Romans chapter 5, to be honest
with you, I really didn't know exactly what I was going to preach
about until this morning. I'm going to kind of lay these
verses on my heart, thinking back on some of the things we
talked about last week, and how faith is a work of God, and how
that faith that is given to the child of grace is is a spiritual
work. It's a spiritual grace. It's
a gift of God. And that it isn't something that
we have in the natural man, as I mentioned last week. We don't
take our natural faith and just move it from this object and
put it on this object. That's kind of how I grew up
believing and teaching is that we, you know, that's what repentance
is, is putting our faith and trust from this object to this
object. In essence, that's kind of what has happened whenever
God grants repentance. We no longer are trusting in
our righteousness, but looking to Christ's righteousness. But
faith isn't something that we naturally had, and then we just,
by the exercise of it, change it to a different object. Christ
surely is the object of what faith looks to, and what faith
clings to, and what faith receives as their righteousness. But brethren,
that isn't something that we just can flip like a switch and
say, I want to change it from here to here. And as we've seen
last week, faith is something that is sovereignly given by
God. It's granted by God. And even within us, whenever
we are born from God, we are worked in by the Holy Spirit
and he works faith in us. That it's something not only
that he grants, but something that he gives in measure. And
he works that in us. And I don't know about you, there
are some times that my faith seems to be strong, but there
are some times it's not. Well, that's the Lord giving
faith in measure. And he does that at his discretion. He's the one that's got the sovereign
free will to do what he wants to do according to his pleasure.
And as we just sung in that one hymn, You know, sometimes the
Lord sinks us low. He blasts our boards, or He offsets
our plans, what our desires are, because He has a purpose that
is being fulfilled. And the Bible says that He works
all things after the purpose of His own will, or in accordance
to His own will, and that all things work together for our
good. So those things that don't seem
like are for our good, or that we are thinking are for our good,
Somehow along the way, it's for our good because God's purposed
it that way. But sometimes it's not always
a cup of tea, I guess I should say. It's not always a cup of
tea for us. So anyway, I was kind of going
back and thinking about that a little bit this morning as
I was down praying and studying a few scriptures before this
morning. And this scripture actually came
to mind as I was reading past from where we was at last week
in Romans 4, 16. And that is in verse five, and actually Larry
got me kind of thinking about this, me and him, and Mark had
dinner the other night, and it kind of got me thinking about
this. We were talking about our position
before God from the foundation of the world. And of course,
all y'all here know that we have an eternal Bible union with Christ. Ephesians 1 is very clear about
that, that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world. As a matter of fact, before I actually read
in Romans, if you would just turn to Ephesians, and I want
to read a couple things because I think it's really a foundational
thing to know our position in Christ. Please forgive me if
I'm scattered in my thoughts and going about these things
this morning. I pray the Lord will give me As a matter of fact, why don't
we just go to the Lord and ask Him for prayer? I actually forgot
to pray before we started here. Let's go to the Lord and pray
before we read here. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do come to
You, thank You, and we are beholden to You for everything in our
life. We're beholden to You for life, for faith, for grace, for
mercy, for the ability to even preach, to know the things of
the Spirit of God, to know the Word of God, Father, we come
this morning humbly before you and we ask that you'd be with
us in our midst here as you promised for two or three together there
you'll be in our midst. Father, we just thank you today
for this time of fellowship and worship that we have together.
We thank you for the Phillips that are here with us this morning.
We are grateful to be in contact with them again, and more we
are just thankful that they're here with us. And as we pray
Lord today, as we all gather together, we ask that you would
be our teacher. We pray that you would guide
us in the truth. Lord, I pray that you would guide
my words, and that you would guide my thought process, and
that you would keep me from error, and that I might only speak the
things of truth. Father, I pray that all things
that we do here today singing of these hymns in our fellowship
time and our preaching. Lord, I pray that it is all in
bringing exaltation to Christ Jesus. That is not to exalt man
in any way, but that Christ might be clearly seen, clearly understood,
and clearly exalted above all things. And we pray, Lord, that
you would come and help us to worship in spirit and in truth.
And Lord, we just pray now as we look at these passages of
scripture, before us Lord that we would present Christ Jesus
in them. We know that you say in your
scriptures that in the volume of the book it speaks of Christ
Jesus and so we pray that we find Christ in everything that
we look at and Lord we are so grateful for him and we're grateful
for all the work that you've done on our behalf through the
shedding of blood, for the remission of our sins, for the justification
of the body, your faithfulness Lord for the reconciliation that
comes through Christ Jesus. Lord, we are so so much. I need you people unworthy of
your grace and mercy. But Lord, in love, you have shed
your love upon us and brought in our heart. And we just thank
you today for that. We thank you today for the time
that we have together. And we ask you to bless it all
in Jesus name. Amen. If you would, Look there
in Ephesians 1. And a lot of times, especially in
my own understanding at one time, I made a break in this verse.
