All right, turn with me if you
would, back to Ecclesiastes 3, 14. This is the third week we've been looking
at this particular passage. In the last two weeks, we've
been dealing with some objections to the content of that passage. Ecclesiastes 3.14. Go ahead and
I'll read the verse here and we'll bow and have prayer and
ask the Lord to be with us. Then I'll recapitulate just a
little bit to get us back into where we're at today. A brief
synopsis for those who weren't here last week. And we'll move forward from there. Ecclesiastes 3.14, it says, I
know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing
can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth
it that men should fear before him. Father, we come to you this
morning, fully aware, as best as we can, as best as you enabled
us. knowing that you are the sovereign
God of all things, the creator of all, the mighty God, king,
eternal, immortal, the God of salvation, the God
of creation, the God of all things. Nothing has been done, nothing
has been made that has not been made by you. Lord, we thank you
today for who you are. We thank you today for all that
you have done. We praise your name for the mercy
and the grace that we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. As we
gather today, Father, we thank you for the fellowship of the
brethren that we have, the word of God that's been given to us
to declare the things of Christ. We pray that the spirit will
be with us today to help us in our worship. But even as we just
sang, Lord, the things of our heart has been brought by the
Spirit of God to be able to declare those hymns with the hope of
assurance, Lord, that these things are ours. Lord, we pray that
you just give us this morning the understanding, the teaching
of the Spirit. But as we look at these things
that we not put man on a pedestal, that we might declare the works
of men or the accomplishments of men, but Father, that we might
praise and honor the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might preach
him and preach him crucified and the work that he has done
on the behalf of his people. Lord, may we glory in that always. May you keep us faithful in the
preaching of the gospel. Lord, I pray for all those who
are here and all those who may be watching or listening. Lord,
I pray that you just might speak and minister to them. Without
the Spirit's teaching, without the Spirit's giving understanding,
Lord, it's all in vain. So we ask now, Lord, that you
just might open up these things to us today and that you might
proclaim Christ to us. And Lord, that we might faithfully
put forth the truth as it's found in God's word. May you help me
keep from evil and from error. Lord, I pray that you just might
I guide my thoughts this morning, that you might give me the things
to say, Lord. Without you giving me the utterance,
all the words that I will say will be in the wisdom of man,
which is no wisdom at all, especially as it pertains to the things
of God. Lord, I thank you that you have given us this time together,
and may you bless it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we began looking two or
three weeks ago At this particular verse, Ecclesiastes 3.14, of
course, if you remember the very first message that we looked
at, this is in the context of Solomon writing about the fact
that everything that there is on this earth that has been created
in the created order has been created by God, for God, and
everything down to the most minutest detail has been given a time
and a purpose for all of it. Everything, and we read there's
a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, time to
plug up that which is planted, time to kill, time to heal, time
to break down, time to build up, etc., etc. Everything has
its time, and at the end of it, Solomon said that he had seen
the travail which God had given to the sons of men to be exercised
in. This life that we have been given, this time of seasons of
positive and negative, of good and evil, of bad and good, of
gain and loss, all the things that we experience in this life,
God has purposed that, and that purpose was made at the beginning
before the foundation of the world. It was God's eternal purpose,
and everything in that eternal purpose is being brought out
in this time. And God is seeing to it that
everything that He has purposed is doing that, and He is, as
the word used here in verse 10, is exercising men in those things. So everything that happened to
us is by God's purpose. It's not by chance. We just sang,
right? We just said that we don't believe
in chance, and we don't believe that there is luck or fate. We don't believe those things.
Everything is purposed by God. So nothing happens by chance.
It isn't by chance that you're here today. It wasn't by chance
Daniel wasn't here, that he didn't feel good last week. It wasn't
by chance. It happened by God's purpose. It wasn't by chance
that you wore that blue shirt today. It was by God's purpose. And people say, well, that's
crazy. God doesn't pay any attention to what clothes we wear. Does
not the Bible say to not pay any attention to what we wear
or what we do or anything like that, that God has got all of
that taken care of, that every sparrow that falls, he knows
about it? Every hair on our head, if God knows every hair on our
head and it's counted and he knows all those things, and everything,
does he not know and already have purpose what I'm going to
wear today? I mean, we do believe that every minute detail of everything
is exactly according to God's purpose. I didn't wear this shirt
today apart from God's purpose. Otherwise, I wouldn't have worn
this shirt. If God purposed for me to wear my red shirt, I wouldn't
have worn my red shirt today. Which matter of fact, I got my
red shirt out to wear today, and then all of a sudden, out
of nowhere, I decided, well, I'm going to put this on instead of the
red shirt, wore this. Well, was it because I changed
my mind? No, it was because God had purposed that today I would
wear the blue shirt. Well, some will say, well, no,
you just chose to do that instead of the other. God doesn't make
those simple choices for us. The Bible says that man devises
his ways, but it's God that directs his steps. I devised to wear
my red shirt this morning whenever I got up, got my clothes out
of the closet, went to start getting ready. I got all that
out. But guess what? God directed my steps and here
I am in a blue shirt. And some people think, well,
that's just crazy. That's just frivolous stuff that God isn't
involved in and isn't even. He's got bigger things to worry
about. Brethren, the Bible says that
all these things have been given by God and is in the exercising
of them and his people. And he says this, he has made
everything beautiful in his time. Also, he has set the world in
their hearts so that man cannot find out the work that God make
it from the beginning to the end. And I know that there is
no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and do good in his
life. And also that every man should
eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift
of God, eating and drinking. How much mundane and simple could
that be? But yet God has purposed all
that and it is a gift of God. And so that is the context of
verse 14, that basically everything that's been said before is It
doesn't matter what is going on in this world. Every event,
everything that is happening is happening because it is God
that doeth it. Whatever God doeth, it shall
be forever. Meaning that what God has purposed,
that purpose is not going to change. That purpose is forever
set. That purpose is forever ingrained.
