Salvation by grace, how charming
the song, with seraphim joined, the theme to prolong. T'was planned by Jehovah in counsel
above, who to everlasting shall rest in his love. This covenant of grace, all blessings
secured. Believers, rejoice, for all things
are yours, and God from his purpose shall never remove. But love thee, and bless thee,
and rest in his love. But when, like a sheep that strays
from the fold, To Jesus, my Lord, thy love shall grow cold, Think
not He'll reject thee, howe'er He reproved. For though He correct
thee, He'll rest in His love. ? In Jesus the Lamb, the Father's
delight ? ? The saints without blame appear in His sight ? ?
And while He in Jesus their souls shall approve ? ? So long shall
Jehovah Abide in His love. Amen. We're thankful for that
everlasting love that we have with the Father. The Bible says
that He has loved us with an everlasting love, that nothing
can separate us from that love. And what a wonderful thing to
know that we have been given that love. Turn now, if you would,
back to hymn number 136 in that same book. 136. God our refuge or the title of your
refuge in my weary soul, the first line. We'll sing this to
the tune of Amazing Grace. Dear refuge of my weary soul,
On thee when sorrows rise, On thee when waves of trouble roll,
My fainting hope relies. To Thee I tell each rising grief,
For Thou alone canst heal, Thy Word can bring a sweet relief. For every pain I feel, but oh,
when prevail. I fear to call thee
mine. The springs of comfort seem to
fail, and all my hopes decline. Yet gracious God, where shall
I flee? Thou art my only trust. And still my soul would cleave
to thee, though prostrate in the dust. Hast thou not bid me see thy
face? And shall I see in vain? And can the ear of sovereign
grace be dead when I complain? No, still the ear of sovereign
grace attends the mourner's prayer. Oh may I ever find access to
breathe my sorrows there. Thy mercy sea is open still. Here let my soul retreat with
humble hope. attend thy will and wait beneath
thy feet. Now I had someone tell me a while
back, several years back I guess it was, saying that whenever
we sing hymns we shouldn't sing hymns that focus on ourselves
but only focus on Christ Jesus, and songs like this, which we
probably would call this an experimental or experiential hymn, what we
feel, what we experience as the Christian and everything, they
would look at that as not being a legitimate hymn. However, if
you look at the songs, almost all the songs are experiential. It's David crying out what he's
feeling, what he's going through, When we look at the Psalms, we
see that all those are almost 100% experiential. You know, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green
pastures. He restores my soul. You know,
these are experiential things. And those are one ways that we
can praise and worship God is by what we experience. And just like with this song
here, we see that the weary soul that comes to Christ sometimes
doesn't always get what they pray for, right? We often will
pray to God and we don't think he's answering, but he really
is answering us. It's just not what we want. And
so, but God always does hear his people and he loves his people
and he has their good in mind whenever he has purposed all
things for their good. And so these experiential hymns,
they just bless my heart because Every one of us who are Christians,
we experience these same things. We're really no different. I
mean, we're all out here in the world struggling to make a living,
getting along, got kids to raise, got family members to fight with,
and jobs to think about, and sin. We got sin to deal with.
We got our continual sin in this flesh. And so we all experience
these same things. And so a lot of times it's good
to sing these old songs like this. Does anybody have a song
that you'd like to sing out of any of the e-books before we're
going further? 26, in the old school. In the old
school? What? 26. 26. I know it gets confusing through
some of it. Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call forth songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon
it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I'll come, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to
arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood. Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and
seal it, seal it for thy corpse above. Anybody else have a song? Do
you want to sing? Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to Preach the word, all is vain unless the spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Let us pray that holy manna may
be showered all around. Look and see poor mourners round
you, hearing trembling as they go. Longing for a consolation,
will you comfort them or no. Let us tell them of the Savior. Tell them thy need will be found. Let us pray that holy manna may
be showered all around. Is there here a trembling jailer
seeking peace and filled with fears? Is there here a weeping
Mary pouring forth a blood of tears. Let us join our prayers
to help them. Let our faith and love abound. Let us pray that holy manna may
be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely. Let us love each other. other too. Let us love and pray
for mourners till their Savior they can view. Then we'll love them still the
better, take them to our kind embrace. All right, anybody else
come here? Anything you want to say? Anybody got a scripture or anything
you'd like to read? Galatians chapter 6. Galatians
6, 9 and 10. For those that don't come here
regularly, we'll sing this through. You can kind of get the gist
of how the tune goes. Then we'll sing it again. Everybody can maybe join in.
