Grace is a charming sound, harmonious
to the ear and with the eyes. The Apostle Paul wrote to the
Ephesians saying, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. The English word grace, which
Paul describes here, is translated from the Greek word charis, which
literally means a gift or an unmerited favor. So in essence,
Paul says that salvation is an unmerited favor or gift, which
is applied through the means of a present or a gift, which
is faith. For indeed, he says that faith
is the gift of God. It is certainly not in any wise
the work of man, so that a man cannot make any boast in having
received it, but must give all glory to God, the giver of every
perfect gift. According to the natural reasoning
of men, they are convinced that they have within themselves the
power or ability to either choose the way of God or to reject it.
Yet the Scripture is quite plain that such is not the case. In
his letter to the Romans, Paul refers to Psalm 14 and Isaiah
59, writing, As it is written, there is none righteous, no,
not one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. Man in his natural state
will not choose the way of God, nor will he seek after him. Men
are born sinners and will pursue the wages of unrighteousness
unless they are stopped on this pathway of destruction and given
eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of God. There is no
greater illustration of this than the experience of the Apostle
Paul as he rode his horse down the road to Damascus, intent
on wreaking havoc upon those who were the followers of Christ.
Paul was a very zealous and morally upright man who was steeped in
the religion of his fathers, and yet, according to his own
testimony, was even so the chief of sinners. It is often true
that men mistake religious zeal and moral integrity for true
godliness, even as they suppose that they have the ability to
choose Christ by an act of what they would call their free will.
Yet, as we have seen in the testimony of the Scripture, there is none
that seeketh after God. Paul's experience manifests the
fact that though men will not seek God, yet God is pleased
to seek and to save those that are His. The only difference
between the man who perishes in his sin and the man who believes
the gospel is the free gift of salvation which is bestowed by
the sovereign grace of God. Even as Paul reminded the Corinthians,
For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou
that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? There
is no place for the redeemed of the Lord to boast of glory
except in the work of the one who has purchased their eternal
redemption by the shedding of his own precious blood as a sin
offering in their behalf. But God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at forthepoor at windstream.net. That's 4the4 at W-I-N-D-S-T-R-E-A-N
dot net. the topmost stone, and well deserves
the praise.