Greetings, friends, and welcome
to another broadcast of the Old School Primitive Baptist with
Elder Don Martin Sr. Stay tuned for another gospel
message of God's free and sovereign grace. I want to invite you to
the Book of Acts this morning. If you've got a Bible and want
to follow me, I invite you to do so. But if not, I want to take a
look at a couple of scriptures in the Book of Acts. I had wrote,
I write what's called the Gospel Herald, which is a periodical
that I put on the internet as God gives me an inclination to
do and inspires me on a subject. This past week I was impressed
upon this particular verse I'm going to share with you. I had
wrote an article about it and sent it out and a number of people
responded about They were blessed with the contents of it and how
it ought to bless God's people because it's the Word of God
and it's the truth as we know it. I'm going to read to you
from the 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, verse 48. Now let me set the premise of
this context. Okay, Paul was preaching around
and about and he was in Antioch and the Jews of course were condemning
him for what he was preaching but nevertheless on the Sabbath
day he would go and he would preach in the Jewish synagogues
where they would give him an opportunity to speak and he preached
Christ. Well, at this particular occasion
in the 13th chapter, he was preaching, and it says in verse 48, and
when the Gentiles heard this, the gospel, when the Gentiles,
which are non-Jewish, non-Jews, non-Israelites, when the Gentiles
heard this good news message, that God now has opened the door for every one of every kindred,
tongue, and nation is now made available the salvation of God,
and it's not just to the Jews only, as the Jews were chosen
of God in times past, but now In this New Covenant, New Testament
revelation of Jesus Christ coming to seek and to save sinners,
the gospel is that God has come to seek and save those of whom
He has given Christ before the foundation of the world now to
be manifested in these last times and last days. And this was the
Acts of the Apostles. That's why it's called the Book
of Acts. It is the Acts. It is the performance
of the apostles and disciples when they were revealed the truth
that now Jesus Christ has come to seek and save sinners and
not only those who are believing Jews, but those outside of Judaism. Gentiles as well. And it says
that when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. And the Bible says, and glorified
the word of the Lord. And listen to this. And as many as
were ordained to eternal life believed. Now I want to repeat
that and I want to emphasize that. And as many as were ordained
to life believed. That word ordained means just
what it says. It means that it has been appointed,
it has been designated, it has been determined of God that there
will be those that have been ordained to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And those who have not been ordained
to believe will not believe, and neither shall they ever be
able to believe. Just as the Bible says, Jesus
said, for there are goats and sheep. The sheep are of God's
heritage, of whom Christ is the good shepherd of. Goats have
always been goats, and they always will be goats. But God's sheep
have always been as sheep always have been. Even when they lived
in sin, as I did and you did in times past, as an unbeliever,
you were still a sheep that didn't know it. You were living the
life of a goat that in God's determined purpose, He was going
to call you in time and manifest the fact that you've now become
a sheep. Ordained! You have been ordained. God has consecrated his elect
people from every tongue, kindred, and nation on earth and who he
has chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world, it says
in Ephesians chapter 1. to be His church, His bride,
His beloved, heirs of grace, the children of God. And the
Bible says, And when these Gentiles heard the gospel, they were glad,
and they glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were
ordained to eternal life believed. What did they believe? They believed
what Paul preached. They believed that when he preached
that Jesus Christ had come to seek and save sinners. They believed
that Jesus Christ had went to the cross of Calvary voluntarily. He gave himself up to be crucified
upon that cross, to pay the price ultimately for sin's degradation,
and to pay the price ultimately for all the transgressions of
God's elect people. that have been ordained down
from the very beginning of time. And the Bible says, and as many
as were ordained are eternal, I believe. Now let me share with
you another scripture that authenticates what we're talking about. Let
me see if I can put my finger on it here. In the 16th chapter of Acts,
we go on three chapters further, and we find this lady named Lydia. You've heard of Lydia. Lydia
was a woman in the Bible, in the book of Acts. It was a seller
of purple. She sold fabric. She sold cloth. And the seller of purple, purple
was a very special rural commodity. They made robes out of it. of
royalty clothing and different stuff and so therefore the Bible
goes on to say and a certain woman named Lydia a seller of
purple of the city of Thyatira which worshiped God heard us. Now this is talking about Paul
and Silas going over into the European area of Macedonia And
there, on the Sabbath, we went out into the city by Riverside,
where prayer was wont to be made, and we sat there and we spake
to the women, which had resorted thither, it says. In other words,
the women which had came to take a rest time, or take their abode
