows us? You won't see my name in the
newspaper. You won't see me on television. If you ever see me
on television, it won't be because I'm in a car wreck, or they got me
from out of the bank, one or the other. It won't be because
of what God done for me. You know, for you see, you call
not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty. God chose the
foolish things, preaching, weak, frail, sinners, nobodies from
nowhere. And He called them to reveal
the gospel of His grace. And He said, and He done this
to bring to nothing them that think they are, and those who are nothing, to
glorify His grace. And He done this that no flesh,
no flesh should glory in His presence.
So what are we going to glory in? One thing. The grace of God
manifested in Christ. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, listen to
me. Sovereign grace is the answer
to human sin. Preachers say, quit your sinning.
You can't. I'd love to. I've seen a big sign in a band. I'm going to write a newspaper
article about it. It says, Pray and get right with
God, like that's all it takes to get right with God. Start
praying. You can't get right with God. Stop your sin and straighten
up. Sovereign grace is the only answer
to human sin. If it ain't grace that comes,
and grace that subdues it, and grace that puts it down, and
grace that forgives it, it ain't going to be there. And you're
going to have it until you die. And all sovereign grace is the
answer to human inability. How am I going to come to God?
How am I going to know God? How am I going to grasp God?
How am I going to see God? How am I going to get any spiritual
sense? How am I going to understand the Scriptures? How am I going
to know anything about my sin? How am I going to know those
things? Sovereign grace is the answer to our inability. Huh? And sovereign grace is the answer
to human unwillingness. I've never found anybody willing
to come to Christ until Christ first comes to them. I never
met anybody, including myself, that believed grace until grace
made me willing to believe. My children raised in a home
where the gospel is preached, heard the best men in the world
have been in my home. They've heard the best men in
the world preach the gospel time and time and time again. And
they ain't a bit more interested in the gospel than they was when
they was two years old. What hope is there for them? Sovereign
grace. Sovereign grace. So here we have,
in these verses that I've read, 25 down through 30, we have seven
things concerning God's glorious, free, blessed, holy, sovereign
grace. We have the sovereignty of God's
grace, and we have the unvarying, unchanging rules by which that
grace works. And here's how we start. Look
down at verse 25. Here is the Spirit in which we would regard
the sovereign grace of God. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank Thee. How are we supposed to regard
the Spirit? Are we supposed to receive and regard the sovereign
grace of God? I thank Thee, Lord. I thank Thee. I thank Thee. Oh, thank You! Thank God that He has purpose
to save a people Because if He hadn't, none would have been
saved. Thank God that He has elected a people, chosen a people
in Christ before the foundation of the world. Whenever you find
men in the Scriptures talking about God choosing a people,
God electing a people, and giving Christ a people for His glory,
you'll find them giving thanks for what God did. Paul said,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ,
according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world." Look over here at II Thessalonians 2.13. Look
at II Thessalonians 2.13. You know, when you mentioned that today,
I was telling the folks Wednesday night, There was a fellow who
came to visit me one time, and he said, that all you talk about
is God's people, the Lord's people, Christ dying for a people. Like
there's just a certain people He's done things for. And he
said, that aggravates me to death. Because they hear everybody. We hear, the Lord, Isaiah 53
says, He was stricken for the transgression of whom? Christ said, I'll lay down my
life for the sheep. And that's what the average time
that when you mention God choosing a people, Christ dying for a
people, and those people, and you mention God's people, the
Lord's people, and you mention election, and most times that's
the way they act. They get mad, they get aggravated, they match
their teeth. What do we say? I thank Thee. How can it be? How can it be
that Thou, my God, should die for me? Look here in 2 Thessalonians
2.13. This is the way believers act.
This is the way people who have sovereign grace reveal to them.
But we are bound. Got to do it. Give thanks always
to God for you, brethren. You're beloved of the Lord. It's
one thing to be loved by somebody, but to be beloved of the Lord. Because God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of spirit and
belief unto truth. And here's how He made you to
know it. Whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, those folks rejoiced,
and we say, I thank you. I thank you, Lord. Men get angry. They say it, when you miss your
election, they say, well, that leads you to sin. If you know
you're going to be saved no matter what, that leads you to sin.