in its accomplishment because God has promised that He is going
to fulfill all the pleasure that He has. All of His will will
be done. People are out here saying, well,
that's against God's will. That's not according to God's
will. Well, you're out of God's will. Listen, if it's out of
God's will, then it's out of God's control. And if it's out
of God's control, then God is not in control. And if God's
not in control, then He's not God. God is in control of everything. Therefore, everything that is
going on is going on because God wills it to happen. And if
God wills it to happen, He willed it to happen because it was His
purpose. And if it was His purpose, that
purpose was before the foundation of the world. And if it was before
the foundation of the world, that means that your decisions
didn't make it happen. And if your decisions doesn't
make it happen, then that means that everything that's happening
is happening because God designed it to be that way. And God, as
it says right here, is the one who doeth it. It shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it. That
means nothing can be added to what God made a plan. Now you're going to add something
to it to help it out or to make it better or further it along.
And nothing can be taken from it. You can't say, well, God,
I don't think we ought to do this. This isn't right here. This isn't
right here. Nothing can be taken away from
it. And God do with it. And why does God do things this
way? Why has God predestinated everything
and every event, particularly salvation, but everything that
ever happens, God has controlled everything and nothing can be
put to it and nothing can be taken away from it. Why has God
done that? So that men should fear before. So that men would
show reverence to God as God. So that men would fear before
God and show reverence and praise and honor and glory to God. So that they would know. Plus,
the other reason that God does that is because He will share
His glory with nobody. Man cannot put their hands to
it. Man cannot take their hands away from it. Nothing can happen
apart from God's doing so that man can't ever say, I did this,
I did that. You wouldn't have been able to
do that without me. Or I stopped you from doing that. A lot of
people think that they can hinder God, that they can stop God,
that they can keep him from doing something or accomplishing something.
But God will do all his pleasure, the Bible says. And right here,
he says very clearly, I know that whatsoever God doeth it
shall be forever. God doeth it so that men should
fear him. And so we talked last week or
the first week, we talked about how that shows forth God's sovereignty
of all things. But as it pertains to salvation,
when we look at this verse in light of the work of Christ Jesus
on behalf of his people in the justifying of sinners, in the
salvation and the redemption of his people, we see also that
nothing can be put to it and nothing can be taken away from
it. And it is God that do it. It
isn't God and man that do it. It isn't God plus the preacher,
God plus the sinner who receives it. That isn't what makes the
salvation happen. It isn't God plus anything. Now the theological technical
term that everybody uses for that is synergism. It's not a
synergistic work. Synergism means the work of more
than one. A group effort. One plus somebody else effort.
But monergism, that's the opposite word, the theological 50 cent
word. Monergism, monergistic work,
means the work of one. Salvation is the work of one
and that's God. Salvation is of the Lord. One
person is responsible for salvation. Not God plus you. Not Jesus plus
me. Not Jesus in my faith. Not Jesus
in my belief. Not Jesus in my repentance. Not
Jesus in my baptism or Jesus in my church membership or Jesus
in my obedience and law keeping. It is Jesus. that is the salvation
of his people. And so nothing to be put to and
nothing to be taken away from. So whenever we talked about that
on the first week, and we showed that nothing, and especially
in salvation, nothing has anything to do with the person in its
salvation. And even the preaching of the
gospel has nothing to do with the salvation of God's people.
God's people were saved by the objective work of Christ Jesus
alone. His faithfulness justified His
people. His substitutionary death saved
His people. So we came and we seen, well,
if that's the case, then there was people that had objections.
Well, wait a minute. That's not right. If that's the
case, then Why do we even preach the gospel? And that's what we
dealt with last week. Objection number one last week was why
do we preach the gospel? But if we remember back to last
week, we saw that the preaching of the gospel is not to make
people saved. The preaching of the gospel is
to bring good news to those who are saved. The ones who are saved
are not saved because I preach to them. and this word engrafted
into their heart by the sound of my voice preaching to them
and it coming in their ears and quickening their heart and them
being saved. And without this preacher or
any other preacher preaching this message to them, they could
have never been saved. That's not how salvation works.
Salvation is not something that is an ongoing thing. God is not
saving people legally. anymore. It was a one-time thing. Christ came and once for all
made eternal redemption for his people. Christ and his coming
and dying was the one thing that was needed for salvation. His
obedience was the obedience for all of our obedience. If we're
God's people, every obedience that God has required of us by
his law has been accomplished not in our flesh, but in Christ,
our substitute. The death that we deserve because
of the transgression of the law, Jesus Christ also is our substitute,
not only in our life, but in our death, came and substituted. He substituted our death. Instead
of our flesh, our death, being put to death on that cross for
crimes because the righteous requirement of the law is that
sin must be condemned in the flesh. Sin must be condemned in the
flesh. Well, instead of sin being condemned in our flesh, it was
condemned in His flesh. That's why He came made of flesh.
