My message this morning actually
will be brought to you from the book of Jeremiah, but I wanted
to introduce it by way of Ecclesiastes. And while we're looking at that,
or you're looking for that, I'll give you a little background.
It was written by King Solomon. And King Solomon was a very distinguished
king among all the kings of Israel. It was said of him in 1 Kings
4 that he was wiser than all men. He was a very wise king.
In 1 Kings 10, we're told he exceeded all the kings of the
earth for riches as well as for wisdom. And then he also was
a very mighty king. He was a very wise king, very
rich king, and he was a very mighty king. He ruled over a
vast kingdom. He had a lot of influence. People
came from all over to seek his counsel. In 1 Kings 10, it said
all the earth sought to hear his wisdom. And so what we have
in Ecclesiastes is a sermon in print. If you read the whole
book, and it's not that long, you may want to do that later,
but it's a sermon in print by this very wise, this very mighty,
this very rich King Solomon. And his chief subject was the
true way of salvation. God's way of eternal life or
of eternal riches and blessedness contrasted with that which is
the way of natural religion, of what man deems to be the way
of acceptance before God, and the worldly riches associated
with that which we here on earth spend a great deal of our time,
obviously. And Solomon concluded that man's way to eternal life
was vanity, futility. If you look there in the very
first chapter of Ecclesiastes, he begins, the words of the preacher,
that's King Solomon, he said, Son of David King in Jerusalem.
Here's words vanity of vanities sayeth the preacher vanity of
vanities all is vanity. Now if we flip over to the last
book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12 we'll hear and see the same
thing in his concluding words beginning there in verse eight.
He writes vanity of vanities sayeth the preacher all is vanity. This very wise, this very rich,
this very mighty king, he concludes that all that he could bring
to bear, wisest of them all, the scripture says, all he could
bring to bear regarding the weightier issues of eternal life, of blessings
that last, was nothing but vanity, futility. In other words, and
you get the picture in Ecclesiastes that we're moving rapidly towards
eternity. to face God at his bar of justice,
and that is the case. And here, this very wise, very
rich, very mighty king, he says that man in his mightiest state
is altogether lacking vanity. But the scripture doesn't leave
us there. If you look in verse 9, it says, and moreover. That
is, better that you hear the conclusion of this whole matter.
And we continue, it says, because the preacher was wise, he still
taught the people knowledge. Yea, he gave good heed and sought
out and set in order many proverbs. Verse 10, the preacher sought
to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was
upright, even words of truth. If you reread verse 10 and you
take out the words in italics that the translators added. I
like the way it reads. It reads the preacher sought
to find out acceptable words and written upright words of
truth. This your Bible may be like mine
and if it is you'll see in the margin the Hebrew translation
for those two words acceptable words. It translates words of
delight. These are words the that convey
the truth about how God accepts the people, how acceptance with
God is found, that which God delights in. These words, see,
they convey a truth about God that is, he says, upright. That
means unmixed or unadulterated, see, with the vain imaginations
of men, that which seems right to us by nature. And so today's
message I've titled Words of Delight. And with that, turn
over a few books to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 9. And that'll
be my text for today, Jeremiah 9, verses 23 through 24. I've actually brought a message
on this many years ago, and this has always been a favorite passage
of mine for quite some time. And so I wanted to do that again
today. And as you look at verse, if
you would, before we read the whole text, just fast forward
over to the end of verse 24. Here God, speaking through the
prophet Jeremiah, we see these words, for in these things, the
things that we're going to look at here in just a moment, that
he's spoken of before, for in these things I delight, saith
the Lord. So it's like an open book quiz
here. We read in Ecclesiastes, King Solomon said he sought to
preach acceptable words. He wanted to proclaim that which
which revealed how sinners might be accepted before God. Words
of delight. And here we find out exactly
what it is that God delights in here in Jeremiah chapter 9.
And that's what we're going to be looking at this morning. So
let's begin in verse 23 where it says, Thus saith the Lord,
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. You'll notice that
word man is in italics. This is really gender neutral.