But let me start reading in verse 2. It says, Grace be to you and
peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us. And of course, us that we're
looking at here, we all know is the children of God. This
isn't speaking in general to mankind. The Bible specifically
is written to the children of God. It's not written to the
world. It's not written to the reprobate. It's not written to
the non-elect. It's not written to all those
outside of Christ. It is written to the people of
Christ. As a matter of fact, Paul actually opens up this this
letter to the saints which are in Ephesus and to the faithful
in Christ Jesus. So that applies to us, not just
that church, but also to us because we're the faithful if we're here,
we're the faithful in Christ Jesus. Not because we hold out
strong in the faith, but because we have been made faithful through
Christ. He was faithful, therefore we
have been faithful. So this is for us, but it says,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. We've not missed out
on any spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing that
ever comes, is that the spiritual blessing of the new birth? Is that the spiritual blessing
of faith, of repentance, of justification, of sanctification? Just think of all the different
spiritual blessings that are out there that the Bible teaches
us. He says He's blessed us with all of them. But notice here
He says with all spiritual blessings. Where did He do that? Did He
do it here on the holy earth? Did He do it at the moment that
you believed on Him? Did He do it at the moment that
you started keeping all the Ten Commandments? Which we know can't
happen. When you started coming to church
or anything like that? No. When did it happen? He blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. How does the blessings, all the
blessings, all the spiritual blessings, notice that the blessings
are all spiritual blessings. They're not fleshly blessings.
Now, do we experience things that the Lord gives us in this
lifetime in carnal things? Yes, we do. The Lord blesses
us with a sunny day or with a new or whatever, you know. Whatever
it is, the Lord blesses us with those things. However, we're
talking about spiritual blessings. All these spiritual blessings
come in a spiritual way from the Spirit of God, and it's communicated
to the spiritual man. It's communicated to us through
the spiritual man. Flesh and blood cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can He. Neither can He
walk in them, Neither is he going to be able to inherit the Kingdom
of God. This flesh and blood is not ever going to be able
to enter into the Kingdom of God. They're not ever going to see
the things of the Spirit of God and know the things of the Spirit
of God. The only thing that knows that is that spiritual man. And
so the spiritual things are communicated to the spiritual people. It applies
to the spiritual people of God. And that's why we are blessed
with all spiritual blessings. And this being in Christ is how
we got these blessings. We didn't get them by working
for them. We didn't get them by obeying. We didn't get them
by keeping the law, by even believing and receiving Christ. We didn't
get those by doing that. And there are going to be people
out there in other places that are going to teach you that we
get these whenever we come to Christ and believe on Him. And
that's when God gives us these blessings. But these blessings
are clearly shown to be given to us before the foundation of
the world in heavenly places in Christ. I don't know about
you, but this flesh and blood has not ever been in heavenly
places. It's of the earth, earthy. But yet that man that is on the
inside, it has been in spiritual places. Because the Bible said
that the life that we had was hid in God, or in Christ, in
God. That life is the life that was
in Christ. Now, God gives us a great illustration
of this whenever He speaks of Adam back in Genesis. Whenever
Adam was created, by God, and the Bible says that he named
them Adam. He said he blessed them, man
and woman, and he blessed them and called their name Adam, but
yet he had not been brought forth from his side yet, but he blessed
them, the Bible says, and it uses the word them, he blessed
them. Well, wait a minute, there was only one person there whenever
he blessed Adam. Who was he talking about? Well,
he was blessing his wife that was still in him, even though
she had not been made manifested yet, had not been brought forth,
she still was blessed because Adam was blessed. And see, Adam
being the first Adam, Christ being the second Adam, all that
spiritual seed, all that spiritual family, and if you will, the
allusion to the bride, his bride, his wife, is in him. And it's a spiritual thing. We
are in Christ Jesus. And that life is in Him. He said,
I am the way, the truth, the life. I am life. In me is life. And the life that we have is
eternal life. Not necessarily speaking of an
amount of time, but a person. He is eternal life. Because His
life has never begun and it never will end. And therefore, the
life that we have, this life that comes from above, is born
from above, is eternal. It's always been in Christ. We've
been in Him. So just like Eve was in Adam
before Adam ever fell, got put into sleep and pulled Eve from
him, she was there. We see another illusion of this
in Abraham whenever the tithes were paid to Melchizedek. He
wasn't alive at the time, but how did he do it? He did it through
the seed, right? So we see these illusions of
the seed being in The head. Christ is our head. Christ is
the one upon whom all the blessings were conferred to. The promises
were unto the seed, is what God has told Abraham. The promises
were unto the seed, and not seeds as in many, but seeds as in singular. Christ. So the promises were
made to the seed, and the seed was the one who received those
blessings, but everybody who is in Christ Jesus, also receive
those blessings because they are in Him and He is the head
of them, the representative of them. Therefore, because they
are His, they receive the same inheritance that Christ received.
