and we'll be looking at a few
verses today, but we will be harboring right around John chapter
six and seven in the book of John mostly today. We want to
continue as the Lord's graciously led me to continue
in my thoughts what I, when I say that that's not right how I should
say that. The Lord has continued to give me to think on these
things that we've been looking at the last few weeks on why
we need sovereign grace. We've looked over the course
of, I don't know how many weeks now, four or five, something
like four weeks, something like that, on why we need sovereign
grace, why we preach sovereign grace. And like I said at the
very beginning of this series, I guess, want to call
it. A lot of people wonder why we
call ourselves Sovereign Grace, why we boast about Sovereign
Grace all the time, why we make a big deal about it and everything. And as we've hopefully seen as
we've gone through God's Word on all these different points,
is that without Sovereign Grace, salvation is absolutely impossible. If you remember, whenever the
rich man came to Jesus, And the rich young ruler come to Jesus
and basically said, you know, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus said, you know, basically keep the commandments.
And I said, all these things I've kept since my youth, which
wasn't true. But anyway, Jesus said, then go and sell all the
things that you have and come back and follow me. Now, was
Jesus saying that if you do that, then you could be his disciple
and get eternal life? No, what Jesus was stressing
was is the fact that if I command you to do anything, you can't
do it. And that very well showed Jesus, give him a command to
go sell all that you have and come and follow me. Well, the
guy didn't do it. Why? Because he loved his positions. He loved the things that he had
and he went away sad, you know, because he didn't want to give
away all those things. So he went away. And the disciples,
Jesus then told the disciples, he said, you know, it's easier
for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a
rich man to enter into heaven. And he didn't mean that by rich
by having a lot of money in your wallet. He meant that someone
who thinks that they can keep righteousness for themselves,
that is rich in righteousness. It's easier for a camel to go
through an eye of the needle than it is for a person who has
self-righteousness to enter into heaven. And that's basically
because you continue to keep trying and you don't have any
righteousness of your own. So Jesus was basically saying
that and the disciples got that because as soon as Jesus said
that, the disciples say, then how can anybody be saved? You
know, cause that was their understanding was we have to maintain a righteousness. We have to keep Moses's law.
We have to, we have to keep this law and maintain this righteousness
to be saved. And Jesus said that with man
it's impossible, but with God it's possible. And so the reason
we need sovereign grace is because with man it's impossible to perform
any condition that would be acceptable to God. But for God, it's possible. For God, it is possible. He has
purposed it. He has performed it. He is bringing
it about. He has done everything. that
is needed for salvation for his people. It is a finished work
and all his people will receive that for which Christ died. And
so the reason we preach sovereign grace, teach sovereign grace,
hold to it, look at it as a gospel, as we, you know, we separate
from others because of this. You know, if people doesn't believe
this gospel, we don't fellowship with them because it's not the
gospel that they're preaching. And so there is a dividing that
this gospel brings. Jesus said, I didn't come to
bring peace, but a sword. Whenever you teach and preach
the doctrines that I've given you, it's gonna cause division
among people. It's gonna cause division among
father and son, mother and daughter. It's gonna cause a problem with
people and it's gonna cause congregations to split. And I'm not saying
that that's good that congregations should always be splitting. But
if it's over-correct gospel, over-correct doctrine, then it's
needed. Even Jesus said that heresies
will come, and that they're needful, that that is a proving of the
people of God. The people of God is gonna believe
truth and not the lie, and therefore, there's gonna be heresies or
untruths that's gonna come in. There's gonna be schisms that
were heretic, actually, the heresy, actually means division. It doesn't
mean false doctrine necessarily. We always equate heresy with
false doctrine. But heresy in the Bible, in the
New Testament, in the Greek, it means division. And Jesus
said, you know, there's going to be division. Divisions are
going to come because what I preach, what I give you, the only way,
it's a narrow way. And because of that, there's
going to be a lot of people that's not going to like that because
they don't have the truth. And as Jesus was a great example,
people came, he preached his truth and they didn't believe
him. They didn't like him. They made
people mad. They wanted to pick up stones
and stone him. Eventually they put him on a
cross, crucified him. So we see that sovereign grace
is a dividing thing because it is the truth. And the only ones
that are given to know this truth are God's people. Therefore,
anybody else that doesn't, it's gonna be an irritation to them.
Another scripture in the Bible, the Bible says that the gospel
is a saver of life to some and a saver of death to others. To
us, it's beautiful. To others, they're like, you
mean to say that God chooses some to be safe and not others,
and God loves some and doesn't love others, and Jesus died for
some and not everybody, that God is predestined to everything
and nobody has a choice and all like that. Well, I don't like
that God. I don't like that. You know,
I ain't never gonna serve a God like that or something like that.
That just shows that they've not been given life and given
understanding of spiritual things. That kind of God isn't lovable
to them because they're still at enmity with God. That's our
nature, the nature of Adam. And it all goes back to the garden. It all goes back even before
the garden. Remember, we talked about it last week or the week
before last, whenever we talked about the seed of Satan and the
seed of Christ, that the seed of Satan and the devil is the
father of lies and all of his children believe lies. And if you go back before creation,
whenever Lucifer decided that I'm gonna make myself like God. I'm gonna raise myself above
God. He thought that he could be like God or be above God. And so that was his sin. That was the sin that was found
in him. And then if you look at Adam, what was Adam tempted
with? The same thing. Satan tempted
Adam with the same thing. Did God really say that you shouldn't
eat of this thing because of this or that? If you eat of this,
you're gonna be like God. And that's whenever Adam partook. You mean I could be like God?
Well, okay. So they partook. And they ate because they could
be like God. And that's been the sin of all
time is self-righteousness. I can be like God. I can do the
things of God. I can perform righteousness.