so that he might be the substitute for his people and die that substitutionary
death. Now, everybody in the world is
grateful and just cheers and just talks about, oh, how wonderful
it was that Jesus died in my place. That whenever he was nailed
to the cross, that was as if I was nailed to the cross. Whenever
he died, I died. Whenever he was put in the grave,
I was put in the grave. Whenever he rose up from the
grave, I rose up from the grave. And everybody's good about that,
but not too many people want to say, well, whenever Jesus
kept all the law, I kept all the law, therefore I have perfect
obedience before God. No, they want to keep adding
that, that we still got to keep up that obedience to be right
with God. No, Jesus was right with God
for us. Jesus died before God for us. The life and the death was substitutionary. So the preaching of the gospel
does not save anybody. Christ already did that. The
preaching of the gospel is to bring that good news to the open
ears of those who have been saved. Those whom God has quickened,
who has been given ears to hear and eyes to see. who has been
given a heart to receive and believe. Those are the people
that the gospel is to be preached to. That's the ones who are the
message for. See, this message isn't for the
reprobate who God did not die for. It's not for the goats who
God did not die for. Christ. So the objection is that
if God has done it all and salvation is objective and has nothing
to do with anything we do, then there's no need to preach The
reason that people say that is because they don't understand
the purpose of the gospel. They don't understand salvation. They don't understand the gospel
at all. Because if they understood the
gospel, they would know that the gospel was Christ's salvation
and that that gospel message is the declaration to those whom
He did save to tell them the good news of their salvation.
The purpose of preaching the gospel isn't to get people saved,
but to declare unto them they're already salvation. That's the
purpose of the gospel. Why am I preaching the gospel
today? It's to declare the good news that for all those for whom
Christ died, they have already been saved and justified before
God. Their sins have been blotted
out. Their sins have been covered. There's no more condemnation
for sin. There is no penalty for sin. There is going to be no wrath
of God upon you. And that Christ has obeyed the
law on your behalf. And that you stand before God,
holy and blameless. That's why I preach the gospel. That's why we preach. So the
objection last week, Well, we should just stop preaching the
gospel if that's the case. No, that's because the purpose
of the gospel is to declare the good news and to comfort those.
The Bible says, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak comfortably
unto the people and tell them that their sins have been covered,
that they've been blotted out. Tell them that their redemption
has come. Tell them that they have been forgiven. Tell them
that they have been purchased by blood and that that blood
has cleansed them of all their sins. That's what the gospel is for,
it's to comfort those. Not only to bring the message
of good tidings to those who have been given ears to hear,
but to also comfort the soul, to keep them In that state of
rest, whenever they hear the gospel, we enter into that rest
and we believe on Christ and we hear Christ and our faith
is renewed every day and our soul is renewed every day because
we continue to hear the good works of Christ on our behalf.
That's why we preach the gospel. That's why we preach the gospel
to those who are already saved. See the mentality of the world
today. is we preach the gospel to those who are not saved so
that we can get them saved. And then once we get them saved,
then we get them into the church and then we tell them how they
have to live. That's not how it works, brethren. The preaching
of the church is to continually preach the gospel, whether it's
in here or whether it's out there, because it's the preaching of
the gospel that is the food to the soul of the child of grace.
To the goat, to the religious person, the preaching of the
law is food. Give me that law preaching. Give
me my list of demands that is due me, and I'm going to go out
and do my responsibility and my duty so that whenever it's
all done, God's going to pat me on the back and say, well
done, thy good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord. Your reward is waiting for you.
Here's all the crowns that I'm going to put on your head, and
oh, by the way, once you get all these crowns, turn around
and give them right back to me." Brethren, that's not what the
preaching of the gospel is for. So that objection is asinine because
that person that asked that question doesn't know the gospel, doesn't
know the purpose of the gospel. Now, today I want us to look
at another objection that comes up whenever you preach this,
and it's kind of like the one we looked at last week, so that
we don't need to preach the gospel. The objection that we also hear
whenever we preach sovereign grace and predestination, especially
whenever they're joined together in the work of salvation, is,
well, if that's true, then why does the Bible say that we need
preachers? The importance of preachers.
You know, then why did God give us preachers? If that's the case. If everything is done by God,
if everything is ordered by God, if everything is predestinated
and election is true as you say it's true, then why do we even
need preachers? Don't we need preachers to hear
the gospel? The Bible says we need preachers to hear the gospel.
And turn with me if you would to Romans chapter 10. Because
this is the verse that they always want to run to. Romans chapter
10. Romans chapter 10. And usually
they want to run to verses 14 through 17. It says, How then shall they call on him
whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Oh my, we're in a dilemma here.
No one's going to get saved if there's not a preacher. We have
to have a preacher. Boy, the Papists loved that.
The Papists loved the sound of that, especially those bishops.
Those priests, the Pope, oh, they love to hear this preaching
right here because that puts them right square dab in the
middle between man and God. Remember, brethren, there is
only one mediator between God and man, and that's the man,
Jesus Christ. But yet the preacher out here
is saying, without the preacher, without the preacher, you can't
be saved. Without preaching the gospel, if someone doesn't come
and preach you the gospel, you can't be saved. Who is now putting
salvation at the hands of somebody else besides the one mediator,
which the Bible says is Jesus. There's only one mediator of
salvation, whether it's in the act of the salvation or the administration
of that salvation. the experiential part of it.
Either way, that is by Christ and Him alone. It's not by man. Man does not mediate salvation.
That's what the papers teach. That's why this is in so many
of these harlot churches out there is because they are still
clinging on to a lot of the harlot teaching of the Catholic Church. That you have to have a preacher
to mediate for you. You have to have a preacher to
go before God before you. That's why they come and want
the preacher to pray for them. That's why they come and want
the preacher to give them some kind of a psychology session
to tell them what they need to do in their life. That's why
they come and think that the preacher is the one who has to
get them saved. Oh, if I'm not married by a preacher.
Oh, if I'm not baptized by that preacher. They put everything in the hands
of the preacher as if the preacher is the one that mediates grace.