Eve received the same blessing that Adam received because she
was in Adam whenever he was blessed. So this is how we are blessed
in Ephesians 1. We are blessed in heavenly places
But notice that it's in Christ. Brethren, if we're not in Christ
until we believe, then this verse is incorrect. God has misspoke,
and we know that God can't misspeak. God said that all the spiritual
blessings that ever come upon us were given to us in heavenly
places, and it was because we were in union with, already in,
Christ Jesus at that time, even though nothing had been created,
I hadn't even been born as even before Larry was born. Larry's
that much older than I am, really. But listen, we have been in Christ,
whether we know it or not, we've been in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And he says, according as he
had chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. We were
chosen to be in him And that was the basis for why we received
the blessing. We received the blessing in Christ
because God chose us to be in Christ. He didn't choose us to
be not in Christ. We spoke a little bit about that
last week, or maybe it was the week before, about in the book
is written names. There were names written down
and there were names not written down. That's God's determination. before the foundation of the
world, the Lamb's Book of Life, those who would be receiving
life, their names were written down. God knew them. God chose
them. God, by grace, elected to give
them life. These, whose names were not written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, God determined before the foundation
of the world, not according to anything good or bad that either
one had done, But according to his election, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, God chose these
and not these. So these names were not written
down because they would not be receiving life. And so we see
that God has chosen us in him before the foundation of the
world. Why? And this is where I always
got this wrong. That we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. is equating the standing before
Him holy and without blame with the choosing, with the being
in Christ and part of the blessing in heavenly places. So our standing before God, as
I understand it, and I could be wrong and I'm open for correction
through the Scriptures to anyone that might be able to help me,
but it says here that the reason that He chose us before chose
us in Him to be in Christ, where all the blessings of the Spirit
were to be conferred, that the reason He chose us in them is
so that we, again, who are the we? The faithful in Christ Jesus,
His people, His elect, so that we would be, what? Holy and without blame before
Him. Our standing before God, before
the foundation of the world, was holy and without blame. Our
standing with God in this lifetime is holy and without blame. And that did not happen when
we first believed. That happened then, way back
then, before the foundation of the world. And so God designed
it that way. decreed it that way, purposed
it that way, so that there has never been a time that any of
God's elect has been without the holiness and blamelessness
of their mediator, their substitute, their surety, Christ Jesus. So
as long as Christ has been our head, we have been holy and without
blame. So that kind of destroys, in
my opinion, destroys the notion of the Reformed, who believe
that faith is what justifies us, our faith, and that it's
that faith that we are united to Christ, and it is that faith
that we receive these blessings. This right here, I believe the
Bible clearly makes clear this thing. Looking on in verse 5,
having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Christ
Jesus to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made
us accepted." See, there's acceptance there now in the beloved. He
doesn't accept us in this lifetime because we believed on Him. And it's not the opposite, like
the Arminian says, we don't accept Jesus Christ. It's just the opposite. The question isn't, have you
accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior? The question should be,
have you been accepted by Jesus? Have you been accepted by the
Lord? And he says here, to the praise and the glory of His grace,
wherein He hath made us accepted. How has He made us accepted?
In the Beloved. See, the acceptance with God
isn't on our behalf, on what we have done. People say, well,
God saved us because He loved us. No, He loved us apart from
anything that he has ever done, and his salvation is for his
purpose, for his glory. We, thankfully, are the recipients
of that, and we partake in that. But brethren, he didn't save
us just because he had this affinity that he had so much great love
for us, and that we were worthy. I used to say that, and I preach
that, that we Obviously, we had some worth because God loved
us and saved us. No, God did that despite who
we would be, who we are in Adam. God did that despite all that. He loved us while we were enemies
against Him. He loved us while we were in
sin. He loved us before all eternity. His love is an everlasting love.
He had loved us with an everlasting love. That love was shed abroad
onto us because it was His sheer purpose to do so. that we did. Now, because of that love, because
of Him loving us, He sent forth His Son to die for us. But it
wasn't because of any inherent good in us. Therefore, we are
accepted not based upon us, but we are accepted based upon, once
again, Christ, in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Now,
the shedding of the blood and the forgiveness of sin through
that shedding of blood, that shedding of blood, that dying
on the cross, that life that he lived, that death on the cross
and that resurrection to life that he did, that happened in
time. That was the basis for everything
that we know as far as salvation is concerned. That's the basis
of it all. But yet, Brethren, it was applied
It was realized, it was applied, everything was as if, if you
allow me the verse in the scripture, God called those things that
were not as though they were so. You know, known unto God
are all His works, the end from the beginning. The finished product
of everything that God is doing in this redemptive work through
creation Everything that God's getting to at the very end, He
purposed from the very foundation of the world. He knew exactly
what He was going to do. And so here, even though Jesus
came at a specific time, His appointed time in this world,
brethren, all the blessings of that, that came from that, was
already in place for the child of grace, for the foundation
of the world. Now, why did I go to such a long length to say
that? Well, because in Romans chapter 5, We see after coming out of what
we looked at last week about faith being a work and talking
about justification by faith, and what does that include? Is
justification by faith, as Luther and a lot of the Reformers say,
is that justification that when we believe? Is that whenever we believe that
God says, okay, now I declare you just? Or is it talking about
a different faith? Well, we learned last week that
that faith is the faith of Jesus Christ. It's not our faith. It's Christ's faith. And it's
not even our faith that is given to us by Christ in the spiritual
gift that he gives to us. It's not even that. It is the
actual faith, faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ when he
walked in flesh in our stead and kept and fulfilled the law
of God on our behalf. That is the faithfulness that
justified us. And we've seen that last week
in chapter 3, in verse 21, where it says, But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophet. And again, I mentioned last week,
what was witnessed by the law and the prophets? Was it not
the Lord Jesus Christ? Is not the Lord Jesus Christ
who all the law and the prophets spoke of? When Jesus walked with
those on the road to Emmaus, who did He speak of? He said
He went to the law and the prophets and He showed them everything
concerning Himself. It says, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. So the righteousness
of God is by faith of Jesus Christ. Modern translations that are
out there, it says the faith in Christ, but that's not correct.
That's not correct. It's the faith of Christ. Faith
in Christ is something that comes as the result of the faith of
Christ. We have faith in Christ. We have
belief. We become those who believe.
We become the believers. We become those who are of faith
by Christ's faith because He did that. Now, those spiritual
blessings that were given to us before the foundation of the
world are now being experienced by that spiritual man who had
received them before we ever were anybody here on this earth.