there for a short time. And so here's Paul and Silas
over there, and there was this certain woman. Now, in the book
of Acts, we find that there's a number of occasions where there's
references to certain people. Now, in Luke's gospel, Luke was
one who in particular would ascribe in regarding a certain individual
as being certain. Now, when I say that a certain
man came to my house, that is designating a particular person,
a certain person. One designated that was not just
a stranger or someone unbeknown, but somebody that had a certain
significance in the realm of God's divine purpose. Now we
find here that a certain woman, named Lydia, a seller of purple,
from Thyatira, the worship god, heard us. Paul said, she came
and she heard us. She heard us praying and she
heard us preaching. And the Bible says, listen now,
whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things
which were spoken of Paul. Now, when I read to you early
from the 13th chapter, where it says, as many as were ordained
to life believed, Lydia, was one of those examples as being
ordained to believe. Because the Bible says, for the
Lord, now listen, the Lord opened her heart that she attended to
the things which were spoken of Paul. Unless an individual's
heart be opened by God Almighty and His Holy Spirit, to receive
the things of gospel truth, no man, woman, nor child shall perceive
them, and can receive them as truth into their heart, mind,
and soul. God Almighty has to open the
heart For the Bible says that man by nature is hard and deceitful
and desperately wicked above all things. That man by nature,
according to the third chapter of Romans, says that all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. For all have gone
astray. For there is none righteous,
no, not one. For there is none that doeth
good. But when God in his sovereign timing comes upon one of his
elect children that have been ordained to believe the gospel
of Christ and opens their heart to the truth of the matter, whoa,
what a rejoicing time and what peace and what happiness comes
over the mind and the heart and soul of an individual. For it
says that this one Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened, that she
attended to the things which were spoken of Paul. And when
she was baptized, you notice what happened right after God
opened her heart to believe the gospel, what happened to her?
They baptized her. They got her in the water. They
got her in the water because she wanted to be identified with
Christ's death, burial, and resurrection in that water. That's what baptism
is all about. People make such a big deal about
baptism. Baptism is just merely a symbol of what Christ has already
accomplished. And we, in obedience to Him,
follow Him in that symbolic ritual of baptism. We go down into those
immersion waters. That's why baptism is not by
sprinkling, it's done by immersion in water. That where the body
of a human being is laid down in that water and totally encompassed
with water as being buried in the earth and covered with dirt
as dead. When you go down into that water
and are covered with that water it is like as if you have died. But when that creature man brings
you up out of that water, and that water falls from your face
and your body, you have been given symbolically a sign to
those who are witnesses to that. You have now been raised in the
newness of life. That you've been raised as Christ
was raised. And you're identifying with Christ
and His power as being a new creature in Christ Jesus. And
so that's what baptism is all about. It's identifying with
Christ's death and burial and resurrection. And you're following
Him because you've experienced that same thing. You've died
to sin and been raised in the newness of life in Christ Jesus. The Bible says that she was baptized
in her household. In other words, there were others
there that were of her household. No doubt she had a husband. Maybe
she had some older children. But it says that she was baptized
in her household. She besought us, saying, If ye
have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house
and abide there. And she constrained us. She said,
oh brother, if the Lord be leading you, come to my home. Come into
the fellowship of my home and abide there with us. And teach
us, tell us more about this wonderful good news that you have proclaimed
here and preached. And the Bible goes on to say,
and it came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel. Listen to this now. Here's that
word certain again. It didn't say just some woman
coming in or by. It said a certain damsel. A damsel is a young lady. A certain young lady, it says,
possessed with a spirit of divination. In other words, she had an evil
spirit. met us, which brought her masters
with much gain by their soothsaying." In other words, they were false
prophets. They were wicked guys. They were soothsayers. And the saying followed Paul,
crying to us, saying, These men are the servants of the Most
High God. They had it right. They had it
right. They knew who they were. You
know, the devil and his demons, they know who Jesus is. And they
know who those that believe in Christ are. And that's why they
have no claim on us. That's why we ain't got no fear
of the devil, but he's gonna be hiding around every little
nick and cranny, waiting to try to destroy us and tear us apart,
because the devil has no claim to us. The devil has no rights
upon us other than what God shall allow to occur in order to continue
to conform us to the image of Christ. You say, does that happen? What happened to Job? Job was