As if the preacher is the one who mediates salvation. That
God has left salvation in the hand of the preacher and it's
the preacher's duty to take this message out and get it out there
and to administrate God's salvation on behalf of God. Brethren, that
is not how salvation works and that is not the purpose of the
preacher. But it says right here, How shall they hear without a
preacher? Now look at verse 15. And how shall they preach except
they be sent? Somebody's got to send the preacher.
You've got to have the church there to send the preacher. How
shall they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. So there's the question. Well,
preacher, you're saying it's all apart from anything that
man does, and even the preaching of the gospel has nothing to
do with the salvation of man. But right here, Paul makes it
very clear, they cannot hear, they cannot call on a God, a
Christ that they do not have known or that they have not believed
on. How can they do that if they
have not heard, if they don't have a preacher, and if nobody
has sent somebody to preach to them? That's why we've got to
have these mission boards. That's why we've got to have
all this mission money. That's why we've got to send
all these men to all the four corners of the world to go out
into the Oogaboos of Africa to get the guys with the big giant
plates in their lips and the big giant things hanging off
their ears and the guys with painted faces are going to the
hearts and depths of India where all the people have all these
thousands of gods to preach to them the truth so that they can
get saved because without a preacher they're not going to get saved.
because they have to have somebody sent to them so that they can
hear and so that they can believe. Brethren, as I read this in the
context of chapter 10, I do not see verses 14 and 15 as an argument
of Paul in the affirmative that this is what needs to be done
so that salvation can take place, but yet he is using this, mind
me the word, in the sarcastic. He is using this in the sarcastic. These are the questions coming
up to those who don't know the gospel. Are these verses in the
Bible? Absolutely they are. Paul is
actually quoting Isaiah 53 in this passage here. It's quoted
in other places in Scripture. But what is Paul using this for?
He's using this because they have misunderstood what those
passages that he is quoting, they've misunderstood how they
are in their context and in the overall context of Scripture.
And people, whenever we come to this issue of, is the Gospel
what regenerates? And again, that's the bad word
for it, but that's the word that everybody uses, so I'm using
that so people know what I'm talking about, gospel regeneration.
That the gospel preaching is what brings regeneration to people.
Whenever people believe that, whenever people are saying that
you have to have a preacher preaching so that salvation can take place,
they are saying that because they are ignorant of the clear
teachings of scripture, and they're taking these obscure passages
of that, and they are pressing upon them their theological thoughts,
their traditions, and they're trying to make it something that
it's not. Remember, we've got to go to the clear and plain
things so that we might be able to interpret those things which
are cloudy. And we know for a fact that the
Bible teaches that no man believes on his own, that faith is a gift
of God. It isn't created in our heart.
It isn't brought into being by our making a decision. It isn't
something that we just, I'm taking my faith from here and I'm putting
it over here now. That is not what faith is and
no one can create or make or work out or exercise faith. Faith is something that is given
by Christ and it is given in measure by Him. It's meted out. That's what that measure is given
in its amount. However much God gives you to
believe, how deep He gives you to believe, how much He gives
you to believe, what exactly He's given you to believe up
to this point. We grow in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? So then our faith increases as
God teaches us. That's not any of the people
here, Storm, for those who are watching. That's my dog. We have a misunderstanding. The
Bible clearly teaches that it has been given unto you on behalf
of Christ to believe. Acts 13, 48, one of the watershed
verses that God used in bringing me to the understanding of sovereign
grace. It said those who were ordained
to eternal life believe. The only ones who ever believe
are those who are ordained to eternal life. And those in Philippians
1.29 where it says that it has been given on behalf of Christ
that you believe. It's been given to you to believe.
So belief or faith is not something that is just exercised. It isn't
something that the preacher, whenever he speaks and those
words come in, it just creates faith in them. Faith is something
that is inputted into our heart, not into our mind, into our heart. Just because somebody has the
knowledge of sovereign grace, predestination, election, justification
by Christ alone, just because they have knowledge of that doesn't
mean that they have heart. And I've heard preachers even
say, well, that's a dichotomy, that's a stupid debate. and everything. You can't separate the mind from
the heart. You have to know in the mind to be able to believe
in the heart and all this kind of stuff. I say that it comes
to the heart first. And once it comes to the heart
first, the mind begins to understand what's been put into the heart.
Because the Bible says, I will take out of them a heart of flesh
and put into, or a heart of stone, and I will put into them heart
and flesh, and I will write my laws on their hearts and in their
minds." There is a dichotomy there. There is a split between
the head and the heart. And it is with the heart that
one believeth unto salvation, not with the mind. It is with
the mind that one believes unto salvation. So amassing knowledge
of this, You kids that are here just because you grew up listening
to this your whole entire life might have the knowledge of sovereign
grace in the verses that we quote all the time and all the preaching
that I've ever done. You might have it in here, but
until God puts it in here, and only God can put it in here,
where you actually believe that to be true. That not only do
you believe it to be true, but you hope on it as the truth.
That is your hope. You no longer have hope in anything
else but that. That's the only way that a man
can be saved and only a way that man comes to know his salvation.
It's whenever God puts that into the heart. So we have to take
the clear and plain things which teaches us that the ones who
believe are the ones who come to Christ are the ones that God
has given him. So it's the elect of God, the sheep of God. Those
are the ones coming, right? Now, so let's go though, because
Paul goes on to say, look at verse 16. And this is why I say
he said this in sarcasm. He gives them the question. Because
in verse 13, he says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. And so everyone says, hey, there
you go. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. The Lord only saves those who call upon him. And then he
goes right into, well, then how shall they call on him if they've
not believed? And how shall they believe in
whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Like
it's written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good
tidings. Glad tidings of good things. But look at verse 16. This is why I think it was sarcasm.
