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. Jesus Christ was criticized, ridiculed, and clashed with the Jews time after
time in his public earthly ministry. We find that in the 8th chapter
of John's Gospel, a particular section of text
I'll read this starting in the 8th chapter of John's Gospel,
verse 53 through 59. I'll just start here. I'll read
this text, make a couple of comments, and then we'll take and I'll
just share with you some thoughts on my mind about it. In the 53rd
verse of the 8th chapter of John's Gospel, Thou art greater than
our father Abraham, which is dead. The Jews are saying this
to Jesus. And the prophets that are dead? Who makest thou thyself? The
Jews, you see, after Jesus had talked about his deity, and about
him being from above, and whereas he says, you are from beneath,
but I am from above, whoa, they even said that for thou hast
a devil. And then they continued to question,
and he says, You mean to tell me that you're greater than our
father Abraham? See, that's the lineage where
they went back to, that we're from the seed of Abraham. We're
of the bloodline of Abraham. We are the true Israel. And you
say that you are greater than he? And listen to verse 54, Jesus
answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. Jesus never
did honor himself. Nowhere will you find where Jesus
honored himself as a mortal being manifested in the flesh. But
what he did honor was this. Listen. He says, My honor is
nothing. It is my Father that honoreth
me. And he says, Of whom ye say that
he is your God, ye say that my Father is your God? Yet ye have not known him, but
I know him. And if I should say I know him
not, I shall be a liar like unto you. But I know him, and keep
his saying. Abraham rejoices to see my day. You see what he said to the Jews?
Your father is Abraham. You're going back to a blood
lineage of a human bloodline of a man here in this mortal
realm, the father of Judaism in the natural aspect, and you're
looking to him as your father, but my father goes far beyond
that. My Father is way above that. My Father is that which is Almighty
God. He goes on to say this. He says, Your father Abraham
rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Abraham
saw by revelation. the day of Christ in a special
revelation that only God was able to reveal to him. And the
Bible goes on to say in verse 57, Then said the Jews unto him,
Thou art not yet fifty years old, and thou hast seen Abraham. You ain't even fifty! This one
man called Jesus and you say you've seen Abraham and he was
a thousand years before you. And listen, and Jesus said unto
them, barely, barely, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Then they took up stones to cast
at him. But Jesus hid himself and went
out of the temple going through the midst of them and so passed
by. They were so riled up and angry
at what he said about he was before Abraham that they were
wanting to stone him to death. and Jesus exited himself from
their presence. If I want to talk a minute or
so about the pre-existence of Jesus, may the Lord give me some
liberty to do so. Jesus Christ pre-existed before
Abraham. He said it right there. But let
me tell you something, Brother Michael, before Abraham was,
and even before Abraham Amen? Before the sun had an orbit
and the moon had its round, and the earth was founded upon its
foundation, Jesus was, because He always has been. Now you go
back to, look at the first chapter of Genesis with me. I'm going
to prove to you something here. I'm going to prove to you about
how Jesus was always pre-existent and one with the Father. The
Bible says in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, And God said, now God said, that's
the Father. God said, let us. Alright, now,
us. You've probably heard others
speak of this text, but I want to emphasize on it because it's
going to be the main foundation of the pre-existence of Christ
with the Father. This was before that these things
that God said were to be created were created. that all things
that were made, the Bible says in John's gospel and also I believe
Paul wrote in Colossians that everything that has ever been
made was made by him for without him there's nothing been made.
He created all things. Now right here, now this is in
Genesis chapter 1, the very first book of the Bible. It says, and
God said let us, us is plural. Plural means more than one. When
I say let us, that means somebody is accompanying me. He said let
us make man in our, our is plural, image after our likeness. And verse 27, so God created
him in his own image, and in the image of God created he him,
male and female created he them. After his likeness, their likeness
and their image. Jesus Christ had always existed. He pre-existed. He was one with
the Father. Yet, in those times prior to
the incarnation and the conception of the Virgin Mary and Him begotten
a body of flesh and blood to indwell and become the God-man
in the mortal flesh as we have seen in the record of the scriptures
and came and he grew in statue and in spirit and began to preach
the gospel of the everlasting kingdom as it was said, as Brother
Mike had mentioned, the angel said unto Joseph And it said
unto Mary, it says, for his name shall be called Jesus, for he
shall save his people from their sins. You notice that word shall? That's a direct affirmative.