We'll sing Galatians chapter 6, and we'll sing verse 9 and
verse 10. Kids will have to remind me how
to tune it. Let us not, let us not, let us
not be weary, let us not be weary in well-doing. For in due season we shall reap,
we shall reap if we think not. As we have therefore opportunity,
Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are
of the household of faith. Let us not, let us not, let us
not be weary, let us not be weary in well doing. For in due season we shall reap,
we shall reap, if we think not. Everyone pick that up pretty
good? Alright, let's go ahead and sing that one more time,
that way maybe everyone can join in. Let us not, let us not, let
us not be weary, let us not be weary in well-doing. For in due season we shall reap,
we shall reap if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity,
Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are
of the household of faith. And let us not, let us not, let
us not be weary, let us not be weary in well-doing. For in due season we shall reap,
we shall reap, if we faint not. Amen. Nobody can complain about the
lyrics in that song, can they? No. They'll take that up with
God. Can't go wrong singing the Bible. Anybody else got one? Anybody have a verse of scripture
or anything you'd like to read? Any brothers? Alright. Turn with me this morning then,
in your Bibles, to 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 1 I know I mentioned at the end of
last week's message that this week that I was going to be talking
about I was going to be talking about the resurrection what we
think about Easter and what we think about when Christ died Things such
as that, I think I'm going to put that off actually until next
week. Some of our brethren that are
not here today was interested in wanting to see, hear that
and everything. And so I decided yesterday afternoon
to switch it up and wait for them to come back. But today
that I would talk about something else. But we will have that next
week. For those that are here our church. We don't we don't celebrate what
was traditionally called Easter We believe that's a pagan holiday
You know things with Easter bunnies and all that kind of stuff. It
was definitely pagan but a lot of what is done and also because
the Bible doesn't instruct us to celebrate the resurrection,
but the cross of Christ and so we don't believe that it's incumbent
upon the church and We don't have any problem if people want
to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. We do that every time we meet
on Sunday. But as far as a celebration or anything, there's nothing
required in Scripture that we do those things, and most of
those are just men's traditions. But as far as Easter is concerned,
we do not celebrate those things because of the pagan origins Then also we believe that Jesus
died on Wednesday and not on Friday. And that's also different
than what the traditions say. And so anyway, I'll be explaining
all that next week and everything on why we hold to that. Because
we believe that everything we do in the church, it ought to
be from the word of God and directed by the word of God. What we believe
about Christ and what we believe about his church. And so we'll
look at those things next week will give the reason why we believe
what we believe through the Word of God. However, today, let's
look at 1 Peter chapter 1 and we'll be in verse 23 and we'll
be scattered out to a few other verses and everything, but we'll
be looking at this passage. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your sovereign
grace. We thank you for your mercy.
We thank you for your love and We thank you for the salvation
that we have through the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that
we do have a God that is alive and is well and is in control
of all things. And by his will and by his purpose,
all things are coming to be exactly as he has predestinated it to
be from the foundation of the world. And Father, we just are
so grateful today to be gathered together. We're thankful for
these visitors that we have here today. We're thankful for the
brethren that are here. And Lord, we're just grateful
for any time that we had to gather together and to worship you.
We're thankful we still live in a country that for now allows
us to do these things. We know that the days are evil
and the people are evil that are running our country. But
Lord, we know that you're in control of all those things and
that nothing happens apart from your sovereign will. And so our
hope is not in them, it's in you. But Lord, we are thankful
and grateful that you've placed us in a place that we still can
meet freely, and to preach and to teach without restraint. And
Lord, we are just grateful for that. We pray today, Lord, that
you might be magnified, that you might be glorified in our
singing and our preaching and our fellowship together, Lord.
And so we ask that you just be with us. We pray that the Spirit
would lead us in this worship. We pray that you might give me
the words to say that I might speak truth and not error, Father.
I pray that you might give hearing ears to these brethren here and
that there might be revelation of the things of God by the Spirit
as he teaches. And Lord, we just pray that as
we do this today that it will be pleasing to you and that it
will be honoring to Christ Jesus. Lord, we just thank you so much
for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the forgiveness
of sins that we have through the blood of Jesus Christ. We
thank you, Father, for justification that even though we are guilty
sinners, that you have imputed your righteousness to us, that
we are so so far seen as righteous that you even call us the Lord
our righteous. And so, Lord, we're just grateful
for all that has been freely given to us. And again, we just
pray that you would be with us now through the preaching of
this word that you might teach your people. In Jesus' name we
pray, amen. I often have a lot of discussions
over this passage of scripture we're looking at today. And matter
of fact, it's kind of come up within Facebook circles recently
and everything. And as I've mentioned before,
I always like to give a reason for why we believe what we believe,
the doctrine that we hold to at our church. Doctrine is very
important. Church without doctrine is really
not church. Churches fellowship around doctrine,
specifically around Jesus Christ, but through the teaching or his
doctrine, right? A lot of churches fellowship
because they have basketball goals and pool tables and video
games. A lot of churches fellowship
because they have a cool band or lights and video screens and
all that kind of stuff. But the people of God gather
together to worship God in his doctrine and about his Christ,
Jesus. And so that's why we meet and
that's why we put that focus on there. And so we often are, we're often faced with people
of differing doctrine. We're faced with people with
different understanding of God's word. And so whenever we come
to these things, we have to look to God's word because just as
I mentioned a while ago, I can be wrong. You can be wrong about
what you think. Everybody is fallible. The only
way that we know anything to be true is if the Holy Spirit
teaches us. The Holy Spirit is our teacher.
In fact, in the epistles of John, the Holy Spirit inspires John
to write that the anointing that we have from above or that spirit
that we get from above that indwells us, the Holy Spirit of God, whenever
we are born from above, that he will be our teacher and that
we don't have any need for any man to teach us. Now that doesn't
mean that we don't have preachers and teachers. That's why we're
here today. But the preacher isn't the one who makes that
truth known to you. The Holy Spirit is. The preacher
is confirming the things that the Holy Spirit has already wrought
in your heart and has already begun to teach you and then you
see that to be true through what's being preached through what the
Word of God is already saying. And so how do we know those things?
