Alright, turn with me this morning,
if you would, to Isaiah chapter 58. That's where we're going
to start this morning. We'll be looking at several verses,
by the way, this morning, but we'll start in Isaiah chapter
58. Good to be back with y'all today
here. Daniel, good to have you back
with you. Had a good time in fellowship
last week with the Coedah Baptist Church. kind words and fellowship and
hospitality and things extended to us while we were there last
weekend and look forward to days in the future and fellowshipping
again. By the way, last week's sermon,
the sermons that I preached there is also on our Facebook page. You can find that there. It was
just re-shared The Lord so moved you to do so.
Isaiah chapter 58, let's go to the Lord in prayer and we'll
begin this morning. Father, we come to you this morning and
we do desperately need your presence with us this morning so that
we might worship you and that we might be able to preach and
we might be able to hear, be able to be taught. All this comes
by the Spirit's power among us, Lord, and we just ask that you'll
be with us, Lord. We're frail people, we get tired,
we get sleepy, we get worn out. We get frustrated, we get bewildered,
we get our minds full of other things, carnal things as well
as spiritual, but mostly of the natural things, Lord, and so
often we are ill-prepared for this morning, and today may be
no different, and Lord, we're just in desperate need of your
help today, and we ask, Lord, that you would come, that you
would speak to us, that you would minister among us, Lord, we pray
that the Word of God might be opened before us and that it
might be preached correctly in truth. Father, we pray that those
that are listening will be edified. We pray that the Spirit will
teach them, they'll open up understanding. Lord, we just are so grateful
to the salvation that we have through the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're so grateful for forgiveness of sins and for redemption. We're
grateful for all that we have been given in faith and repentance
All these things come by your hand and we're beholden to you.
Because without you, without your work in us, we could never
have accomplished anything on our own. We would never have
come to you. We could never even believe upon
you. And Lord, we are appreciative
of the gift that comes in salvation. So Father, we thank you for all
that you are and all that you will do. And it's in Christ's
name that we pray. Amen. We often talk here about Sovereign
Grace. We have even named our church
Sovereign Grace, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. And the reason
we chose that name in the beginning is because, for one, we claim
to be Baptist, not because we belong to any particular denomination,
but because we believe in that continuing ministry that began
with John in that we are preaching the gospel to the people of God
and baptizing them and teaching them all things whatsoever Christ
has told us to teach them. John began that ministry. A lot
of people disagree that John's ministry was apart and separate
from the New Testament ministry, but the Bible says that the gospel
began with John The preaching of the gospel began with John,
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to believe on him, to look to him. Matter of fact, whenever Jesus
was gaining more followers than John, and John had a pretty good
following of people by the time Jesus came on the scene, John,
seeing that all these people were starting to follow Jesus,
that were following him, The Pharisees was even kind of goading
him a little bit saying, you know, what do you think about
that? All your followers are following John. And John knew
that that was the plan to begin with. He said, I must decrease
and he must increase. He said, the only thing that
we have has been given to us. So the ministry that has been
given was given to us. And he knew that it wasn't his
place to gain followers, but it was to point people to Christ. to tell and declare of the work
of Christ. And that's what we've been called
to do. So we call ourselves Baptists
as it pertains to the ministry of the Gospel, not because we're
of a particular denomination. But the rest of our name, Sovereign
Grace, we chose that because we believe that Sovereign Grace
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Sovereign Grace is not just
grace, it's God's sovereign grace. God bestows grace upon whom He
will. He told Pharaoh, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. God's not beholden to give anybody
grace. Grace is something that's not
merited. So God doesn't owe anybody grace. And He gives it to whomever
He wants. And the modern mindset about
grace is that God is love and God is gracious and God has sent
his son to die for everybody. Therefore, grace is extended
to anybody who will choose it. If you'll choose and take it,
if you'll receive his grace, if you'll accept his grace, then
it's yours for the taking. But that again is not grace.
If something is offered freely to all, and then it is up to
you to choose to take it or not take it, then that's really not
a gift. People try to make that a gift,
an illustration of gift. Well, I can buy a gift for you,
but if you don't take it for yourself, then it's not a gift.
No, it's still a gift. It's a gift. If I give you that
gift, you have that gift. The only thing is, is people
perceive that man has the ability to accept and to receive the
gift of God, and they can't. They assume that the gift is
there for their taking, but that's not what the Bible teaches. The
gift of God is given and bestowed upon someone, and when it is
given to somebody, it is effectuated, effectual. It is something that
is what we call an effectual call of God. It is an effectual
gift of God. It is something and when I say
effectual, it means it's something that is irresistible. You can't
change that. Okay. And I've used these illustration
before to you guys. It's kind of a proof illustration
that I can come over here and I can punch Zach right in the
eye and give Zach a black eye. And we could say that Zach received
a black eye from the preacher. Okay. Did Zack do anything to
get that? Well, he probably mouthed off
or something. That's probably the motivation of why it's sucking
him in the eye. But anyway, no, Zack didn't reach
out and grab my hand and pull it to him. Okay, Zack didn't
run himself into my hand. I give Zack that gift of a black
eye, and he received that gift of a black eye, but that thing
was completely and totally irresistible. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't
do anything about it. He received it because I gave
it. And whenever I give it, it happens. Okay? Now, like I said, that's a crude
illustration, but the point is this, that whenever God gives
gifts, the gifts and the callings of God are not returned, are
not repented of. They're not rejected. They can't be turned
away. They are effectual. God gives
gifts irresistibly. Now some people, and I would
be one of them, I hated the doctrine of irresistible grace. I used
to hate that doctrine because I had a misconception of what
that doctrine was. I thought the doctrine of irresistible
grace was God forced salvation upon people who didn't want it.