That does not give any implication that he's going to try to do
anything. Because if Jesus merely could
try, that does not grant him the absoluteness of sovereignty. Because an absolute sovereign
ruler is one who rules in all things without any objections,
without anything to interfere with that, without anything to
to divert things from coming to pass as they are pleased for
it to happen. God had said that this one that
shall be born of the virgin Mary shall be called Jesus. He shall
save his people. from their sins. Even in the
book of Micah, you don't have to turn there, it's in the latter
part of the Old Testament era before Matthew, it says, listen
to this now, I'm talking about Christ's birthplace and his deity
and pre-existence. It says, but thou Bethlehem Ephratah, Though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me
that is to be the ruler in Israel, whom goings forth have been from
old from everlasting." I don't understand that. Jesus Christ has been from the
beginning and been from times of old and from everlasting. How old is God? He's from everlasting. When was the beginning of God?
How many times have you heard little children, 8, 10 years
old say, where did God come from? I don't know. God always has
been. God is eternal. He's the beginning and the end.
You say, well, what do you mean he's the beginning? If he's the
beginning, when did that occur? I don't have a clue. I don't
have an idea about that. All I know is that he's been
from everlasting. From everlasting. Now, as far
as I know, you can't go back and find a place to start. The Bible says that I'm the Alpha
and Omega. I'm the beginning and the end
in Revelation 22 verse 13. I'm the first and the last. Jesus
Christ in His pre-existence is a marvelous thing because He
didn't just come in on the scene born of a babe in a manger wrapped
in swaddling clothes. He was the one that has accomplished
all things that the Father had desired to have created in times
past as the record is in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3 and so forth. All that has ever been made was
made by Him. In Colossians it says this in
verse, let's see here, verse 15 of chapter 1. I'm sure you've
heard this a number of times. I don't mean to be lengthy in
kind of drawing this to a conclusion about the pre-existence of Christ.
and Him as Creator of all things. Let me let the Word of God, as
I said, speak for itself, for if the Word of God cannot interpret
itself, we are in deep trouble. In the first chapter of Colossians,
Paul writes this, in verse 15, Who, Jesus, is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? For by Him
were all things created. Did you hear that? For by Him
were all things that you read about in the first chapter of
Genesis that were made, were made by Jesus Christ. And the
Bible says that The things that are in heaven,
that means everything that is in the heavenly realm above,
of all of the stars above, and all of the planets, and all of
the places of their orbits, and all have been made and created
by Jesus Christ. And the Bible says, and the Psalms,
I believe it is, that God has named the stars. You go out on
a dark night, especially out here in the country where there
ain't a lot of city lights glowing around, and you take a nice clear
night space unit, say a nice say about December when it's
cool and crisp out and go out and look up in the sky and see
those stars, just multitudes of them. And to think about that
the Almighty God of the Holy Scripture has named every one
of those that you see. Oh, but how about those ones
that you don't see? There are millions and millions
of them out there. We only look up and see them
at a designated time frame when the Earth is going around at
a certain position, but there are folks on the other side of
the Earth looking and seeing a multitude of stars as well. You can look in any direction
as the earth goes around this 24 hour rotation and you can
see stars everywhere. And God has named them. Can you
imagine that? And the Bible says that God has
made, that Jesus Christ has made everything that is in heaven
and that are in earth. visible and invisible. He's made
things that are visible and invisible. That means that the microbes
and the little microscopic things that creepeth around about that
only a microscope in a laboratory can even find, and the things
that are so refined and so small, God had even made them for a
divine purpose. You just take the human body
the anatomy of the human body and to begin to just really get
into dissecting how it works and functions and the chemistry
of it. It's unbelievable! And how can
it so easily get out of balance? Apart from the grace and love
and mercy of God. The Bible says that God has made
the things that are visible and invisible, whether they be thrones,
or dominions, or principalities, or powers. That means it's the
devil. The devil himself, Satan, who
had held from the presence of God in rebellion that God had
determined him as a principality to be that foe that he is, to
fulfill the works of God's sovereign free grace among the inhabitants
of the earth. The Bible goes on to say, it
says that He has created all things, dominions and principalities
and powers. There's not a power on earth
that God has not created through and by Christ Jesus. All things
were created by Him, and listen to this, for Him. As Brother Mike had preached
about, that salvation is the Lord's. Everything that's ever
been created is for Him. You have been created and caused
to come about, born of your mother's womb, by Him. whosoever is born
into this time world is done so by his determined sovereign
purpose even if it's to be a reprobate who shall never know of the love