a righteous man, the Bible said, which is sheweth evil. It means
he hated evil. And Job was a man chosen of God. And yet Satan goes before. If
you recall in the book of Job, you need to read it if you're
not familiar with it. It's a beautiful, perfect analogy
of a man that God had blessed with grace to endure much suffering,
travail, sadness, sorrow, and grief. I say that because Job
was a man that had ten children. He had a wife. He had much livestock
and cattle. She-asses and camels. He was
probably one of the wealthiest men of his day in that era. And the Bible says that Satan
went before God Almighty and says, you know, you take away
his material things, he'll curse your name. And you know what
God said to Satan? He says, you go down there, you
do what you need to do, but don't you touch his soul. But you go
down and do what you think you need to do and we'll see. The Bible says Satan left the
presence of God Almighty and he went down there and he caused
the enemies of that region to come in and steal his livestock
and they burned his field of crops down and a whirlwind went
into the house where his children were gathered having a festivity
and killed every one of them. He was stripped of everything
that he ever had. All of his possessions of livestock,
all of his possessions of crops and his children. And he had
none left but his wife. And you know what she says to
him? She says, God has brought this upon you. Why don't you
curse his name and be dead? And you know what he said? Though the Lord slay me, yet
will I trust him. Now, brothers and sisters, that
is grace. That is unmerited favor of God
in this perfect display right there. He did not recant, he did not
disbelieve, but he trusted in the Almighty God of Heaven. And
the Bible says that Satan went back before God and he says,
alright. He says, I'll tell you what. He says, you take and afflict
his body. and have his body to where it
is afflicted and in pain and suffering, and I'll tell you,
he'll curse your name then. God says, you do what you must
do, but don't you touch his soul. You can't touch his soul. God
Almighty had to authorize and give Satan the ability to go
down a second time and visit Job and he touched his body with
the wicked demonic curse of boils, listen, from his feet to his
head. His body was covered with boils
to where his skin oozed with pus. You read this scripture. Take
and read the book of Job sometimes. Sit down at your house and take
and dig and open the Old Testament and look at Job and just read
it. It's about 38 chapters if I recall and it is a beautiful
testimony of God Almighty and Him working through His instruments
of grace to prove His power, His authority and His Almighty
keeping power. Satan touched the body and cursed
him with those boils and he said at the gate where people walked
by and the Bible says they went by and they shook their heads
at Job, this righteous man of whom had all the integrity that
a guy could ask for prior to all this coming upon him. And
even the young children looked at him and they would just make
fun of him. And his wife said to him, let's curse God. and
die. And as I said earlier, he said,
though the Lord slay me, yet shall I trust him. Now brothers
and sisters, that's grace. That's the loving mercy and the
unmerited favor that God has on his people and for his people.
The Bible says that this particular situation here, this Susanne
demonic damsel and her followers that come with her, they cried
out and said, This man, Paul, he is a servant of the Most High
God, which showeth unto us the way of salvation. And this did
she many days, that Paul being grieved, turned and said to the
Spirit, and commanded Thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come
out of her. You see, what she was doing was
following behind Paul and Silas. And she was saying, this is the
guy that is of God the Most High preaching salvation, making fun
of it. And Paul said, I've had enough
of it. It says right there that Paul, being grieved, turned and
said to the Spirit that he commanded the Spirit in the name of Jesus
Christ, come out of her! And the Bible says that the Spirit
came out of her that same hour. And she was delivered from that
demonic spirit. And the Bible says, and when
her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, when
they saw, when those soothsayers And those evil, demonic-powered
individuals that were along with her saw that she no longer was
demon-possessed. The Bible says that those who
saw that the hope was gone of her gains in the wickedness that
she was performing, they caught Paul and Silas and drew them
into the marketplace. and to the rulers and brought
them into the magistrates saying these men being Jews do seemly
trouble our city and they tried to stir up trouble and the Bible
was on to say that Paul and Silas got put into jail
because they said they were preaching against Judaism. And in jail,
as you know, Paul and Silas, that didn't bother them. They
rejoiced in there. As a matter of fact, it was like
when Peter was put in jail early on, they started singing songs
of praise. And you know what? An angel of
God came down and broke the chains and unlocked the gate of the
cells and they got free. And here's a situation here where
it says that the keeper of the prison who was watching over
Paul and Silas in this particular case here as well, it says, and
they brought them out and said, sirs, after Paul cried with a
loud voice saying, do thyself no harm for we are all here. In other words, he told the jailer,
he says, don't go committing suicide or doing something crazy.