We now are experiencing those spiritual blessings of grace,
of faith, of repentance. Those things we begin to experience
and now the knowledge of our salvation, remember in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, that He has given us these things so that we might
know what has been freely given to us. He's given us the Spirit
of God. We now have received that life
that was hid in Christ with God. We received it so that we might
know, because apart from that, we can't know. He gave us that
so that we might know what's been freely given to us. And it says there in verse 24,
being justified freely. Well, what's been freely given
to us? Justification has been freely given to us. It's not
waiting for your faith. It's not waiting for your acceptance.
It's not waiting for something in time for God to view, to make
sure that you're going to follow through with it. It's Christ's
faith. And that was even the very thing
that Abraham viewed. And Abraham accounted that, the
seed, for his righteousness. He looked to Christ. He looked
ahead. The Bible says that Abraham saw Christ from afar. And what
did he do? He accounted it, the seed, unto
him, Abraham, for righteousness. Therefore, he reckoned that faith
for his righteousness. Not meaning God reckoned Abraham's
faith for his righteousness. He reckoned Christ's faith for
Abraham's righteousness. See, we can't have perfect faith. So as we look here in chapter
5, verse 1, it says, therefore being justified by faith, therefore,
what faith are we talking about? Well, the faith in context that
Paul's been writing about for two or three chapters, the faith
of Jesus Christ. That's what justifies this. Therefore, in light of Tying
this back to everything that Paul has been saying previously,
therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God through
what? Our believing? No, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have peace with God. It says, but whom also we have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. Where does our hope come from?
Where does our hope that this being applied to us come from? Well, it comes through faith.
Where does our assurance come from? It comes from faith. Where does the whole entire earnest
expectation that this is what has happened for me come from?
Whenever Paul viewed Himself in this place. Where did that
come from? It came from the fact that Christ
had given to them faith, given to them life, given to them spiritual
understanding so that they might know this was freely given to
me. And the Spirit bears witness
with our spirit that this is ours, that this is for us. But
I want you to notice something. And this is kind of what I was
wanting to look at here. It says in verse 12, Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered in the world, and death by sin, so death hath spawned
all men for all that sin. It says, For until the law, sin
was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no
law. Now I've often in the past said,
well this is speaking that Before Moses came, from Adam to Moses,
there was no law. And so therefore, men died, and
that proves that sin was in the world. And I do believe that
that is true. Sin was in the world. Men died
because of sin. And that there was no official
law before Moses. But there was law. God gave Adam
a law. And he said, don't eat. And Adam
ate. He transgressed the law. Everyone born of Adam is born
with the same nature as Adam. They cannot keep God's law. Therefore,
everything that they do is not sin because they necessarily
are committing the sin, but because they are of the earth, earthy,
they are natural. And that natural man is in the
state of sin. We are in a state of sin because
of our nature. It is a nature that is the sin,
and it is a sin that does not look to God. For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. What is the glory of God?
It's perfection. It's righteousness. It's holiness. And all men fall
short of that. Why? Because they're acting in
sin? No, it's because they cannot
meet perfection. Everything they do is sin. Everything,
everything that the flesh does is sin. Everything that is in
the flesh, it cannot please God. And so therefore, everything
is sin. But it says here, where there
is no law, sin is not imputed. So there is some category somewhere
at some point where sin is not imputed because there is no law. Now, the Bible says that for
those who are in Christ Jesus, that we are not under law, but
under what? Grace. Well, when was that grace
given to us? That's not a spiritual blessing.
Doesn't 1 Tim, or 2 Timothy 2, 9 and 10 say, for he has saved
us and called us with a holy calling. And I believe that holy
calling isn't the irresistible grace in time. That holy calling
is that according to election, that God's purpose might stand.
that election is that holy calling, who has saved us and called us
with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His what? Purpose and grace which He had
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Wait, grace
was given to us before we were even alive? Before we even existed?
Absolutely. How? In Christ. See, it's in
the spiritual, man. It's in the spiritual aspects
that we are given this thing. And men are looking at the flesh.
They're looking at the outward. They're looking at the carnal.
And they're trying to apply spiritual things to the carnal things.
And it's not. It's a spiritual thing. We should
apply the spiritual to spiritual, right? And so when we look at
the spiritual thing, we see that God, before the foundation of
the world, give us this grace. And if we are under this grace,
we are not under law. Because if we're ever under law,
we're condemned, right? If we're ever under law, we fall
short of the glory of God. But the man in the Spirit is
not under law, but under grace. That's why John says that because
the seed remains in him, we sin not. We don't sin. We do not
sin. And so, who is it then that God
imputes not sin? Well, if you look with me, and
I want to look at that in John. I think it's in 1 John 3. Verse 4, it says, Whosoever commits
sin transgresses also the law. 1 John 3 verse 4. For sin is the transgression
of the law and ye know that he was manifested to take away our
sins And in Him is no sin. Now, one could look at that and
say, well, it's talking about in Christ, in His flesh, there
was no sin, which is absolutely true. In Christ is no sin. But could that not be? And I
think that the Scripture warns this in verse six, but could
that be? And ye know that He was manifested
to take away our sins and in Him being united to Him. Being
the fact that because we are in Him, there is no sin. In Him is no sin. Because verse
6 says this, Whosoever abideth in Him, sinneth not. Whoever is in Christ Jesus sinneth
not because we are in Him. And there is no sin in Him, therefore
there is no sin in us. And since there is no sin in
us, now again, let me make clear for anybody listening, watching,
or whatever. I'm not talking about this man of the flesh.