But they have not all obeyed the gospel or they've not all
submitted to the gospel. Here's the issue that Paul is
bringing up. Paul is going into the fact of
what he started in chapter 9. Actually, he started back way
before that, but especially in chapter 9, why some believe and
why some don't believe. Why some are saved and why some
are not saved is by God's choice. Election was by God's choice.
the twins having either done good or bad so that the purpose
of God according to election might stand. He chose one and
not the other. It's God's choice. Why are some
believing the gospel and why are some not believing the gospel?
And in context here, why are some Jews believing and some
Jews not believing if we're all supposed to be the people of
God? And Paul is saying, here's the thing. We're not all the
people of God. It's only those who are the spiritual
Jew that is the real people of God. And those are the ones who
are the only ones who will believe. And those are the only ones whom
God has given faith. Those are the only ones for whom
Christ died. Those are the only ones whom
God will have come to Him. And so Paul is continuing that
same argumentation. And here he is dealing with the
objections, just like he did in Romans 9, whenever someone
says, But someone will say, well, why is that making us? He was
using sarcasm. He was using argumentation to
prove a point, and here he's doing it again. He's saying,
well, if it's the case of God's deal, then how are they going
to believe it? How are they going to call upon the name of the
Lord if nobody goes and tells them about it? And Paul's saying,
wait a minute. Someone had, look back in our
history. The gospel was being preached
to these people. The gospel has been preached
to them. The gospel was preached, verse
16, but they have not all obeyed or submitted. That word obeyed
there means submitted. They've not submitted to the
righteousness of God, but tried to establish a righteousness
of their own. They didn't submit to that righteousness. They haven't
obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, Lord, who hath
believed our report? So now he's appealing back to
Isaiah 53 in verse 1. Isaiah 53-1. Turn to Isaiah 53-1. Let's look. This is what Paul's
argument is. He's going back to Isaiah. He's
saying, well, how can they believe if we don't send somebody to
preach to them? They ain't going to get saved
unless you send a preacher to them. And I'm advocating that
he did send a preacher to them. He sends a preacher to every
one of his sheep. But it's not me. It's not you. It's not anybody
else that sends that message. That message is sent to comfort
you in the initial message, in the initial teaching. But I put
forth that the teacher, the preacher, The One who is doing the preaching
is Christ by the Holy Spirit. Christ is preaching to every
one of His people by the Holy Spirit in the heart before ever
there is a word that comes in their ears. They first have,
just like we talked about last week, the ground has to be made
good before the seed can take root. The seed doesn't do the
rooting and making it good. I'll give you that example last
week. I throw a seed out in that yard. Some seed grows and makes
nice grass. Some seed don't do nothing. Well,
do I look at that seed and say, what's wrong with you? Get to
wiggling down in that dirt. No, somebody's got to come and
make the ground good before the seed will take root. The ground
has to be made good. Well, does the preacher make
the ground good? No. Does this being read or preached
make the ground good? No. What makes the ground good? The quickening spirit of God. Giving that person eyes to see,
ears to hear, heart and flesh to receive the things of God.
That's what makes the ground good. Because before that we
are dead in trespasses and sin. Before that our heart is stone.
Before that our eyes are blind, our ears are deaf. Before that,
we cannot understand, we cannot perceive the things. The Bible
says, the carnal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness to him. So until the Spirit of
God changes the heart, changes the mind, gives ears to hear
and eyes to see, then the Word of God can be preached all day
long and will have no effect. So there is no effectiveness
in the preacher preaching this unless the Spirit of God has
first come and taught that person that this is true. And when the
preacher speaks this to a heart already made true or already
made new, then that truth is received and says, that is the
truth. Why does it all of a sudden know
that it's true? Because it's already been told
it's true. It's already been given faith that faith clings
to that which is true. Faith is a substance of things
hoped for. What does the things hope for? His salvation is mine. Him for me. He was my substitute. Faith is the substance of things
hope for. My hope is that Christ has done it all for me. My hope
is that Christ died for me. My hope is that he obeyed for
me. My hope is that salvation was taken care of in Christ because
if it's left for me, the Bible says that by flesh, no man, no
man can keep the things of God. Please God, everything is filthy
rags. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, the evidence of God's
internal work of giving me a heart of flesh to be able to receive
the things that I once thought was foolish. to receive the things
that I thought, this isn't how salvation works. Salvation has
to come by men's activities, whether it's mine or the preacher's
or the church's or somebody's. Isaiah 53 verse 1 says, Who hath
believed our report? That's the question. That's the
question he was asking. How can they hear unless someone
has said to them, and he said, well, wait a minute. Have they
not heard? But as Isaiah says, who hath
believed our report? Now, brother, you've heard me
preach on this many times, and I say the answer to question
number one comes in question number two. And to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed? The one who believes the report
or the gospel is the one unto whom the arm of the Lord has
been revealed. God's power. What is the power? The Bible says, I am not ashamed
of the gospel, for in it is the power of God unto salvation. The preaching of the gospel?
No, the content of the gospel. The content of the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. It's God having the power to
take someone who is dead and trespasses and sin and bring
him to spiritual life to be able to hear the things that to him
is foolishness, but now all of a sudden he hears those foolish
things again and whenever he hears them, by the faith that
has been given to him by God, receives them as truth and believes
and hopes upon them. the power of God, the arm of
the Lord. That's what the arm of the Lord
represents, is the power of God. To whom have the arm of the Lord
revealed? Who is the power of God came
in and revealed these things to? Because without being revealed,
no one's going to believe them. They have to be revealed by the
Spirit. Me preaching it doesn't reveal it. You reading it in
the Bible isn't going to reveal it. That reveals it to the carnal
mind. It reveals it to the carnal intellect.