Well, the Word of God is our foundation. That's our truth.
And so we always want to go to the Word of God to see what our
doctrine, or to have our doctrine from, is from the Word of God.
Now, a lot of people have thrown doctrine out of the church, but
all doctrine really is is just teaching. That's what that word
means. It just means teaching. A doctrine is a teaching on,
like, say, the Resurrection. the doctrine of the resurrection
is the teaching about the resurrection or the doctrine of justification,
that's a teaching about what the Bible teaches about justification.
So doctrine isn't something that we should shy away from and doctrine
isn't something that we should water down and level down so
that the simple can understand it. We should preach it as the
Bible proclaims it, as the Bible declares it, because the Holy
Spirit is our teacher. Listen, these young children
have grown up under the preaching of the gospel, and never once
have I tried to dumb down the gospel, dumb down doctrine. We talk about justification in
all the 50 cent words that come along with it. We know that if
they're going to understand it, it's going to be because the
Holy Spirit gives them understanding, not because I made it ABC in
1, 2, 3. So we trust God and the Holy Spirit to teach us these
things, right? We teach Him We trust that He
is going to do what He is sent to do. The Holy Spirit is sent
to lead us into truth. He's sent to be our comforter.
He's sent to be the one who convicts us of our sins, right? The Holy
Spirit is sent to give us these things and to do these things.
But a lot of times we disregard the whole work of the Holy Spirit
and just think, you know, that can't happen. You mean just you
and God is the only one and you don't need a preacher? Well,
no, brethren, we don't really need a preacher to learn truth,
to know truth. Now, we need a preacher and we
need the congregation because the Lord has organized and has
ordained those things for our betterment, for our encouragement,
for our edification, for our being built up and everything. And so there is some importance
in that. But what I want us to understand
this morning as we look at these verses is that whenever we begin
to talk about the Word of God and the importance of the Word
of God, I don't want anybody in any way to think that I'm
sliding God's Word. God's Word is very, very important. I'm grateful that God has preserved
His Word throughout all the centuries and that we have God's Word here
in this Bible and that we can trust it, we can bank on it,
we can believe it because it is the words of God. The Scripture
says that all Scripture is given by inspiration or by the breath
of God and is profitable. And the first thing it says that
it's profitable for is doctrine. The Word of God is profitable
for teaching. And so that's why we go to God's
Word for our doctrine, we go to God's Word for our teaching,
because that is where truth is found. Truth isn't found in seminaries.
Truth isn't found in all these, you know, I've got these books
here, I've got some books back there, some down in my room and
then I got a storage shed since we've had to move out of our
meeting building to here. I've got books out the, you know,
out the ear. They have some truth in it, but
they aren't the truth. You know, I can pick up this
book right here and I can read through there as I have on many
occasions and I can find a lot of good things that satisfy my
soul. But brother, I can't bank on everything that's in this
because it was written by a man. But this right here, this is
God's Word. And everything that is in it is true. Nothing in
here is error. This is spoken by God. And so
we go to this to find out what we believe, not listen to these
guys tell us what this thing says. Cut out the middle man
and go straight to the real thing. And let the Holy Spirit be your
teacher. And so that's what we want to
do today. The reason I say all that is
because There is this notion, there is this discussion that
goes around often, and one of the things that our church is
usually blighted over, is the fact that we believe that men
are saved by sovereign grace. We believe that they are saved
sovereignly from God, not by a free choice of man, not by
a decision, not by coming down an aisle, shaking a hand, filling
out a card, or being dunked in the water. We believe in those
things, we believe that you ought to be a part of a local church
if you're saved. We believe that you ought to
be baptized if you've been saved. We believe those things, you
know, and we believe that you take them all away underwater,
by the way. But those are not the things that save us. Those
aren't salvation. Those are just things that we
have done because we have been saved. And there are many people
that believe that by means, and when I say means, instrumentality,
certain things, through certain things that you do, we achieve
salvation or we get salvation. That even includes the preaching
of the gospel. Some people believe that you
can only be saved if somebody preaches the gospel to you. But
brethren, I'm here to tell you, not only do I believe that I
was saved apart from the preaching of the true gospel, I believe
that I know of two, three, I know three people right off the top
of my head that I personally know that has told me they didn't
know anything about God, didn't know anything about the Scriptures,
never went to church or anything like that, and they just felt
the Lord calling them to something, and all of a sudden that's where
they started to look, and they started searching the Scriptures.
They said, well, if I need to know anything about God, I need
to get a Bible. So they got a Bible, and they started reading the
Bible, and they started believing what it said. Whenever they started
believing what it said, they said, well, I need to be at a
church somewhere. So they went to a church. There
just happened to be a pastor there that preached the true
gospel. Whenever he preached the true gospel, that young man
said, hey, that's what I believe. Well, how did he know that when
nobody was there to preach him? The Holy Spirit taught him. The
Holy Spirit taught him those things. And so I want to look
today at a passage of scripture here in 1 Peter that talks about
being born again because there is this notion in Arminianism,
I know that's a big word, And some may not even be familiar
with that. There is within the belief system that we choose
our own destiny. We choose salvation. We choose
Christ. Christ has died, done all he
can do, and he's left it up to you to make the decision whether
or not to accept him or to reject him. And if you accept him, then
he'll give you that salvation that he purchased on the cross.
