John Chapter 14, that's where
we're actually going to begin today. John Chapter 14. Wanted to go
back and continue on what we started last week and the thought
that we had about why we need sovereign grace. I mentioned
last week that, you know, we call our church Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church and We preach about sovereign grace. We call
ourselves sovereign grace people, sovereign graces or whatever.
You know, we're not a denomination. We're not affiliated with any
denomination of sovereign grace denominations or associations.
We don't affiliate with anything like that, but we call ourselves
sovereign grace. Sovereign grace people. But why
is that? Why do we make so much emphasis
on sovereign grace? And well, one of the things I
mentioned last week is that who has and is the only person
who has free will. God who is sovereign bestows
grace on who he wants to bestow grace upon. And whenever he gives
that grace, that grace is irresistible. We don't resist that grace. And
the reason because that is because God does and complete change
to who we are by removing, as Ezekiel says, removing the heart
of stone and putting in a heart of flesh, taking out the heart
that is dead and trespasses and sins, and puts in a heart of
flesh that now is a spiritual heart that can feel and to hear
and to see and to understand and to receive spiritual things,
okay? So, and of course, we're not
talking about physical, muscle that beats pumps blood we're
talking about who we are inwardly our lives we have a new creation
that is born within us the spirit of God is in us I mean the actual
spirit of God is in the child of grace it's not just something
we say this these fanciful things and God puts that spirit in us
without asking As I mentioned last week, every
person would continue to resist God, resist the Holy Spirit,
to kick against the pricks, to do all these things. As Paul,
you know, whenever Jesus came to Paul on the road to Masses
and said, you know, why do you kick against the pricks? What's
he saying? Why do you continue to reject
me? Why do you continue to refuse? Why do you continue to against the things that you know
in your heart. Why? Because Paul had been given
spiritual life. And now Jesus was going to convert,
going to turn to Paul and give him faith and give him repentance.
And he did on the road there. He repented and turned as he
gives us that account. He said, you know, the things
that I thought were gain now I count as loss. The things that
I thought were wonderful and great Mighty, I count him now
as dumb. Why? Paul had a change of heart. Paul was given repentance. Paul
was given faith. He didn't have that until the
Lord gave it to him in his time. That was sovereign grace. And
some people look at that, especially people who worship free will,
they look at that and say, well, you know, God just, you know,
forced him to be a Christian. That ain't love. You mean to
tell me that that's not love? You, who by nature would never,
can never believe, repent, come to Christ, by nature you cannot
do those things, and God gives you the ability to do what you
cannot do, and you say that's not love? That is love. Love
is being given the mercy of God, the grace of God that we don't
deserve and that we could never have done on our own. In mercy,
God gives us something. That's not God cramming something
down our throat and us, after we give it, say, well, you give
it to me, but I don't like it. You know, I didn't ask for it.
No, no, no, no. And the child of grace never
has that mindset because they know that apart from him doing
that, him irresistibly doing that, we know who we are, we
would never come, we never would come to Christ. That's why Jesus
said, you know, you will not come to me that you might have
life. Why did he say that? Was he saying that just to say
that? No, he said that because he knew that the natural man
will never come to Christ. You will not come to me. The
Pharisees will not come to me. Why? Because two things that
he knows about these guys. Number one, and we're going to
do this today, they are the children of the devil. They are the seed
of the devil, not the seed of Christ. And second of all, being
the seed of the devil, they have a nature that will not, cannot
come to him because they are an enmity with this God. They
are an enmity with this gospel. And so they will never come,
the flesh will never come to Christ. And so they have that
inability. We as the children of God, we
are born with that inability because we are of the same nature
in Adam as the children of Satan. But yet Christ gives us that
new birth from above. Of course we want to talk about
that But let's start with John chapter
14 and verse 17, and we're going to continue on in this thought
of why do we need sovereign grace? Why do we preach sovereign grace?
Why is it so important to us? And it's because without sovereign
grace, there is no salvation. Without God sovereignly saving
you, meaning that your salvation wasn't A choice that you made
wasn't an offer that God gave to you, wasn't a decision that
you made in time, wasn't a choice. Salvation was something that
God did on your behalf apart from you because you never would
have chosen. Salvation was something God did
for you to save you from sin and death. And so he did that
by grace. He did that and gave it to you
in mercy. He showed mercy upon us. And
so we need sovereign grace because without that, then we're left
without grace, without mercy. We're left without salvation.
There is no salvation apart from grace. Salvation is only by grace. And so people that are out there
preaching, and I was once one of them. I used to preach this,
so I know. The mindset that I had, you know,
that's all I could see. That's all I understood until
God grants that repentance to turn from that false gospel.