God dragged people kicking and screaming to salvation against
their wills. Okay? Now, that is a misnomer,
but there is some truth in that. God does drag us to himself. The Bible says that no man comes
to the Son lest the Father draws him. That word, draw, actually
in Greek means to drag. You have to be brought. You don't
come on your own. You have to be brought. It is
true that we come against our wills because the Bible teaches,
as we'll see this morning, that nobody ever will come. They will
never want to come. And so God does have to bring
us against our wills. But the thing is, brethren, is
he does something to the child of grace so that what is natural
to them, which is being enemies of God, hating God, rejecting
the gospel, rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit, rejecting
all these things, He now, as the Bible says, causes them to
be willing in the day of His power. He changes their inside,
He gives them new life, He gives them spiritual life, so that
now they have the capacity to be able to receive the spiritual
things of God and to see, oh, wait a minute, I am in need of
salvation. Wait a minute, I cannot provide
a righteousness of my own. Wait a minute, I do see Christ
has died for me and that I will trust in that. See, before Christ
gives us that life, then we would continually resist the Holy Spirit. We would continually reject.
We will continually not will to come. So the doctrine of irresistible
grace, the fact that God gives us that grace to be able to know
and to be able to understand and be able to receive and believe
and to repent and to turn and to come to Him is the very gift
of grace Himself. He gives that grace of belief,
that grace of faith, that grace of repentance to us that we could
have never done in our natural man's self. We could never do
that. So that being given to us is
something we didn't ask for. We weren't even searching for
it. God give it to us, despite us, give it to us sovereignly. He chose to give mercy on whom
He would give mercy, compassion on whom He would give compassion.
He gives faith to whom He would give faith. He'd give repentance
on to whom He would give repentance. And whenever He gives that to
men, That spiritual life isn't something that someone just says,
whoa, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want
that. No, I don't want that. Take that back away. I don't
want that. Why? Because whenever you have spiritual
life, now you're a different person. You're a new creation. Now we still have the old nature.
We still have our nature that is an atom, the flesh that still
is at enmity with God. But now we have the spirit of
God in us. That is directing our thoughts.
That is directing our pathways. And that is giving us the desire
for spiritual things. And therefore, whenever we have
that in us, we recognize and we realize that this is the mercy
of God. God has given us something that
we never could have obtained or gotten on our own or done
on our own. And therefore, we rejoice in
that. We worship Him. because of what He has done for
that. So, sovereign grace is God sovereignly,
by His choice, not by your choice, by your decision, by your choosing,
by your asking, because no one would come, choose, ask, think,
will, want to, whatever. Nobody would ever do that apart
from God doing an internal work spiritually to them before they
would ever even do that. Sovereign grace is God sovereignly,
by His choice, bestowing grace on whom He chooses. And so the
question, why do we speak so much about sovereign grace, or
why do we call our church sovereign grace, why do we believe the
gospel is all about sovereign grace, is because if it wasn't
for sovereign grace, there would be nobody saved. And we're not
just talking about grace. Everybody talks about grace.
Every church on all these blocks in Joplin, you know, that are
there, they talk about God's grace. They sing about God's
grace. They even name their church.
There's a church just a few blocks from us right here named Grace
Baptist Church. But the grace they preach is
a cheap grace, a grace that does not, cannot, will not be sovereign. It's a grace that is for you
to choose to take. But it is not a grace that saves.
It's not a saving grace. It's a mythological grace. It's
a grace that they say that God has given to everybody. But now
we must choose. We must accept it. We can reject
God's grace. We can turn away from God's grace
and not respond to God's grace whenever the Bible clearly says
that the child of grace, whenever given spiritual life, they will
come to Him. So, why do we need sovereign
grace? That's the question for the day.
Why do we preach it? Why is it good news? See, to
some it's not good news. The Bible says that to some people
that the preaching of the gospel is foolishness of them. To some
people, the Bible says that the gospel is something that they
do not like. It's a saber of death unto death.
and they don't like it. So why don't we preach something
that we know that some people are going to think, hey, this
is not good. We don't like that. That are going to become very
adamant. I've encountered people that just get very mad whenever
you begin to preach these things and teach these things, hold
to these things. And when you disagree with them
about their free will worship. And whenever you talk about Jesus
dying for everybody, but not everybody being saved that he
dies for. Whenever you start Talking about those things, they
become very, very angry. Even to the point where they
may say, you know, I would never serve that God that makes you
do that or that forces you to be saved or whatever the case
that they think it is. Why do we need sovereign grace?
Well, because if we don't have sovereign grace, our mindset
will always be like that. I don't want that kind of God.
I don't want that Jesus. I don't want that gospel. But
that's the gospel of the Bible. That's the God of the Bible.
That's the Jesus of the Bible. And so we need sovereign grace
because man, in and of himself, is spiritually dead and will
never come to Christ. Now, there's some things that
the Bible teaches us about that and why we need sovereign grace.