If you reject him, he won't give it to you. even though he wants
you to take it. You won't take it so he won't
give it to you because he's not going to force himself upon you
and thus at the end of time he's going to have to punish you because
you didn't take it. There is that system of thought. Well
that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that Christ
has a people that has been given to him of God before the foundation
of the world in John chapter 6 The Bible says, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and all who come to me I
will in no wise cast out. There is a group of people that
have been given to the Son by the Father. And Jesus has come
and he says that he will lay down his life for the sheep,
that he will give his life for them, and that every one of them
that has been given to him, he will not lose one. There is nobody
gonna be in hell that Christ has not died for. Christ, everyone
Christ dies for will be brought in and saved. However, we think
that people have to go through conditions, have to have certain
means to get there. You have to do this, or you have
to do this, or you have to do this. Brethren, the Bible teaches
that salvation is free, that it is by grace that you are saved. It is not by any works that you
are saved. It's not by any goodness that's
in you. None of us are good. The Bible
says all of us have sinned and fall short of God's glory. That
we are unworthy and that we are unable to do the things that
God requires. That no one can keep the law
of God and perform a righteousness that is acceptable of God. Nobody
in the flesh can cause god to justify you and to save you because
of what you've done we need somebody outside of ourselves and that's
christ to save us and so we put away these notions that men are
saved by means or by instrumentality we believe that god saves his
people by himself he is the savior the bible says whenever jesus
was about to be born And whenever the angel came and they said,
you should call his name Jesus, because that word means something.
You shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sins. The reason he was to be called
Jesus was because that word there meant savior. He is the one who
saves. He isn't the one who potentially
saves or gives salvation a shot, okay? He is the one who actually
saves and he actually did whenever he died on the cross. whatever
he was buried in that tomb, whenever he came out of that tomb, that
life, that death, that burial, that resurrection, all the work
of Christ Jesus on our behalf that actually saved his people. It didn't make it potentially
savable. He actually saved it. It was
by that work that everyone who will ever be saved was saved
at that point. That was the foundation for what
God had already declared before the foundation of the world.
We're gonna see that in a couple of verses today as well. So let's
read here 1 Peter chapter one and verse 23 because I believe
here there is some confusion around some of the phrasing here
and we need to let the Bible define words. Words are very
important. I tell the people here all the
time that because this is God's word and that all scripture is
given by inspiration, that every word counts. Every word is important
in here. There's nothing, God didn't just
put filler in this, okay? Every word is important to us
and it has meaning. But here's the thing, God has
placed the meaning on these words himself, not lexicons, not dictionaries. I love strongs, I go and use
strongs on some occasions, I look at different things, but he is
not the end all be all. W. E. Vine is not the be all
end all. The Greek lexicons and the Hebrew
lexicons are not the be-all end-all. God's Word defines itself and
is the best commentary on itself. If we will look into God's Word,
we will usually find what God means by using God's Word to
look those things up. And so whenever we look at these
words, we want to see how does God use these words? Because
He's the one who created language. He's the one who has put these
words that we have now before us in two different languages
that now no longer exist. Well, why did he do that? So men don't monkey around with
it, right? And so we have these words and
we can see what God says by how he defines things. Now in verse
23 of chapter one of the first Peter, it says this, being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the
Word of God which liveth and abideth forever." Now, some may take that and say,
there you go, we are born again by the preaching of God's Word,
because it says right there, being born again by the Word
of God. And it says by, not the corruptible
seed, but the incorruptible, doesn't the Bible say that the
Word of God is the seed that we catch when we spread this
seed out? and everything? Isn't that also what the Word
of God is? Well, brethren, I want us to
think, think through some things here, and I want us to look at
the context where we're at, and also look at what the rest of
the Bible says. But one thing we always got to remember whenever
we come to God's Word and we begin to study it. The Bible
says, and Jesus spoke about this of himself, he said, low in the
volume of the book, it speaks of who? It speaks of him, right? From cover to cover, this book
is a book about Christ. Now, it's got a lot of stuff
in there. It's got a lot of history. It's got a lot of poetry. It's
got a lot of prophecy. It's got a lot of, you know,
a lot of stuff in it, right? But on every page, in every context,
in everything that is in this book, this book is about Jesus
Christ. It's not about your salvation,
although that's part of it. It's not about the end times,
although that's part of it too. This right here is a book about
Jesus Christ. So whenever we go into any passages
of scripture, whenever we go into any doctrines, we always
go in with Christ as the center point. Looking for Christ. We look for Christ in God's word
here because it's about him. And so we come to these passages
and we look, is this a Christocentric verse? Is this a Mike Smith-centered
verse? If it's a Mike Smith-centered
verse, then I'm going to lose the interpretation of it because
I'm going to be looking at it through the eyes of how it pertains
to me. So often we lose what the scriptures
say basically because we look at it from the wrong perspective.
Now looking at this verse, the Bible says Sure enough, that
we are born again by the Word of God, but is that talking about
these scriptures? Are you born again by reading
these scriptures, or hearing me preach these scriptures, or
listening to an audio Bible reading those scriptures to you, or watching
some TV program about Jesus? Is that how we're born again?