I know. righteousness. I can be righteous. And so that sin has been put
in all of us because we are of the same stock of Adam. We are his children in the flesh. Now in the spirit, we are a totally
different thing. We are completely and totally
holy, righteous. We are the children of God. And
so Jesus made that distinction. He said, listen, you can't understand
the truth because you're of your father the devil. You'll believe
lies and think that they're true because you don't have truth
in you. But my people, my sheep, they have truth in them. I'm
the truth. And I give them these understandings. I reveal these things to them.
I give them understanding of that. And so people are going
to be at enmity with that because they don't have truth in them.
They can't know that. And that's kind of been the whole
gist of this whole study is the fact that the reason we need
sovereign grace is because there is an inability. Now, you'll
often hear it called total depravity. We have total depravity. I prefer
the term total inability. Okay? Because there are some
people that doesn't act as depraved as other people. Okay? Some people
act more moral than other people. But the fact remains is there
is a total inability for spiritual things, spiritual understanding,
spiritual worship, spiritual repentance, spiritual faith. All those things are given by
God by sovereign grace. And so that's why we need that.
So that's the whole purpose of why we've been coming this way.
And we've seen that there are a lot of things that we can't
do. I mean, we don't come to God. I mean, we don't, have the
understanding of the things of God. We can't birth ourselves
into the kingdom of God. Just some of the highlights. Last week we looked at we cannot
produce repentance and faith without it being given to us. We found out last week that repentance
and faith is by sovereign grace. God sovereignly gives repentance
and faith. It's granted to us. It's a gift
of God. Today I want to kind of continue,
and it's actually a subset of what we looked at last week.
Last week we looked at is that we cannot produce repentance
and faith without sovereign grace. Today I want us to look at a
couple of words that kind of is part of that, especially faith,
and that's come and believe. Without sovereign grace, we cannot
come and we cannot believe. So look with me, if you would,
at John chapter 6, and I'm going to read verse 35, and then we'll
pray. It says, And Jesus said unto them,
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Father, we ask you now to be
with us as we look into your Word today. We thank you for
the Bible. We thank you for this Word that
you have given to us to reveal yourself to your people. And Lord, we just ask now that
you would be with us as we look into it, that your Spirit might
come and help us to understand it, that you might help me to
preach it. Father, you are wonderful. You are mighty. You are sovereign. And Lord, without your graciousness,
without your compassion, without your mercy, without your sovereign
election, we would not be able to come and understand and to
worship and to even be redeemed by you, Lord. It is only because
of your kindness, because of your love for us that is everlasting
that we have been numbered among the people of God. And Lord,
we know that nothing that we do in this life, nothing that
we can do in this flesh can please you, that nothing that we can
do will ever merit salvation or be able to be conditioned
enough to be accepted by you. And so we ask, Lord, that you
would continue to humble us, that you would continue to teach
us the gospel, that you would always give us faith to rest
in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. So I pray, Lord,
that you would minister to your children today as they are here
or whether they're listening or watching on live stream. Father,
I pray that you would comfort them with the gospel today. And may you help me to minister
that through preaching. And it's in Jesus' name that
we pray, amen. Jesus said here that, he that
cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Now a lot of people will take
that and they'll say, well there you go. That's the invitation,
that's the gospel invitation. You know, if you'll come to Jesus
Christ, if you'll believe on Jesus Christ, then if you'll
do those things, you'll never hunger and you'll never thirst.
Obviously then, since Jesus said that, to come to me and you'll
never hunger and believe on me and you'll never thirst, then
that means that we can hunger and thirst after God. Therefore,
man does choose God. He can come to God. And so they
have this whole mindset that salvation is an invitation or
salvation is an offer. That God is offering salvation
and if you'll come, you won't be hungry anymore. Believe, you
won't be thirsty anymore. But brethren, this is a statement. It's not an invitation. The gospel
is never an invitation. It's never an offer. God isn't
inviting people. He has gifted salvation to people. He's given it to them. Jesus
finished the work of salvation by his work on the cross and
in doing so, Everything that is required for salvation is
given to the person. So there is nothing that we have
to do for that. And so salvation isn't an invitation that we have
to accept that invitation or we have to accept that offer
or that gift before God gives it to us. God has given it to
us. He's given it to us through the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we are made alive, we are
given repentance, we are given faith, all these things we are
given so that where before we did not want, we would not come,
we would not believe, He has given that to us in the new birth
so that we can come and can believe. We become hungry, we become thirsty. The ones who are hungry and the
ones who are thirsty are the ones who God has given spiritual
life to. The ones without spiritual life
are not hungry and thirsty for the God of this Bible. They're
not hungry and thirsty for the gospel of this Bible. They're
hungry and thirsty for self-righteousness. That's why we have all these
religions of the world today that you see people out there
and they have a religious system on how to be right with God or
be accepted by God or to be kept in salvation by God. by doing
lots of works, by doing religious things, by keeping up all your
commandments and things like that, following the rule book,
okay? And so, for someone to be hungry
and thirsty for the true bread, which Jesus said, I'm the bread
of life, and through this whole course, he mentions that he is
the true bread. That was actually in verse 32.
He's the true bread from heaven. Anybody that's hungry for Christ,
anyone who's thirsty for Christ, is hungry and thirsty because
God has given them that appetite and thirst. It's not natural. And so this isn't an offer or
an invitation for all those out there that are hungry and thirsty.
That's why we say whenever we preach the gospel, we are preaching
to the elect of God because only the elect of God are given hunger
and thirst for this. That's why we say we're only
preaching to the sheep because only the sheep will hear this
voice. That's why we continually say
that whenever we give the gospel call to people, whenever we give
that declaration, that call of what Christ has accomplished
on their behalf, it's for them and them only. Now, do we know
who they are? No, we don't. I don't know who
the elect are, who the sheep of God are. I don't even, among
the elect of God, I don't know who has already been given ears
to hear and granted repentance and faith. I don't know that.