We're going to begin looking this morning in Isaiah chapter,
did I say 58? I meant 55. Isaiah 55. Look with me at verse 8. It says,
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways. Now that's God saying that my
ways and your ways are two different ways. He says, For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Okay? So the first
reason we need sovereign grace is because we cannot think, we
do not have the thoughts like God has. We can't think like
God thinks. Matter of fact, the Bible says
over in, you don't have to turn there, I'm gonna turn real quick
just so I don't misquote it, over into 2 Corinthians. In chapter two, the Bible says,
Verse 9, But as it is written, I have not seen nor heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him. See, so we, it has never even
entered into our thoughts what God has done for man in giving
his son, in doing what he has done, in creation even. Now God has given creation as
a proof that he exists. The preaching of nature attests
to who God is, that there is a God and He should be worshipped.
But don't mistake that the giving of nature to tell us that there
is a God is the same as the gospel being declared that you are saved
in Christ Jesus. Nature doesn't declare that.
Nature declares that God is who He is, that He is powerful, that
He is sovereign, and that He exists, and that all men have
that life given to them because God says He's given it to every
man. He's given it to every man. That's why I say there is no
such thing as atheist. They claim to be atheist, but
there is no such thing as atheist because God has put it in the
heart of every man to know that God exists. that there is a God,
that there is something higher than them. There's something
out there, something to be worshipped, something to be bowed down to. And God has done that. And in
Romans, we learn that that's through nature, through everything
that we see, through the firmament, through the creation, all things
point that there is a God. Now, that's not to be confused
with the gospel, though. Only the elect of God can hear
and know and believe and understand the gospel. And the gospel is
only for them. It's only for the people that
God has chosen from all eternity. They're the only ones to whom
that good news is for. But here we see eyes not seen,
ears not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Now, it's not for them who will
love Him. If you love Me, then you'll know
these things. It's for them who love Him. The
only ones who love Him are the ones that God has shown these
things to. We love Him because He first
loved us. Verse 10 says, But God hath revealed
them. See there? So if we're to know
these things, God has to reveal them to us. It has to be revealed
by God. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. He didn't reveal them to us by
apologetics. He didn't, you know, everybody's
out there, we was talking about this yesterday at men's breakfast. Everybody's out there wanting
to do apologetics because they think they get just the right
argument that they can convince somebody of truth. You cannot
convince anybody of truth no matter how well your argument
is formed. No matter how many facts you can coalesce together,
no matter how pointed notes, bullet points, no matter how
many graphics, no matter how many animations you might make,
no matter what you do, no matter how much preaching, teaching,
analyzing, commentizing, any of those things, no matter
how much you do on that truth cannot be revealed to anybody
unless the Spirit reveals it. Someone said, well, obviously
the Spirit will always reveal the Word of God. If you take
the Word of God and use the Word of God, the Spirit's always going
to reveal that to you when you use it. No, sir. No, ma'am. Jesus preached for three and
a half years to religious people for three and a half years. He
is the Word of God. The very words of God were being
spoken to them from God Himself. And what does the Bible say?
They didn't believe. They didn't believe. Was it because God wasn't powerful
enough to cause them to believe? No, that wasn't it. Was it because
they had the free will and God didn't want to transgress their
free will so He didn't do anything about it? That's not it either.
We'll see that the only reason they didn't believe was because
they were not God's sheep. God's sheep are the only ones
that's given to believe. And so we see here the only ones
who are revealed these things are the ones that the Spirit
reveals it to. It's not the ministries of men
that reveal truth. The ministries of men, why are
we here today to preach? Why am I here preaching to you
today? It's to bring comfort to you. Why am I here today preaching
to you? It is to confirm the things that
the Spirit, if you're a child of grace and has been given to
know these things, that is already confirming truth to your heart.
The Holy Spirit has already brought truth into your heart, but yet
the outward call of the Gospel, the outward preaching of the
Gospel is confirming to you this truth. I can't teach anybody
truth. The Spirit is the one who reveals
these things. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. Now, why did I come to this verse?
Well, for one, it ties into what we're talking about. Man cannot
think like God thinks. OK, right now, we think that
we can come to God anytime we want to come to God and make
a decision for God. We think that it's a choice that
God has given to us to either accept Him or to reject Him.
That's how the natural man thinks. The natural man thinks that if
he buys into religion and begins to, I want to become a Christian. Okay, well how do I do that?
Well, you need to repent from your sin and you need to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Ask Him to forgive you of your
sins and if you ask Him into your heart, He'll come in. And
now that he's come in, now you need to study your Bible and
you need to go to church and you need to follow God's Word
and obey the commandments. And you need to get in and start
serving the Lord. Doing all these things to serve
the Lord. Well, that's all religious things that we do. And I'm not
saying that some of those things aren't important and that we
ought to be doing those. We'll want to be doing those
if we're a Christian. But brethren, that is not how
someone gets saved and that is not how someone's mind is changed
Our thoughts are we are the ones who have to respond to God so
that God will give us the gift. We are the ones who thinks that
by our own righteousness, God becomes pleased and says, all
right, you've trusted in me, you've asked me to come into
your heart, you've believed on me, you've asked me to forgive
you, now I'm gonna do it. It was there for you to take
it all along, but I was just waiting on you to give it to
me. That's how we think, that's not
how God thinks. God thinks I already know the
good that I have for you. I already know the blessings
that I want to give to you. I already know from the foundation
of the world that I love you with an everlasting love and
that all the spiritual blessings are yea and amen in Christ and
they are yours before the foundation of the world, I give them to
you. Known unto God are all his people, all his works, all his
sheep, Everything that pertains to your salvation was already
known by God. So, see, the mind of God and
our mind is different. We are thinking that God is waiting
on us to respond to do something so that He can give us something,
and that's not the truth. The truth is this, we would never
respond and come to God if God would never exert Himself on
us in the first place. Verse 10, But God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even
so the things of God knoweth no man." See, we don't know the
things of God. We don't know the thoughts of
God. We don't know how God works. We don't know all these things.
