Good morning. I'm thankful to
be here again. I'd like to have another word
of prayer before we begin. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we
have already had a wonderful morning, time together. Thank
You, Lord, for the song we just heard and the Scripture we just
heard. And Lord, we pray that You might
come into this little building this morning and meet with us. We desire Your presence. We pray
that we might not just have a doctrinally correct message. We pray that
we might truly meet with You, meet around You, meet with You,
and that You might desire to meet with us. And Lord, I pray
for my brother Paul as he stands up in a moment. Bless him. Bless
the message to our hearts, Lord. Receive all honor and glory to
Yourself. and forgive us for Christ's sake.
Amen. Turn with me, if you would, to
the book of James chapter 1. James chapter 1. Our message is going to come
from one verse. Just one verse. And this verse
is so easy to understand. I love verses like this. Because I'm simple. And this
verse is just wonderful. This is wonderful. This perfectly
lays out the Gospel of our salvation. It's verse 18. James 1, verse
18. It says, Of His own will begat He us with
the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of
His creatures. Now don't you love how clear
the Word of God is? Isn't that so clear? Of His own
will begat He us with the word of truth that we should be a
kind of firstfruits of His creatures. He's given us a who, what, how
and why. That's what He's given us. Of
His own will begat He us with the word of truth that we should
be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. That's wonderful,
isn't it? That's wonderful. Now, the reason
that people go to church is to find out something about salvation. That's the whole reason we're
here. Sadly, I believe some people have gotten past that and it's
a social experience for a lot of people. That's all it is.
But really and truly, the deep motivation in a person to go
hear someone open the Bible and preach from it is Men and women
know they're sinners. They do. And saying that, I also
acknowledge men and women have no idea to what degree. But we
all know we're sinners. I mean, people know. They know. They try to sweep
it under the rug, but they know. We all know. Every single one
of us know that. But the problem for men and women
is they go to hear God's Word. But most preachers don't preach
from God's Word. And that's a problem. Isn't that
right? That's a problem. Instead of
declaring the good news. We're all here to hear good news. And instead of declaring the
good news of an absolutely finished salvation in the blood of Jesus
Christ, false prophets try to get people to do something. They
try to get people to do something. It doesn't work to go to a house
of religion which is a good business. They're making good money. And
you're trying to get job security nailed down. It's not good for
business to say, just rest. Don't do anything. And so they motivate people to
do things. And it works. They're good at
what they do. They're very good at what they
do. And their lies fool poor souls. And those poor souls leave
that place saying things like this, I got saved. Or they say, I made my decision. Everybody loves that. You know
that little boy who's in nothing but trouble, they're so happy
when he got saved last Sunday night. Is that what the declared truth
of God's Word will cause a sinner to say? Is that what God's actual
Word will produce in a sinner? I made my decision to get saved. Is that what God reveals to the
heart of a sinner? I want to ask myself and everybody
in here a question. And let's answer this in our
hearts, okay? Every single one of us. Who decided to save us? Who decided to save us? Did we decide or did God decide? Well, what does the text say?
Verse 18, it says, "...of His own will." Well, now I think we ought to
take the next 10 or 15 minutes and let's at least make an argument
for man's free will. How about let's not? Let's just
not. I don't know why this flesh tries
to convince itself that it has free will. I don't know why.
I do not know why. It has a final say in whether
or not it's going to be saved. You know, a person lost at sea,
goes overboard, ship leaves, there that person is, treading
water in the middle of the ocean, and he's just going to make his
decision on whether or not he's going to be saved. It just doesn't
work that way. John 6, our Lord said, you cannot
come to Me. In John 5, our Lord said, you
will not come to Me. If you wanted to, you can't. And if you could, you don't want
to. If it was left up to our will,
none of us would be saved. None of us. If salvation was
left up to our decision and our will, there's not a soul in this
room that would be saved. And the reason is because verse
13, right here in James 1, verse 13 says, Let no man say when
he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted
with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted
when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And that's
all a sinner possesses is his own lust. Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death." Spiritual death and eventually physical death.
People can't understand spiritual death because they have a physical
life that God has given. They get up and they put their
clothes on, they get in their car and they drive around and they
say, what do you mean I'm dead? I'm not dead. Well, God has given
them three score and ten of physical life, but they're spiritually
dead. And that spiritual death eventually
leads to physical death. Ephesians 2 says, every man and
woman that's born into this world is born dead in trespasses and
sin. Dead. A dead man can't come. And a dead man won't come. He just won't. And here's the
thing about it. God could have left us there. We're of no value in and of ourselves
to Him. We've done nothing good in His
eyes. How easy would it have been for
Him to just leave us there? He could have just been rid of
us. He could have just left us dead in trespasses and sins.
You see something dead on the side of the road. What are you
going to do? Just walk on by? He could have
just left us for dead. But do you know what the glorious
news of this Word is? Do you know why we love opening
this Word? It's because of His own will,
He didn't leave us. He begat us. Because He wanted
to. You know, there's two ways of
looking at it of His own will. Sovereign, right? Powerful. Absolute control. And then there's
a tender compassion involved too. Because He wanted to. Because of a compassion that
originated in Him. Not because of any work on the
dead man's part. Not at all. Look over at Romans
9 with me. Romans 9 verse 15 says, For he
saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. That's amazing. You know how
amazing mercy is? It's of God that showeth mercy.