He says, we ain't left. We that are prisoners here, we're
all here. And then he called for a light
and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and
Silas and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to
be saved? In other words, what must I do
to be spared from this dilemma that I'm finding myself in? According
to my peers and the magistrates above me, they're going to take
and hang me. And they said, what must I do
to be saved? And they said this, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
And they spake unto him the word of the Lord and all that were
in his house. And it goes on to say this, and
he took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes. This was a jailer. He took Paul
and Silas home and washed off their wounds from the stripes
that they had received by being whipped. And it says, and was
baptized, he and all his. He was a believer. He went through
that situation where he had to be the jailer that was caught
in between a rock and a hard place and thought his life was
going to be terminated because when they found out that Paul
and Silas were freed from being in the bondage of this jail,
that he was in deep trouble. And he said, what must I do to
be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the Bible says that He did, and he was baptized as well. You see, this is more evidence,
as I began with that verse in chapter 13, as many as are ordained,
believed. As many as God has ordained,
believed. If you take, and I tell people,
they say, well you are an old school Baptist, I guess anybody
who knows anything about Baptist history say, well you probably
believe in predestination. I say, I absolutely do, because
the Bible teaches it. And I says, you know, anybody that
is a student of the Scriptures, if they will do this, They will
do this. They will take the words called,
chosen, appointed, ordained, elect, and predestinated and
take those six words and go into your Bible context and into your
concordance and look up those words and see if they are used.
You will come out being a predestinarian. Because for every one of God's
children, they have been ordained, appointed to salvation in time. They have been called by the
Spirit of God in time to believe on Jesus Christ. They were chosen
by God the Father that Christ would come and die in their room
instead on the cross of Calvary. and pay the price for all their
sin, past, present and future, and redeem them unto himself
by his precious blood and by his broken body. be such because God said that
they were before the foundation of the world. Let me read it
to you in Ephesians chapter 1. Listen to this scripture. I'll
read you two of them. Ephesians 1 verse 4. According as he, God
Almighty, hath chosen us, we that believe, in Him, Christ,
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before Him in love." Listen now, being predestinated. I ain't writing that word in
there. God wrote it in there by the
men of old as they were inspired by the Spirit of God to pen the
words in this written word that is forever settled in heaven.
It says, and having predestinated us, we that believe and have
been ordained, appointed, called, chosen, and left, having predestinated
us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, we've
been adopted, brother, into a family of God. Now let me ask you a
question here. You say you've had a newborn
baby, July 4th, come in your family. What did that baby have
to do with coming into this world as far as its own abilities? What did it do? It was a matter
of a union between his mama and his daddy, and a seed and an
egg coming together making a human being. And just as we have been
adopted into the family of God by the Spirit of God, called
to believe on Jesus Christ, we have done nothing to gain that. We have done nothing to earn
it. We've done no work to obtain it. But when you're adopted,
brother, It is that which the parent does without the consent
of the child and without any kind of involvement of the child
other than being the recipient of being in a family. Amen? You take a one year old child. They can't hardly say nothing
but no. A mama, a daddy, a woman, they
can say a few more words than that. But you take a six-month-old
child, they can't talk, they can't communicate, they can't
do nothing. They've got to have their diapers
changed, they've got to be fed, and their mama's caring continually. What does a six-month-old child
that was being adopted by a man and a woman who could not have
children by nature have to do with it other than being a recipient
of being taken in to this family? That's what we are. We have been
adopted into the family of God, not of any works that we have
done and any choice that we have made. People, you hear preachers
all day, oh, I listened to one on the radio coming down here
until I had to finally push it off. He was preaching on an AM
station coming out of Bushnell, Florida. He said, now friends,
God has got a hell that those who refuse to believe on Jesus
Christ is going to be cast into at that time. It is totally up
to you. Now let me tell you something.