And so we continue to declare the gospel. That's why we never
say, you know, Jesus loves you and has a good plan for your
life. We don't sing the song, you know, Jesus loves you, this
I know, for the Bible tells me so, and apply that to all mankind. Why? Because we don't know who
Jesus loves. Jesus loves his people, but I
don't know if that's true about this person. So whenever you
make the gospel something that is to every person, we don't
understand that. So the gospel is a declaration,
not an offer or an invitation. It's something that we declare,
and we declare that indiscriminately. We declare that to everyone,
whether they're rich, whether they're poor, whether they're
black, whether they're white, or they're green, or they're
yellow. We declare that Christ has accomplished salvation. But
the problem is, is everybody wants to make the gospel about
accepting Jesus Christ, or believing on Jesus that he died for you,
and if you do that, then you'll get saved. We make it about some
kind of a conditional thing. Therefore, it's an invitation.
It has to be an invitation or an offer. but that's not what
the gospel is. The gospel is a declaration of
the finished work, completed work, successful work of Jesus
Christ. We would use the big word is
the efficacious work. Okay. The work of Jesus Christ
was efficacious, meaning that it was effectual. It had an effect. What Jesus did, had an effect. There was a cause. God loved
us. Christ redeemed us. The effect
of that is that all for whom Christ died for receives the
promises of God. We receive the salvation that
he died for. That's why Jesus was named Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sin. He isn't going to offer salvation
from their sin or invite them to come out of sin and into righteousness. That's not what Jesus offered
or did. It's a declaration. And so Jesus
here, whenever he said, he that cometh to me shall never hunger
and he that thirsteth or believeth on me shall never thirst. That is no more an offer than
when Jesus said, he that looketh upon a woman to lust have committed
adultery. God is not offering for you to
commit adultery. or to look on a woman for lust.
Okay? So there's no difference in that,
what Jesus is saying here, and if Jesus was saying, you know,
he that looketh upon a woman to lust, hath committed adultery
in his heart. That wasn't an offer. No one
would even consider that to be an offer. No one would even consider
that to be an invitation that Jesus was inviting people to
lust. So why here, this is a statement. Jesus is making a statement.
The statement is, is all those who come, they will not be hungry. All those who thirst, won't be
thirsty anymore. If you believe, you won't be
thirsty anymore. It's a declaration. It's a statement
of fact. Jesus is saying, what is going
to happen? Boy, you're kind of pressing that point. Well, the
reason I'm pressing that point is because if you take scripture
and you try to twist it to fit your theological understandings,
your theological systems, your theologians that you read, your
denominations that you're trying to associate yourselves with.
Whenever you take the scripture and twist it to that, you're
arresting the scriptures. You are changing the Word of
God and the intent of what is being said here. The intent of
Jesus here is not inviting anybody to come and to drink. to eat the bread and to drink.
He's not inviting them to do that. He is saying all those
who come, they are going to be taken care of. I am the sustenance
because that is the discourse that Jesus is saying. He is the
true bread from heaven, which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life into the world. He is the sustenance. He is the
food. He is what upholds his people. He is their food, spiritual food. They feed upon Him. That's why
Jesus, whenever He instituted the Lord's Supper, He said, My
body that's broken for you, take, eat. What was He doing in the
symbol form here? Not only was He representing
the fact that His broken body and shed blood for us is what
saves us, but He was also saying, listen, that that I'm going to
do, my death, my resurrection, that is the food that you will
feed off of. That is what will keep you spiritually
sustenated. Okay? Is that even a word? If it's not, write it down. It
will be. Jesus is what we feed off of. Okay? Now, let me just clear
some things up. I'm not saying that there's some
magical thing that the more we do this, the more spiritually
we are built up. The person that is hungry and
thirsty is hungry and thirsty for the things of God and what
Christ has done. And we're always satisfied with
that bread. Now, the reason I say that is
because Jesus in this discourse made that comment that he is
the bread that came down out of heaven and the people before
that had made comments that, you know, hey, you know, we received
the bread that came, uh, from Moses. Okay. Matter of fact,
turn back with me, uh, in John chapter six and go back to verse
28 because I want to show you something here because I had
a guy just not long ago. Tell me directly that the words
come and believe are not synonymous that Jesus does not use those
words synonymous and he does. Jesus uses the word come and
believe. Matter of fact, in verse 35, he says, he that comes to
me shall never hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
He's using those terms interchangeably to come and believe. So when
Jesus says to come, he's talking about to believe. Right? But let's go back to verse 28.
It says, Actually, we can go back to verse
26. This is right after Jesus had walked on the water and then
he says, and the people were following after him. It says, For him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do that we might work the works of God? Okay, so he
comes right out and tells them, This is the work of God that
ye believe on him whom he hath sent. Okay, they want to know,
that's their self-righteousness coming out right there. Okay,
well, what do we need to do? What's our part in all this?
And Jesus said, this is the work of God that you believe on him.
See, belief is the work of God. The fact that we believe is the
work of God. We've seen that last week. Repentance
and faith is granted to us. It's given to us. It's gifted. It's part of the new birth. And we don't birth ourselves.
We learned that already either. We can't birth ourselves. The
birthing The new birth is a sovereign act of the Spirit of God to come
into us. We're not birthed by men's preaching
or reading a book or reading even the Bible. We're not birthed
that way. We're birthed by the Spirit of
God putting life in us. And then once that life is there,
that life now responds to its habitat. The habitat of the spirit
is spiritual things, okay? It responds to spiritual stimulation. I guess, I don't know how to
describe that, but it responds to the things of the spirit. The things of man are known by
the man, by the flesh. We know things of the flesh.