What that means is He did it. That's what it means. He is the
one who did it. But the most amazing thing about
salvation to me is He wanted to. That's the most amazing part. I clearly see how able He is
to do it. The amazing part is He wanted
to. He wanted to. of His own will
begat He us." What does that mean? What does begat mean? According to the dictionary,
it means to bring forth, to give birth to, to generate. That's what it means, to generate.
Turn with me, if you would, to John chapter 1. John 1, verse 3 says, All things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. Jesus Christ made everything. If it exists, Jesus Christ made
it. Man makes things out of things
that were already here. Everything that is, Jesus Christ
made it. He generated everything. Everything. Jesus Christ is the
one who formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the
breath of life into his nostrils. Jesus Christ is the one who has
given life and birth to every man and woman on this earth.
Every time a child is born, Jesus Christ did that. But here's the thing about it.
When man sinned against God, man died. He died. Because of sin. The Apostle Paul
said he called this body a body of death, didn't he? Because
of sin. And it does not matter how much
religion a man has. It just does not matter. There are men and women who are
so much better than me. They are so much more religious
than me. And I would love to be more like
them. I really would. I wish I was
more faithful. I wish I was more everything
that God commands us to be. But it does not matter how much
religion a man has. It does not matter. It doesn't
matter how good a man is, how morally good A man or a woman
is. It does not matter how much a
man tries to obey what God has written in this Word. When it
comes to the issue of eternal salvation, a man or a woman only
has one hope. One hope. That's it. When it comes to eternal life,
eternal life, a man or a woman, has one hope. And our Lord told
a man named Nicodemus what it is. Turn with me over to John
chapter 3. John chapter 3 verse 1. There
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He was a preacher. He was a religious
man. He was a good man. A respected
man. Verse 2 says, the same came to
Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou
art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles
that thou doest except God be with him. He knew that Jesus
Christ was of God. He acknowledged him to be so.
Jesus Christ is of God. Our Lord told him though, and
he's telling us the same thing, that doesn't make a man saved.
That's not what makes a man saved. None of that stuff matters when
it comes to the eternal issue of life. Verse 3, Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, except a man be generated again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
He can't. God generated every man and woman
on this earth. But because of sin, we lost it.
We lost it. We lost life. We lost spiritual
life. And if God leaves us alone, that's
where we're going to remain for all eternity. That's where we'll
remain. The only hope that any of us
have is if God will, of His own will, of His own free will. There's one man who has a free
will. We preach free will, don't we?
But only one man has it. And that's the only hope that
any sinner has, is if God will of His own will come to us and
re-generate us. Re-generate us. Now hold your
place and turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1. What an amazing verse this is.
1 Peter 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy
hath begotten us again. He begat us again. Isn't that
wonderful? Unto a lively hope, a living
hope, He put life in there. And He did it by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what it took. In order
to remove the sin. In order to remove death. When sin is present, all it can
produce is death. That's all that can be there
is death. And in order to remove that rotting decay of sin from
us, in order to pay off the debt with God that we incurred with
God, and in order to put a fresh, sweet, dew of youthful life back
in us, there was only one thing that could accomplish that. Of
His own will, begat He us with the Word of Truth." He did it
with the Word of Truth. Now, we're going to make a little
loop, okay? Bear with me here. We just saw a couple of Scriptures
and we're going to loop back through them real quick. Go with
me back to John 1. What is the Word of Truth? John 1 verse 1 says, In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse 14 says, And the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ is the Word of truth. He is the Word of truth. He said,
I am the way, I am the truth, And I am the life. And if you'll
go back to John 3 one more time, the Lord told Nicodemus very
plainly exactly what it took to save every soul that God of
His own will purposed to save. He told him in verse 14. He's
still talking to Nicodemus here. John 3 verse 14, He said, And
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. Back in Numbers 21, the children
of Israel, they were being bitten by these deadly snakes, these
poisonous snakes, and they were dying. And they came to Moses
for help. And that's what every man and
woman does by nature. They run to the law for help.
Isn't that right? And you know what Moses did?
He went to God and said, we need help. The law appoints sinners
to Christ. God told Moses, you tell the
people this is the only hope they have. There's one hope. This is it. He said, Moses, you
make a snake that looks exactly like the snake that is killing
everybody. I believe that snake, I believe
Moses found the most cunning craftsman in the land and he
said, you make it look exactly like that snake. And God told
Moses, you take that snake, and you put that snake on a pole,
and you lift it up, and you tell all the people, as soon as you're
bitten, you look to the snake, you look to exactly what is killing
the people. You look to what has been hung
on that pole and lift it up, and every soul who looks to that
snake We'll live. We'll live. Now, why did God
tell Moses to do that? He was to teach us this. Verse 14, As Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up in order to save a soul and regenerate a soul from the
sin that killed it. Christ had to be made the very
sin that killed me and killed you. Christ had to take that sin upon
Himself and He had to bring that sin to the top of a pole. He
lifted it up on a cross and He had to suffer the effect of that
sin in His own body. People, we get diseases because
of sin. And one that is very common is
cancer. And did you know that there are
surgeons who can take scalpels and cut it out? Do you know that? They can cut it out. There's
a remedy. But do you know that does not
do me a bit of good? unless that surgeon comes to
me and cuts my sin out. Isn't that right? There is a
remedy for cancer. But it does me no good if it
is not personally, effectually, particularly applied to me. The only way a cancer patient
can say, I'm in remission. is if he can say, that man, the
great physician came to me and he cut my cancer out. And when Christ took that sin
up on that pole, you know whose sin he took up on that pole?