Paul Mahan said this one time, and this is true. He said, people
use that, self-righteous Pharisees use that as an excuse to keep from believing in the
grace of God, to hold on to their own righteousness. I don't need
a license to sin. Do you need a license to sin?
They say grace will give you a license to sin. I don't need
a license. I'll do plenty enough without a license. But look,
let me show you something else over here in Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. How they reacted
to our Lord Jesus when He preached the grace of God. God's electing
grace. I thank you. Oh, we give thanks
to God. The only thing that made us to
differ is God. We're no better sinners. We're
no wiser. We're no stronger. We're nothing. The only thing that made us to
differ is the grace of God. I thank you. And look here in
verse 25. Our Savior preaching. This is
the first day of His ministry. He started His public ministry.
And he said, But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in
Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sareph,
the city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widower. One woman. Lots of widows, but there's only
one that Elijah was sent to. Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Elisha, the prophet. And none of them was clean-saving
man and of Syria. And they all in the synagogue,
now he's preaching this in the synagogue, all the Jews are gathering
around, they know exactly what happened. They've read it many
times in the book of Kings. And all they in the synagogue
when they heard these things were filled with wrath. You go
right before that when he stood up and began to quote from Isaiah
61, they were astonished at the gracious words which came out
of his mouth. And when he just began to Tell them what the Scripture
said. They went from talking about
the grace to getting angry. They were filled with wrath and
rose up and thrust Him out of the city. Lay Him under the brow
of the hill where the city was built, that they might cast Him
down headlong. And our Savior just disappeared
while they were looking at Him, hid Himself from them. And oh,
that's the way people react most of the time. And if you react
right, if you react right to the sovereign grace of God, to
electing grace. And the one thing you can say,
I thank you. I thank you. And if you're mad
about it, and don't like it, and don't enjoy it, you ain't
never heard it. Because if you ever hear it,
you'll say, Lord, I thank you. I thank you. You sure didn't
know it to me. Now look back over in that text.
Look at the author of sovereign grace. The Spirit will regard
it. I thank you. Oh, Lord, I thank
you. That's what our Savior said.
And then He said, Oh, Father. This is the author of grace.
It's the Father. Now, it's true that every child
of God does choose God. I choose God. I want Christ. I need Christ. I want God. I
need God. And it's true that every child
of God only chooses God and loves God, and every child of God seeks
the Lord. But why? Why do we do that? God acted first. God acted first. We respond to His grace towards
us. God is the first cause of everything.
Do you deal with that? We love Him. Why? Because He
first loved us. Our Lord said in John 15, 16,
No, you've not. You've not chosen Me. But I've
chosen you. I've chosen you. And let me show
you two verses of Scripture. Look over here in Psalm 27. I'll
show you what I'm talking about. Psalm 27. And, Darren, let's talk about this
on the way down. Verse 8. This is what happens. This is the way. Grace. God works towards us, and then
we respond. When thou sayest, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I see. If
God had said, seek my face, you would have never sought God. I didn't even know God. As far
as I was concerned, I wasn't interested in God. It was you,
Chris. But one day, And I didn't even know what was going on.
I know now, at that time, I didn't know. I began to need God. I began to need Christ. I began
to feel my sinfulness. I began to feel my impotence.
I began to feel my inability. And I began to seek the Lord.
Why was I seeking the Lord? Because God said, seek ye my
face. I didn't know He said, seek ye my face. But I began
to seek His face. You know, regeneration, we're
completely passive in that. God gives us life. He quickens
us, raises us from the dead. We're passive and we have no
part in that whatsoever. No more than your child when
it's born has no part in it being put in the womb of a woman. Has
no part in it, passive entirely. God does that. He comes with
the gospel by the power of God and the Spirit of God. He quickens
us, gives us life from the dead. Then we can hear, then we can
see, then we can feel with our hearts. And then what it is,
as we hear the Gospel conversion, is our response to evidence of
love, hand and life. And that's when we start turning
to God. That's where repentance and faith and seeking the Lord
comes in. You can't seek somebody when you're dead. You can't call
on somebody when you're dead. You can't see anybody when you're
dead. You can't hear. He gives you life, and then you
automatically, like a baby, start crying. That baby born Friday,
when it come out of that mama's womb, when it come out of Jessica's
womb, I guarantee you that baby would squawk. Does crime give evidence that
it was crime that taught it to have life? No, no. It had life
first. That's why it started crying.