The spirit of man, we know the things of the spirit of man,
but we can't know the things of the spirit of God unless the
spirit reveals them to us. And so we have to be made spiritual
to be a receptor of spiritual things. And so Jesus is saying
here that for you to do the works of God is impossible. What I'm talking about here is
belief. You cannot believe because that is the work of God. Only
God can create belief in a person. And so he goes, this is the work
of God that ye believe on his name. Then they said therefore
unto him, what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe
thee? What dost thou work? So see here
again, they say, well then show us a sign and we'll work that
work out. Okay, but you have to show us
something to believe in. And see, there's where the difference
is between what we believe and what some others believe is the
fact that they say, there you go. Faith is something of taking
from one object and placing it on another object. And so these
people here are saying, okay, well show us something to believe
in and we'll go to that and quit believing over here. Now, does
that actually happen when we're born again? Yes. We turn from
idols and we turn to God. We turn from self-righteousness
and we turn to Christ-righteousness. That is what happens. But is
it something that we can perform in ourselves? No. It isn't something that we can
muster up. It isn't something that we can perform in this flesh. That's why Jesus said, this is
the work of God that ye believe on him. They said, well, show
us a sign and we'll believe on thee. And they say, our fathers
did eat manna in the desert, and it is written, he's, and
if you go back to referring to Moses, he gave them bread from
heaven to eat. And Jesus said unto them, verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven. It wasn't Moses that gave you
that bread, but my father giveth you. God who gave them that bread
from heaven, that manna that rained out of the sky for 40
years that provided them food, it was God. And a funny thing,
and I don't mean to get too far off track here, but a funny thing
about that, those 40 years of eating manna,
God, I mean, they didn't have to do nothing. They didn't have
to go out and hunt. They didn't have to go trap something. They didn't
have to go buy anything. God bring manna out of heaven
for them to eat. Provided for them every day.
And he told them, he said, only take what you need for the day.
Don't store anything up. If you store it up, it's going
to go bad. And they did. They stored it
up, it went bad. God was teaching them to trust
in Him every day for what they need. Every day for what they
need. It's going to rain every day.
Food. So there is no reason to stock
it up, store it, stockpile it, because I'm going to give it
to you. Everything that you need for food, I'm going to give to
you. I'm going to give it to you every day. Well, what happened? The people began to murmur because
they got tired of that bread. They began to murmur. They said,
man, I'd rather go back. to Egypt where there's leeks
and the garlics. Let's go back. This right here,
we're getting tired of eating this manna. God was providing
that. Well, see, that shows us the
flesh and the spirit. See, the spirit feeds on the
manna from God all the time. And it's the food that sustains
it. But the flesh doesn't want the
manna from God. The flesh wants something else.
The flesh wants something of its own. It has a completely
different taste. The taste buds of the flesh of
the natural man have a different taste than the taste buds of
the spiritual man. The spiritual man loves the manna
of God. Now, of course, this is a type,
it's a foreshadow of what Christ was going to be. And Christ even
says it right here. He says, But my Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." So Christ
is saying, I am the spiritual food for my people. I'm the spiritual food. I'm enough. And just like the manna, the
natural man gets tired of that. And that's how we are, don't
we? Every now and then we slip back into thinking, you know,
hey, I need to do something. I need to work harder. I need
to be more religious. I need to get those laws out
and start doing those laws. I need to be more spiritual,
you know. And we begin to think that we
have a righteousness that we can procure by activity, by doing
something in this flesh. And we don't trust that Jesus
is enough. That's the natural man. That
spiritual man continues to feed every day off that manna, off
that true bread from heaven. And then they said unto him,
Lord evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said unto him, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. See, the spiritual man comes
to Christ and finds fulfillment, finds filling. He's full because
of Christ. He doesn't need anything more.
I don't need to worry about laws and commandments and religious
activities. I don't need those things because
I see that Christ has done it all for me and said this is yours. Rest in that. Jesus lived obedient
to the law and I have fulfilled every command of God because
Jesus did it on my behalf. Therefore, in Mike's account,
perfectly obey. I perfectly obeyed God. I didn't obey God, but Jesus
did. And God said that's enough for
Him and His righteousness. That's enough for His justice
that Jesus did it on my behalf and said, here, I give them my
righteousness. And God said, that's good. I
accept that. That's what I was looking for.
That fulfills my justice. That satisfies my justice. That
satisfies the law. It was kept. Jesus went and died
for us because our sins had to be atoned for. And God said,
that's it. I accept that on their behalf. That's why Jesus is called our
surety. That's why he's our mediator. He is mediating between God and
man. That's why He is our surety.
He is the one who is going in our place. He's our representative,
our substitute. So Jesus is substituting for
us. Instead of us obeying and dying,
Jesus obeyed and died. And Jesus is saying here, I am
the bread of life that cometh down. He that cometh to me shall
never hunger. He's not looking out there. That
spiritual man is not looking out there for anything more.
He realizes, as the Bible says in Colossians, that we are complete
in Him lacking nothing. We don't lack anything. So that's
why we are often called antinomians, that we believe that there is
no law, that we don't have to keep the law and commandments,
and we can just live as evil as we want to live. That's not
it. God is the one who constrains
us. God is the one who gives us a mind that desires to live according to his word. But brethren,
those things are not keeping us from God. Those things are
not keeping us from right standing with God, right relationship
with God, a future with God. Those things are not even considered
anymore in the aspect of our legal standing before God or
our fellowship with God. Jesus has paid the price for
all of it. And so to come and to believe
is not something that we can do on our own. Why? Because as
we've just seen in verse 29, this is the work of God. The
work of God is to believe. So come and believe, or to come
who are hungry and believe who are thirsty is not an invitation
or an offer because it cannot be offered and invited, whatever
you want to call it, because it's a gift. It's something that
God gives us. Now, with that being said, and
that foundation being led, does that mesh with the rest of the
gospel? Is that contradictory to what
we hear out here? Well, it is contradictory to
the gospel that we hear in popular Christianity, so to speak. Because
they believe that it is an offer or some sort of an invitation. And they believe that man has
a free will. They believe that he has the
ability to choose. I've heard it said most of my
life that God in his sovereignty, we believe that God is sovereign,
but in his sovereignty he has given us the ability to choose. That's not what the Bible teaches.