He's speaking of men and women. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not
the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory
in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the
Lord, which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in
the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. Well, if we're going to understand
this, we need to talk just a moment about this word glory. We see
it five times, or a derivative of it there, five times in these
two verses. The word glory there means to that which you assume
is a basis for boasting. It means to boast in, to rejoice
in. We could put these words there
in this context, place our hope in. What do you place your hope
upon? That's what you glory in. So
if we read it that way, it would read, Thus saith the Lord, let
not the wise man boast or rejoice or place his hope, see, in his
wisdom. Neither let the mighty man place
his hope in his might. Let not the rich man place his
hope in his riches, but let him that has a hope, that assumes
he knows a way of salvation, okay, if he has a hope, if he
has something to rejoice or boast in, let him boast in this. Let him rest right here. And
he goes on and he tells us what to base our hope upon. Now, the
next phrase that I where I stopped off there is a parenthetical
phrase of sorts. It says that he understandeth
and knoweth me. And the commentators I read on
this did a really good job of showing how this is. He's not telling he's not telling
them that you base your hope upon some understanding you get
or you base your hope upon your own knowledge. If you think about
it in the context, It's already that connotations already been
excluded because he already said let not the wise man boast in
his wisdom Okay, so we know that's not what he means what it's what
he's what it reads or should be in our everyday language today
denoting is this let him that Gloria glory in this having been
given an understanding and knowledge In other words, knowing and understanding.
It's not speaking of what he should glory in, but it's describing
the one who is to glory, who is to rejoice in what he's about
to say. And what is it there to glory
in? That I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment,
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight.
I believe what we have in verse 23 and verse 24 is the same dichotomy
we see throughout all of the scripture. You know, we have
the religion of man, verse 23, the natural religion, the religion
that that is described as the broad way that leads to destruction.
And in verse 24, we have God's way. That's where we find the
words of delight. You see, for they speak of that
which God delights in. So we have the religion of works,
that which proceeds from the man, from his wisdom from his
might from his from his riches in other words it's salvation
condition in some way to some degree on the center based on
that that proceeds from the center and in by contrast we have in
verse 24 that which was exercised in the earth by God alone with
no contribution whatsoever salvation condition on God that was made,
as we heard at 10 o'clock hour, manifest in the flesh, the God-man,
speaking of the very work of Christ here in the earth. And so we're going to look at
it this way this morning. I want us to look, first of all,
at God's way of salvation, salvation by grace, based solely upon that
which God did for man with no contribution whatsoever from
the sinner. And that's in verse 24. And then we'll go back and
we'll look at the descriptions of verse 23 where we see the
religion of works. And all religions, as varied
as they are and all the different doctrines that they purport and
promote, they all fall in one of those two. It's either conditioned
on Christ alone or it's conditioned on something else. And I believe
we see that in this passage. So let's look at that in verse
24. Gloria let him glory in this knowing and understanding glory
and knowing I am the Lord which exercise and he goes on and he
names that which he exercise. I love that word exercise. I
did a little word study on it and it starts from the base word
is like to make something to do something. And in this connotation
it means to execute something that is to accomplish it to finish
something. So this is speaking of that which
God executes, finishes, accomplishes, completes, see, in the earth.
And then he tells us what those things are. He says he exercised
a loving kindness. This speaks of God's everlasting
love, of his unconditional electing love and having chose a people. But you notice that this is a
loving kindness that's exercised in the earth. So therefore, we
may know God as a God of election. And yet we may not have been
given enough knowledge and an understanding that he speaks
of here that God finds where God finds acceptance are consistent
with that based on that which he delights in. He's talking
about a love that's exercised in the earth. You see, God did
choose the people and it was unconditional based upon nothing
good. He saw in the center because
the scripture tells us he's no respecter of persons. But God
chose the people. He chose them unto salvation
in His Son. God so loved the world, He gave
His only begotten Son. He gave Him to come here and
live and die as a substitute, a representative, a surety for
a people. There's where we see God's love
exercised in the earth. And He says He exercised judgment.
This judgment speaks of the pronouncement of a judicial sentence. And he did that in the earth.
Now, think of it. We know from the scripture that
Christ died. He, this man who was God, who
cannot die, he died. As we heard in the back, great
is the mystery of godliness. God manifests in the flesh. He sent his son into the world
to redeem them, made like unto man that he could redeem them.
made under the law to redeem them that are under the law.