We are ingrained in that religious activity. And I was, you know,
hey, we have God has to give us free will. That's how he made
us. You know, he made us with this
mind, emotion and will. in his image, and that we have
free agency. Even a lot of the sovereign grace
Baptists in some of their confessions say that man's given free agency. We don't have free will, but
we have free agency. What does that mean? What's the
difference in that? Well, one, free agency is that men are free
to act according to their nature. Brethren, we have this nature
of Adam until the day that we die. We have the flesh until
the day that we die, and that flesh is corrupt. The only thing
that makes us different apart from everybody else is the spirit
of God that is in us. And that spirit, we don't control
that. We don't control what they do,
so we don't have a will according to nature. We make choices, yes. We have a will and a desire to
do stuff, yes. But that's all controlled by
God. Every bit of it is controlled
by God. My nature, and of course, some
people say, well, what about the nature, what about your desire
to sin? Does God control that? Yes, God
controls that too. God can keep me from sinning,
or he can withhold his mercy and let me be, let me and my
flesh be tempted by my own lusts and sin. Now God doesn't do that,
tempting. but he surely does control who
sins and who doesn't sin, when and how he desires for his purposes
to bring forth his predestinated plan. And so that's for another
sermon. But yes, sovereign grace is extremely
important because without it we would never ever be saved.
And so last week we seen and I talked about that we need sovereign
grace because without it we don't have the mind to understand God. We don't have the mind to search
out God. We don't have the ability to see spiritual things, to know
spiritual things, to enter into the kingdom of heaven. We don't
have the ability to do uh, that, uh, uh, repentance
and faith and all those types of things. We don't have that
ability and, uh, we don't have the ability to, uh, direct our
own steps. You know, God has to direct our
steps, uh, and everything. So we need sovereign grace for
everything. So today I would like to continue
on in those thoughts on some things on why we need sovereign
grace. Uh, and today in John chapter
14 and verse 17, that's where we're going to be at first. John
chapter 14 and verse 17. Actually, um, I want to back
up to verse 16 so you can get the context who and what is being
talked about here. Now, remember this chapter 14
is where Jesus is talking to his disciples and explaining
to them about him, uh, after his crucifixion and him going
away. to go back to heaven, or go back to his abode in heaven,
he is speaking about sending the comforter. If I go away,
I'll send another comforter. That's where we're at. He says,
and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive. See what he said there? The spirit
of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not,
neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you
and shall be in you. Okay? So Jesus is teaching them
here that the spirit of truth is not something that the world
can receive, but those who have the spirit of God can receive
these things. The people of God receive or
have the Spirit of God in them because they are His people. And the seed of Satan, they're
never going to have that. And so, why do we need sovereign
grace? Because without God giving us
His Spirit, we would never receive the Spirit for ourselves, to
ourselves. We would never be able to get
the Spirit of God in us, much less the Spirit of Truth, not
talking exactly the Spirit Himself, but the ability to perceive truth,
to know truth, okay? And we only perceive and know
truth by the Spirit of Truth, which is the Holy Spirit. We
would never be able to do that. if sovereign grace wasn't given
to us. God gives us the spirit and we are able to, once he gives
us the spirit, to discern spiritual truth. And so here we see Jesus
saying, hey, you can't receive the spirit of truth unless it's
given to you, unless the spirit is in you, then you can receive
and understand God's word. And so that's another thing that
we need sovereign grace for, so that we can be able to perceive
spiritual truth. Turn with me, if you would, to
John chapter 8. And look with me, if you would,
I'm going to back up to verse 42, but I'm really wanting to
look down around verse 46 and 47. I mean, excuse me, 45 and
47. But Let's go back to 42. It says,
Jesus said, you know, again, Jesus is speaking here and he's
talking to a crowd of people and specifically to these Pharisees. He says, Jesus said unto them,
if God were your father, you would love me. Now, the reason
Jesus is addressing this this way is because these Pharisees
are appealing to the fact that they are children of Abraham. Therefore, they don't lack anything. They were not born of fornication,
is what they said in verse 41. But they appealed, verse 33,
we be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, ye shall be
made free? And then later they said in verse
41, we be born of fornication. We have one father, even God. They're appealing to the fact
that, hey, we are children of Israel. We are children of Abraham. We are God's people, so we don't
have any need for anything. We're his people. We're chosen
because we are his people. And Jesus here is laying the
claim that it's not a spiritual lineage, or excuse me, not a
physical lineage, that makes them God's people. It's a spiritual
lineage. Remember, we've talked about
that before. There's a physical lineage of Abraham. There's a
spiritual lineage of Abraham. And whenever we speak of that,
we're speaking about the children of God. There's a physical people
of God that God chose these people in a physical way to show forth
some things in the Old Testament. But yet there is a spiritual
people made up of people not only from Israel, but from every
language, tribe, and tongue. That's the true Israel. That's
the true Jew. That's the true child of God
is the one who is the child by faith in the Spirit, okay? That's who the true children
of God are. And Jesus here is saying that.