We surely are in sin. That is why John in this same
letter wrote, if we say we have not sinned, we have made God
out to be a liar. We do have sin in this flesh
because that's all it is. John is making a distinction
between the natural man and the spiritual man. The spiritual
man cannot sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. So in verse 9, whosoever is born
of God, what is born of God? Well, it's not the natural man.
It's not the fleshly man. That's that spiritual man. Whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin. It does not commit sin,
brethren. Now, with that being the case,
now, I guess maybe let me address something here also. error in
my past life of preaching. Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin. I would say if I was my young
man self, well, that means that we do not continue with habitual
sin. That's what that means. Tell me, pray tell, how do we
keep from habitual sin in the flesh? We can't do it because
we are by nature sinners. Therefore, everything we do The
Bible says, I've mentioned this many times, the Bible says that
all of our righteousnesses are filthy rags. It didn't say all
of our unrighteousnesses are filthy rags. It says all of our
righteousnesses, everything that we do to the very tip-top, trying
to be righteous, God says are filthy rags. Why? Because God
doesn't accept anything from the flesh. But that which is
of the Spirit, That which comes from those commands of God to
love God and love your neighbor, those things that come from the
Spirit of God to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, those things,
number one, are controlled by us. They're controlled by God.
They're the works of God. Has God ordained works for us
to walk in? Absolutely, but they're not works
that we physically try to walk in. They're works that the Spirit
works in us. That's why the Bible says, Salvation
with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, willing
to do His good pleasure. It's not us pulling up our bootstraps,
getting all of our marching commands to get out and to be good. It
is the Spirit that works in us to do these things. It is the
Spirit who controls all these things. And so this does not
mean that the child of God does not continue in habitual sin. It actually says what it means.
Whoever is born of God does not commit sin at all. Why? Because his seed remaineth in
him. And he cannot sin. See, he said he cannot sin. I mean, that would be a real
conundrum to say whoever is born of God does not continue in habitual
sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin. Habitual
sin means continual sin, but onesies and
twosies are alright. That doesn't mean anything, right?
But then he says he cannot sin. This means there is no ability.
Again, cannot sin is the same connotation that we looked at
whenever we've seen that we cannot believe. They cannot understand
my words. Why? Because they are not of
God. What made them to be understand
of God these things? Because they're of God. The ones
who are not of God can't understand God. It's an ability. It's an
issue of ability. Well, this right here says, this
man from heaven, this spirit from heaven, this person that
we are, born from above, it cannot see. There is absolutely no way
that it can see Him. So is that possibly what we see
back in Romans 5, verse 13? For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Sin is
not imputed to the child of grace, because they have always been
in Christ. They were blessed with every spiritual blessing
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that God granted grace
to them before the foundation of the world. And under that
grace, they are not under law, or in that grace, they are not
under law. Were we under law until we came
to Christ? Well, we were under law in the
fact that that law was pointing the finger at us as guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty. But the Bible says there is no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, I don't
know. To me, it seems that sin is not
impeded where there is no law and there was no law that was
ever laid upon the child of grace. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 9, we learn
that, For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. So there never was a time that
God ever appointed us under wrath, so we were never under the wrath
of God. There again, that contradicts what the Westminster Confession
of Faith and even the 1689 Confession of Faith says, what the Reformed
people say, that we were under God's wrath. And I always go
to, well, the Bible says, I think that was also in Ephesians, that
we were children of wrath, even as others. Let the words say
what they say, brother. It doesn't say we were under
wrath. It says we were children of wrath.
That means we were wrathful towards God. We were children that hated
God. We were at enmity with Him. We despised Him. We were enemies
against Him. We didn't like the God. How many
times have I heard said people that don't believe what we believe?
Say, I'll never serve a God like that. God that chooses some and
not others. A God that dies for some and
not others. I'll never serve that God. Why do they say that? Because the natural man is enmity
against God. He hates God. He doesn't love
God. He doesn't desire the God of
the Bible. But it says here that we were
not appointed under wrath. When did God do all the appointing? Ephesians 1 said he did not appoint
him before the foundation of the world. He said he did not
appoint us unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by the Lord
Jesus Christ. So again, saved and called according
to his purpose and grace which he gives us in Christ Jesus.
But that goes on to say, but is now made manifest by the appearing
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished sin and
death, right? brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. A lot of people say it's to bring
life and immortality to life through the gospel. We don't
receive life through the gospel. We receive the light of the truth
through the gospel of what was already said about us. We already
had life. We already had life. Life is
already given to us and that life, because of having that
life, And because of God granting us faith and repentance, we now
realize what has already been freely given to us before the
world began. So this justification by faith
that Christ has given to us, this bringing peace with God,
how does that bring peace to our minds? Well, whenever we
preach the law, whenever we preach that you don't get until you
do of anything, Whether it's for justification, whether it's
for sanctification, when you put the, as if I made what they
said at the Jerusalem Council, if you try to put that yoke upon
the neck of anybody, it's just going to prove who our natural
man really is, that we can't keep him. But thank the Lord
it isn't about the natural man. In Numbers chapter 23, Let's find some other verses
besides the ones that I have. In Numbers 23 and verse 21, these
are kind of some of my favorite ones to go to when thinking of
these things. Numbers 23 and verse 21, the
Scripture says here, He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob,
neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him, and the shout of a king is among them. Now, I think about
that going past the physical, going past the historical here,
and going on to the spiritual. What is this saying about Christ?