Now listen, brother, we're never going to find that out fully.
And we'll see that in just a minute. But it says, No man knoweth these
things but the Spirit of God, and it says, Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. See, before it said, No eye have
seen, no ear have heard, nor is it in the heart of man the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Now those
who have the Spirit, when the Spirit is given to us, now we
can know. See, before we couldn't know
the things that God had prepared for us from the beginning. Had
prepared? What does prepare mean? If you
prepare something, what does that mean? Let's just use an illustration
of our family here. Every Sunday we have our services
here at our house. So, what is done to prepare for
people to come to our church services at our house? What do
we do? We get ready. We clean the house. We tidy up. We straighten up. We get everything
out. We get the boat set out. We, you know, get the preparations
made, right? To prepare, you make the preparations. Pre, meaning before. You do these
things before. Well, when did God prepare these
things for us? It says here, now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God. that we
might know the things that are freely given to us of God. What
were the things that were prepared that verse 9 said? The things
that are freely given to us. Which things also we speak. Now
we're talking about speaking these things. We've been given
these things. We've been given to know the
things of God. But when? Because the Bible says
that we don't know. No man knows. No one has the
mind of God. But now it says we have the Spirit
of God who does know the mind of God, and the Spirit of God
is in us, and the Spirit of God is revealing things to us and
telling us the mind of God. And what is He telling us? That
there were things prepared for you that are freely given to
you, not things that you earned. Not things that you work for.
Not things that you try to do. Not things that you have to do.
It's freely given to you. And now he says, now that it's
been made known to us, now we speak these things, we declare
these things. That's exactly what 2 Timothy
2, 9 and 10 talk about. We have a salvation that has
been done from eternity, but now, by the manifesting of Jesus
Christ, The gospel now brings that life and immortality to
light. The gospel is to expose and to
preach and to tell us the things that's already been done. Not
to cause it to be done, but to tell us what has already been
done. Now we preach the things that's
been revealed to us that why we are what we are. Which things
also we speak, not in the words of man's wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. So here again, the things that
we teach is not by the wisdom of men teaching us things. Which
things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth. If you're to know anything of
the truth, and if I am to speak and preach anything of the truth,
it's only because the Spirit has first taught us that. whether
it's teaching you that in your heart and you receiving that
as truth, or me as I preach it, if I'm preaching the truth, it's
because the Spirit of God has revealed that truth to me and
caused me to know that that is truth, caused me to preach that
as truth, and therefore the only truth that you hear is the truth
that comes from God. It isn't because Mike Smith studied
enough. It isn't because somebody else,
I didn't, but somebody else went to seminary to learn all these
things so that they could tell you what the truth is. If I want
to know the truth, I better go and learn it from somebody. You
don't learn truth from anybody but the Spirit of God. That's
why He was given to us. That's exactly why He was given
to us. That we might know. That we might
learn. That we might understand. Then
that we might speak these things. So man doesn't have the ability
because his ways, and that's talking about natural man. Man
cannot because his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His
ways are not our ways. We think we do it by our own
achievement. God says no, no, no. It's a free
gift. It's grace. It's not worse. They're always opposed. Grace,
it's either grace or it's not grace. It's either works or it's
not works. Or not grace. If it's works,
it's not grace. If it's grace, it's not works.
There's not a mixture of grace and works. People want to say
that there's grace and works. The Catholics teach grace and
works. That there is grace and there
is works, and both of them are intended, and both of them are
needed for salvation. But that's not what the Bible
teaches. It's by grace alone. Paul made it very clear. If it's
no more by grace, works. God doesn't save by works. He
saves only by grace. But it says there, verse 14,
the natural man receives not these things. And I'm going to
stop there because I plan on getting back to that here in
just a few minutes. But in Isaiah 58, we see that man cannot think
the things of God. Turn to Psalm chapter 50. Psalms verse 50, and look with
me if you would, down to 21. It says, These things hast thou
done, and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such as one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in
order before thine eyes. See, the problem is, is we think
that God's like we are. We try to pull God down to our
level. We try to make God to be like
us, to function like us, to act like us, to react like us, to
be like us, to be under His own law. He's not under His own law.