So here we have God killing his son on the cross. Now, that was
exercising judgment in the earth. He killed Christ, and Christ,
in subordination to the Father's will, though co-equal with the
Father in all ways, very God of very God, In the covenant
of grace he agreed in his office as mediator and surety and representative
to come and in subordination to the father to do his will
in the earth because of the father's great love which he had for his
people. And he came and he took willingly
on those sins and he bore those on the cross. And yet the scripture
tells us that it was he who knew no sin. You see, he died for
sins he had absolutely no part in producing. We needed a perfect,
unblemished lamb, using the picture of the Old Testament, of that
sacrifice that was acceptable. You see, the scripture says he
offered himself without spot. So how could he die for sins
that he had no part in producing? Well, the Bible uses the term
imputation. It says God imputed them to his
son. He judicially charged the sins
of all the election of grace. He charged them to his son that
he could bear them on the tree, that he could pay the debt owed
to God's justice for them. Now, some writers of O.Y. Reid will talk about amputation
and they'll use language like this. They'll say, God acts as
if Christ had their sins or acts as if they're a sinner. No, it's
more than that. Though there was no infusion
of sin into Christ whatsoever. He was not contaminated. If he
was, our sacrifice would not have been a suitable one. Yet
he truly was made sin. He was legally constituted sin. Now that's a glorious truth that
imputation is so real. This judicial reckoning by God,
it's not some pretend like he was made sin. It's so real. He
shed blood. He died. Glad Kristin's not here. She
gets on to me when I get choked up. But listen, that's great
news because you see, that's how real the imputation of righteousness
is. Boy, that's good news. You see, I possess right now,
based on this judgment that was exercised in the earth, a righteousness
I had no part in producing, but it's just as real mine as my
sins were made to be Christ through imputation. Now that's a reality. It says he exercised righteousness
in the earth and that speaks of this just satisfaction that
Christ made in his life and death in his perfect obedience even
unto the death of the cross. That is in perfect satisfaction
to all that God required. He and you see we see in this
and there's an important conjunction here you notice he exercised
loving kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth. You
see, if your concept of God's love is that he so loved the
world, he sent Christ to, as an example, to do some things,
but righteousness wasn't established and judgment wasn't exercised
based on that, then it's telling. That should tell you, no, you
don't know the love of God that he's talking about here. Not
the love of God that's revealed to those to whom he gives an
understanding and a knowledge to. You need to go back and see
how you might be identifying with those in verse 23. No, he
talks about a righteousness here that shows how God can be a loving
Savior and still be a just judge. We know the prophet God through
the prophet Isaiah in chapter 45, he put it this way. Look
unto me, he said, all the ends of the earth and be saved. For
I'm God, he said, there's none like me. There's none beside
me, none like me anywhere. And in the next verse, he gives
us the distinction of himself. He says, a just God, and that
important conjunction again, and the Savior. God put it like
this to Moses when Moses went up on the mountain and he said,
show me your glory. He said, I'll have mercy upon
thousands, but by no means will I clear the guilty. You see,
here's where we behold the glory of God in that which the God
man exercise in the earth. Well, let's look back at verse
23 and contrast God's way of salvation with the way that we
all start out whenever we begin some serious journey down a religious
road. And that is the natural way of
fallen depraved man. And I don't want you to discount
this. I will tell you, admit shame shamefully. that I was
familiar with this passage many years before I heard really the
words of delight, the good news of how God saves sinners. But
I thought I knew how I was accepted before God. You see, I thought
I'd done my part and accepted him. I figured that must merit
something, obviously. And so when I would read these
words, I'd say, well, I don't. This is talking about wise men
like King Solomon, much wiser than me. I certainly wouldn't
glory in my wisdom. And this talks about mighty men.