He has not given us the ability to choose. He has given us the
ability to come. He's given us the ability to
believe. That's what He's given us the ability to do. We did
not have the ability to do any of those things. He has given
us the ability to come and believe. That has to be done only, or
that is only done because God has given it to us. Not all men have that. Remember
last week we read the passage that said not all men have faith? 2 Thessalonians 3, 2. Not all
men have faith. So if anybody comes and believes,
it's because God has given that to them. Now, to make that even
more solidified, Jesus goes on in verse 44 and says this. No man can come to me except
the Father, which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up the last day. Now, we've talked about these
quite a bit over the years, right? These verses, very familiar verses
to us. Again, we see this is an issue
of ability, not invitation, not choosing. This is an ability. This isn't even, as I've mentioned
before, I've often heard And especially whenever I was on
the other side, whenever I believed in free will and free choice
and things like that, I would always say this. So God just
drags us kicking and screaming and makes us save even though
we don't want to be. Or Jesus is saying, well, what
about all those people that want to come to Jesus? Jesus is saying,
no, you can't come to me because you're not my sheep. See, their
understanding is wrong. They're assuming, when they say
that, they're assuming that there are people out there who want
to come of their own. They're assuming that there are
people out there that are seeking after God. But what does the
Bible say? There's none who seeketh after
God. Not even one. No man seeketh after God. No
one does. Now, I'm going to take God's
Word over, then 50 billion people in the Southern Baptist or whatever
denomination you want to put on there that is preaching that
man can seek after God, that there's people out there that
are looking for God. And then to say that, oh, they're
wanting to come to God, but Jesus is saying no. Well, no, Jesus
said right here that all that the Father giveth me shall come
to me and all that Well, as a matter of fact, he says, All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out. He says, if they come to me,
I will not cast them out. But the issue is, how do they
come? They only come by sovereign grace.
They only come because no man can come. So if they do come
to Christ, They come because it is God who does the work. The work of God is that you believe
on Him. To come to Christ is to believe
on Christ. To believe on Christ is to be
given belief, or granted belief, or gifted belief, enabled to
believe, because no man can believe me except the Father which hath
sent me draw him. So brethren, the reason we need
sovereign grace is because we cannot come. So all these people
out here preaching invitations and offers of salvation and everything,
no man can come unless God sovereignly gives them the grace to do so.
The very thing that they think that they are doing by offering
salvation, only God can do that. Only God can draw somebody. Only
God can give them faith. Their preaching is not causing
that to happen. Their discipling is not causing
that to happen. Their breaking the gospel down
to the basest nuggets is not making it happen. Their little
tracks that are quirky and cool and their witness wear and all
their videos and TikToks and all whatever else that they want
to make is not what is causing people to come to Jesus. What
causes people to come to Jesus is sovereign grace. God puts
a spiritual hunger where no spiritual hunger was. God puts a spiritual
thirst where no spiritual thirst was. And whenever that person
is given a hunger and a thirst, they find their satisfaction
or their satiation in the bread that came down out of heaven,
in Jesus. They find the relief for that
hunger and thirst. They find the satisfaction, as
I said, not in self-righteousness. The more they continue in self-righteousness,
once they've been given that hunger and thirst, they will
continue to hunger and thirst if they continue in self-righteousness,
because they will continue to seek, I'm not righteous, I'm
not righteous, I'm not righteous, and righteousness is in Christ. They will never be satisfied
by their own efforts. You'll say, well, I know people
all the time that they're, you know, they're happy with the
way that the Lord is bringing them up in sanctification and
they're becoming more and more holy and obeying more and more
and sinning less and less, which is a bunch of hogwash. But they're
saying, I know people that are now more holy than they was before
and everything like that. Brethren, again, it isn't holiness
in degrees. We are not becoming holy in degrees. Holiness isn't measured in degrees
of holiness. Holiness is measured in the standard,
which is Christ. If it is not perfect holiness,
then it's sin. There's no in-between. That's
why I say progressive sanctification is a misnomer. It's false, completely false. We do not gradually grow in holiness
because the spiritual man that's in us is totally holy, created
in righteousness and true holiness. The fleshly man who tries to
be holy, who is trying to live this life of holiness, desiring
so to speak, he ain't desiring though, he's actually waging
war against the spirit, but is trying to mimic holiness. This flesh that tries to do things
to please God, he's not gaining any day. Matter of fact, the
Bible says that he's perishing. He continues to perish, but the
inward man is renewed every day. Does that mean that it sinks
down and comes back up? No, the inward man, meaning it's
renewed, it's always there, it's always fulfilled, it's always
there. The inward man is always holy,
always righteous, always spiritual. It can't be anything else. As
a matter of fact, the Bible says it cannot sin. So, coming and
believing can only be done if God, in verse 44, draws him. Look at verse 65, Jesus reiterates
it again. Therefore said I unto you that
no man can come unto me except, there's only one exception, no
man can come. You say, well wait a minute,
there are millions coming. If anybody comes, there's only
one exception in why they came, how they came, except it were
given unto him of my Father. If someone truly comes to Jesus,
it's because it was given to them, not because they chose
it. Now, do they come willingly?
Yes. But God made them willingly come. God made them willing. in the
day of His power. See, they were not willing. Jesus
said, He are not willing. You always resist the Holy Spirit. He told Paul, you're kicking
against the pricks. You're always, the flesh is always
going to be anti-me. But He said, in the day of my
power, my people become willing. Why? Because now they have life
in them. and that life gives them the
mind to come, the desire to come. And God is working in them to
will and to do His good pleasure. So the willing to come is true,
but it's not your own human free will. It's God's divine work
in you that causes you to come to Him. That's why we need sovereign
grace. because the human will does not
come to God. And some people say, well, it's
the nature, the controls, the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Listen, I don't believe that fully. There's part of that that's
true. But everyone says, well, we're
all willing. It's just that we have free will, but we have the
free will according to our nature. Listen, even in the spiritual
man, I don't have a free will to do what I want to do. Because
the spiritual nature that is in me is the Spirit of Christ.