The person that's adopted in the family of God, how can it
be totally up to the person who's being adopted? Tell me somebody,
how can it be up to the person being adopted for six months
old and can't communicate? They're being received in by
the parents. and chosen to be the child of
the parents and had nothing to do with it. So it is with God's
children. It ain't a decision. It ain't
a matter of us receiving Christ. It ain't a matter of us coming
up to an altar and making a decision. And even though I've seen them
tearfully come up and have a so-called repentant attitude towards that,
but then you look for them about two or three months later in
church and see where they're at. Next time you see them, they're
probably down at the 7-Eleven buying a 12-pack of Bud Light
or something. And they ain't got no time for
church. You see, if man is called on to make an emotional decision
for Christ, that's exactly what it's going to be. An emotional
decision for Christ. But here's the question. Has
Christ chosen them? Has Christ decided for them? If anybody ever confronts you
as being an old Baptist and says you believe in predestination,
all you've got to do is say, well what is it that man has
done to merit salvation? He's done nothing. He's undeserving
of it. It's all done of God Almighty
who calls His people and Himself. Now let me conclude on here.
Having predestined us into the adoption of children by Christ
to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, whose
will is involved in this adoption process? Christ's will! If Christ is not willing that
one come and believe upon Him, they're not coming! If, like
Lydia, if Christ don't open the heart of one to believe the gospel,
they can't believe it. And it's just like those who
Paul preached to, as many as were ordained to life believed.
If they weren't ordained to life, they're not going to believe.
And the Bible says that it is of
the good pleasure of the will of God. that they are predestinated
to be adopted into the family of God, to the praise and to
the glory of His grace. Listen, to the praise and to
the glory of His grace. Grace defined as unmerited favor. If a man or woman can make a
choice for Christ, they have something, therefore, that they
can merit in. What I'm saying is they have
done something to initiate salvation. Man don't initiate it, Christ
initiates it by His Spirit as He opened Lydia's heart and as
He has ordained those which believe to do so. They've got it all
twisted backwards. And what I'm telling you about
was never the truth of the gospel up until about 1900 when they
began to start preaching this invitation business. And it was
caused by mainly the revivalists of the northern part of the country
up in New York State and down through Virginia and migrated
over through Ohio of the Finneyite revivalists. He had what was
called a mourner's bench in some of his outdoor meetings. And
to those of you that want to make a decision for Christ, come
up to this mourner's bench and bow down and mourn and pray that
God might have mercy on you. God never said that in the Bible
to do any such thing. God never called us to call anybody
to a decision. You can't find it in here. But
what you can find is that those that have believed on Christ
were ordained to do so, and they will do so in time, and it's
a work of God's grace. Unmerited favor. It's the favor
of God upon His elect children, appointed heirs of grace. And
then the Bible goes on to say, "...in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace." Again, we have redemption through the blood
of Christ, the cause of grace, not of any works that we have
done, where it says, "...wherein He hath abounded toward us in
all wisdom and prudence." having made known unto us the mystery
of his will. The mystery of God's will is
now manifested in the New Testament gospel in Jesus Christ. God has
now chosen to save a people, and the preaching of the gospel
is going to be a blessing to those who God has quickened and
opened their hearts to believe it. And you know, there is a
gospel means influence that's going around amongst the old
baptists as well. This started in the mid-1900s,
1920s, 30s and 40s, that the gospel has to be preached in
order for someone to come and be saved. They got to hear it
with the hearing ear. Now let me tell you this, if
man by nature He's spiritually dead. He's spiritually dead. That's what the Bible says. We're
all dead in trespasses and sins. A dead person is deaf. A dead
person is blind. A dead person can't respond to
nothing. You can stick a pin in a dead
corpse in the nearest funeral home if you want to visit. You
can sleep with no dreams. You are unconscious. You are
a dead duck. Therefore, a dead person in sin,
spiritually, can't respond to the gospel. They don't have ears
to hear it. I can preach this gospel to a
multitude of people, but only those that have been given ears