I, I, I'm not a man of much influence and power. I certainly can't
be talking about me. And this is talking about rich
men. They're men far, far richer than I'll ever dream to be. So
this is talking about somebody else, but you see, that's not
the case. We all had best be able to identify
with verse 23. You see, because the Scripture
says, King Solomon himself said in Proverbs 16, 25, there's a
way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways
of death. Now what that tells us, the Scriptures tell us we
come to this world dead in trespasses and sin. We have no spiritual
senses. We're dead like a dead man. Dead
men can't see, they can't hear, they can't do anything. And spiritually,
that's what the Scripture says is true of every single one of
us. You see, we can't see spiritually the things of God are here. We
don't have hearts and minds to understand. Oh, we might have
some degree of intelligence. We may have a wisdom of the world,
but the Bible says He makes the simple and the weak strong. He
makes the foolish wise. You see, we're talking about
a wisdom that comes from God. So don't discount this. You see,
that on the surface you may be saying, well, I don't know anyone
who thinks that you get to heaven based on how smart you are. And
I don't either. Or how powerful or influential
you are. I dare say that if you polled
all the most influential, powerful men on this earth, there's very
few, at least who call themselves Christian, I'll put it that way,
who imagine that because they're powerful and influential that
that gains merits something for them of eternal value. Are those
who are rich, I don't know anyone who imagines they can buy their
way into heaven. Now, I know many who think that those temporal
blessings are indications that God has blessed them eternally.
There are very many who will assume, oh, God's blessed me
so much that I must be in His favor. And yet, the scripture
is so clear. He makes it to rain on the just
and the unjust. Our temporal circumstances are
no measure. We live in America. It's the envy of the world. Materially, we're the most blessed
people on earth. We have freedoms that are envy
of much of the world. And we call this a, quote, Christian
nation. And frankly, we are temporally
blessed in this era in which we live. But that's no indication
of any eternal blessing whatsoever. So how do we? You see, the Bible
says, except you repent, you shall perish. That means you're
walking down a road that you imagine to be right. And God
gives an understanding and knowledge. And guess what? Everything about
that road changes. It's diametrically opposed as
you turn another way. There was nothing good about
what you thought. And you marvel at your blindness. that you couldn't see things
that were there all the time. You see, you discover it is a
work of God. You see, so since the Bible says,
except you repent, you'll perish, you better be able to identify
how at some time you were glorying in your wisdom. Because chances
are, if you can't identify it, then there's no repentance. It's
yet to be revealed, and pray God will reveal that to you if
He hasn't already. So how do we glory in our wisdom?
How do we base our hope upon our wisdom? Well, as I mentioned
just a moment ago, Solomon said there's a way that seems right
to us, but that way is the way of death. That's our mindset,
see, our wisdom. The wisdom of man imagines a
way that's contrary to that of God. God says that which is highly
esteemed, see, among us is an abomination unto him. We'd better
be able to find out how we once imagined A way of acceptance
before God that's totally contrary to his way, to the things where
he finds delight. We imagine, see that something
other than what God exercised in the earth being accounted
to us will save us or keep us saved. Something other than the
imputed righteousness of Christ. Now, how do we glory in our might?
Well, it's much the same. When we imagine that salvation's
conditioned, in any way and listen to any degree whatsoever, even
if we think God and Christ did 99% and all I have to do as I
was taught once was He's reaching down to you, you just got to
accept it and receive it. You don't have to do much. When
you think you can do that, let me tell you what you did. You
may be like me, and you may say, well, I'm not much money, so
this can't be talking about me. You think, when you believe that,
you believe you're money enough to make the only difference in
your salvation. It's to imagine that you, now
I'm telling you, we think we're awful humble in this life, you
know. I've said before, I thought I was so humble, I was right
proud of it. But the truth is, this, listen,
God will show us. He'll bring us down. That's why
he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, you see. They find
themselves spiritually bankrupt. They discover, oh my goodness,
I dare to approach God. I was thinking I was the mightiest
of all. To imagine that I, something
that proceeds from me, would make the ultimate difference
when the blood, the life, death of Jesus Christ wasn't sufficient
to do that. That's a proud center and that's
where we all start. There's none of us, there's none
of us who don't begin our journey imagining that. Well, what's
the first thing we say when we get serious about religion? The
first question we ask ourselves, whether we verbalize it or not,
is what must I do to be saved? You see, we don't even ask the
question whether or not is there anything I can do. It's presupposed
that there's something I can do. Okay, Randy, tell me what
I've got to believe so I can be saved. Or tell me what I have
to do so I can be saved. I need to check that off. And
we just enter into it with blinders assuming there's something we
can do. That is, first of all, that's certainly glorying in
our might, and it's glorying in our wisdom as well to have
imagined that. We think we have the power to
save ourselves, see? That's our might. And how do
we glory in our riches? There's really two aspects to
this, and I believe both are true. One is, as I mentioned
earlier, men imagine that the blessings of God, temporal blessings,
which he bestows even upon his enemies, reprobates, those for
whom Christ didn't even die. They received the reign just
like the justified. But we, in our foolishness, we
imagine that our temporal blessings are indications that God is eternally
blessed us. How many times people say these
things in jest. I remember when Kristen got married. She picked the longest day of
the year in hot south Georgia for an outdoor wedding. And it
was, I mean, the average for that day is high 90s with probably
100% humidity. And we had an unbelievable day.