He said, if God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded
forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent
me. Why do you not understand my
speech? So Jesus now is going to say,
you know, I'm saying all this stuff and you want to know why
you don't understand what I'm talking about? Now, before I
get into this, brother, we've talked about this before. You've
heard me preach on these things before, but for the sake of us
all needing to hear it again, and those that may be watching
and listening, this is Jesus himself. This is
not an opinion of mine. It's not a theology that I seem
to maybe follow. Okay. It's not a, uh, it's not
a denominational thing. It's not a, uh, a seminary, uh,
pushed idea. Okay. I've never been to seminary. So that doesn't make any, you
know, uh, any sway with me at all. It's, it's not, um, it's
not just some fanciful thing that we're trying to hold to.
to keep up our end of the sovereign grace belief. This is coming
from God's word. This was actually being said
from the lips of Jesus at the time, okay? He says, why do ye
not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my
word. See, Jesus again draws us back
to an ability. They did not have a physical
ability. No, they had a physical ability.
They were listening to him. They were responding to him.
The things he was saying, they were saying things back to him.
It's not talking about a physical ability. It's talking about a
spiritual hearing. They cannot hear him in a spiritual
way. They do not perceive and understand
spiritual truth, and he said he cannot hear my word. You don't
have the ability to spiritually discern what I am talking about. You're looking at things on a
physical level. You're looking at things on a
wooden literal level. You're looking at things as far
as the carnal mind perceives them, but you're not understanding
these things spiritually. If you were of God, if you were
of my father, if you actually love my father, which the only
reason we love God is because he first loved us. So if the
love of God was in them, causing them to love him, then if the
love of God, which is the spirit of God in us, if the love of
God was in them, then they would understand these things because
they would have spiritual perception, spiritual ability to receive
spiritual truth, understand spiritual truth, be taught spiritual truth.
but they do not have that ability there. A good example of this,
okay, a good example of this, it's gonna be a sore subject
for one of the people here in this room. My son has a computer and this
computer, he spent a lot of money on to build. There is Wi-Fi in
this house. And everyone in this house has
a phone that can connect to that Wi-Fi. We have gaming devices
that can connect to that Wi-Fi and understand the signals that
it's sending. Pick it up, translate it to our screens. Okay? We can do that. However, my son,
his computer, it has an antenna to receive Wi-Fi signal, but
he can't He can't get nothing on there. It's not working. He
doesn't have the ability to get on the internet. He's got an
antenna. Why can't he get on there? Because
there's something internally that's not there that causes
a reception of those Wi-Fi signals. However, everybody else in here
has something that is able to receive because they have not
only an antenna, ears, but they have ears to hear. That's what
Jesus said. He who has an ear to hear, let
him hear. He wasn't just saying whoever
has ears, you can hear. He's talking about there has
to be something internalized. There has to be something inside
that receives those things more than another. Is the Wi-Fi signals
hitting that antenna? Absolutely they are. Are they
actually going into the computer and causing anything? Yes they
are. It shows up down there that he
can see all the Wi-Fi signal in the house. However, he can't
get on the internet because something internally is not there that
allows us to take that and to be able to process that into
the truth of what is being sent to it and display that in reality. Same thing with us. Hope that
that illustration is good in the fact that God's spirit speaks
The Bible speaks and teaches His people. A preacher preaches
and people hear, but without the spirit inside of us to take
what's being brought in through the physical and then to make
the understanding of it in the spiritual, all we have is noise
bombarding us. That antenna, it has Wi-Fi signals
bombarding it. And it's hearing those signals,
but it can't translate those signals. The Spirit translates
the truth of God to our heart, to our mind. Without the Spirit
of God in us, then we cannot perceive truth. That's an ability,
a spiritual ability, and that ability only comes when God gives
grace that's why we need sovereign grace because without sovereign
grace all we have is noise penetrating our ears and natural mind trying
to decipher it and not something actually really explaining this
is what this means this is what this is about this is the truth
and so this is what Jesus is saying this is what we just read
okay we don't have the spirit of truth We cannot, without the
spirit of truth in us, we cannot receive and perceive the things
of the spirit. And Jesus says right here, why
do you not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my
word. Then he goes on to explain that.