What is this saying about Christ's people? It's saying that he had
not beheld iniquity in Jacob. That Jacob is talking about us,
the children of God. He did not beheld perverseness
in Israel." Who's he speaking about? Not Israel of the flesh,
but Israel of the spirit, right? They are not all Israel that
are of Israel. It is the children of the promise.
It is the children of faith that are the children of Abraham. Not the children of the ethnicity.
It isn't flesh and blood, but it's a spiritual thing. He hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. Now that verse would absolutely
have no meaning if ever there is a time that God imputed those
things to us. That means He did beheld iniquity.
He did see perverseness in us. But under grace, which was given
to us before the foundation of the world, we were before Him
in what? Holiness and love. Right? What about those famous verses
penned by the psalmist in Psalm 32? Often quoted, I think it was
quoted, I don't know, Brother Larry, you might be able to know
this. It was quoted like three or four
other times in the New Testament also. Psalms 32, look at verse 1. It
said, blessed. We use that word blessed. We always
say blessed. Why is that? I think that's something that's
ingrained in us from childhood for some reason. Blessed. Going
through Jesus's Beatitudes, we always would say blessed is he,
like blessed is something like religiously strong word. Blessed. It's blessed. It just means blessed. And it's
not blessed if you do this. Those Beatitudes, by the way,
I'm getting off on a tangent. The Beatitudes aren't blessed
if you go do this. If you become a meek person,
then God will bless you. No, it's those who are meek in
spirit are that way because they're blessed with God. Blessed is
the poor in spirit. Blessed is, we're blessed by
God to have that spirit. Anyway, I don't want to get off
on that. Psalm 32, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile." Now, is this not exactly a concise summary
of what we've looked at over several verses this morning? that there is no sin imputed
because grace has been over us from the foundation of the world.
We have not been under law, but grace. Therefore, under grace,
there is no law, and where there is no law, there is no sin imputed. There is no sin imputed to the
child of grace whose spirit has never sinned, can never sin. Why? Because it comes from Him
who is without sin, who is holy. Doesn't the Bible even speak
of that man that is born from above? He said that he is created
in righteousness and true holiness, or true holiness and righteousness.
May have gotten them backwards. It's created that way, that spirit. So he says, blessed is the man
of whom the Lord imputed not iniquity, in whose spirit there
is no God. Whose spirit is no God. In the
flesh there's plenty of God, but in the spirit there is none.
So we're blessed in the Spirit. That verse there also would have
no meaning if God ever imputed sin to us. Is the child of grace? Has he
ever sinned? Absolutely we have. Were we in
Adam whenever Adam sinned and therefore sin passed on to us? Absolutely we sinned. We sin
every day, we sin all the time. But brethren, praise God, the
gospel says that that sin has not been
imputed unto us. And what a comforting thing that
is, to know. Why did God do it this way? Why
did God choose to do it this way? We've talked about that
before. I believe that it's because it
takes it out of the hands of men so that no man can boast. It takes it out of the hands
of men because no man can say, well, I'm justified because I
believed on him, received him, joined the church, got baptized,
said three Hail Marys and knelt five times, wrote my rosary beads
till they lost their color. I mean, whatever it is that you
want to put forth to do, There is no salvation by doing. There
is salvation because it was done for us by Jesus. Brother, I think that's the end
of all my thoughts that I have about the subject. Does anybody
have anything that you'd like to say? Brother, you want to
say anything, speak on anything? A lot to think about. There's
a lot there. I really appreciate You know, it's been boggling
to me over the years, even this aspect of John 3 being born again,
as to, you know, what actually occurs. Well, I'll be honest
with you, brother, I'm struggling with that myself. Of course,
we all, most of us, I probably would say we believe that there's
an appointed time within our life that God causes us to be
born again. Pretty much everything I read
in scripture says we were born again at the resurrection. And
it's hard to refute that. And I'm still struggling with
the traditions of men as well as anybody else is. And I want
to be in line with the scriptures and not what everybody says.
But that's a subject that I've actually been studying for about
a year now. And I'm struggling hard with
it. I'm struggling hard with it. But I tell you what, whenever
we start looking at things like this, as we saw in these verses,
and even compounds to the fact that we were given life at the
resurrection, or because of the resurrection,
and therefore, and I've even heard old Baptists say that we
were already born spiritually alive, and that it's just, we
come into conversion. or granted faith and repentance,
that we are still in ignorance. There's a difference between
conception and birth. Conception is when life begins,
and birth is whenever life is beginning to be experienced.
And they equate that repentance and faith is that place where
we're born, or that we're, of course, I think regeneration
The two places in Scripture where that's at speak specifically
of the resurrection of Jesus. So that term, regeneration, we
often misuse whenever we speak of being converted. But anyway,
I struggle with that too, and I'm leaning very heavily on,
we were regenerated, or we were born from above, given that life
in Christ Jesus in the resurrection. and that we begin to experience
it whenever the Lord gives us that faith. The 7th chapter of
Romans has been a great consolation to me. Oh. Because, as you know,
the way I was brought up was with the works, perfection, and
Paul's, you know, that was, the 7th chapter of Romans was post-conversion,
not, you know. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot
of people who say it wasn't before he even got to the primary. That's
crazy. I don't know anybody before conversion
that struggles with their sinfulness, to be honest with you. Maybe
the guilt of it, maybe the guilt of it or something, repercussions,
but struggle with the fact that they continue to want to do,
well, nobody wants to do God's stuff. It is a great consolation. And what's unfortunate in that,
there's that word again, I keep using that, the chapter and verse breaks
that we have in our Bibles, you know, because these were letters
that were written to people. Paul said all that in verse 7,
and we always stop there, but verse 8 is actually, there is
therefore now no condemnation to those which are in Christ
Jesus. I mean, he's giving a consolation to those who are struggling with
this flesh and spirit warfare. I mean, he just said, he said,
He knows the wretched man that he is. He's going to deliver
me from this body of death. Well, it's not in this lifetime.