The weather broke. It felt like a spring day, and
she had a gorgeous wedding. And I must have had 50 people
come up to me and said, boy, you must have been living right.
You must be living at the foot of the cross. And you know, we
joke, and some of that's said in jest, but it's not all in
jest. People imagine that good things
that happen to us in this life, our station in life, are indications
that, yeah, I must be doing something right. Now, that could just as
well be what God calls Strong delusion that you might believe
a lot. You see, we can't measure based upon our temporal circumstances,
but I believe here that this is and I'm inclined to believe
this is more referring to our wherewithal, much as it talks
about glory in our might. When you speak of riches, you're
talking about that which you have you with that and On this
earth, riches allows us to procure other things, to buy things.
We go out and buy something if we've got the riches to do it.
And I believe that here this is often used much like probably
I thought when people would talk to me and they'd say, Randy,
do you believe Christ died for everybody? And I used to, shamefully. And I'd say, sure. And they'd
say, well, then Christ didn't make the difference. He's not
your Savior then. I said, well, no, no, no. He's my Savior, but
you've got to believe. And he'd say, well, you haven't.
Then your faith must be in your faith. And how could I excuse
it? I'd say, oh, no, no, no. He'd
say, that's works, Randy. And I'd say, oh, no, that's not
works. Because see, I knew Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and faith is the gift
of God. So I credited God with giving
me that faith. Oh, no, that's not works. I was
boasting in my riches. You see, God had given me something
that then I could exercise in the earth. You just give me,
you just give me a, all I got to have is just a little bitty
crack and I'll find a way to exercise something in the earth.
And that's the way we are until God shows us different. And thank
goodness he does. So that's what it is, I believe,
to glory in our riches. So how I have mentioned already
how that's manifested today. I said that I said here at the
beginning, I believe we have the religions of the world represented
in verse 23 and 24. True religion, undefiled. Verse
24, a work of God for man. What do we have in verse 23?
We have a work of man for God, or it may be more subtle. We
have a work of man with God's help, or it might be even more
subtle. We might imagine it to be a work
of God with man's help instead of a work of man with God's help.
In other words, we will give him more of the credit. But you
see, as Paul said when he said, if it's of grace, it's no more
of works. If it's of works, it's no more of grace. He said if
we can find, that tells us if we can find one element of works
in what, in our body of faith, in that doctrine we adhere to,
if we can see in any way, to any degree, it's based on something
produced by me, through me, I'm enabled to produce that. I exercise
in this earth, it's not grace, and it's not verse 24, it's verse
23. Now, what do the vast majority of religious folks today believe? Well, first of all, Christianity
is not necessarily, I don't believe it's the largest religion in
the world anymore, it may be, but I believe Islam may have
passed it. But of the religions of the world,
all of them imagine that they achieve their concept of paradise,
appease the wrath of their idea of a higher power based on something
that's done by them, in them or through them. And I've yet
to hear of a religion that imagine that their concept of deity took
care of all they needed for them to be in paradise. That's a religion
of work. So we don't have to talk. There's
not much dissection there. No need to spend a lot of time
there. If they don't even believe in God being made manifest in
the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, in his life and work and death
here on this earth, then obviously They probably don't believe this
book. OK. But there are millions who claim
to believe this book and they call themselves Christian. And
the vast majority of those believe, as I did, they believe that God
loved everybody. When it says he exercised love
in the earth, they believe he loved everybody so much that
he sent his son. And they interpret John 3, 16
to be God so loved every individual in the world that he gave his
son. to die for the sins of every
individual in the world. And the vast majority of so-called
Christianity today still believes that, at least here in the United
States, and I presume worldwide. And here's that, like me, they
imagine that they agree with verse 24. They say, well, I believe
God exercised those things. He sent God's love. He sent Christ
because He loved us. They look at Him exercising judgment,