Why can't they understand his word? He said, ye are of your
father, the devil. So here we see there's a father,
that has people that cannot hear. And then there's the father that
has people that can hear. There's the father or the progenitor,
the lead, the head, the representative. Well, representative may not
be the right word, but the father is the devil and he has his children. And then we have Christ and he
has his children. The devil's children has the
inability, inability to hear. Now, brother, we by nature are
just like these people and in the flesh have that same inability. However, for the child of grace,
the only difference comes that God gives us grace and the new
spirit in us to hear. because now we are being taught
of God because the Spirit of God is in us, and God gives that
to us in his appointed time whenever he does that. God gives that
to us, and whenever he does, that there is a separating of
these people and these people showing forth, manifesting the
children of God. Now, hold your finger right there,
and I'll show you, and I didn't think about this early, earlier
until now, I think this relates back to one of our favorite verses
that we always go to, and that's in 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Look at verse 9, who has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his purpose and grace. See, there's that
grace that we've been talking about. Why do we need sovereign
grace? According to his purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. So we were saved eternally
by God's choosing us. That election, that calling,
that separating us, that sanctification. We've been set apart as Christ. Okay, we've been given to him,
set apart and given to him. And we've been saved in the fact that we have
been given before the foundation of the world in God's purpose. the place of as children of God,
that whenever we come into existence, whenever we come into this world,
we come in in the nature of Adam. We come in as children of Adam. But God, because he has saved
us, sanctified us, set us apart, called us with that holy calling,
to himself as his people before the foundation of the world that
in time we receive all the benefits and even though we are of the
same lump of Adam we have been made a vessel of honor and as
a vessel of honor God shows forth those blessings that he has given
to us by granting us that new heart by granting us faith, repentance,
so that we might believe the gospel, that we might believe
upon him, that we might love him, love the brethren. These
things of fruit are the works of God that he does in us. Those are the works of God. Those
are the things that we, God said that he has ordained us under
good works before the foundation of the world. That's what they
are. They're not our works, they're
his works. He's appointed us unto those
works, but those works are His works, and they're the works
that He does in us by granting us faith, repentance, love for
God, love for the people. And so these things He gave us
before the foundation of the world, and so He did that in
His purpose and His grace. But look at verse 10, but it
says, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. See, we didn't know these things,
we didn't understand these things, but now they're being made manifest
to us. They're being shown to us. They're
being brought to light. The fact that we have life and
immortality in Christ is something that we didn't know in Adam.
We couldn't have ever perceived that. We would never receive
that and how it took place. We thought we had to work for
it. We thought we had to perform obedience to God's law to get
that. We had to do certain things to
get that, to be a certain level of religiousness to get that,
okay? But God said that this is stuff
that was given to us before the foundation of the world, that
we were blessed with this, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, in Christ Jesus. All this stuff was given to us
before And so now we see those things because God has given
us sovereign grace. We see that because God has given
us his spirit. And now what delineates us from
the children of Satan is the fact that we have been blessed
with these things and God is bestowing those things on us.
Therefore, that shows they don't get it. You get it because I
found given you my grace and you have found favor in my eyes,
not by what you have done, but because I have chosen you. Remember
whenever God called Noah to build the yard? The Bible says, and
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now a lot of people,
and I used to preach this too, I believe that Noah was doing
all this good. He was preaching, he was a righteous
man, obeyed the Lord. loved God and he was out there
trying to obey God and do all these things. And so because
he was a righteous man, God found favor on him and chose him and
his family to save out of everybody else because everybody else didn't
do that. But actually it was just the
opposite. Noah and his family was just like everybody else
by nature. The only difference was is that
Noah had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord had given
him grace to be that righteous man, to be that preacher of grace,
to be that kind of person. God had given him those things
and he found grace, not because of the good person that Noah
was or the good man that he was or any righteousness in Noah.
God found grace because God bestowed grace upon him. Any of us, the
reason that we are that we are is because God has given us that
grace. And that's what delineates us.
That's what separates us. That's what manifests the differences
between the children of Satan and the children of Christ. And
so Jesus here is saying, the reason you don't understand my
speech, even because you cannot hear my word. And the reason
you cannot hear my word is because you are of your father, the devil. There is no grace in you. There
is no spirit of God in you. There is no truth in you. And
he goes on to say that. He says, year of your father,
the devil and the lust of your father, you will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning and a boat, not in the truth because
there is no truth and both not in the truth because there is
no truth in him. When he speak of the lie, he
speak of his own for he is a liar and the father of it. So there
is no truth in Satan. He has no idea what truth is.
Therefore, everything that he says, he thinks is true, but
it's not. And his children have the same
understanding, are the same kind. They're just like they're of
like kind to him. They perceive things and see
things that they try to, by their natural mind, think that is true,
and they really think that's true. It's not that, oh, that's
a lie, and I know it's a lie, but I'm gonna, you know, I'm
gonna say this and believe this and everything, even though I
know it's not right, and everything. We know that, we've all told
a lie before, and we've got caught in a lie, and then when we got
caught in the lie, we double down on it, right? We're going
to say, well, I lied about that. So I'm going to just double in
on it. And so what do we do? We make up some elaborate web
of lies to hold up that one lie that we made. That's kind of
where the old saying goes. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
When at first we, or when at last, or when it's something
we first deceive, whatever it is, whenever we try to deceive,
we double down on it. We know it's a lie. But yet now
we formulate this whole story and we continue on year after
year, week after week, however long it is, trying to uphold
that lie. But we know. The thing is, though,
to someone who doesn't know, someone who doesn't have truth,
what they do, they really think that's true and they don't know
truth. Therefore, they can't know that
what they are believing is not true I've made that mention here
before. I can only know what I know.