and salvation of God and be cast into the devil's hell in time
to come. The Bible goes on to say that
he is before all things, listen, He is before all things. There was nothing when Christ
was there in the presence with the Father and made the things
that are made. There was nothing. And the Bible
says, and by Him all things consist. They consist. They maintain. They continue to be because He
has caused it to be. And I believe that He's bringing
upon this earth various effects that is shaking mankind. And the judgment of God is being
poured out upon this earth as we've seen tornadoes of great
magnitude. We have seen floods that have
never occurred before. And who has ever heard of a flood
in Vermont that surpasses anything in history before? Like we've
seen in the last week. Who has seen an earthquake that
would shake Washington, D.C. to the point to where the Washington
Monument's got cracks in it now and leaks, and they've had to
shut it down where people can't go up there. That ain't never
happened before, brother. The things are happening now
that ain't never happened. Because that's what it says,
and Paul said in the last days there's going to be perilous
times. There's going to be things happen that never happened before. And He that is the head of the
body, the church, Jesus is the head of the church. There's no
men that are head of the church. There is no pope in the scripture. You can't find it in there. There
is no body that runs the church besides the head, and that's
Jesus Christ. And if He don't run the church,
I don't want to be part of it. Because what I've been revealed
of the truth of the matter is that he's the head, and I'm underneath
the head, and I'm just a mere messenger boy of anything of
the head. And if I think myself more than
anything than that, I am totally disillusioned, and I am totally
deceived. For Jesus Christ is the head
of the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
and that in all things that he might have the what? Preeminence. That means that in all things
that he would have the highest, exalted, position that could
ever be held amongst human mortals here on earth in regarding the
church of Jesus Christ. He is the preeminent one. He's the one whom I've come here
this morning to tell you about and talk about. He's the one
that Brother Michael expressed about that has the one who alone
has salvation. He is the one alone that distributes
salvation to whom he will and for whom he pleases and when
he does. And when he does that, he causes
it to happen. God is the first cause. You've
heard that term possibly. Well, those folks over yonder
believe that God is the first cause. I believe God is the first
cause. How can anything come about unless
God calls it? Huh? Can a leaf fall from a tree
unless God be the cause of it? Shall it not land where it will
that God is not determined to be? You say, well, that's getting
to be an awful minute kind of an immaterial thing to
think about such as that. Well, how far down can you go
to where you say God no longer has control over anything? Listen,
let me tell you something. I believe that my God is in control
over all things that occur. And listen, If the prophets of
old, a thousand years, let's just take Isaiah, approximately
730 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ by the
Virgin Mary who took on a mortal body when he was prophesied by
Isaiah, 730 years, if anything, in that 730 year period could
circumvent and get in the midst of that happening, then God is
not absolutely sovereign and He's limited in His ability to
rule and to reign upon the inhabitants of the earth as well as those
in heaven. But I've got news for you. My
Bible tells me that God rules and reigns in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no man can say
unto Him, Why doest thou this? Who has a right to reply against
God? No man does. My God rules and
reigns. And here's the blessing of it
all, he causes the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. That means when it rains down
here on some of Brother Earl's crops here that he's worked hard
to plant and needs the rain for them to be nourished and to grow,
that down the road to Peace where some old Christ-rejecting guy
that you know most of your life has no time for the Lord or church
or anything else, he's going to get some rain too. But let
me tell you what, that little rain blessing, that God's mercy
upon him is a little temporal thing. But that rain that he's
brought upon yours is one that's going to provoke a blessing and
provoke you to worship the Lord God. That's what it's called
to people to do, to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that's
the difference between the rain upon the just and the unjust.
The just one is going to say, thank you Jesus, thank you my
God Almighty for providing what I've needed. Whereas the unjust
man says, oh well, it looks like Looks like Mother Nature has
been good to us again. Mother Nature. I'd like to know
who... You know, she's got a sister named Lady Luck. I'd like to
take both of them and just wring their necks. Because they're
giving man a mindset that is so ridiculous, it's unbelievable.
I hear people... I've said this over and over.
I've wrote about it. And I've preached about it. About
how I'd like to see a TV station Have a meteorologist stand up
there and say, now you see this front system coming down from
Canada? It's bringing cool air down here
by the sovereign operation of God's grace. It's coming down
and moving southward and it's going to move down towards Georgia
and Florida. bring us some cool relief and
praise God that it's time for a little relief, isn't it? We've
had 97 degree heat all summer long as God has brought our way.