And that's the way it is. God gives us life. Then we start
crying out to Him. Seek ye my face. You don't know
when that happens. But the only way you know it
has happened is when you turn and start seeking. And look at
old Psalm 65. Psalm 65. You talk about taking
the pressure off of you as a preacher, and not having to come up with
results, and not having to talk anybody into anything, and get
people on alters, and get professions out of them and all that. This
takes all the pressure off of you. You know, if you just be
faithful to the Gospel, you be faithful to the Word, God will
give His people life. And when they give Him life,
it will be evident that they will. And when a baby is born,
let me just say this, when a baby is born, it begins to grow from
that moment. It begins to grow from that moment.
And you can watch it change from day to day to day. Next thing
you know, it comes out and then it's a year old and it's walking.
Fourteen months old and it's chattering. And that's the way it is. When
that baby is born, that child of God is born into the Kingdom
of God, all in the world it can do is cry. Mown and grown. But you'll watch it change. You'll
watch it change. You'll watch it grow. You'll watch it start walking.
You'll see them stumble, skid a lot of times. But that will
be the evidence of that life. Look here at Psalm 65 for us. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest. Now watch this. and causes to approach unto thee. Oh, he
reaches and gets you, draws you, that he may dwell in thy courts,
and will be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of
thy holy temple." You know, our Lord Jesus said it this way.
He said, No man can come unto me except the Father which hath
sent me draw him. And that word, draw, is the same
thing As when Simon Peter Richmond drew that sword to cut off Nalcus's
ear, Richard got it by the hand and pulled it. That's the same
thing when it says, no man can come except he draw. God reaches
and gets a hold of you, and He pulls you. Huh? And you know what? I'm sure grateful
he Richard got a hold of me. And I'll tell you one thing,
he ain't stopped drawing me in. Once he starts to put his hand
on you, he never takes it off of you. Never takes it off of
you. And I'm thankful that God acted first. God acted first. When God came to Adam, Adam and
Eve, you know, these fellows go around and say, you know,
people are just dying for the truth. They're looking for the
truth. There's not a human being on the top side of God's earth
looking for the truth until truth finds him first. Now, you can
give them a lie and they'll eat it down just like eating ice
cream. You can feed them freewillism,
you can feed them works, you can feed them conditions, you
can feed them prayers, you can feed them tears, you can feed
them ceremonies, but if you give them truth, they'll stick both
fingers in the air until truth takes them out. Now, that's a
fact. And oh, God said to Adam, said,
Adam, Adam wasn't seeking the Lord. Adam was content to be
in that bush, content to have a fig leaf on him. content to
be covered up with that fig leaf of morality and self-righteousness
and works and ability, until God said, Adam, where are ye? And God wasn't looking for where
Adam's geographical location was. He knew exactly where he
wanted. He asked that question, not for
information, so Adam could know where Adam was. And that's what
God does with us with the truth. He comes to us with the truth
and tells us where we are. And Adam found out and said,
Oh, over here I'm naked. Who told you I was naked? Ain't
but one person makes you know you're naked. He didn't care
about being naked until he heard God's voice. He was satisfied
with his fig leaf. And when you hear the voice of
God, you look down and say, Oh, my. This won't do. This won't
do at all. This won't do. And in Romans
8, You look there and it says, for whom He did for no one. He
did for them. He called. And it's He. God, He's there. Don't say, they
did, they did, they did. No, say, He did, He did, He did,
He did. Thank God He did. And here's the third thing. God's
an author. Thank God for grace. And then
He says, Here's His right for Him to give grace. Here's His
right to act as He does. Our Lord said, I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Since He's Lord of heaven and
earth, He can do what He wants, can't He? He can give grace to
who He wants to give it to. He can save who He wants. He's
the Creator. We're just nothing but the creatures.
Look over here in Matthew 20. Look in Matthew 20 just for a
moment. I had a man come and ask me.
He goes to church all the time. He goes to church at a place
over in Pansy, close to us. And he came up to me the other
day and he asked me, he says, does God ever change his mind?