I can't know what I don't know. If I don't know it, I don't know
it, right? I can only know what God reveals
to me. I can't know what God doesn't
reveal to me. Anything that God doesn't reveal
to me comes by my natural thoughts. That's why I was proud. Pray
I'm not deceived. I was deceived for years of what the gospel
was. But all of a sudden, boom. Like
a shining light on the Damascus road, all of a sudden I realized,
whoa, wait a minute. This is what that's saying? I've
been wrong all these years. What caused the turnaround? It
was that God gives sovereign grace. Not the doctrine of sovereign
grace. God gave me sovereign grace.
He extended grace to me and caused me to believe. He caused me to
turn from what I was believing to be able to understand. You've
been thinking, that's been saying that all these years, and it's
really not been saying that. See, I was able to perceive truth
because now truth was in me. See, that's what I was saying
a while ago. You cannot do it because you don't have the spirit
of truth. If you don't have the spirit of truth in you, you will
never receive the things of truth. The spirit of truth has to be
in you before you can ever know what truth is. You don't know
what truth is, because you are of your father the devil, if
you're one of his children, and yet they will never have the
spirit of truth in them, therefore they will never understand the
things of God, they will never receive the things of God, because
they will never have that spirit in them. But God gives you that
spirit, so that you can know truth. We're gonna see that here
in just a minute, but let's finish off this passage. He says, you
have your father, the devil, and the lesser your father, you
will do. He is a murder from the beginning and above not in
the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh
a lie, he speaketh of his own. When he speaketh a lie, now,
does Satan lie to us, knowing things are a lie? Yes. But for someone who does not
have truth, They can be speaking things that they truly think
are true, even though they are a lie. That's why I warn you
guys all the time about all these churches that are out there that
is preaching another gospel. Listen, I do not doubt one bit
my friends and family who believe another gospel of free will,
free decision, free choice, all these things that doesn't believe
sovereign grace. I don't doubt their sincerity. I don't doubt
their sincerity. I don't doubt their love for
that religious system that they are in. They truly believe that's
the truth. They truly believe they are serving
God. They truly believe that they
are doing everything according to the scripture, just like Paul. He was convinced that going out
and gathering up those Christians and persecuting them was doing
the work of God. He was convinced I was a Pharisee
of Pharisees. What does that actually mean?
It means, listen, I knew God's word and I walked God's word. I desired God's word. I want
to be a God man. I want God in the center of my
life as the center of my life. I want to do everything according
to what God wants to do. And Paul believed that was what
he was doing until the truth was born in him. until the Spirit
of God was born in him, the Spirit of Truth was born in him, then
he's seen. Everything that I've done, things
were all done, that was all lies, that was all false. It was not
a truth that I thought it was, but all I found out is it was
just religion. It wasn't actually the things of God. And so whenever
Satan speaks, he can actually tell you a lie, but he doesn't
know the truth. He doesn't in himself have truth. Therefore, his children don't
have truth. And he can be speaking things that are free will, free
will, your choice. You can walk away. You can reject.
You can not listen. You can disobey. You can do all
these things. And he can give you these things.
And by our own nature in Adam, we will say, that must be the
truth. That's the truth. So until the
spirit of truth is given to us, we're going to speak and hear
what is truly a lie. But to all of us, we think that
it's the truth. He speaketh of his own for he
is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
ye believe me not. So Jesus is saying, listen, I'm
telling you the truth. But you're not believing it.
Why is it that these people right here are believing it, but you're
not believing it? I'm telling the truth. I was
sent by God. I came from God. I am God. He's going to say that matter
of fact here in just a few minutes because he's going to say before
Abraham was, I am. He claims to be God and they
don't believe it. Why don't they believe it? Because
you are of your father, Satan. You're one of his children and
you can't discern truth. You have that inability. He says,
he that is of God, wait a minute, let me back up 46. Which of you
convinces me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
ye not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's
words. That means he that is a child
of God. He that is of God. So you are of your father, the
devil, meaning that you are born from him. You are a seed of him. And now we're not talking in
physical things. You know, the devil didn't, uh, lay with Eve
and have a, you know, all these little devil babies. Okay. Now
some people believe that unfortunately. Um, but that's not what happened. Okay. We're talking about, the
people of Satan who are the reprobate. We're talking about the people
of Satan who God does not elect. Okay, these are who we're talking
about. And he says, he that is of God
or he that is born of God, hear of God's words. Ye therefore
hear them not because ye are not of God. You're not born of
God. You're not one of his seed. You're
not one of his children. His children will hear him and
follow him. So then said the Jews and said
unto him, say we not that well, well that thou art a Samaritan
and hast a devil. Jesus answered, I have not a
devil, but I honor my father and ye do dishonor me. And I
seek not my own glory. This is one that seeketh and judgeth. There's
one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. So, Jesus here
clearly tells them that they cannot hear and the reason they
cannot hear is because they are of the seed of Satan. Now, Jesus
didn't say that. That was the only time he said
that. Turn with me if you would. other verses with me to see some
of the nuances and how he says these things because we kind
of see this is a this it wasn't just a one-time thing for jesus
therefore we know that it's got to be more to it than just a
you know jesus you're being a little elaborate in your you know saying
and also unless someone thinks that well Yeah, they're not of
Satan, or not of God now, but they can choose Jesus and become
one of his children. Now, no, you're children from
the beginning, okay? Did you guys choose to be my
children? No, you was children from the very beginning, right?