It reveals it to the carnal perceptions of things. And then once it's
into the carnal mind, the carnal perception of things, then it
begins to be reasoned out by carnal intellect. And then our
traditions come in. Oh yeah, this is what that guy
said. Oh yeah, this is what this church did. Oh yeah, I remember,
that's how I grew up. That's what my mama said. That's
what my granddaddy said. That's what my uncle said. That's
what my brother said. Tradition comes in. But brethren,
whenever the Spirit of God, the arm of the Lord, the power of
God comes in and changes the heart and gives you a spiritual
life instead of a carnal life, that spiritual life now receives
spiritual preaching. spiritual teaching and the spirit
comes in and says, that's not the truth. This is the truth
and grant you repentance to turn from the false truth to the truth
and believe it. That's faith. Faith is turning. or excuse me, repentance is turning
from wrong thinking about salvation to right thinking about salvation.
It's not turning from doing sin to not doing sin because we continue
to sin, brethren. Repentance is turning from righteousness
as a thing that we can accomplish ourself to all righteousness
was done by Christ and given to me. I have no righteousness
of my own. The arm of the Lord reveals that
to us. Until the arm of the Lord reveals that to us, no one will
believe the report. So the question of how can they
believe if we don't send a preacher to them? Paul is making the argumentation. It doesn't matter how many preachers
are sent to them. There were lots of preachers
that were sent to them in the Old Testament, and they still
didn't submit to the righteousness which is of Christ. They continued
to try to establish their own righteousness. Therefore, the
preaching from a man cannot do anything. The only thing that
can change the person to begin to believe the report is for
there to be an internal teaching, an internal preaching, an internal
gospel work in the heart. And only the one that can do
that is the power of God. The arm of the Lord reveals that. It is the arm of the Lord that
reveals that. Who has believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That's who does
that. Turn with me, if you would, to
John chapter 12. John chapter 12. Look with me,
if you would. Verse 37 says, Though he had
done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not him. See, here again, even up until
Jesus' day. See, first it was the prophets. It was Moses and the prophets,
all proclaiming Abraham, proclaiming Christ, their Messiah. The ones that come, they were
proclaimed. The gospel was being proclaimed, not in its clarity
as we know it today, but it surely was being preached. We know it's
been preached because the New Testament tells us that the gospel
was preached to them back in those days. Jesus made it very
clear that everything in the whole entire book, and at that
time when that was said, that was everything in the Old Testament,
the volume of the book was about Him. So everything that was being
taught in the Old Testament with being taught of Christ. And yet
they didn't believe. There were some that didn't believe. And even here, now we have Jesus,
who is the best preacher, who is the one who has the most knowledge
of the subject, who knows the heart of every man, has now come
and preached to them, has performed miracles that only God can do,
and yet it says that they believe not on Him. So you think that
Jesus Christ Himself who comes and preaches and performs miracles
to back up His preaching, and yet somebody doesn't believe
on Him, you think you can go out there and convert souls?
You think you can go out there and convert souls? Listen, the reason those people
did not believe is because they never were intended to believe. The reason they did not believe
on Jesus is because they were not Jesus's sheep. Let's read
on. But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet
they believed not on him. That the saying of Isaias the
prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed
our report? There it is again. Who had believed
our report? We went and preached, we've been
sent to preach, but who has believed our report? And he says, and
to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore, they
could not believe because that Isaiah said again, he hath blinded
their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see
with their eyes. nor understand with their heart
and be converted and I should heal them. These things said
Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him. That was in
Isaiah 6. He saw Christ sitting on the
throne, high and lifted up. He tried to fill the temple and
everything shook whenever they cried, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. That's what Isaiah saw. That's what Isaiah was told.
I'm gonna go and I'm gonna blind their eyes and I'm gonna stop
up their ears and I'm gonna harden their hearts and they're not
gonna believe on me because they're not intended to believe. They're
not intended to hear. The only ones that are gonna
do is whom the arm of the Lord reveals it to. Why? Why? Ecclesiastes 3.14, so that
men might fear before him, so that he might not share his glory
with anybody, so that he might receive all praise and glory.
for the salvation that people receive. He says here, Jesus himself appeals back to
that same argument. The only one that believes the
report is the one to whom the arm of the Lord reveals it. He
hasn't revealed it here. Look at John chapter 8, if you
would. John chapter 8, and look with
me if you would, In 42, Jesus said to them, if
God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forward
that came from God. Neither came I of myself, but
he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? See, God sent. There was somebody
who was sent. How can they know unless somebody
is sent? There has to be a preacher that's
sent. God sent the preacher. He sent Jesus. And Jesus spoke, but they didn't
understand his speech. Why do you not understand my
speech? Even because. Here's the reason. Why do people
not believe the report? Why is the preaching of the preacher
not effective? Why is taking this Bible and
expounding its word not effective in saving people? Why can it
not be the hope of salvation, the preaching of the gospel that
is? How come the preaching of the gospel to lost souls isn't
the effective hope that we have for their salvation? Because
this right here. You do not understand my speech
because you cannot hear. my word. That's the problem. Me as a preacher, I cannot make
you hear the gospel. I cannot make you hear it and
understand it. No matter how simple I put it,
no matter, I can get out here and draw pictures all day long
and you're not going to get it. You're not going to believe it.
It's not going to, you might get it in here and say, well,
there's the facts. I know the facts. My dad taught me sovereign
grace my whole entire life that we're not saved by our will.
We're not saved by our choice. We're not saved by this or that.