He's all the time asking me things. He's over and over again. He
asked me something last Wednesday evening. And he asked for information. He don't ask to set you up, you
know, because he won't show you what he knows. He asks because
he wants more. And I said, oh my, God change His mind? That'd make Him like us, wouldn't
it? He said He would. I said, you
reckon He is? He said, no. No, He couldn't be. If God changed
His mind, He might change His mind about me. I like Him today,
but now He messed up pretty bad. I just don't believe I like Him
tomorrow. Oh, God don't change His mind.
Look here in Matthew 20, 15. He got all these people coming
in to work. 6 o'clock in the morning, hire a feller. You work
here 12 hours a day, but when you get to the end of the day,
I'm going to pay you. I'm going to give you a penny. 9 o'clock, another feller comes
in, he hires you. Worked you 9 hours, I'm going to give you
a penny. Here comes a feller at noon. You go to work today,
end of the day, I'm going to give you a penny. You're only
going to work 6 hours. A feller comes in at 3 o'clock, you go
to work, you got 3 hours to work, I'll give you a penny. And the
feller comes in at 5 o'clock, and he's going to work 1 hour.
I'm going to give you a penny. Well, that fellow that worked
the last hour, he walked up there and he got his penny first. And
that fellow that started at 6 and 9 and 12, they come up there
and said, this ain't right. This ain't fair. We've borne
the labor and the burden of the day, and you give them this last
fellow here the same thing you give us. And they got mad. Look what our Lord said here
in verse 15. Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with my own? Is your eye evil because I am
good? It's my penny. It's my vineyard. And you wouldn't even have got
a penny if I hadn't have gave it to you. You wouldn't even
have got that. And that's the way people act.
They think, well, it ain't fair. It ain't fair. It ain't fair.
It ain't fair. Well, God is fair. He does just
what He wants to do. And we're not saved because we're
fair or on our concept. We're saved because He did it.
And whatever He does is right. Oh, beloved, our God is in the
heavens. What does He do? Just whatever He pleases. God
gave Christ's power over all flesh that He should give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given Him. Our God is in the
heavens, and He does just what He wants to, and the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing. And ain't nobody going to stay
his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? You know, I love this. You just take my father-in-law. He made a profession. He'll be
80, his birthday in April. He sat and heard preaching for
27 years. God saved him when he was 75
years old in May, four years ago, five years ago this coming
May. Got through preaching, and he
stood up, and he said, I heard. He said, I heard. I heard the
voice of Christ today. And after all them years sitting,
he heard all these preachers. And he heard that day. Now, he's
one of them 11-hour hearers. He'd come last. He'd come last. I'd come first.
Henry May had come before me. Henry Mahan spent all them years
in the ministry. Here comes a fellow 75 years
old, and he gets the same thing Henry Mahan does. He gets the
same thing Paul does. He gets the same thing I do.
I've been bearing the burden for years, and he comes along
and he gets the same penny. Oh, thank God that God gave him
a penny. I don't find any problem with
that. I'm just grateful that it happened. Ain't you? It's
God. That's what the last will be
first. He'll be there by nature. He'll
be in glory rejoicing in Christ years before I get there by nature. And I'm so thankful that at least
he got the penny. It'd be awful for him not to
have got it. Whether he's called it the eleventh hour, the sixth
hour, or the ninth hour. It don't make any difference.
That's what we're talking about here. Here God's right to act
as He does. Oh my, and here's the object
of His grace. Look there again in verse 25. I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, as is right. He's God. Because
thou shid these things from the wise and prudent, thou hast revealed
them unto babes. Here's the objects of his grace
and those whom you'll pass by." He said, You revealed them unto
babes. You revealed them unto babes. You know, our Lord said,
Except you receive the kingdom of God as a baby, as an infant,
as a little child, you cannot know why it's in the end. And
then here he talks about the wise and the prudent. Look over in Matthew 21. You
know, what can a baby do? We always talk about growing
up, but what in the world can a baby do? What can a baby do? Do nothing. Somebody got a clothing. Somebody got a feeding. All a
baby can do is make a mess and get into something. That's all
they can do. Somebody else got to clean it
up. They don't know what's best for them. They have to be taught
to walk. They have to be taught to eat.