God doesn't have any law for Himself. God gives law to men. Law was made for man, not for
God. And so God is not like man, but
yet we think that God is like one of us. As a matter of fact,
Romans 1, where I was quoting a while ago about the creation,
also says the very same thing, because we try to make, that
we worship the creation more than we do the Creator. We try
to make God into our own image. Let me read that to you real
quick. It says, The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God hath shown it unto them,
that's what I was talking about a while ago, for the invisible
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead. So that's what I'm saying. This
is not the gospel. This is His eternal power and Godhead. There
is a God. He is powerful. He is above all
things and He created all things. And that no man is without excuse
knowing that because nature is preaching loudly to them and
they know that. He's been given them to know
that. But in verse 21 it says, Because that when they knew God,
they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man." So they changed the glory of God into, or the
uncorruptible God into that that looks like corruptible man. So
that is what we try to do. We try to bring God down to our
own image. Why is that? Because we don't
know and understand the things of God. In Job chapter 11, look with me if you would at verse
7. The Bible says, Canst thou by
searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? It is as high as the heaven.
What canst thou do? Deeper than hell. What canst
thou know? So we see that the understanding
of God is just not in man. We cannot do it. We can't ever
figure it out. And I will say, even as people who are born from
above, we still, on this side of heaven, are not going to be
able to fully find out God by searching. God has given us things
and revealed things about himself to us, but he has not revealed
everything. The secret things of God are his. The things that
are revealed are ours, the Bible says. Okay, so there are secret
things about God that we still don't know, that we probably
won't know until we get to heaven. Okay? And a lot of people think
that they have figured God completely out. We've talked about this
before whenever we talked about the Godhead. how the Father,
the Word, the Holy Ghost, and Christ Jesus being the fullness
of all that Godhead, being united as one God, revealed as three
witnesses. It's hard to understand that.
How God reveals Himself as three witnesses, as three reports,
as three record bearers, but yet as only one God. and how
that one God is manifested in the flesh, who the Bible says
that the heaven and the heavens can't contain. He's immeasurable. He's omnipresent, the Bible says.
But how He can be contained in a body, how He can be in a body
on earth and also be in heaven at the same time. It's amazing
to know that. It's a mystery. It's beyond our
understanding. But yet we only can believe the
things that we are given and revealed because God has revealed
them unto us. But it says here, the other things
of God can't be found out. God cannot be found out to perfection,
to completion. We're never going to find out
God's full, who He is, until God reveals those to us and that's
probably not going to be in this lifetime because our natural
minds cannot comprehend those things. The spiritual mind is
revealing those things to us as God sees fit to give it to
us. God reveals things to some people faster than others. I
know some men who are young preachers who God has not saved, I mean,
not converted, but just a short while ago, already understanding
deep theological things, the deep understandings of the scriptures
that the Lord took, you know, five, 10, eight years, 10 years,
12 years, 15 years, steal things that I don't know, and revealing
it unto them quicker than he is me. You know, God doesn't
deposit all knowledge into us at one time, and we all of a
sudden, just because we have the Spirit, can read the Word
of God and immediately know what it says. The Spirit has to reveal
that. That's why we grow in the grace
and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. It's a growing thing that
we grow in our understanding of the things of God. and who
Christ is, and how he works, and how he's administering the
kingdom, okay? So, why do we need sovereign
grace? Well, because we can't know God,
we can't think like God, we can't understand God, we can't do the
spiritual things that God requires for us to do, or what people
say we have to do. Let's turn back to the New Testament,
to John chapter three, Very familiar passage to us. What's the famous passage in
John chapter 3? John 3.16. Who's Jesus talking to in John
3.16? Well, he is talking to the elect,
but what person is Jesus conversing with in the passage? Nicodemus. Old Nick. John chapter 3. Look if you would
with me at verse 3. It says, Jesus answered and said,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. So you see there's an inability
there. Cannot. Man cannot see the spiritual
kingdom of God are the things of the spiritual kingdom of God
unless He is born again. So therefore, not everybody can
see these things. The only people that can see
these things are the people that are born of God. Now, we just
said, we don't have the mind of God. We don't have the understanding
of God. We don't fully know God. We don't have all that understanding.
Why? Because the natural man cannot
see these things. The natural man cannot understand
these things. Why? Because one, we don't have
the mind of Christ. We don't have God's spirit in
us, the natural man, until we are born from above. Here's what
Jesus is talking about. You must be born again. Why do
you have to be born again? Because if you're not born again,
then what we just talked about, we can't have the mind of God.
We can't think the things of God. We can't understand God
as the Spirit reveals Him again. And here, the spiritual things
of God, of His kingdom, of what's going on among His people. The
kingdom of God is His people. The elect of God makes up the
kingdom of God. We can't understand how this
kingdom works. Number one in the king, what
do you find in a kingdom? Number one, what do you find
in a kingdom? In every kingdom there's a throne. What does that
represent? What does the throne always represent?
Someone in charge. Someone in power, right? Who's
on the throne in every kingdom? A king. So a kingdom always presupposes
a king. In a kingdom there is a king.
In the kingdom there are In the kingdom there is a king, there
are servants, and in that kingdom there are laws by which that
kingdom operates. Christ has a kingdom. He said
that kingdom is not of this world. And a lot of people say, well,
it's not of this world, so therefore it's not in this world. Well,
that's not what Jesus said. Jesus just said it's not a kingdom
of this world. But that kingdom definitely is
in this world. That kingdom is within the hearts
of every elect child of God. The Bible says that we as the
elect are not of the world, but we are in the world. So we are
here though, right? I've had this discussion with
many people. They say, well, you keep saying that the kingdom
of God is something that happens on down the road because the
kingdom comes down out of heaven and the kingdom is at the end
of the age because Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world.