Is that how the Bible says that we're born again? Well, if you
take a couple of excluded verses you know, and rip them out of
their context and the whole tenor of the Scriptures, then you can
say, yeah, there's a couple of verses that say that, and this
is one of them. But let's look at it a little bit closer here.
Does this phrase, Word of God, here refer to the Bible? Well,
the word there, word, in that phrase, Word of God, that word
there, the Greek word behind that is logos, is the word logos. And that word can and does sometimes
refer to the Word of God, to the Scriptures. But the Scriptures
themselves declared they will abide forever. We believe that. We believe that they are the
inspired words of God. But, brethren, I don't believe
that this is talking about that because this word Logos also
refers to the Lord Jesus. If you want to turn with me,
you can. John chapter 1, the Gospel of John chapter 1. I'm
sure this is familiar to many of us here. So I can probably
quote this without even having to turn over to it. But we see
the same word Logos is used here in verse 1 of John chapter 1
where it reads, In the beginning was the word, there's that word
Logos, and the word was with God, there's that word Logos
again, and the word Logos was God. So who is defined as the
Logos? Jesus Christ, right? He is the
Logos. But he's also called the Word.
Now whenever we come to this right here, this Bible, these
are the words of God that have been spoken, that have been breathed
out, that have been given for those writers to write down.
This Word, these spoken words, came from the Word. That's why
he's called the Word. He is the one who has spoken
the words of God. No man has seen God, no man has
heard God, no man knows God apart from the man Jesus Christ. He
is the image of the invisible God. He is the voice of that
God that is invisible. He is God manifested. And so He is the one who has
spoken these words. He is the one who has given everything
in here for us to learn and to read and to preach. so the only
reason that this is the word of god is because it came from
the word of god so we see that this war this
phrase the word of god uh... can refer to jesus christ uh... looking at her fourteen also
says that the word was made flesh and wealth among us and we've
been held his glory the glory as of the god of the phone only
got a father full of grace and He's full of truth. This is where
this comes from. This is the truth, right? This is the truth. But where did that truth come
from? It came from Him. It came from Him. He's the one
who delivers the truth. Now, I put forth the phrase,
Word of God, in this passage to refer to the Lord Jesus and
not the Scriptures. And the reason why is because
if you're there in John chapter 1 still, look at verse 13. The
reason I believe that it's not the Word of God or the preaching
of the Word of God that causes us to be born again is because
of verse 13 and a few more that we'll look at. It says here,
which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. How were they born? They
were born of God. They were born by the power and
the work of God. They weren't born by the will
of man. So any preaching that teaches
you that you get saved by your will is erroneous. That is not
true. That is not gospel. The Bible
teaches that over and over and over again, that it is by Christ,
by God, by His work that we are saved. Not by any decisions that
we make, not by any choices we make, not by any works that we
do and conditions that we fulfill. It is Him that saves us, but
particularly the being born again, the spiritual life coming into
the dead sinner who is dead and trespasses in sin. When that
spiritual life comes in, it comes in by the power and work of the
Holy Spirit, the immediate work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit doesn't require anything. We'll look at that here in just
a minute. But it says, born not of blood, not of the will of
man, or of the flesh, or of the will of man. So you're not a
Christian because your mom and dad was a Christian. It's not
by blood. These children of mine, I pray that the Lord has saved
them. I pray that they're one of His,
but they are not Christians and will not be Christians because
me or my wife is. My grandparents or my aunt and
uncles are not Christians because the family is Christians. It is not of blood and it's not
of Him, not of the will of the flesh. So it isn't my willing
or my doing or my working that makes anybody born again. So that takes out the preacher.
The preacher can't make you born again, nor of the will of man,
your will. You can't change yourself. None
of us can change ourselves. The only way that we are born
from above, the only way we're born again, the only way that
we're quick and given life is by God. So first, we're not born
again by the Bible nor by the preaching of it, but by Jesus.
Christ himself. Turn with me, if you would, to
John chapter 17, because I would like to solidify all of this
about Christ. John chapter 17, and look with
me at verse 2. John 17 and verse 2. Again, this is the Lord's Prayer.
What is the true Lord's Prayer? Most of us have been taught the
Lord's Prayer is, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name. That's the disciple's prayer. The Lord's prayer is
right here. This is Jesus praying in the
garden before his crucifixion. Jesus prayed this prayer. But
look at verse two. He says, as thou hast given him,
speaking of Jesus, the Father has given him power over all
flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. So who, number one, who's getting
the eternal life? as many as have been given to
the Son, right? That's the only ones that's getting
eternal life. No more and no less, okay? The numbers don't change. They
were set in concrete before the foundation of the world. God
has elected a people to himself and those people will be saved. They're going to be scattered
out across all the world. They're going to be scattered
out throughout many ages, but everyone for whom the Lord has
chosen to give to Christ will be saved. And so right here,
Jesus himself says, thou hast given me power over all flesh
that he, Jesus, should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. So Jesus is the one in charge
or is the one who is in control of giving eternal life. That's not the job of the preacher,
it's not the job of a mission board. People aren't out in the
middle of Africa dying and going to hell because some mission
board didn't have enough money to get them over there. Everyone for whom Christ died
that was given to him by the Father, they will be given eternal
life. Now, do you believe Jesus? You
might not believe me. As a matter of fact, some of
y'all might be here this morning and say, I don't believe that
at all. I've never heard that. I don't know about that. I wasn't
taught that growing up. But don't believe me. Believe
what God's Word says. What does God's Word say? Who
are the ones getting eternal life? And how are they getting
it? The only ones that's getting
eternal life are the ones that was given to him by the Father.