He's the one in control. It's His will. He works in me
to will and to do. He's the one doing that work,
not me. I don't have a free will within my saved nature, or my
saved spirit, and then I have a free will according to my Adamic
nature. Listen, in my Adamic nature,
I can't do what I want to do. In that fleshly nature, God is
in control of every bit of that. So that whole thing is we have
a free will according to our nature. It'll do whatever our
nature dictates. Listen, we don't have any more
free will to do anything on any level, whether it's spiritual
or whether it's fleshly. We don't have any will to do
any of that because God has predestined everything that's going to happen
and both our flesh and our spirit and any works that's done in
our spirit or our flesh is controlled by a sovereign God. If I am restrained
from sinning, it's because of God's sovereign grace. Why do
we need sovereign grace? Because God keeps us from sinning. Why do I need sovereign grace?
Because God works in me to will and to do His good pleasure and
therefore I have repentance and I have faith. I have a change
of mind about self-righteousness and I'm looking to Christ alone
for salvation. looking to Christ alone for my
righteousness, resting in the work of Christ and not in my
works. I need that work done in me because
I can't do that work. God does it in me. It's the work
of God that you believe. That's why we need sovereign
grace. But see, man has it turned backwards. They think that we
have to keep up this faith, that we have this faith, and they
talk much about how big our faith is, how strong our faith is,
what we can put our faith to work at and all this kind of
stuff. I can no more muster up faith to do anything unless God
increases that faith, gives me that faith, works that faith
in me. I can no more do that than anything. I have no control over my spirituality
or my fleshliness. God controls both those things. God is the one who is sovereign
over all things. You say, well, that takes away
man's responsibility. That takes away man's accountability.
Who art thou, O man, to reply us unto God? Why hast thou made
me this way? Has the potter right to make
the clay any way he chooses, to work that clay any way he
desires to work that clay, to fashion it, refashion it, whatever
he wants to do with it, to make it for whatever use He wants
to make it? And is it not the right of the
Creator of God to be able to do anything that He deems wise
to do, that He desires to do? He says that He will do all of
His pleasure. In the army of the heavens, or
in the heavens of the earth, and none can stay His hand. He's
going to do whatever He wants to do. If He wants to make me
experience this or that or whatever, He's going to do that. He said, well, I thought we have
to have responsibility and accountability. We are going to be accountable
to God, but praise God for the people of God. Responsibility
and accountability was all wrapped up in our substitute. Jesus was
responsible for us. Jesus was the one who was held
accountable for us. Remember the story we talked
about? Whenever Benjamin was called
for by Joseph to be brought back to him, his brother said, I will
go. And if I do not bring him back,
then his blood will be on my hand. He was accountable. Who
was accountable for that brother being brought back to God? It
was his surety. Jesus is the one who's accountable
for us. You say, well, I thought the Bible says that we are all
going to give an account before the judgment seat of God. We
are. The account of the child of grace
is going to be my substitute, is it not? Our surety is going
to stand for us. I'm not even sure we're going
to say he did it all. We're going to sing those praises.
But when we go to give an account, there is a mediator between God
and man. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I believe the Lord. I can't be dogmatic on every
aspect and how exactly it's going to happen. What it's going to
look like, but I know one thing, if there is an account to be
given for God's elect, Jesus Christ is going to stand before
God as the mediator. And He's going to give the report
of what He has done on their behalf. And there shall be no
charge laid to God's elect. Whether it be in heaven or whether
it be in earth, or under the earth, there is no charge to
God's elect. So at the judgment seat of God
is not God saying, okay, you accepted Jesus as your Lord and
Savior and I forgave all your sins, but you kept on sinning. Now, what do you have to say
about yourself? Why did you do that? Here's some rewards. Oh,
nope. Here, let me take some rewards
back. The reward is Jesus. He's our
reward. He's our inheritance. Whenever we stand before God,
the account of the elect will be what the Lord has done. Now
those who were not the Lord's, the Bible says the books will
be opened and they will be adjudged according to their needs and
everyone, everyone who is not the Lord's, everyone will be
found guilty because of their work. They will give an account. They
will be responsible. That's the breakdown in what
Armenians believe, what we believe. Armenians believe that we are
accountable and responsible before God by ourselves. We are accountable
and responsible to God through a substitute. The substitute
is the one who is accountable for me. responsible for me. The very word responsible, ability
to respond. I don't have an ability to respond
to God unless God gives me belief. I can't do that. And if I do
that, then that was God in me. So how can I say, well, hey,
I did my responsibility. No, God worked in you to willing
to do His good pleasure. I can't boast about my believing.
I can't boast about my coming. I can't boast about my faith. I can't boast about the knowledge
that I might have of Christ Jesus and his gospel. I can't boast
of anything. All I can do is boast of Christ. But see, it's turned backwards
in modern Christianity today. They hold man to be accountable
and responsible for God as if man has an ability to do anything
so that God could say that was a good accountability, that's
good responsibility that you've done there. I give you kids,
we've given you kids responsibilities over the years, right? That I'd
say you need to do this and then you do that and then you are
faithful if you do that, right? Whether it's taking out the trash,
feeding the dog, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, whatever
it is, cleaning your room, Whatever your responsibility is. What
is that me doing? I am giving you something to
do, and if you do that, then I'm pleased. If you do that,
it's acceptable to me. If you do that, I'm happy with
you. If you do that, you've done a
good job. We pat you on the back and say,
good job. Thank you. Whatever the case,
we acknowledge You're upholding your responsibility. Now, is
that gospel? That is not gospel. That is anti-gospel. That is me. Thank you, Mike,
for accepting Jesus' offer of salvation. Thank you, Mike, for
accepting and coming and thirsting and drawing and seeking and obeying. Thank you for doing all that
stuff. I'll have room to boast. But I won't boast before the
Lord, because it ain't going to go nowhere. Jesus said, no man can come. It's a deal of ability. Look
at John chapter 10, verse 26. But ye believe not because ye
are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. Ye believe not because. There is something that is the
causal factor on why people weren't believing they weren't his sheep.