Before you were even born, you were my children. Okay, so you
didn't have any choice in that matter. So we don't choose to
be children of God. We are children of God. In Matthew
chapter 23, look with me if you would, verse 15. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees
here. He says, woe unto you scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, And when he is made, you make him twofold more
the child of hell than yourselves. So here again, Jesus is equating
him with being a child of Satan. He's calling him a twofold child
of hell. That's a reference to being a
child of Satan. He says, you go out with your
religion and you're trying to get all these people to follow
after you and your gospel, so to speak, your quote unquote
gospel. And all you're doing is making twofold the child of
hell. They already are because they don't believe. And then
you are bringing them in and where they weren't even steeped
in your religion, now they're going to be steeped in your religion
and your false gospel. So not only were they by nature,
now they're going to be by practice. The twofold child of hell. They're
going to be serving Look at verse 33. He says, Ye
serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation
of hell? So here again, he equates him.
We know that the Bible calls Satan that old serpent that in the Garden of Eden, was
made to be as a serpent or a viper. You know, a viper, it's not a
car, okay? A viper is a snake, right? So he calls these men serpents
and generation of vipers. And he said, how can you escape
the damnation of hell? That was a rhetorical question.
It wasn't, he wasn't asking them, is there a way that you can be
saved from the damnation of hell? He was saying, who can save you?
There is no saving you from the damnation of hell. There's no
way of causing you to believe. There's no way of causing you
to understand. There's no way of causing you
to walk in faith because you are, if you follow the devil,
you are full of lies, just like he is. You don't understand,
you don't have truth in you. You're a hypocrite. You are acting
religious and say that you're worshiping God and you are a
hypocrite. You're not trying to act hypocritical,
but you are hypocritical. You're trying and putting on
the show of being a servant of God, but you're not. You're a
servant of your Father, who is the devil. Therefore, you are
a hypocrite, because you're saying one thing, but you're really
another. That's why Jesus said, you are a whitewashed sepulcher.
You clean yourself up on the outside, but inside, you're still
full of dead men's bones. You're still full and dead in
trespasses and sins. You're still the same. and that's the nature of Adam.
He likes to clean up the outside, but cleaning up the outside does
not clean the inside. Jesus said it's not what you
put in the mouth that causes it, it's what's inside, okay? It's not what goes in the mouth
that causes you to be unrighteous, it's what's already in there.
You are unrighteousness, therefore you do unrighteous things. You
don't know truth because there is no truth in you. Okay? Look with me if you would at
Matthew chapter 13 and verse 38. Jesus gives a parable here in
His parable of the kingdoms. And He said, look at verse 37,
He said, He answered and said unto them, He'd given them this
parable about the kingdom of God and the sowing of the seeds.