But yeah, He's going to bring us some relief now. And oh, we
need some rain. And we've been praying for it.
And God, by His sovereign mercy, is going to bring some rain as
forecasted to come now. Oh no, don't get up there and
give Mother Nature the praise and glory for anything and everything
that happens on that weather map. Mother Nature. I just like
to say her. a figment of the imagination
of mine. Let me continue and conclude. Yes, it says that God forepleased
the Father that in Jesus Christ should all fulness dwell. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross by him to reconcile, all things unto himself. And by him I say whether they
be things in earth or things in heaven. And you that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now have he reconciled. and the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight. He's done that. You know why?
Brother Michael told you. Because salvation is glorious.
And he's given it to whomever he's so pleased to give it to.
And when he gives it to a person, They are helpless in doing anything
but come and are caused to believe. You say, yes, God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten son, but who should ever believe
it that him should not perish but have everlasting life? That's
a true thing. But here's the fact of the matter.
A man by nature cannot believe. He will not believe. He does
not have the faculty to believe. He does not want to believe.
He hates God and the things. He is anti-Christ by nature. But I'll tell you what, when
God by His Holy Spirit causes one of His elect children to
see his need, to see his depravity, to see himself as he really is
before the holiness of God. It causes him to be remorseful.
It causes him to repent. It causes him to have faith.
Faith is the fruit of the Spirit. You cannot have faith, you cannot
believe apart from the Spirit of God. So therefore, the first
cause of salvation is the Spirit of God. For salvation is of the
Lord. And when God causes it to come
about, You do believe you are a sinner. You do believe that
Christ is your only way of salvation. And you do repent of that sin. You do believe that Christ did
die for you. You are caused to endorse the
fact that His blood was shed on Calvary for you. And it is
a life-changing experience that causes one's heart and mind and
soul to want to worship that Lord God the rest of your entire
life in this mortal realm. Yes, the Bible says, yes it is
by Christ who has reconciled us through his body, through
the death on the cross. He's made us unblameable and
unreprovable in his sight. Let me tell you something, there
is no blame laid to me. And to you that are here this
morning that have this blessed hope in Jesus Christ and have
been caused to believe upon Him and His blood for the atonement
of your personal sin and a personal experience of yours, then you
are unblameable before God. He has removed your transgressions
as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered
again. That's a glorious thing. That's why we come together to
preach and to worship and to sing because He's worthy of our
praise and adoration, because He's removed our sin from us,
but never to be remembered. That means we're sinless before
our God. That means He's going to take
and cause us to be accepted among the beloved, and in time we're
going to be, as Brother Mike said, we're going to be likened
unto Him in that day, in that resurrection day when our mortality
shall take on immortality. And this corruption, this depraved
body and this flesh that we dwell in is going to be made incorruptible. And dearly beloved, we're going
to praise Him for every eternity, for He alone is worthy of our
praise and adoration. Yes, glory be to God in the highest
for Him, oh what is it that we might render unto Him for His
benefits? We can't render nothing to Him,
but we can do some things that we've been admonished and that
is to bring the sacrifice of praise before Him from our lips. That's to say, oh dear Jesus,
I love You and I worship You for You're so kind and great
salvation, so rich and so free for such a sinner such as me.
God bless you. Pray with me, would you? My Father and our God, in the
righteous and holy name of your darling Son, Jesus, Lord, I thank
you for this day that you've given us to come this way. I
thank you for the gospel, that good news message that is hope
and help for sinners. once we have come to experience
that blessed experience of forgiveness and of salvation. Lord, what
a wondrous experience it is to know that we are unblameable,
that we have had our sins removed from us, that Christ has redeemed
us from all of the curse of the law and the commandments. Christ
has removed our sin, transgressions, and all of our failures from
us. What a glorious work of grace that has Christ accomplished
on the cross of Calvary in our behalf. To Him be the glory and
praise and honor. O God, accept our worship and
our praise this day as our humble prayer. Bless us, Lord, as we
continue and as we close with a song of praise. May it magnify
Thy holy name and be with us as we continue, Lord, into fellowship
time and as we dine together. Lord, bless all that might be
said and done for the glory and honor and praise of Thy name.
For Jesus' sake, amen.