It'll be at the end of our lifetime that we're delivered from this
body of death, but it's going to be Jesus Christ who delivers
us from this. We're going to be raised outside
of this body of death into another body that's a body of life. But
he says, I thank God through Jesus our Lord. So then with
the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh
the law of sin. He resigned within himself to know it's just going
to be this way throughout all my life. I'm going to struggle,
and I'm going to serve the law of sin in my flesh. But it's
only through the mind that I'm going to serve the law of God.
That's the only way that we can serve the law of God is in the
spirit. In our mind, our flesh is going to continue to do those
things, which is contrary to what we want to do, what we desire
to do. And that's where he gives that
consolation. So often with that chapter break there, we lose
the effectiveness of that there is therefore now. But child of
grace know that that struggle that's in all of us that's there
and we're waiting and groaning that this body will be put down. There's no condemnation. There's
no condemnation. It's beautiful. So what are your
thoughts on the regeneration? Well, I tend to agree with you. I think that quickening is a better word for
the action of the spirit. King had kind of a change of
heart on that. I think he used to be strong
on the regeneration thing, and I think he kind of came around
the more you're thinking on the subject. He totally concurs with your
message. He wouldn't say amen this morning
because he definitely believes that the spirit, the work of Christ in the elect
was not in time, it was in eternity, in the past. I try to see it from that old
viewpoint again. And I often go back and look
back, especially whenever, you know, I speak with family and
stuff like that, and they, I just go back to remember what you
were taught growing up and all like that, remember what your
grandpa used to teach and all that sort of stuff. And I do,
I go back and I look at that stuff. And I tell you, the more
that I go back and look at that, the more I see how erroneous
it is. And the further it pushes me
strongly in what we believe in, sovereign grace. And seeing things that I talked
about this morning, seeing those things, it's hard for me to go
back and say, well, no, it was this way. It was. That's really
interesting, because just this morning, I had this thought in
my mind. Christians are no longer dead.
OK, well, in a way, that's kind of I mean, guess what you're
saying? Guess we're dead in our trespasses
of sin. If I understand what you're saying,
the spirit of those who are God's elect has always had a vital
link to God. That vital union has always been
there, like Stanley Coates thought. Well, the question that arose
in my mind, whenever the Lord began to bother me about this
thing, is if we are given eternal life,
and that life didn't begin when I believed, it didn't begin whenever
He, it was always there. I mean, eternal life goes as
far backwards as it goes forwards. everlasting life? Some say, well,
everlasting life just means life continual and everything. But that word everlasting is
also used in places where the Lord is speaking of eternal.
And so I couldn't make a distinction between everlasting and eternal,
but the Bible does say he's giving us eternal life. So if he's giving
us eternal life, it's definitely going to be everlasting. But
if it's eternal, it's eternal. So that means that life was derived
before anything was created. That life was only in Christ,
the Bible says. The fact that these things have
been revealed to us doesn't change the fact as to when it happened.
Exactly. Yeah. It didn't change anything. We kind of like to think it does,
though, because we think the world revolves around ourselves,
you know? But yeah, that didn't change
anything, and it's not as if God's up there, you know, waiting,
oh, is He going to believe now, or is He going to believe later,
or... Even if you take the perspective of God knows all things, so He
knows we're going to believe, because Jesus said, you know,
He knew those from the beginning who would betray Him, right? Those who would believe on Him,
so He knew. But he's not saying, well, I've got to wait until
that point in time for them to do that before I can tell them,
okay, I've forgiven all your sins. That's crazy. And again, there we go back.
Then the Old Testament saints had to be saved a different way
than the New Testament saints. The Old Testament saints didn't
get anything. And even at this, and see, this
is where I'm struggling with this, that life, that the life
is given to us at the cross, then everybody after that gets
to life. What about everybody before that?
So my thing is either it is God giving life in His appointed
time, throughout time, or that every elect is born into this
world, whether before the cross or after the cross, already with
the Spirit of God in them. And it's just at God's appointed
time that he brings them forth, or begets them. That word begot
also means to bring forth. And so, that's kind of, you know,
I'm kind of a little confused in all that, and I may have...
We're going to pass along the same chapter of Acts that I just
love. It talks about David, and how
that he knew Christ. And so the revelation of God
to his people is another whole subject that's just remarkable
to me because of how God revealed himself. I think I've shared
this with you before. I went to a homeschool meeting
in Fargo, North Dakota. He never gave me the answer.