And they're getting it because Jesus is in charge of giving
it to them. He's the one giving it. Now, turn with me back to John
chapter 3. So this is an immediate work. Jesus is in charge of giving
this eternal life. But how does he do it? How does
Jesus give eternal life. And that's where some will say,
well, by preachers preaching the gospel, that's how he does
it. I don't necessarily totally disagree with that, but you need
to define who the preacher is. It's not me. The preacher is
the Holy Spirit. The preacher is the Holy Spirit. Look at John chapter three and
verse eight. It says, on the right page. The wind bloweth where it listeneth. Let me back up so we get the
idea here. Jesus here, this is Nicodemus coming to Jesus. Everybody
remember the story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night, asking
him some questions. Jesus said to Nicodemus in verse
3, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. That's what he's saying. You
can't see and understand the things of God apart from being born
again. You have to be born again. Now
that right there ought to cut any notion that repentance, belief,
understanding the gospel, hearing the gospel, all those things
that we seem to think have to take place before we can get
saved. That ought to put a notion to
any of it because the Bible here is saying what comes first is
being born again. And once you're born again, then
you have the spiritual ability to believe, to hear the Word
of God, to understand it properly, to be able to receive that for
yourself, that that's what Christ did for you, to be able to have
faith in Christ alone for your salvation, to trust His righteousness
as your righteousness, that through the new birth we are given repentance,
and faith, belief in Christ, hope in Him. We're given all
those things, but it's because we've been born from above, not
to get born from above. So being born again has to come
first, because right here, God Himself says, no man can see
the kingdom of God except he's born again. He has to be born
again first. So the thing that precedes everything
in our experience of salvation is the new birth. That has to
come first. So the gospel can't make you
saved. The gospel can't make you born
again because you can't understand the gospel. You can't believe
the gospel or receive the gospel because the Bible says the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. The only
one that can receive the things of the Spirit of God are those
who have been made spiritual. And that comes through the new
birth. And so Jesus here, he says that no man can see these
things except he be born again. In verse five he 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 God. Then he says
this, now pay close attention. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So there's
two kinds of births there. There's a fleshly birth, that's
what we are in Adam. We were born once by our parents,
who through lineage all the way back to Adam, was born of Adam,
and we are born in the flesh, we are born with the nature of
sin. We are born unable, without the
capacity for spiritual things and the inability to keep God's
law. That's how we're born. We're
born sinners by nature. But it's a second birth that
we're looking at. One that is born of the Spirit.
One that is born from above. The Bible calls it a new creation. Okay, that we are a new creation,
created in Christ Jesus. The Bible calls it a birth that
is a spiritual birth as opposed to our first birth which was
a fleshly birth. So that which is born of the
flesh is flesh and that's all it is, ever can be, ever will
be. There is no making your flesh
any better. But that which is born from above,
that is placed within this fleshly vessel, That spirit that is of
God, that comes from God, that is the spirit of Christ, Christ
in you, the hope of glory. That spirit that comes in us,
that is born from above. That is the spirit of God and
that is spirit. And the Bible says that it's
perfect and it cannot sin. And that's a whammy on us, isn't
it? We've got a spirit that's inside
us that cannot sin and loves holiness and righteousness, but
yet we have a flesh that all it does is sin. And those two
things are at war with each other all the time. So that's not what
we're here to talk about today. And so Jesus goes on, he says,
marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. Now look
at verse eight. The Bible says, the wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst
not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone
that is born of the Spirit. Okay, so here we found a little
bit more to the puzzle, right? We see Jesus has been given the
authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all that the
Father has given him. But now we see that the instrument
is not the gospel that he does it through, it's the Holy Spirit. He does that by, look at verse
eight again, very end, so is everyone that is born of the
Spirit. We are born again by the Spirit
of God, the immediate working of the Holy Spirit who brings
into us something that we didn't have before, and that is a new
spirit. It's not our old spirit that's
been reworked. It's not us that has been changed
to a better person, okay? The birth that's from above is
completely foreign from us. It's outside of us. It came from
heaven. The fleshly birth came from earth.
We are of the earth, earthy. But the spiritual birth is that
which is from heaven, the heavenly man. We are born after the heavenly
man. So we have two seed. We are seeds
by two progenitors, right? I've preached on this before.