and they say, well, He's just. He does right. as far as they
can go on that one. And then they'll say, and he's
righteous. And like me, they have no idea
what that word means. And they just think that means
God does right. And he does do right. But you see, to have believed
as I did, that Christ's work was universal for all men, that
God loved all men. This is what it says about the
loving kindness that was exercised in the earth. Here's God, who
they also imagine to be omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all-knowing,
who can overcome, therefore, any obstacle to your salvation,
who can foresee any barrier in his wisdom that might get in
the way. And they say he loves you so much that he comes to
you like a little infant that can't do anything, because that's
the way we're described in Scripture, spiritually dead, totally born
into this world, based upon Adam's sin with a nature that's enmity,
an enemy against God. The Scripture says of us, we've
all gone out of the way, and this God who presumably loves
me comes down and takes this helpless sinner and says, because
of your free will nature, that if exercised, if not changed,
we'll all opt to go our own way, as the Scripture says. He'll
say, I'm not going to infringe upon your decision and save you.
I can. I'm powerful enough. I'm omniscient
enough. But I'm not going to say, but I love you. What kind
of love is that? And they say that God's a God
of justice and judgment. And they say that, yeah, Christ
died on the cross. He shed blood for the sins of
the people. But no judgment was pronounced.
Because you see, like me, they read the other scripture that
says multitudes, most, perish in hell from among those they
presume to believe Christ died for. So he didn't pay for the
sins. What kind of monster would God
be to kill his son and suggest by his very resurrection that
he got the job done, that he was satisfied with that payment?
You see, because righteousness demands life. That satisfaction
to justice demanded he rise again. And he'll say, but, you know,
all those you represented, Christ, I guess some of those sins just
were maybe hanging out there on the cross, but wasn't close
enough. I don't know. But in our foolishness,
that's what I believe. And so I believe multitudes went
to hell for whom Christ died. So there was no judgment issued
on the earth there. No sentence pronounced. Not only
that, I believed that that righteousness, there was no no one was pronounced
righteous there either, you see, because I thought something left
in each successive generation to be done. And there is something
to be done in each successive generation. But the thing that's
done is God gives an understanding and knowledge that it was all
done back there. OK, and and here's what I presume. I presume that now we'll find
out when we see how you react to what I thought was God's gospel. Will you receive it? Will you
believe it? To other people, it's other things. Will you live
a life of dedication and stay steadfast to the end? Will you
sacrifice some? Will you come to church every
day? Will you walk out? Will you pray a prayer? Will
you go through a catechism? You just fill in the blank. It's
something that we exercised in the earth. And my idea of righteousness
being exercised in the earth was, I was just, I didn't even
know the word, and I thought I studied this, but somehow I
hadn't even seen the word impeded in this Bible, and it's there.
And I imagine, see, that God just did right, but in my ignorance
I was like Paul said of those in Romans 10 when he said, of
his fellow countrymen, he said, I bear them record. They have
a zeal for God. He prayed that God would save
them, revealing they were lost, but they were religious. They
had a zeal of God, but he said, but not according to knowledge.
And he tells us what knowledge they were ignorant of. Being
ignorant of the righteousness of God, in the context there
it reads, it would suggest to you that by default, then they're
going about to establish a righteousness of their own. You see, when we
ever think that something that proceeds from us Some merit found
in us makes the difference. That's what we're doing. We're
going about to establish a righteousness of our own. And God will not
have it. Psalms 147, 10, 11 tells us this. It says, He taketh not pleasure
in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them
that fear him. And that speaks of the reverential
respect for the honor of who God is. You see, as we see here
in Jeremiah 9, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness,
a just God and a Savior. The Lord taketh pleasure in them
that fear Him and those that hope in His mercy. You see, He
brings a people to an understanding and knowledge that causes them
to cry out like that publican, Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.