They have to be taught to read. They have to be taught everything.
Somebody has got to be entirely responsible for them. And that's
why I said we build them under babes. And that's what we are.
We're babes. I mean, if somebody else ain't responsible for us,
all the world we can do is make a mess. And if Christ don't clean
our messes up, and wash our messes in His blood. And that's why
He gives us the word too. When we make messes in our lives,
and we mess all over ourselves, we just get our clothes filthy
dirty. We get our hair, if we didn't, you know, especially
men, if men didn't have to go out in public, and wasn't married,
we'd be like a bunch of cavemen. We wouldn't brush our teeth,
we wouldn't shave our faces, we wouldn't wash our hair. We
don't need to. It'd be awful what a shape we'd
be in if we wasn't married and had to go out in public. Ain't
that right? That's what we'd be. We'd be
just wild. And all of us by nature are that way. We make messes.
We get filth in our minds. We get filth on our feet. We
get filth on our hands. And the Word comes. And what
it does is it washes our minds. washes our hands, washes our
feet, and makes us see the dirt that's on us, and makes us cry
out, O Lord, cleanse me, wash me, throughly, throughly. And
all, beloved, in a baby, all in the world a baby can do is
cry. Somebody's got to feed it. Somebody's got to clothe it.
Somebody's got to love it. Somebody's got to put it to bed.
Somebody's got to get it up. Got to be responsible for it.
And we're just babes, and Christ is responsible for us. When we
were first born as children of God, oh, how many messes did
He clean up. And now that we're older, how
many times has He cleaned the dirt off of us? How many times,
huh? Look here in Matthew 21, verse
15, And when the chief priests and
scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children,
crying into the temple and saying, O Santa, to the son of David,
they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou
what these say? And our Lord said unto them,
Yea, have you never read out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
God has perfected praise. That's who's going to praise
God. But he passes by the wise. Passes
by the prudent. People who has the answer. People
who know. How many times have you witnessed
to somebody and asked somebody to come to a service and they'll
say, well, I know I need. They always got an answer. You
tell them what the truth is, and they'll say, well, I don't
see it that way. This is what I believe, and this
is what... Whenever you find somebody that's always got an
answer, just shut your mouth. Just shut your mouth. Just leave
them alone. They're wise, and they're prudent.
You find somebody that's got an answer for everything, just
leave them alone. Got it all figured out? I don't know much
about the Bible, but... Well, if you don't know much
about it, just be quiet. Because that's all that matters, ain't
it? Well, I don't know much about
what a fellow ought to do, but I know that a fellow needs to
get right with God. One of these days, I'm going to. But you find
a baby, and all he does, he's laying there like that infant
cast out in the field in Ezekiel, polluted in its blood. Nobody
wanted him. No eye pitied him. And God comes
by at that time when that infant is just low, Weak and helpless,
He spreads His skirt over it, washes it, cleanses it, and says,
Yea, in the time of love, I pass by thee. I saw you polluted in
your blood. Yea, I loved you. I loved you. And beloved, that's what Christ
does for us. He comes to us when we're babies, and we're just The thing about the Gospel does
is it comes and makes us put our hand over our mouth and say,
I knew, but now I don't know nothing. When I was in religion, I knew
everything. But when God saved me, I found out I didn't know
nothing. And that's another thing. I'll
tell you, my poor father-in-law, he used to, just to give you
an illustration, if you tried to witness to him, he'd say,
I know what the Bible says. I've read the Bible all my life.
I could not tell you how many times he said that. He said,
I know what to buy. He said, boy, and then he'd make
fun of preachers who was kind of ignorant. Since God saved
him, he'll tell you, he said, boy, I don't know nothing. He
tells me in his study all the time, he says, I can't believe
I'm so ignorant. I can't believe I'm seventy-nine
years old and I don't know nothing. That's when he was wise, it was
hid from him. God made him a baby of mercy.
Yeah, I see. Babies respond to love. Babies
respond to care. Babies respond to attention.
The wise and the prudent, they don't respond to anything but
their own light and their own self-righteousness and their
own works. And, oh, beloved, look back in our text again.
It says this. So we see that the object of
His grace is babes, those He passed by as the wise and prudent.