The disciples asked him, you know, hey, can you explain this
to us? And he says, he that soweth the good seed is the son of man. Who's the son of man? Jesus. Right. It's Jesus. The son of man is Jesus. He that
soweth the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. I tell you what, let's just go
back and read the parable so you guys can understand what
he's saying. Verse 31, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like
to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Okay, so the kingdom of heaven
is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in
his field. which indeed is the least of
all seeds. But when it is grown, it is the
greatest among herbs, and become of the tree, so that the birds
of the air come and lodge, and in the branches thereof. Another parable spake he unto
them, the kingdom of heaven is like unto, this is not the right
one, hang on. I thought I was reading the right
one. Verse 18, I'm sorry, my fault. Verse 18. Hear ye therefore the
parable of the sower. When anyone heareth the word
of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is
he which receiveth I guess I should have wrote that
down. My mind is just going. He said
he spoke many things in the parable saying behold a sower went forth
to sow and when he sowed some seeds fell by the wayside and
the fowls came and devoured them up some fell by the stony places
where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up
because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was
up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered
away. And some fell among thorns, and
thorns sprung up and choked them. But others fell into good ground
and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold,
some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. And so they said, He that soweth
the good seed, that's the one that fell on good ground and
brought forth fruit, okay? He that soweth the good seed
is the son of man. The field is the world. The good
seed are the children of the kingdom. But the tares, those
things that grew up not being the good seed, but the tares
are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them
is the devil. The harvest is the end of the
world, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares
are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end
of this world." Okay, the tares aren't going to change. They're
going to be tares. They started as tares. They were sowed as
tare seeds. They sprung up as a tare. They
lived as a tare, they was reaped as a tare, and they were burned
in the fire as a tare. They were a tare from the beginning. Before it was ever intended on
anything else, they were a tare. Why? Because they were a seed
of a tare. That seed came from the seed
that was before them, that came from the original seed. It was a tare, it was always
determined to be a tare, it was always a tare, it will always
be a tare, and it will be consumed as a tare, okay? But the others
started out from the beginning as a seed of Christ. They were planted as a seed of
Christ. They sprung up and manifested
themselves as a seed of Christ. They existed as a seed of Christ. They were harvested as a seed
of Christ. And they will be brought into
the storehouse and kept as a seed of Christ in the end. Okay? You see, that's where that parable
is teaching. It wasn't teaching them how to farm and why some
seeds grow and some seeds don't. The purpose of that was to understand
spiritual things. that the only ones that knew
were the children of the good seed. And they are kept to the
end and they are brought in. That's why Jesus told them that. You are of your father, the devil,
and he said, who's going to save you from the damnation of hell? You were a tear. You're always
going to be a tear and you will be reaped as a tear and burned
as a tear. The damnation of hell was your
chosen lot. That was how God purposed you. You were a, Romans 9 says, a
vessel fitted unto destruction. You were a vessel of dishonor,
not a vessel of honor. The purpose in you in creation
was to show forth God's wrath, God's judgment, God's damnation
upon that sin. upon sin. And these God had purpose
and built as his people. The purpose for them was to show
forth God's mercy and grace and love and justice. Okay. That's why we need sovereign
grace because only by sovereign grace are we in this camp and
not this camp. And Jesus is teaching this by
these parables. teaching it by telling these
people, the reason you don't believe is because you're not
my sheep. The reason you don't believe these things is because
you're not of God. You're of your father, the devil.
See, that's why we need sovereign grace. Sovereign grace is the
one who determines what our destiny is. Look with me, if you would,
at 1 John chapter 3, verse 8. We're just about done. 1 John chapter 3 verse 8. Here's a verse that
is perplexing to a lot of people. He says, He that committeth sin
is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For
this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy
the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God, or
is of God, or is a seed of God, or is a child of God, okay? Whoever is born of God doth not
commit sin. Now, take that to heart. I'll tell
you how I used to preach this. continue in habitual sin. But is that what that says? Is
there any other scripture that can be brought in to shed light
on this to let us know that that means does not commit habitual
sin? There's not any. The scripture
doesn't say whoever is born of God does not commit habitual
sin. Every sin that we commit is habitual. Because it is our habit. The
habit of our nature is sin. We have a sin nature. And the habit or the characteristic
or the indulgence or the or the The obsession of that nature
is to sin. Some people say we have a bent
to sin. OK, we have a compulsion to sin. Well, that's habitual. So this
verse does not say that the people that say that why I said that. Was because in my mind at the
time I didn't know true and in my mind at the time I was trying
to figure out, I know I keep sinning, because the Bible says
if we say we have no sin, we make God out to be a liar, because
he says that we all sin. So I know that we still have
sin, but this here says he does not commit sin. So how can it
be true that God says that we sin, but we do not commit sin?
Oh, he must be talking about we don't sin habitually. Oh, that doesn't get you off
the hook, because it says does not commit sin. How does one not commit sin? Well, the answer to that is at
the beginning of the verse. Whosoever is born of God. See,
this nature is not born of God. This nature is born of Adam.
It's born of the earth, earthy. It's not spiritual, it's natural. All it can do is sin. Therefore,
it will sin. It will never be made holy. It
will never be made righteous. It will never be made better.
It will not cease more and more and more from sinning and made
more and more and more holy. It will be what it will be. Flesh. That which is a flesh is flesh.