The kingdom is of the new heaven and the new earth. It's not of
this world. It comes down out of heaven. Brethren, Jesus said
the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is here. The
kingdom of God is within you. Jesus said all that, but whenever
he said the kingdom is not of this world, he didn't say that
it was not in the world, he said it was not of the world, just
as Jesus said, I'm not of this world. I came down from heaven. Jesus didn't get his existence
from this world, he got it from heaven. The child of grace, that
spirit that comes to live within us, that new creation is from
above, the Bible says. It's not of this world, it's
of his. And it comes down into this world.
The Spirit of God comes down into this world, although it's
not in this world. Christ was not in this world. Therefore,
we see that Jesus is saying here, nobody can see the workings,
the king, the kingdom, the people of God, the workings of God,
the things of God. That's what he's saying here.
He cannot see how the kingdom works unless you're born again. He said, Nicodemus said, how
can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
until his mother was wounded? So Nicodemus automatically went
to the natural again. The natural mind thinks in natural
ways. I mentioned that to Koita last
week. We always need to get past the natural, the physical, the
letter, and look at the spiritual. Look at the spiritual thing.
What's the spiritual teaching behind this? What is it teaching
us about the true reality of things, not the literal things,
not the physical things, not the type in foreshadow. See, old Nick wants to go back
to the natural man and say, well, what are you talking about? How
can a man climb back up into his mother's womb and be born
again? Jesus says, verily, verily, I
say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. So here we see that
not only can we not see and perceive the things of the kingdom of
God, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless we're born
again. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel
not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. He didn't
say you've got to get born again. He said you must be born again.
you must be born again to see and to enter into the kingdom
of God. He says, the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth. And he says, so is everyone that
is born of the Spirit. See, we cannot see and understand
spiritual things until we are born of the Spirit. Not born
from your mom, Therefore, just because you're a Christian, your
mom or dad is a Christian, doesn't mean you're going to be a Christian.
Just because your mom and dad may be born again doesn't mean
you're born again. Just because you were born a
Christian parent doesn't automatically mean that you're a Christian
or will become a Christian. You have to be born spiritually. There has to be a spiritual birth.
That means that apart from a spiritual birth, First, everything spiritual
cannot be known and understood and seen. We cannot know God. We cannot understand God. We
cannot understand spiritual things. All these things are foreign
to us. That's why we need sovereign grace. Sovereign grace gives
us the new birth. Sovereign grace births us from
above, not asking us, do you want to be born again? Sovereign
grace doesn't say, would you accept me into your heart? Jesus
is knocking on the door of your heart today. That's not how sovereign grace
works. Sovereign grace, in fact, in
Ezekiel says, and I will take out of your heart the heart of
flesh and put in, or excuse me, the heart of stone and put in
a heart of flesh. Now that flesh is not meaning
the flesh of the sinful flesh, but a heart of flesh. Meaning
that I'll take out your dead, cold, spiritual heart that's
dead and put in one that's alive to God. You have a heart that's
dead to God that cannot know God, cannot know the things of
God, cannot know the things of the Spirit or the Kingdom of
God. I'll put in a heart that does. Well, thank you, Lord,
because if you would have done that, I would have went around
my whole entire life doing religious things, thinking that I'm getting
on with God, and I never would have known. Had you not done
that? You see, the fact remains is
even the natural man that cannot know the things of God, cannot
understand what God is about, cannot understand the spiritual
kingdom of God, see the spiritual kingdom of God, the natural man
don't even know his own heart. He doesn't even know his own
heart. That's why we need sovereign grace, because our heart tells
us things that is not what the Spirit tells us. Look, if you
would, there at Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah chapter 17. And look
with me, if you would, verse 9. It says, The heart is deceitful
above all, and desperately wicked Who can know it? We look at this world and we
see the world system. We see Hollywood and how corrupt
and evil they are and they truly are evil. We see the political
stuff that's going on in the world today and listen, it's
purely evil. We see all the stuff that's going
on behind the scenes that Everybody knows it's going on, but everyone
wants to act like it doesn't go on when it involves all the
occult, the Luciferian stuff, and how evil that is. It's all
evil. And here the Bible is saying
that our heart is deceitful above all. Why is all that evil happening? Because our hearts are deceitful
and wicked. Our hearts are evil. It's deceitful
above all. There is no deceit worse than
your own heart. Listen, Hollywood's out there
trying to tell you to believe this. The news is trying to tell
you to believe this. Politics is trying to tell you
to believe this. Your peer pressure and your friend circles are trying
to tell you, believe this. The devil is trying to deceive
you and to tell you this. But here the Bible says your
own heart is deceitful above all of those things. Your heart is deceitful above
all. And it says I'm desperately wicked.
So that means it is desperately trying to tell you that you're
not wicked. It's desperately wicked. It knows
that it's wicked. But it's deceiving you to tell
you you're not. How does it do that? Well, I'm
alright. I'm a good person. I don't do bad things. You know,
I grew up in a Christian household. I've never done all those things
that all them other people have done. You know, I come to church
all the time. I'm not as bad as so-and-so. I don't cuss, I don't drink,
I don't chew, I don't know what the girl can do. I don't do all
those things. That's what the heart's doing.