Pharisees asked Him one time, are we blind also? Our Lord said,
if you were blind, if you were blind, you'd see. But since you
say, we see, you're going to stay blind. He gives sight to
the blind. And here's the reason for His
grace. Verse 26, Even so, Father, the sower seemed good in thy
sight. Why'd God do that? It seemed
good to Him. Why'd God save that one, pass
that other by? It seemed good to Him. Why'd God save that man's
child and not my child? It seemed good to Him. Why didn't God save that eleven-year-old
instead of saving that seventy-five-year-old? It seemed good to Him. It pleased God, that's all we
can say. What else can we say as to who gets the grace of God,
who receives the grace of God? It seemed good for Him to call
the babes. It seemed good to Him to hide
from the wives of the prudent. And that's good enough. That's
good enough for every child of God just to say, it's the Lord. Let Him do what's in His good.
What's good in God's sight is good in our sight, isn't it,
Chris? Look over Psalm 106 with me. Look at Psalm 106. Here's
what he says in verse 8. Here's the reason for God's grace,
because it seemed good in his sight. It seemed good in his
sight. Aren't you glad God's not like
man? If God was like us, you know
exactly what happened. I'll tell you what happened.
First, when we was in a real, real compassionate mood, we'd
save everybody. And then when we got in a real
foul mood, we'd send half of them to hell. Huh? That's what we'd do. Oh, but God's not like us. He has his people. And it seemed
good to do what He did. It's His grace. It's His power. It's His right.
We're just creatures. He's the Creator. He's God. We're just nothing and nobody.
We're just hands of clay. And if Christ, if we get grace,
And you'll never, don't even ask why God showed me grace.
You cannot never find the answer for it. You can't find the answer
except it seemed good in your sight. If you look for the reason
in yourself, you'll never find it because there's no reason
in yourself. The reason is only found in God, for it seemed good
in my sight. Here in Psalm 106 and verse 8, Nevertheless, He
saved them, for His name's sake, that He might make His Mighty
power and all. Huh? He said over in 1 Samuel
12, you can look down at your own leisure in verse 22, God
didn't choose you because you were more numerous than others,
because you were more righteous than others, or because you were
more wicked than others. He had pleased the Lord to make
you His people. And the children, not being yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but
according to His grace. Not of him that willeth, not
of him that runneth, but it is God that showeth mercy. It pleased
God. And then here is the channel,
here is the fountain of God's grace toward men. In verse 27,
all things are delivered unto me and my Father. Oh my, where
did God put all of His graces? Where did God put all of His
eggs? He put it in one basket. In the Lord Jesus Christ. All
things are delivered unto me. Everything that God has, everything
that God purposes is in the hands of our gracious Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything, you see, we can't come to God on our own. And even
right now, right now, in ourselves, we can't approach God. God cannot
receive us. We've got to have a mediator. We've got to have
somebody that can approach God for us. God has always had a
priest. Men couldn't just walk up and start talking to God.
It couldn't be like my daddy said. God got it all worked out. Me and Jesus got it all worked
out. Me and God got our own thing
going. It's not that way. Everything that pertains to God
towards men comes through Christ. And if you and I speak to God,
we've got to go through Christ. If you and I want something from God, we've
got to go through Christ our High Priest. And if God's going
to send anything to us, God's going to give anything to us,
guess where He's going to give it to us at? He's going to give
it to us through His Son. You see, Christ is made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, Sanctification and redemption. God gave us all
that we're at in His blessed Son. Wisdom. How are we going
to know God? How are we going to understand
the Scripture? Christ. He made the wisdom of God. That's
how God can be just and justify a sinner like us. And righteousness. You've got to have a righteousness
just as good as God's. Where are you going to get that
at? God's got to give it to you. What's the basis of Him giving
it to you? The Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification, you've got to
be holy. Let me tell you something about sanctification. I don't
mean to take too long. But there's no such thing, and
I know Chris will agree with this, there's no such thing as
progressive sanctification. You get better as you go along
as a believer. You're not getting more holy,
you're not getting better, you're not getting more sanctified,
not becoming less of a sinner. In fact, I'd say that most of
you, Feel more of your sin now than you did when you first believed.