to hear it can receive it and believe it. You see, that is
what the truth of the matter is. The gospel does not save
people. Here's what the Bible says Paul
said the gospel does. It brings life and immortality. In other words, an immortal everlasting
life. It brings the knowledge of life
and immortality to light. It brings it to our revelation
and understanding. The gospel brings life and immortality
to life. It doesn't save the soul. The
spirit can only quicken and make alive the dead alien sinner and
give them ears to hear the gospel. And when they are given open
ears to hear it, then and only then will the gospel be a sweet
sound unto their ears. And they rejoice in it and will
be glad in it as well. Now let me read to you the 11th
verse of the same chapter of Ephesians and I'll close. In
whom also we have obtained an inheritance. We have not only
been chosen in Christ to believe and ordained to do so before
the foundation of the world according as he has predestinated us to
the praise and glory of his grace and been adopted into his family
unbeknown to anything we can do or ever have done, but we
also have an inheritance being predestinated. I didn't write
that in there. There's that word. People say,
are you a predestinarian, hard-shelled Baptist? Let me tell you something.
They can call us what they want to, but I'm preaching to you
the truth of the matter. They take those words predestinated
and say, well, that's only regarding that God has predestinated some
to be saved and others are not, but that don't mean that all
things are predestinated. Well, let me tell you something.
When the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, when Isaiah prophesied
a thousand years before Christ came and said, for I am the Lord
thy God and I have declared the end from the beginning of all
things. even those things which have not yet come to pass." Now
I want you to tell me a person who is a refuter of predestination,
you explain to me how God Almighty has declared the end and the
beginning of all things, even those things which have not come
to pass yet, that He ain't an almighty absolute God of predestination. That's all the question I ask.
I've asked a number of preachers that are in the missionary movement.
that believe that they can get people to become Christians.
I ask them about these questions. They can't answer them. They
get frustrated. And then they end up, they don't
want to talk about it no more. You know why? Because they haven't
been given eyes to see the truth of the matter. The truth of the
matter is God is the author of salvation. Jesus is the author
and finisher of it. Faith is the gift of God. You
don't work up faith in some intuition of your own. We're a faithless
people unless God gives it to us by His gift. Faith is a fruit
of the Holy Spirit. That's what it says in Galatians.
Faith, joy, love, and all these things are a gift of God's Spirit
and fruit of the Spirit. Unless you have the Spirit, you
ain't got faith. And you don't get it by just
drumming it up inside you under the plea of some preacher. in whom we've also got an inheritance,
being predestinated according to whose purpose it him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will." Now that's enough right there
for me to put a period at, which has got one there, and say that's
enough for me. God Almighty works all things,
even the adoption of we into an inheritance which hath been
predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all
things according to the counsel of His own will. That's the end
of the story. We are here today, I hope, to
worship God in song and prayer and proclamation of what I feel
is my meager effort to try to set before you the word of truth.
That Jesus Christ come to seek and save sinners of whom God
has ordained to believe that glorious good news gospel. That
Jesus came. voluntarily give himself before
Pilate to be taken into the cruel and wicked hands of men, according
to the determinate counsel of God, to be put on a cross, to
have those spikes driven through his hands and through his feet,
and have his side then tore open with a sword, that his guts flow
out outward, and a crown of thorns upon his head, that blood streamed
down his face. in behalf of our transgressions.
Let me tell you folks, that is redemption at its best. That
is the best that God has and that's enough to save sinners
and redeem them from every sin you could ever commit in this
time realm. The Bible says in the 53rd chapter
of Isaiah, for he, he shall be the one to be taken and suffer
in our behalf for our transgressions and remove them from us as far
as the east is from the west. Now you folks here that live
down here in this rural area, it don't take a rocket scientist
to figure this out. How far is the east from the
west? How far is the east from the
west? It's kind of like a cat chasing its tail. You say, well, the West is that
way. Okay, you're right. How far is it from the East?