Gabe Stoniker's. Gabe Stoniker hung on a pole. And when I look up to that pole,
I see Gabe Stoniker hanging on a pole. You know that? I see
Christ But I see the whole reason He's up there is because of me.
I'm hanging on. I died. I was crucified. You see, it's appointed unto
man once to die, not twice. And here's my good news. When
I look to the cross, I see me. That's where I died. Once. And that's it. It's over. It's
over. He was made to be the sin of
His people. He took the sin out of His people
and pressed it into Himself. All of that sorrow He felt, all
of that guilt He felt was Him being touched with the emotions
and feelings of every thought that's gone through my mind for
the last 40 years. Can you imagine how that grieved
Him? And if he did not take my sin
upon himself, God killed an innocent man. God's unjust. Christ took the sin of his people
to the top of a pole. And God judged him. God looked
on him and saw us. God is angry with the wicked,
us. And God saw Gabe Stoniker there,
and God killed Gabe Stoniker. And the moment he died, the moment
he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up
the ghost, we lived. And now when God looks at Gabe
Stoniker, he sees Jesus Christ, and he says, well done, my good
and faithful servant. Behold my servant. Of His own
will begat He us with the word of truth that we should be a
kind of firstfruits of His creatures. He arose that we might arise
with Him. He went down into the grave to
reach way down and get us and bring us out. And He brought faith to us and
He caused us to look to Him. And He did all that because He
loved us. Of His own will, He loved us. The Scripture says,
having loved His own, having loved His own, of His own will,
He gave His only begotten Son. And He loved Him to the end.
That's just amazing. That's amazing. There's an illustration, and I've told it a hundred times,
and I've heard it two hundred times, and I love it every time.
And I have to tell it because I can't imagine a verse of Scripture
that fits it more perfectly. But do you all know Brother Walter
Groover down in Mexico, missionary to Mexico? He told a story of
a little boy down there in Mexico who wanted a kite. And we, the four of us, had the
opportunity to go down there 10 years ago. And if my memory's
right, I believe Brother Cody said that the average man down
there earned $5 a day, something like that. Could you imagine
trying to feed children on $5 a day? I don't care what country
you live in. And clothe them? Poor, poor. But there was a little boy down
there, had seen a kite, and he wanted a kite, and he asked his
dad, would you please buy me a kite? And his father wanted
him to have a kite, but he didn't have any money. He didn't have
much money. So he said, I tell you what,
son, we'll make a kite. And his son got so excited. So
they got some small sticks, and they tied them together into
this A-frame. And they had a real lightweight
cloth, and he folded it over that frame, and he sewed it up. And they attached a big long
tail to the end of it, and they put a string on it, and he said,
all right, son, start running. And it flew. That little boy
was so excited. So he said, let the string out.
And the kite started going up, and there they are just looking
up at that kite. That's so exciting. And it went
higher and higher and higher until finally the string broke. And they watched that kite blow
over the tree line, way over the tree line. Oh, that little
boy was so heartbroken. So sad, lost their kite. I'm
so sorry, son. Well, the next day that little
boy went into the village. And he was walking down the main
street there and he looks over into a store and sitting on the
shelf, there's his kite. And he runs into that store and
he said, sir, that's my kite. And the store owner said, no
son, that's my kite. And he said, but sir, my father
and I made that kite. And he said, well son, I found
this kite stuck in the weeds and it's mine now. And if you
want it, it's going to cost you two pesos." So that little boy
ran home for the joy set before him. And he said, Dad, I found
our kite. It's in a store in the village
sitting on a shelf. It's down in bondage. And he
said, if I want the kite, it's going to cost two pesos. And
that father reached into his pocket, and he pulled out two
pesos, gave them to his son. And his son ran back into town,
ran back into the store, and he put his money down, and he
said, two pesos. And that store owner took the
kite and handed it to the little boy. And that little boy hugged
that kite. Oh, he hugged that kite. And
that store owner heard him say as he was walking out, he said,
you're mine. You're mine. He said, you're
twice mine. I made you and I bought you. And that's what Jesus Christ
did for us. And that's what James 1.18 is
telling us. Of His own will, He begat us
again. He made us. And then it cost
Him something. And He paid it. He did it with
the Word of Truth. And He did it that we might belong
to Him and live and move and have our being in Him. That we
might be a kind of firstfruits of His creature. Firstfruits
of His labor and firstfruits of His purchase. Isn't that wonderful?
That's wonderful. Thank God. Thank you, Brother
Walter.