If you ever follow anything on Sermon Audio, I have some teaching
on two seeds. But we have two fathers. We have Abraham, who is our father
in the flesh. And we have Christ, who is our
Father in the Spirit, right? We are His children. We are Adam's
children, by flesh. What do we call our children? What's another name that we call
our children? We call them kids. I was told by one guy, though,
not to call your kids kids, because kids are goats. If you're a Christian,
you shouldn't call your kids, your children, kids, because
kids are goats. But anyway, one of the things
that we call is that this is my seed. This is my seed, my
progeny, my seed, right? So every seed comes from the
original seed, right? The first seed has within him
all the light of all the other seeds that's gonna come from
him. Adam, whenever he was created, was created with all of his people
in him. Every one of us that's here today
came from that one seed, Adam. Everyone who is a child of grace
has come from one seed, which is Christ. He is the original. In Him is life. If we have life,
it's because we have Him. The Bible says that our life,
and we're not talking about physical life here, fleshly life, we're
talking about that heavenly life, that eternal life that we've
been talking about. Eternal life come by Jesus Christ,
but the Bible says that life is already ours before we ever
get it, and that it was hid in Christ with God. So before the
foundation of the world, that life was in Him, and we were
given to Christ, and that life was ours. Mike Smith had eternal
life before Mike Smith was ever born. Mike Smith had eternal
life before anything was ever done. And that life, though,
was held with Christ in God. And at the appointed time of
Christ, whenever He said so, He sent His Spirit to bring forth
that life in me, to put that life in me. This is what this
is talking about in verse 8. The wind, or the spirit, blows
where it lives. And we was out here working in
our yard yesterday, had leaves and twigs and stuff, and we was
burning it in our little burn thing over here. And the wind
was just whipping all over the place. One time it was blowing
this way, and then all of a sudden it turned around and was blowing
this way, and then it was blowing this way. You couldn't get away
from the smoke. Okay? Didn't know when it was
going to start. About the time we start to go
put a little shovel of leaves down in there, and the wind would
blow it off your shovel, didn't know when it was coming, didn't
know where it went afterwards. Couldn't stop it. It just did
what it wanted to do. This is what Jesus is talking
about. The wind blows where it lists it. That word lists it
there means where it wills or where it desires. The wind blows
where it desires or where it wills. It doesn't blow where
you direct it. The Spirit of God doesn't blow
where you direct it. It's kind of funny, I grew up
in a different belief system, and we would have yearly revivals. We were going to control the
spiritual lives by bringing in revivals. Revival can't happen
without the Holy Spirit doing something in our hearts. And
we can't plan a revival, you can't work up a revival, You
can't bring forth a revival. Only God can do that. He can
only do that work in the hearts of people. Now, with that being
said, Jesus here says that the wind blows wherever it wills. And it says, so it is with everyone
that is born of the Spirit. The Spirit here is sovereign. It blows where it wills. Now
that will is no different than the will of Jesus because it's
His Spirit. He has sent forth His Spirit.
Okay, it's His Spirit. You can't chop God up into all
these different parts. God is one God. They have one
will. They have one desire, one purpose.
They have one mind. They're not thinking, you know,
God is not broken up and has different, you know, thoughts
about different things and they've got to get together and say,
well, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? I don't know. No,
God is one God. And Christ is manifesting that
God. And He's the one that is telling the Spirit, who is His
Spirit, to go give life. So it says he will, so the spirit
here is sovereign. Look at verse 63, John chapter
6 and verse 63. John chapter 6 and verse 63.
It says here, it is the spirit that quickeneth, or brings to
life, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. Now Jesus here is saying
that it's the spirit that quickens people. Not anything that we
do in the flesh. Nothing that we do in the flesh
is what causes people to be born again. It's the spirit that quickeneth. So, some things I want to note
about the spirit. Number one, he blows where it
listens. We've already seen that. He's sovereign. No man controls
the Spirit of God or tells it when or what or where to go. He goes where it wants to go.
That's what it means to be sovereign. Nobody tells you what to do.
Okay? Second of all, with the fact
that the Spirit is sovereign, the use of means neither speed
up nor hinder where He listeth or where He wills to go. If the
Spirit is sovereign, and it goes where it wants to go, and gives
life at the appointment of Christ, then it cannot be sped up by
your efforts, and it cannot be hindered by your lack of efforts. Now, side note, I'm not saying
just everybody, quesara sera, we're just going to do whatever
we want to do, okay? Quesara sera may have not been
the right phrase, I don't even know what that means. We don't just say,
hey, whatever, whatever will be, will be. We're just going
to kick it along. That's not, that's not what I'm
saying that we are just to be indifferent about anything. But
what I'm saying is the mentality that I grew up with is that you
got to work, work, work, work, work for Jesus. You got to get
out there and work, work, work for Jesus. Otherwise his kingdom
isn't being built. Last time I remember, Jesus said,
I will build my church. Not you, but he will build his
church. Last I remember it's his kingdom.
Not our kingdom. He's the king of the kingdom,
not us. And I'm sure he is the good shepherd and he knows how
to handle his sheep better than I do. So the spirit is sovereign. No one tells it what to do. The
spirit isn't hindered or sped up by our efforts. And also being
sovereign, he is not a begging, wooing, petitioning, hopeful
trying to get people saved. Jesus isn't out there outside
the heart's door saying, please let me in. And every time I hear
some preacher, and I hear it often, I hear preachers talking
that way. Jesus is knocking on the door
of your heart. If you'll just let him in, he's
out there. Are you going to leave him out there in the cold? Every
time I think of that, I think of the Christmas carol movie
with the tiny tin. Do you just give me a little
more of the bread? Whatever. You know, Jesus is
a light thing. The Holy Spirit, Christ, God
is sovereign. He is not out there begging people
to be saved. He's not out wooing people to
accept Him. He's not out petitioning their
hearts to be given to Him. Listen, human involvement cannot
deter the sovereign spirit of Christ. The spirit gives life
without the consent and apart from any amassed knowledge of
the one receiving life. It doesn't matter how much you
think you know or try to gain knowledge in, that isn't what
causes you to be born again. If the Spirit is the one that
gives life, if Christ is the one who appoints him to go, and
he does it as he wills in his time, at the appointed time,
then there is nothing outside of God and God alone that can
cause someone to be born again. Listen, brethren, if it depends
on means or accomplishing some condition by your choice, or
your will, or your actions, or your understanding, then the
Holy Spirit is not sovereign. and does not blow where it listeth."