It's being deceitful. It's telling you, you're not
as wicked as you think you are. But the Bible says it is deceitful
and it's wicked above all things. And who can know it? Meaning,
whenever he asks that question, who can know it? That means none
of us can know it. The reason he's asking that is
a rhetorical question. Nobody can know the depth of
our heart's deceitful wickedness because we are blind to spiritual
things. It's when the Spirit of God is
given to us that we come to understand and know the depths of our deceitful,
wicked heart. We can't know that. Why do we
need sovereign grace? Because our deceitful, wicked
heart will continue to tell us that we're okay When the Bible
says you're not okay. When our deceitful wicked heart
says, well, you're keeping most of God's commands, so God's going
to be okay. He's going to let you in because
you're good outweighs your bad. Whenever the Spirit of God says
that the soul that sinneth, it will surely die, that no man
has kept God's law and will be justified by keeping God's law
because no one has and can't keep it. That you are crushed
and condemned by the law of God. The Spirit tells us that. The natural man says, hey, you're
okay. Why do we need sovereign grace?
Because God takes the heart that's deceitfully wicked and gives
us the one that tells us you are deceitfully wicked before
God. Therefore, we cry out for salvation. Therefore, we come to Christ.
Why? Because now we don't have a heart
that is saying, well, you're all right. Now we have a heart
that says, I know the depth of my sin. I know how corrupt I
am. I know that in me dwelleth no
good thing, O wretched man that I am. Therefore, I will cry unto
God, who is my salvation. We can't know God. We can't understand
him. We can't know the kingdom of
God, the spiritual things that are out there. We can't even
know the depth of the depravity of our own hearts. We can't walk
the walk. We can't do the things that,
you know, everyone talks about walking in the will of God. We
can't even do those things. While you're in Jeremiah there,
turn back to chapter 10. Jeremiah chapter 10, verse 23,
Scriptures say, Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in
himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. Now we've talked about this when
we've talked about God's predestination. Okay, God's predestined everything,
even how every action that we take. Why? Because it's not in
man that walketh to direct his steps. I'm walking along, but it's not
me that's walking me, it's God that's walking me. Alright, he's
directing my steps. You guys ever seen a marionette?
You know what a marionette is? A puppet that's on strings? You
see them walkin' them thing, those little puppets will be
sittin' there and their old legs be walkin' up and down and they'll
be lookin' like they're walkin'. They're a-walkin', but it's not
them that's walkin' them. Who's walkin' them? The puppeteer. The guy that's controllin' them.
You sayin', well preacher, you sayin' that we're puppets? Well,
the biblical term is that we're clay. But if you wanna use puppet,
that's just fine too. God is directin' our step. That's
not me. That's not John Calvin or John
Gill or whoever else theologian. That's not the Sovereign Grace
theological system that says that. That's what God's work.
Read it with me. Oh Lord, I know that the way
of man is not in himself. We don't have any inkling of
the clue and the path to take. We can't figure it out. We can't
devise it. We can't plan it out. Listen,
you can plan your stuff. Everybody, how many times have
you seen on TV, and I'm kind of getting off track again, how
many times on TV have you seen somebody talk about, I've got
a five year plan. This is what I plan in five years.
I plan to get this done and this done and this done and this done.
And then once all that's done, then I plan on getting married
and settling down and having a family. And we're going to
have this many kids and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then
we've got the whole, we've got our whole life planned out. What
do they teach you in government schools? Gotta have a plan. Gotta be ready. Whenever you
start becoming a sophomore, a junior, a senior, what do they start
doing? You need to start planning ahead. What are you gonna do
with your future? You need to go to college, you need to go
to college, you need to go to college. Listen, college doesn't
hardly help nobody anymore nowadays, anyway. Not sure if it ever did,
but it doesn't help. Why? Because most of the time
you go to college, all you're getting is indoctrinated by a bunch of
junk. That's a rant all to itself. But we have these plans. They
tell you, you need to figure out what you're going to do.
You need to find out what college you're going to. You need to
figure out what you're going to plan to be whenever you grow
up and get big. You need to plan all this stuff
out and start moving towards it. Okay? Well, the Bible says
the way of man is not in himself. We can choose that all day long,
but that doesn't mean that's the way that we're going. Because
it's God that walketh to direct our steps, not us. So if we can't
know our own heart because it's deceitfully wicked and telling
us one way, and we can't even change our way and where we go,
then we're beholding to somebody else to guide us. We're beholding
to someone else to walk us down that path that we need to go. Look at Proverbs chapter 14. in verse 12. It says, There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. See, we can't know our own ways,
our own paths in the natural land. There's a way that seems
right. To many, the way that seems right
is to become a Christian and to live a Christian life Follow
the Christian principles. And if you follow those Christian
principles and do those things, then you're going to stay right
with God and be right with God, and God's going to be happy with
you if you do that. But if you don't, then God's
not going to be. Now, He's not going to cause
you to lose your salvation, because that's secure. You can never
lose your salvation. Now, you can't ever... God can't
force that salvation on you, but once you become saved, God
can't, God will force you to keep it. You know, I always thought
that was kind of funny. I used to believe that God never
forces salvation on anybody, but once I'm saved, I'm always
saved. I can't lose my salvation because
God will never let me go. So God doesn't force salvation
on you, but He forces you to stay saved. He forces you to
stay. So what's the difference? See, what are you trying to get
God out of whenever you're saying it has to be a choice, and then
once you make that choice, now you don't have a choice to change
your mind? I can't change my mind and say, you know, I trusted
Christ, but you know what? I changed my mind. I think I'd
rather just go back into believing what I want to believe. You see the inconsistency of
that? People just picking and choosing
what they want to fit in. See, they want to be in control
of how they get saved by my choice, by my free will. But once they
say that, then they want to say, well, I ain't never going to
lose that salvation because God won't ever let me leave it. So now it's just, there's nothing
that I have to do. There's nothing in me that God's
just going to keep me and He's going to cause me to do this
and cause me to do that. Convict me of sin. He's going
to keep me from wandering away. He's going to chastise me. He's
going to do all these things, which God surely does. But see,
they're all right in accepting that because they don't want
to think that they could ever be lost. But they want to be
in control of when and where and how they become saved. It's
still all about them having control of all things and having it their
way. But see, we can't direct our
own steps, we can't direct our own paths, we're not ever going
to come to a place where we're going to say, you know, well
I'll get saved, but I'm just going to wait until I get, you know,
sow my wild oats. Once I sow all my wild oats,
then I'll settle down and become a Christian. That's not how it
works, brethren. The natural man cannot do all
these things. Turn with me, if you would, to
Galatians chapter 3. We'll read this and then we'll
stop for today and we'll conclude this for the next week. Galatians
chapter 3. Like I said, some will say, well, I'll
just change my path. I'll just change what I'm doing. I'll quit going to the bars.