We're only saved by Jesus alone. You can have all that knowledge
in your head, kids, but listen to me. If God doesn't put that
in your heart, you'll never understand. He says,
you cannot hear my words. I can't make you hear. The preacher
is never going to make you hear. Only God can make you hear. The Bible says in Proverbs 20
and verse 12, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord
hath made both of them. Not the preaching of the gospel,
the Lord hath made both of them. Jesus said, he are of your father
the devil and the lust of your father you will do. He was a
murder from the beginning and abode not in the truth because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own for he is a liar and a father of it. And because I
tell you the truth, you believe me not. Which of you convinced
me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's
words. Ye therefore hear them not because
ye are not of God. People who give this objection
to God doing it, and no one can put to it, no one can take away
from it, and whenever we say that salvation is out of the
hands of man, and they come with these objections, well I guess
we don't preach the gospel to anybody anymore, or wait a minute,
preaching the gospel is essential because nobody can get saved
without the preacher. They do not understand the gospel. They don't understand the gospel.
They're still believing a false gospel and that true gospel doesn't
fit their traditional gospel, which is false. Therefore, what
do they think about this true gospel? Why do they even put
these objections up here? Because it's foolishness to them.
The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. The
gospel is foolishness to the carnal mind. They have not been
given belief yet if they are the child of grace. If they're
not the child of grace, they'll never be given to believe it.
And they will continue to scoff and mock and follow after their
traditions, follow after their religious activity. But for the
child of grace who has been given faith, they have been given repentance
to turn from thinking that way and to turn to thinking on the
gospel the way that Christ has preached it. And they hear it.
And not only do they hear it and comprehend it, But it gets
down into their heart where that faith now is mixed with the truth
and it is now believed on. That's the difference. That's
why we do need a preacher. But brethren, it isn't the preaching
of men. It's the preaching of Christ.
Unless Christ preaches that gospel to the heart, the heart will
never open and believe it. Look if you would at Hebrews
chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4. I'm sorry, verse 2. It says,
for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. Now, I've heard people and I've heard this my whole entire
life. I used to say it myself. There you go. The reason The
reason they're not saved is whenever they heard the word preach, they
didn't mix it with faith and believe it. As if we can do that. Again, I take you back to the
clear teachings of Scripture. Faith is not something that we
can exercise or activate at will. Faith is a gift of God. Faith
is something that is given unto us to do. Faith is measured out
to us by Christ. Therefore, I can't just mix faith. Well, I heard that message. Well,
I'm going to believe that. No. Faith comes in whenever God
opens the heart and teaches it that that is true. See, it truly
is in some aspects. Truth is something that comes
in that whenever the mind perceives that which is true, It now goes
down into the will and believes that that is true because it
now knows that that's the truth. But brethren, listen. That's
why you can't separate the head from the heart. The reason that
we believe the head can believe something, but the heart not
fully be into it. You can believe that I gotta
do all this work that my boss told me to do, but my heart's
not in it. I believe that that's my duty to do, But my heart's
not in it. There's a lot of times I get
up and have to go to work. And it's my duty to go to work. I have covenanted with my boss
that if you pay me, I'll go and do the work that you tell me
to do. And so he tells me to go out to here. Well, today I
don't feel like going out there. I know that's my duty. And I
get up and I drag myself out of bed and I get in that van
out there and I drive all the miles I gotta drive and I go
work on the things that I gotta work on. get dirty, get nasty,
get talked too bad, get whatever, drag myself home at night. I
do that, but my heart may not be in that. My heart may not
be in it at all. Why? Because I know that's what
I ought to do, but that's not really what I want to do. Faith
is something that I can't control. Faith is something that God gives
to me. Faith is something that He measures out to me and measure.
And faith is something that He grows exponentially as He sees
fit. And truth is something that He
reveals to me. So I don't have any control over
any of that. He controls the truth. He controls
the faith. He controls how much of that
comes together in me. And how much of that is sunk
down into this heart to believe. It's all on Him, brethren. He
is the great preacher. He is the great teacher. He is
the one that unless a man is taught of God, he will not be
taught of all. You have no need that any man be your teacher,
for they shall all be taught of God. Christ has to be our
teacher. And we trust Him to be that faithful
teacher. He's not going to be an unfaithful
teacher. He's not going to let something slip through the cracks.
He's not going to make it unclear to them. He is going to teach
them. And listen, brethren, how better to teach and to reach
every lost child of grace that's out there in this world as it's
been scattered from every four corners of the world than the
person who not only knows where they're at, but is the only one
who can effectively speak to their heart where that they can
believe what's being said to them. See, if it's up to the
preacher, he might not get there. If it's up to the preacher, he
might say something wrong. If it's up to the preacher, it's
not gonna happen. Only the great preacher can make
it happen. He says, it was not mixed with
faith and then they heard it. Brethren, it wasn't mixed with
faith because it wasn't given. They weren't given faith, not
because they didn't take their faith and mix it with it. So God has to reveal these things. Christ has to reveal these things.
So the Word of God that reveals these things is not this Word,
not this Word, the Word of God. Christ is the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing, and
I don't have any problem with that. Whenever we have been given
faith of Christ, and Christ reveals the things and teaches things
through our heart, whenever we read God's Word, when we hear
things preached, it does, it enlightens faith, but it doesn't
create it. It doesn't initialize it. It doesn't quicken the heart. It feeds the soul. Faith comes
by hearing, but hearing by the word of God, not by the preaching
of the word of God, but by the word of God, Christ himself.