I have nothing to offer. As a songwriter put it, in my
hand no price I bring, simply to the cross, I claim. Well,
so any who believe like me, obviously, they were basing their hope on
their wisdom, a way that seems right to them, a way of their
own imagination, because it's not the way of Jeremiah 9, 24.
And they were basing it on their might, their power to save themselves,
on their riches, on that which they imagined God gave them so
that then they could go on and exercise that. There's a growing movement among
so-called Christianity today where more and more people are
becoming what they call reformed in their doctrine. They're Calvinistic
is the term often used. And they come to see a truth
that I didn't see back then. They come to see that, no, God
really did choose the people. You see, and it doesn't take
a special revelation from God to do that. The words here are
black and white. I've never seen anyone who believed
that Christ died, for example, for every person that ever lived
who would objectively study this, not conclude that, no, that's
wrong. You can find that out if you'll
just look into it. Most people won't. They'll refuse
to because they want to cling to what they've been taught.
But those who do, who are a little smarter, not quite as stubborn
as I was before I would look into that, they'll conclude that. And they'll see that Christ didn't
die. He only died for those that God gave him. The scripture's
too clear. John, in the book of John, Christ tells us, I came
for the sheep. You don't believe me because
you're not one of my sheep. My sheep will hear me. They'll follow
me. And I will give unto them eternal life. And he said, Father,
of all that you gave me, I will lose none of them. I'll raise
all of them up at the last day. So they see that. And there are
men who see that. And yet, here's the issue. Here's the telling factor. If
you still in your dogged determination, which listen, and all of us would
stay right there apart from the grace of God to be able to claim
some hand in your own eternal destiny, they'll do things like,
say, look through the tunnel of time and say, God foresaw
that Randy and his knowledge would be receptive of this message. And he would accept me. And so,
therefore, I'm going to give Randy to Christ to be one of
them for him. You think of that is to make
the death of Christ the God man subordinate to the good God saw
in me. How's glory in my riches? You
say if I ever imagined such a thing. And then there are those that
imagine that They it's even more settled. They'll imagine that
Christ really did exercise some righteousness or their idea of
righteousness in the earth. They'll say that he satisfied
justice. But then they'll go on to suggest
that that's just a groundwork. You say they'll suggest that's
incomplete, they'll talk of that being insufficient, something
more. And what more do they look for?
They talk about, you then must have a righteous nature, a holiness
put in you. So that they lead men to say,
whereas the scripture says look unto Jesus as the author and
finisher of our faith, they say, no, look there for it to get
started. Now take your eyes off of the
cross and look in here and see what good you can find. You see? And that's to glory in your riches. to imagine that God has put something
in you that now you get to exercise. And God will not have it. You
cannot usurp His glory. In Galatians 6, verse 14, He
said, God forbid, the Scripture says, that I should glory, same
connotation, that I should boast, that I should rejoice, that I
should base my hope on anything. He said that I should glory save
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that which He exercised
in the earth. Well, in conclusion, I want to
just read some scriptures from 1 Corinthians 1. So be turning
there, 1 Corinthians 1. I love that passage in Jeremiah
9. You see, we read there, in the
exercise of loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in
the earth, he says, in these things I delight. And that's
what God delights in. And that's what God's preachers
set forth, words of delight. So read with me beginning in
verse 26. Paul writes, For ye see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You see,
we know from here, back in Jeremiah 9, he's not talking about the
wisdom of men there. We don't glory in our wisdom. It's an
upside-down world. He says, And God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to
bring to naught things that are, verse 29, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. You see, God, he will not share
his glory. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom. He's our wisdom and righteousness. You see, it's a righteousness
that resides at the right hand of the father in glory. It's
mine. It's really mine by amputation. But it's his righteousness. And
sanctification, I'm wholly acceptable in the beloved. You know me too
well. I'm not only here, but in God's
eyes of His justice, I'm holy, accepted in Christ, and redemption. He bought me that according as
it is written. Where was it written? Jeremiah
chapter 9. And Paul's short version is this.
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And I pray that's
where you'll place your trust. You see, because in the Lord,
in His person and work, in that which He exercised in the earth,
That's where God finds pleasure and delight and nowhere else. Thank you, Randy. Let's stand
and sing two verses of hymn number 260.