See, I used to preach when I believed in free will and free choice
and all that stuff. I used to preach that If I believe, I become
a sheep. If I believe, I'm a heep. If
I don't, I'm a sheep. And then I believe that that
story of Jesus leaving the 99 and going and looking for that
one lost sheep is the Christian who is strayed away from God
and is living back in sin and gone away from church or something
like that, and Jesus goes out and gets him. No, no, no, no,
no. We were sheep from the very beginning. Jesus goes out and
brings in his lost sheep to the fold. They were scattered. He
brings them in to the very last one, to the point where he will
leave the 99 that he's already gathered to go get the very last
one. He isn't going to say, well,
I've got 99. It's all right. That one gets away. Why? Because
Jesus will not lose one. That's why he left the 99 to
get the other, because he covenanted that all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. Brethren, I'm telling you, without
sovereign grace, there is no hope of salvation for anyone. And to preach that salvation
is something that we can do and accomplish by means, by conditions,
by things that God has called, telling us that we're responsible
to do? Are we responsible to believe? See, that's the very
thing that we just read. Those men were thinking, hey,
I'm responsible to do some works before God, so what must we do? What's our responsibility? So
that we won't be held accountable. Jesus said, it's not your work.
It's the work of God that you believe. It's not yours to believe. Do we believe? Is there an importance
in faith? and belief and repentance. Do
we preach those? Absolutely. But brethren, we've
got to preach these things biblically. We've got to preach them according
to God's Word and not according to the philosophy of farewell
religion. that just thinks everything is
okay, every man is good, and every man can come to Christ,
and every man is loved, and all this kumbaya gospel that we hear
preached, that everybody is just wonderful, and that we shouldn't
divide over all these things, and that doctrine is just religion
amplified. Listen, if we don't hold our
doctrine closely, we're preaching an untruth. We're talking wrong
about Christ. If I was up here to say, You
know what, while I know that sovereign grace is the truth
of the Bible, it's alright if you don't believe that, as long
as you believe Jesus is your Savior. I'm lying about Jesus
Christ. These people aren't believing
nothing. It's all about, do we honor the
Lord Jesus? Is it all about the truth of
who Jesus is, the truth of the gospel, the truth of salvation? We're to preach the truth, right?
Am I not called to be a preacher of the truth? Are you not called
to be a believer of the truth if you're a child of God? We
are to stand in the truth. However, the truth will get you
killed. I've heard that phrase before. The truth will get you
killed. Definitely will get you kicked
out of Facebook groups and kicked out of families and friendships
and all kinds of stuff. But brethren, let God be true
in every man a liar. Why do we need sovereign grace?
Well, because we cannot come to Christ, we cannot believe. And lastly, because we cannot
please God, We cannot please God. Look, if you would, to Romans.
I'm going to deal with this one briefly. Romans chapter 8. We need sovereign grace because
at the end of the day, there's nothing we do that can please
God. Romans chapter 8. Look with me,
if you would, starting at verse 5. It says, for they that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. That means those
who are in the nature of Adam, the flesh, are flesh. We are
going to mind the things of the flesh, no matter what you think
they might be doing. If you're trying to do religious
stuff, if you're doing that, the flesh is going to mind the
things of the flesh. We think that always means doing
evil things like committing murder, stealing, beating somebody up,
committing adultery, pornography, LGBTQ, you know. We think that
that is what everyone is talking about. No, minding the things
of the flesh is minding anything that we do externally in this
body that we try to perform for acceptance with God. That is
minding the things of the flesh. The things of the flesh are things
of the flesh. Now are they going to partake
in all those other things? Absolutely. But again, the sin
is self-righteousness. And through self-righteousness,
we sin against God. The sin is to think that we can
be like God by building up a righteousness of our own in the flesh and not
trusting in our substitute who provided the righteousness. That's
the sin. All other sins is the transgression of the law, the
transgression of God's law, stealing, killing, blah, blah, blah, all
those things. We do those things, but brother, the works of the
flesh are always going to be to try to be like God. It says, For they that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are
after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Then down in verse 8 it says,
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God. I cannot perform anything that
is pleasing to God in this flesh. Now what is the flesh? That is
who we are by nature. in Adam. So because we are born
from all the way down from Adam to where I am today, that nature
that we receive as a child of Adam cannot please God. So the thing that is put in us
if we are the child of God is the Spirit of God. That's not
this flesh. being made right. It's not this
flesh worked up or remade or born again. This flesh is not
born again or rejuvenated or brought back to a right standing. Whenever we are born from above
and God puts His Spirit in us, that is a new creation. That's
not us. That's the life of Christ that's
put in us. Our life is the life of Christ. We are in union with Him and
His life is our life. I don't control that life. So
to mind the things of the Spirit means that the Spirit is causing
me to mind the things of the Spirit. Because I can't control
the Spirit of God. We don't know that the Spirit
of God isn't controlled by man. If the Spirit of God is in you,
He's the one that's doing the work. He's the one that is doing
all of it. I can't say, all right, start
believing a little bit more. Okay. I'm not believing quite
as much as I'd like to. It can't say, start learning
a little more about the gospel. And it doesn't say that stuff. It can't do that. The spirit
is opposite and outside of away from the flesh. They're antithetical. That's why Romans seven says
they war against each other. The spirit lusteth after the
flesh and the flesh after the spirit. There is a war there
because they're two separate things. This flesh, the Bible
says, without that spirit, spirit withdrawn, spirit even in us
not working, everything is unpleasing to God. It's only what the spirit does
that is pleasing to God. that ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. So we see that the only way that
we can please God is by the works of the Spirit of God in us. We
don't control that. I don't tell the Spirit when
to work and when not to work or how to work. He is sovereign. That's sovereign grace. That's
sovereign grace. The flesh, it can't do nothing.