It comes by the command. Hearing comes by the command
of God. That word there, the word word, We know that there's
two words in the Greek for that. There is Logos. The word Logos
is often spoken of when it's talking about Christ as in a
name. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. The word there in Greek is Logos, but it's speaking of
Christ. Christ is the Logos. But there's
another Greek word for the word Word, and that is Rhema. And
that word rhema means the command of God. It's the fiat, the command
of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the command of God. Now, brethren, this is what fits
into the Bible context perfectly. Whenever you put it the other
way around, whenever it's talking about the preacher, it don't
fit in contact with the Word of God, because the Word of God
tells us that faith doesn't come by the work of men, it comes
by the gift of God measured out by Christ, and the truth is not
something that we can believe, it has to be revealed by the
arm of the Lord. So if it's the arm of the Lord
that has to reveal it, if it's faith that only comes from Him
and it's only measured out by Him, then the preacher comes
in and it's up to him to get it done. That doesn't make sense. The only way that this fits with
all the rest of what Scripture teaches about faith and about
the Gospel is that the Word of God here is not me preaching
this, but it is the command of God, just like the verse said,
The seeing eye, the hearing ear, the Lord has made both of them.
That it has come by the power of God. It is the power of God
unto salvation. It is the word of God, the command
of God that you be saved. Not only in the work of Christ
Jesus, but it is the power of God that you are made spiritually
alive. See, that's born from above.
A preacher can't get into heaven. That's why Paul made that argument.
Can we go into heaven and bring Christ down or go into the depths
and bring Christ up? No, we don't do that. How do
we do it? By faith. How is faith given
to us? It's given to us by God. How
is truth ever meted out to anyone? How is truth ever dealt to any
person? By revelation. That's only by
God. So faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the command or by the fiat, by the power of God. So the phrase Word of God here
doesn't mean preaching. Hearing comes whenever God commands,
whenever He gives us ears to hear and He gives us faith to
believe. And that faith is fed and it
enjoins that gospel message as being for us. So that goes all the way back
to what we started with. Nothing can be put to it and
nothing can be taken away from it. The preacher isn't putting
something to get Christ's salvation by his faithfulness and activity
of preaching. And nothing can be taken away
from Christ's salvation by the lack of a preacher preaching
or the wrongness of the preacher's preaching. Nothing can be taken
away from it. You're saying, well, preacher,
are you just talking about mysticism? That out of nowhere that God
can just create that life without anything? Well, God created life
out of nothing when it all started, didn't he? In the beginning was
God and that was it. But yet here we are. Here everything
is something made out of nothing. Can not God make spiritual life
and give spiritual life without the work and hands of man? If
I err in this, if I err, and I can be an error, and if I am,
I pray that the word of God, that the spirit of God, that
the brethren of God that knows better can enlighten me and with
scripture, not tradition, not your commentaries, not your theologians,
but with Scripture. Show me where cohesively that
that works with all of Scripture, that there's a different way
to look at this. Because if you look at the way I was saying
that I used to look at it, it don't fit. It contradicts itself. Even the Sovereign Grace people
who are saying that they believe in Sovereign Grace, but yet it's
still the gospel that regenerates, they deny everything that they
preach about Sovereign Grace. If they're preaching sovereign
grace and then preaching that God has to wait to justify you
until you're given faith to believe it, or that you're not saved
until you believe from the hearing of a preacher, then you have
now contradicted everything that you've said about predestination,
election, and sovereign grace. All of that. Completely washed out by that
one little phrase that you said, but you have to. But there has
to be. That's there. There is no buts
in the gospel. It is salvation is of the Lord,
but no, salvation is of the Lord, period. Period. Man can't take away from it.
Man can't put to it. Everything God doeth, he does
it. so that men might fear before
him. All right, does anybody have any questions or any comments? Anything? Good? All right, well,
let's now have a word of prayer. Lord, we come once again, we
thank you for this gospel. We thank you for the grace that
is in Christ Jesus. We thank you, Father, that everything
for our salvation has been taken out of our hands Lord, we truly
do praise and glory in your predestination, your sovereign control, that
this world is not in chaos. It's not out of control, but that you control all things,
particularly in salvation. Father, we know that you control
all things that has to do with it from the very from the very act
of salvation in the work of Christ to the very reception of it by
the child of grace in time. Lord, we are grateful for all
the work that you do, for the perfect plan as the Father, the
perfect execution of it as the Son, and the perfect application
of it as the Spirit. find it in our hearts and our
minds. Give us the report revealed,
the heart to receive it, the ears, the eyes to hear it and
to see it, the heart to love it, to cherish it, the soul to
be warmed and fed by it. Father, we surely aren't belittling
preaching. We're not belittling the Word
of God in written form. That was never the purpose of
this. My heart, I pray, Lord, has not been conveyed that way
to others. It's never been the importance, to take away from
the importance of men preaching and the word of God to be the
center of truth and the rule of life, or of faith, but is
to show that these things, while given to us, are not the things
that actually make it happen. It is only of God. Lord, that
you cannot be deterred in your plan and in your purpose. Father,
we glory in that salvation that is of sovereign grace. Because we know as sinners. We
could never obey the law to make a righteousness for ourself.
We could never believe because we have not faith. We could never
Understand, because we may not have spiritual understanding,
we truly are beholden to you in every aspect of everything.
And so we come to you this morning and ask that you might continue
to keep us in the state. Preserve us till the end, Father,
till you take us to be with you. I pray for this church and I
ask Lord that you might continue to bless it, to minister to it,
to add to it as you see fit, to take away as you see fit.
Lord, I pray for others that are preaching this gospel, Lord,
that you might bless their churches. Lord, that you might strengthen
them. In the days to come, this message, I'm sure, as it already
is now, is hated by most, especially the religious. But Father, I
pray that you would keep them in your word, as you have promised.
Lord, we pray for your children, wherever they're scattered, that
you as the good shepherd will bring your sheep into the fold.
Lord, we thank you. We praise you. It's in Christ's
name that we pray.