Well, the further West you go, the East remains to be that way,
don't it? It's perpetually never caught
up. Amen! Yeah! It's a line with no end
to it. God has removed our sins as far
as the east is from the west and removed them and cast them
behind Him never to be remembered again. That means that we stand
before God Almighty in that day when He calls His mortal frames
out of this world time life as we know it. And we're laid out
here until that resurrection call. We're going to stand before
God Almighty. redeemed by the blood of the
lamb in white robes as the saints of God called chosen, elect,
adopted by the grace of God Almighty. Now let me tell you something,
if that ain't worth praising God for, then we done come to
the wrong meeting house today. I'll tell you what, God needs
to be praised and glorified and worshipped by His people for
so great salvation, so rich and so free. That's what's wonderful
about it. It ain't of a worse that man's
come up with to get this favor of God. It is God's divine work
upon undeserving sinners that makes us want to praise His holy
name. Oh, I wish the house was full
today. I wish it was full of people. I'd love to be talking
to 500 people about how wonderful this salvation is and how that
we've been ordained and adopted. It had nothing to do with us.
It was all from God, according to His good pleasure and will.
Oh, that's a beautiful message! It ain't like you hear on TV
or on the radio! All you hear on TV today is,
well, God wants everybody to be prosperous and be happy. Oh,
if you're not happy, then it's your own fault. You just need
to be positive about everything, and God wants you to be happy. Well, let me tell you something.
You talk to a grieving widow and ask her how happy she is.
You talk to somebody who's going through a difficult illness of
cancer and ask her how happy they are. You ask somebody who's
being suffered I heard a comment here this past
week. I believe it was a song. It was
a bluegrass gospel song. And part of the lyrics went like
this. When you're on your knees you
can't stumble. When you're on your knees you
can't stumble. When you're sick and lowly in
a bed of affliction, that you can't trip or fall because you
are bound and laid low. And let me tell you something.
I believe that when we feel our best, folks, mentally, emotionally,
and physically, we're the furthest from God. It's true. Think about it. When you feel
your best, you have no pain and suffering, and everything's going
fine, and you're happy, and everything's going alright, God ain't in your
mind usually. But you let something come upon
you. You let that heart begin to pain
and you begin to sweat and you have a heart attack. Brother,
you let something come upon you to where you get dizzy and feel
like you're going to faint and you ain't got no control. Let
me tell you something, who do you call out for? Oh, God. God! 911, Heaven. I want Heaven's operator. I don't want no guard down here.
It's true. It's true. That's the way we're
made. God causes His people to go through
sorrow, grief and suffering to conform us to the image of His
Son Jesus and to make us more like Him. We have to know the
fellowship of His sufferings to really enjoy the blessings
of His grace and loving kindness. That's a true thing. That's taught
in the Bible. The fellowship of His sufferings.
May God bless you is my prayer. and my God. I pray that I've
been able to set something forth, Lord, that might be an encouragement
to your dear people. And Lord, this little flock here
that meets here, Lord, I just pray that, God, that I have not
come here in vain today, that I've come here to preach not
only, Lord, to a handful of folks here, but even to myself. I needed
this message. God, I needed to be reminded
that I was ordained to believe. I need to be reminded that I've
been adopted, oh God, by a Father who loved me. A Father who loved
me, and I was unworthy to ever be loved by anybody that only
a mother could love. Oh, what an unconditional love
a mother has for a child, and yet our Heavenly Father loves
us far exceedingly and abundantly more than that. How could that
be? It's a miracle of grace. And
so God, our Father, I pray that you, Lord, dismiss us with our
loving kindness. Dismiss us with the fellowship
one with another around the things of the spiritual realm. Be with
those who are missing from us, who are sick and afflicted and
traveling, O God, that you would guarantee them traveling mercies.
Help me, Lord, as I journey back to my little house, my little
abode, Lord, that I might return safely unto each one here. that they would also return to
their home safely. Bless our fellowship together
as we go and partake of some food, Lord, at this lunchtime
as our humble prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you all.