I'll quit going to the brothels. I'll quit going to all the things
that are thought of as evil. Then I will start going to all
the places that are right. I'll start obeying Jesus. I'll
start following His laws to the best of my ability. Brethren,
the other thing that the natural man cannot do is he cannot ever
escape the condemnation that comes from the law. In Galatians chapter 3, and I
know we just went through Galatians not too long ago, and hopefully
you haven't forgot what we learned there, but look if you would
in verse 10. It says, For as many as are of the
works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, Cursed
is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. See, that's what I was
talking about earlier. Is you think you can change your
mind and then start doing good things? Well, the curse of God
still rides on you if you change your mind and if you even could
do everything right from now on and follow every law of God
from now on once you change your mind. Because the curse of the law
is that you have already broken the law. Well, I'm going to change
my mind. I'm going to keep on going and
doing it. But what about all the law breaking you did before? Something's got to happen with
that. Well, Jesus took care of all that. So now you're going
to keep yourself right by keeping the law? Because if so, you've
got to continue in that and keep it perfectly. If you think that
your righteousness is by the law, you're going to be cursed
if you don't keep it all, every bit of it. Not just the moral
law, but the civil law, the ceremonial law. Every one of those laws
is in the book of the law. It didn't say just the moral
law there. It says that if you don't continue
in all things which are written in the book of the law, that's
the whole thing. The natural man can't do that. Guess what though? The Bible says in 1 John that
that spirit that is in you, that seed that remains in you, it's
perfect and cannot sin. See, that's who we are in Christ
Jesus. We're unable to sin. That's why we say trust Christ
alone. Look to Him for your salvation,
because if you're looking to You for your salvation, your
natural man cannot free himself from the condemnation that comes
from the law. You'll never get out from under
it. It'll always be there. The curse will be there, and
God will exact the price for that sin, which is death. You
will be judged for that. But the child of grace was judged
in Christ Jesus. on the cross and will never come
into judgment again. All right, we'll stop right there
and we'll pick up with this Lord willing next Sunday and we'll
continue to look at some more reasons on why we need sovereign
grace. We need sovereign grace because
we cannot know God, we cannot understand God, we cannot see
the spiritual things of God, we cannot know our own heart,
we cannot direct our own walk, We cannot get out from the condemnation
of the law. If God doesn't do that for us,
then we are doomed. So we need sovereign grace in our life. All right, anybody
got any questions? All right, let's pray. Father,
we come to you today, once again, thanking you for Jesus Christ
and for salvation. We thank you for the sovereign
grace of God, the way that it works in our lives to give us
all the things that we have need of. The natural man is truly
deficient of everything spiritual, but yet grace has provided everything
for that spiritual life. That life comes from the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. In him is life. That he has been
given power over all flesh to give eternal life to as many
as have been given to him. And that he will give life in
His time. He will give life to those that
God has given Him. And whenever He gives them that
life, they will be given the Spirit of God that is in them
to convict them of sin, to convict them of righteousness, to convict
them of the things of their own heart, to direct their steps,
to change their mind, to cause them to grow in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to trusting Christ alone. Too
much has been given to man and his free will, to man and his
decisions, to man and his ability to work and to choose and to
do things, which the Bible is completely opposite of. And so
Father, we pray that today that you might give grace to those
who continue to walk in that understanding. and that ye might
grant them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth,
that it is only by the grace of God that we can understand
and know these things, and that they will cease from their will-worship,
and that they might turn to Christ alone as their only hope. We
know that many of these people claim Christ as their only hope,
but yet they place salvation in the hands of man by their
choosing, by their willing, by their coming by their doing,
by their believing. But Lord, we know that salvation
is only of God. It's only of Christ who has come
and saved His people in an objective, finished work that's effectual,
that will be carried out, that will be completed in all of His
people. So Lord, we come to You saying
thank You once again for this day and for the time together
that You've given us. And we pray that You've edified
Your people today for it's in Christ's name that we pray.