So what does not commit sin? That which is born of God. What
is born of God? That's that life or that spirit
that's in us is born from God. and it doth not commit any sin,
one sin, period. Who we are in our spiritual person
is perfect, holy, righteous. Why? Because it's from God. It's
the life of God. The Bible says that that new
creation that's born from above is born in true holiness and
righteousness. He cannot sin. That's why Paul
in Romans 7 says that I will with my body, with my flesh,
continue to obey and to serve the law of sin. I'm gonna keep
doing what this body can only do, sin. But in my mind, that
is in the spirit that was born from above, I will serve the
law of God. And how does one serve the law
of God? You gotta keep it all. The only way that you can serve
the law of God is to keep every bit of it and not transgress
it in any. Well, the only person that can
do that is Christ, right? And he's given us his spirit
and his spirit that is in us cannot sin. It does not commit
sin. Another aspect of this is we
have been imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ and his obedience. Jesus obeyed every aspect of
God's law. Therefore, we who we are in the
spirit man has obeyed that because that's what our account says. Our account tells us that we
have not sinned because Jesus did the sinning for us as our
substitute. Did he actually sin? No. But
every sin that I did was removed off of me and placed upon him. He died for that sin. So every
sin that I committed, was taken away and was judged. Therefore, God has no more judgment
for my sin because Jesus took that judgment. And so now God
can't find any sin in me. I cannot commit sin because every
time I do actually sin in the flesh, that sin that I commit
in the flesh was one of the sins that God took and placed upon
Jesus. So God never sees sin in that spiritual person, only
in the fleshly person. He doesn't see sin in the spiritual
man because the spiritual man is from Christ. Is Christ in
us? Who was our obeyer? The inward
man always obeys. Why? Because that's been his
account. That's what's been placed on
his account. Helen came in with me today and she had her insurance
papers where she owed this and this and this. And she got a
deal saying that For some reason, she didn't owe anything in February.
Her next payment's gonna be in March. So she didn't have to
pay nothing in February. Whenever you open that up, you
say, hey, I don't have to. Are you gonna go try to pay February's
bill after they told you you don't have to? You're gonna pay
them anyway? No. If your creditor, who you owe
money to, And then they come in and say,
guess what? You don't owe anything. It's all been taken care of.
Are you going to say, well, I still want to pay you anyway? No. We're
going to be glad. That's what we're talking about
here. God has taken our sins and placed them upon Christ.
Our account says we don't owe anything. Therefore, that man
that's inside of us don't owe anything to God. The person that's
inside of us is perfect. It is always obedient because
it has obedience laid to its account. But the fleshly man,
all he does is sin. Therefore that fleshly man will
perish away. It will die. The wages of the
sin of this flesh is death and it will die. But brethren, That
man that's inside, that's renewed every day. It's the same over
and over. God ain't gonna forgive me of
these sins, so everything passes good, but boy, I gotta worry
about all these going forward. Now, all the ones going forward are
just as much freed up as these. And so we need sovereign grace
so that we can understand God's words, which tells us forgiven. righteous the seat And he cannot
see it because he is born of God, and look at verse
10, it says, in this, the children of God are manifest, and the
children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this
is the message that she heard from the beginning, that we should
love one another. And so we see here that this
is manifested the ones who are born of God and the ones who
are born of Satan. Those who are the children of
God, those who are the children of Satan, are made manifest in
the fact that they have Christ in them, that they have been
given these great and precious promises and these blessings
of God, these gifts of God, and it manifests that they love God
and they love the brethren. These men that Jesus was speaking
to, they didn't manifest that at all. It didn't manifest it
at all. So why do we need God's sovereign
grace? It's so that we can know, well
for one, to have the spirit of truth, to perceive the spirit
of truth, hear the spirit of truth, understand the words of
God and know what the gospel is telling us. The gospel is
telling us that we have been freed from the law, from the
curse of the law. We have been forgiven of all
of our sins and that we have obeyed everything that God has
required to be obeyed and it was done in the person of Jesus
Christ. And that every sin that we've
ever committed has been paid for. You don't owe anything else
to God because God has done everything in paying that debt by the death
of Jesus Christ. And so the Spirit of God, the
truth of God, that the world cannot hear. They can't hear
this gospel. So we need sovereign grace so
we can hear this gospel. They don't hear it, therefore
they continue to do worse. They continue to to try to do the things that
they think are pleasing this God who is weighing things in
the balance of what's good and what's not good. Instead of trusting
Christ alone as their salvation. Seeing Christ has done it all. And so we need sovereign grace
so that we might know the gospel and believe it. All right, does
anybody have any questions? many weeks we'll work on this
thing because there's a lot of things in scripture that teach
us why we need sovereign grace and so we'll we'll pick up with
this maybe thought next week unless the Lord leads me in some
other direction I always want to preach what the Lord lays
on my heart and follow him so we'll Lord willing take this
up on another day Father, we thank you once again
for your grace and your mercy that you've given us in Christ
Jesus. We thank you, Father, for the Word of God, and we thank
you for the sovereign grace that you've given us to be able to
hear these words, to be taught of the Spirit, to be able to
actually repent and believe and to trust in you all those things
that we could not do in the flesh, all those things we could never
do in our nature in Adam. But Father, by your grace, you've
given us spiritual life to be able to partake of these very
things. And Lord, we are grateful for
that. So Lord, we pray today that as we leave this place,
that we will continue to give you honor and praise for all
that you've done for us in salvation. And Lord, that you might bring
us safely back here another week. And we are so thankful for Jesus
and all that he has done on our behalf. And it's in his name
that we pray.