I can work all day long in that. I can do all the things that
the nature and the flesh wants to do, although it's still governed
by God, controlled by God. It's not a free will thing. But
in my mind, in my perception, I'm choosing to do whatever I
want. But ultimately, as the Bible says, man deviseth his
ways, but it's the Lord who directs his steps. I'm devising all these
things that I'm going to do, or not do, or how to do it, but
it's God who's directing all the steps. And for the steps
that I'm doing to be pleasing to God, or whatever I'm doing
to be pleasing to God, it's the work of the Spirit in me. Why do we need sovereign grace?
Because without sovereign grace we cannot do anything that is
pleasing to God. We need it for salvation. Without
it we will never come, we will never understand, we will never
desire, we will never be able to be born from above, we will
never be able to repent, we will never be able to trust, have
faith to rest in Christ, we will never be able to do the works
of God which is believed, We'll never be able to do the things
that God has given for us on the spiritual side as far as
loving God and loving our brethren. We're not going to be able to
do that without sovereign grace. So brethren, sovereign grace
isn't this big bad old devil's doctrine that everybody puts
it out to be. If you scan it on the internet
and look, you'll see there are a lot of people that says that
what we believe is the doctrine of demons. because we make God
out to be this big old author of sin and we make God to be
this puppet master that we're all just robots or whatever and
everything like that. But that's because they don't
understand spiritual things. They don't see it from the perspective
of depravity, of inability. See, if a puppet doesn't have
a puppet master, it doesn't move, it just lays, doesn't it? It's
just dead. Whenever the puppet master picks
up the strings and starts moving it, then it starts to move, right? That puppet, if the puppet master
would never pick it up and start moving them strings, that puppet,
as far as it would know, it would never know it could walk, it
could move its hands, it could move its feet, it could do anything.
When did it know that it could move around? Master picked it up and started
moving it straight. I never knew I could believe
or repent or trust or anything like that until the Spirit gave
me the ability to do that. I never would have been able
to do that. So, am I thankful for a puppet master? Absolutely
I am. Am I thankful that I'm God's
robot? Absolutely, because if God would
not have programmed me I would not be who I am. If God would
not have instilled my mainframe, I would not be who I am. If God
would not have given me spiritual life, I would never have come. I would never have thirsted.
I would never have been given bread from heaven. I never would
have believed. I never would have repented.
I never would have had faith in Christ or rested in Him. I
never would have done any of those things. I wouldn't have
love for the brethren. I wouldn't have love for God
if God wouldn't have sovereignly given me grace and bore me from
above. So, anybody got any questions?
All right. Let's bow down. Father, once again, We are grateful
for Your sovereign grace. We're grateful for Your control
over all things. That Your absolute predestination
of all things is a comforting doctrine to us. Lord, not because
it gives us an escape to do whatever we want and say that it's under
Your predestination. Not because we can sin all that
we want to sin and say You died for us. It doesn't matter. That's not the purpose for why
we You've revealed them in Your
Scripture. And because they are true. We preach these things
because it gives all honor and glory to our Savior Christ. We preach these things, Father,
because it debases man in any hope that he might have. Lord, we know that in this flesh
we profit nothing. We know that we cannot please
You. Often we try and often we fall
back into thinking that our flesh is working out something that
you're going to accept. And Lord, even your children
need to be reminded of these things. That's why we continue
to preach the gospel. That our minds might be rested
upon Christ Jesus and what He has done as our substitute. And
that satisfaction and acceptance and justice has all been finished
in Christ. And so, Lord, we are grateful
for this gospel. We pray that those who have listened,
those who have watched, those who might run across this at
some other point in time, they might find comfort in these messages,
whether it's from me or any other gospel preacher. Lord, we pray
that you give them comfort, as we know that you've taught in
your scripture, that we will find satisfaction, fulfillment,
in the preaching of the gospel and what Christ has done. That
will be the thing that satisfies our hunger and our thirst. That
is the thing that will give us rest and comfort and peace and
joy. So Lord, we just are grateful
for the gospel. We pray that wherever it is being
preached today, Lord, that you would bless those people, bless
those congregations. Lord, we pray that you would
be with Our brethren, here as they leave today, that you would
keep them safe until the next time we meet. Lord, we pray that
you would draw your people to yourself. Lord, if they have
yet to be given repentance and faith, we ask, Lord, that you
would convert them, that they would come believing upon Christ,
that they might be baptized, that they might be added to the
membership of the church, Lord, so that we might be able to covenant
together in worshiping you and in the furtherance of preaching
the gospel and the ministry of the gospel here at this church. Lord, we just ask that if there's
any here in Joplin, Lord, that is yours. We pray, if it be your
will, that you bring them our way, that they might join along
with us for encouragement, for worship. Father, not not to prove
how many numbers that we have. We don't care about those things.
We care about your people being fed and being encouraged and
loved and a place for them to find shelter with those who are
like faith and practice and Lord that they might be able to serve
you among the people of God. And so Lord, we just thank you
so much for all that you've done and how you've kept this church
now for all these years. No matter how small we might
be, Lord, we know that you've promised to be with us where
two or three are gathered in your name. And we ask, Lord,
that you might build your church as you see fit, not as we desire,
but as you see fit. And so, Lord, we just are grateful
for what you have done, and we look forward to the days ahead
as you will. And Lord, again, we thank you
for Jesus Christ who has saved us from our sin and has been
our substitute. And we look forward to the day
that he comes again and that all things will be put down that He might be seen to be the
ruling Savior that He already is, that sin, death, Satan, and
all the wicked will be cast into everlasting darkness and fire,
Lord, and that they might receive the just reward for all their
works. And we never boast that we are
different because of anything in ourselves, but only because
of the grace of God. what would we say from that. So thank you again and we ask
you all