Feel more of your weakness and inability than when you first
believed. And holiness is a state of being, either you are or you
ain't. Now, would God be more holy when it says, sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts? Can God be more holy than He
is? That means just set Him apart
in your heart. That's what sanctification means. It means to be set apart.
And God set us apart by His gospel, set us apart by His grace, set
us apart by His truth, set us apart by the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God regards us as holy. Right now, this moment in time,
the moment you believe, you are sanctified and justified and
as saved as you will ever be. And right now, in the very sight
of God Almighty, we are without fault, without blemish. We are
perfect as far as God is concerned, as righteous as God Himself in
the Lord Jesus Christ. It can't be any better. Now,
I want to be a better believer. I want to be stronger. I want
to have more faith. I want to manifest more grace.
I want to manifest more love. I want to be more patient. I
want to be forebearing. I want more understanding of
the Scriptures. I want all these things. But that ain't going
to make me any better. That ain't going to change my
state before God at all. It ain't going to change my standing
before God at all. If I memorize the whole Bible,
it ain't going to make me any more sanctified or more holy.
Holiness is a state of being. Either you are or you ain't.
And Christ is our sanctification. Not our works. Not our prayers. Not our dedication. Not our commitment.
Not our tears. Not our resolve. Not our self.
I'm going to change. I'm going to straighten up and
I'm going to start praying more. I'm going to start reading more.
I'm going to be more faithful to the church. And all that and
saying, that's going to make me a better Christian. That's
going to make me more sanctified. Ain't nothing going to make you
more sanctified than being in Christ. And if you're in Christ, you're
going to love the Gospel. You're going to attend the Gospel.
You're going to be dedicated and committed to Him. That's
just all there is to it. Here's the last thing. Here we
have a gracious and full invitation to everyone, everyone who would
desire the grace of God. Look what he says in verse 28. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father, our Savior said in verse 27. No man knows the
Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son. And if you ever see Him, the Son will have to
reveal Him to you. Since you can't know God, and you can't
see God, you can't understand God, and everything's in my hands,
he says, therefore, come unto me. Come unto me. He didn't say, come to the church.
He said, come unto me. He didn't say, come to the doctrine of
grace. Come unto Me. Come unto Me. You don't know
God? You don't want the judgment? Come unto Me. Come unto Me. All
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Oh, my. laboring under that old
self-righteous yoke, laboring under false concepts, laboring
under sin, laboring under false doctrine, laboring to be accepted
of God, and you get so heavy laden. He says, You come to Me,
and I'm going to give you rest from that load. There's two rests
here, the one He gives you and the one you find. Then He says
this, Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me. Boy, you can't have a better
object in life than this, than to learn of Him, than to learn
of me. And He says this, for I am meek
and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest. See, when you come,
I'll give you rest. And then as you learn of me,
you're going to find rest. You're going to find rest. Oh,
it says here, he who knows the Father's purpose to save and
elect people says, come unto me. He who has all power, all
in authority to save whom he will, to whom has everything
in his hands, he says, Come. That's who says, Come. I can
say, Come, go meet anything. But if Christ says, Come, I'll
come. And he who died, He who died
with our sins upon himself. He who died under the justice
of God. He who died under the wrath of
God. He who rose again for our justification. He who now is
seated at God's right hand with all majesty, power and authority.
He said, come to me. Come to me. Take my yoke. Take it. And learn of me. And he says,
my yoke is easy. My yoke is easy. Religion's yoke's
not easy. Sin's yoke's not easy. You know,
self-yoke's not easy. Christ says my yoke is easy.
And he says this, my burden is light. It's light. Religion makes your burden heavy. It makes your burden heavy. It
never gives any peace to your conscience. It never gives any
peace to your mind. That's a heavy burden to bear.
But oh, when you come to Christ, He gives you that rest. And then
you should learn a hymn. And you're yoked up with Him. My soul, the rest that you find. You find rest in your mind. You're not trying to figure it
out anymore. You find rest in your conscience. The sacrifice
has satisfied God, so it satisfies your conscience. You've found
a way to approach God through the Lord Jesus. You've got a
righteousness that you don't have to work out yourself. You've
got a faith that you don't have to keep up by yourself. And you've
got a salvation that there's no danger if you lose it. That's
pretty light burden, isn't it?