He said, that's the question. Well, you know, the Old Testament
saints are no different from the New Testament saints. They
were all chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
And so, as far as, you know, redemption and when it was accomplished
and applied and all that, you know, if Christ was slain from
the foundation of the world, then It's not really a relevant
question as to when. Because God is... He never changes. His decree is one decree. That's another reason why we
were under wrath, and now we're perhaps not under wrath, but
God doesn't change. If we were under wrath, and His
anger and hatred was towards us, Now it's not, then God's
changed. I love your point you made the
other night at dinner about impeccability of Christ, because that is rooted
and grounded in the atonement. That's the only reason that his
atonement was effectual, is because of his impeccability. That's
right. That'd be a spotless lame. Amen. Good stuff. I appreciate
it. A lot of things here. We've only
dove into the shadows. There's so much depth in what
Christ has done. We only have revealed to us what
God has revealed to us. We can't presume upon eternal
things as much as what's revealed to us. There's a lot that's probably
there, None of us can even scratch the surface on conveying, but
I do believe that those things which are given to us, that God
has given to us. I mean, there's certain things,
like that song, At the Cross, At the Cross, Where I First Saw
Light. I used to sing that, you know. There is some value in looking
to the cross, you know what I mean? A lot of people worship the cross,
though. Oh, that's right. That's exactly
right. I have a hard time singing the
old rugged cross. The old rugged cross made a difference
for me. Well, I thought it was Christ
that made the difference for you. Yeah, and I understand what
they're trying to convey that's speaking of the work of Christ.
I'd rather be a little more correct on that. That's one of the reasons
why we don't do crosses. I don't even like this Bible.
It's got the cross on it. I've seen that Bible just the
other day. Yeah, I mean, it's a good price because it's Wal-Mart. Well, that's where it's at. $14
for a good, excellent print, but I wouldn't wish to make crosses. That was that building that we
used to be in. you know it wasn't our building we couldn't do nothing
about it but they had out there the cross and the bricks on that
glass yeah well yeah and that's it and so i hated i hated that
but we don't we don't do crosses and steeples and stuff like that
pictures of jesus but yeah I think John Owen would agree
with you, actually. Really? Well, I mean, if you
read to his death, the death of Christ, and he talks, everything
in his treatise is grounded and rooted in eternity past. I mean, I don't agree with everything. I'm not a Calvinist. I'm not
a reformed person, but, you know, if you're listening on the way up
here, you're listening to Jacob's voice. It's eternity past. It's not
just in the future. It kind of goes against the stream
of his theology. Yeah, I listened to him and read
a lot of his books. One of the first books I read
was The Doctrines of Grace. You know, if you find any books
in a Christian bookstore that are of sovereign grace nature,
It's all Protestant reform stuff. So much of it is like the state. Puritans and stuff like that. As a matter of fact, it wasn't
until the first books of all the old backers like Bebe and
Charlotte Thompson and all those guys like that, that I even come
across Brother Royce, their church, sent me some books whenever I
started to preach. And he sent me a bunch of all
these books that Stanley Phillips did out. All these, The Golden Age of
the Baptists and everything. Just a compilation of writings
from a lot of the old Baptists. He sent me all those from Stanley
Phillips and then some, all of B.B.' 's editorials and all that
sort of stuff. And that was the first encounter I ever had with
the old school Baptist. And he sent me those because
I was beginning to see and preach about a lot of the things, but
I wasn't finding that among a lot of people and everything. sent
those to me and said, you know, I think you'll find a lot of
comfort in these, but this is kind of more the direction we
need. So that's how I come into contact
with folks like the Welsh Track and all those guys. I got on,
did you know Ron Pound? a little bit through Tom Phillips. I was on his forum. They had
a forum there, and we conveyed back and forth. Holt Sparks was
on there. And Holt Sparks had his own forum,
I think, there, and I was on his. So I've learned a lot of
this old school Baptist stuff from the acquaintance with those
men, but mainly from the book. And I've never seen books that
talked about eternal value. Well, I believed it. I didn't
know the term eternal value. And then Stan and Phyllis, you
know, that was one of the first places I ever read a book on
eternal value, and that one he wrote, and then through those
books that I've been seeing, so. One of the things that, and
I didn't know this, I just learned this last week, Robert's been,
you know, showing his challenges with Mitch McKeach, and, you
know, he made it really clear where, once I met McKeach, he
says he's, He's in the camp of the conditionless.
Because he puts certain gifts in there. If you do this, this
will happen. And I wasn't aware of that regarding
Benjamin Keech. Because a lot of people think
Benjamin Keech is old school. Right. Right. Yeah, I didn't
know. The only book I have about Keech
is his On Types of Metaphors. The only book I have of Keech. I never did read much of Keech. Was it him that had the catechism? Or was that being in the talks? Anyway, I don't
know. I forgot a lot of that stuff because I really kind of
quit reading a lot of those. Whenever I started coming across
guys like that, and I really don't even read much of that
stuff anymore, but whenever I do read, I like to read guys like
that and everything. All those other guys that just,
well, you know, He made a general statement. I did a lot of thinking
about it, and the more I think about it, I can't refute it. And the statement was this. He named the Presbyterians the Puritans. That's a pretty powerful statement. And if you notice, one thread
that runs through every religion, whether it's a Christian religion
or whether it's any other kind of religion, one thread that
runs through every one of those is free will. And even among
the Calvinists, they still hold the free will. That's a really
good point in fact. I would even go further and say
that one area that all the works religionists agree with, they
would agree with the agnostics and atheists, because the atheists
hold a free will. See, that is that thread that
runs through everything except the true gospel. And even among
the Calvinists, they'll say, well, we have free will, but
it's according to our nature. Well, that ain't true either.
My flesh man will is subjected to God, and the new man's will
is subjected to God. I mean, it's all subjected to
God. I've heard people say that the only, even those that talk
against free will, they say, I concur with what you're saying,
we don't have free will today. But they did have free will in
the Garden of Eden. No, they didn't have free will.
There was no way. And the day you eat of it, you
shall surely die. In the end of the day. Yeah,
not if you eat of it. In the end of the day, the value
is there. Do you want me to continue? Oh, no, you can turn it off.
I'm sorry.