That verse is Jesus lied to us if that's the case. Let me ask
you a question here. This is something that I thought
about yesterday as I was preparing
this. Those who hold to the notion that quickening comes from means
of grace like preaching or reading or praying or accepting or believing
or whatever it is, Would all those things fall under
righteous works or unrighteous works? I think we'd all say that
they're not unrighteous works, right? We'd say, well, that's
not true. If it's unrighteous works, it ain't gonna be worth
nothing, right? But what about righteous works? Would you consider
those righteous works? To believe, to repent, to trust,
to pray, to listen to preaching and all that stuff? Well, someone
said, yeah, those are works of righteousness. Well, what does
the Bible say about works of righteousness as it pertains
to being born again? The Bible says, not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy
He saved us. By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. See, our being
begotten, our being born again, does not come from works of righteousness. And it surely doesn't come from
works of unrighteousness. But it doesn't come from works of
righteousness which we have done. My preaching, your listening,
your hearing, your accepting, your whatever, that is not going
to be it because God will not cause you to be born again based
upon any works that you do. The wind blows where it listeth. Now we have a scripture, we'll
start turning to Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel chapter 37. We see here the scripture speak
of Christ giving life by His Spirit. But I want you to notice
how it is Christ who gives life to a certain number By the theot,
does anybody know what I mean when I use the word theot, what
that word means? The word theot means command,
or instruction. Remember earlier I was mentioning
to you that the word word in the scriptures, the word behind
that was logos? Well there's another Greek word
behind our English word word, and it is rhema, r-h-e-m-a, rhema. Okay? And that word means by
command or by instruction. Okay? And so, as we see here
in this passage scripture now, remember, this is something that
was happening with the prophet Ezekiel. It was a physical thing
that happened. It was a true event that took
place. But brethren, remember, the things
that's written in the Old Testament, even though they were actual
happenings, actual events, They were written for our understanding
of spiritual things. They were types, they were foreshadows,
they were things to show us Christ. They were all the actions of
those people. Remember, was Israel in captivity
in Egypt? Absolutely they was for 400 years.
Did God bring them out of Egypt? Absolutely he did. Did he take
them through the Red Sea? Absolutely he did. Did he bring
them in? to the promised land. Yes, he did. But see, all those,
even though they were actual real happenings, they are pictures
of our salvation. They are pictures of God's deliverance
of his people from sin and bringing them into rest and what Christ
has done for them. And this is no different here.
While this was a true event that took place, there is some spiritual
understanding for us to see here. And one of it is that no man
comes to life spiritually speaking, apart from Christ commanding
the Holy Spirit of God to go and bring them people to life.
Look here at Ezekiel chapter 37. I'm going to start reading
in verse 9. He said, Then said he unto me,
Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind,
Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied
as he commanded me. So the Spirit was commanded of
the Son of Man to blow. He says, then he said unto me, prophesy
unto the wind, prophesy, Son of Man, say to the wind, thus
saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and
breathe upon thee. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, so Christ prophesied or preached as he commanded him and the breath
came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet
an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, son of
man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Remember I was
saying earlier that everyone that was given to Christ We'll
be saved. Everyone that was given to Him
will be given eternal life. Everyone that was given to Christ,
the wind will blow as it lifted upon them, giving them eternal
life. Not one will be lost. We read, not one will be lost.
And all that the Father gives me shall come to me. Why? Because I will cause them to
be born again. I will give them faith. I will give them repentance.
They will come to me. They couldn't before because
they didn't have spiritual desire, they didn't have spiritual ability.
Now they do because I've caused them to be born from above. These
bones couldn't stand up and walk and become an exceeding army
because they had no life in them. They had everything else. They
had the flesh, but they didn't have the spirit. The spirit blew
upon them, gave them life, and what happened? They came alive.
And they became an army. They became a people under the
Lord. But what does it say here? The whole house of Israel. Now
we know throughout Scripture While the Bible in the Old Testament
talks about an ethnic, national group of people, that that is
a type and shadow of all the people of God. When we get into
the New Testament, there is no more Jew and Gentile. There is
no more Israel and everybody else. Because the Bible says
that through the cross of Jesus Christ, the twain, the two, has
become one man. We've become one body in Christ
Jesus. It's no longer male or female,
Jew or Gentile, anything like that. We are all one in Christ
Jesus. The Jews doesn't have a superior
place with God. Okay. They are not special because
they are Jews. They're not special because they're
from Israel. Okay. There's nothing special
about that land over there. There's nothing special about
the people that live in that land over there. They're not
going to get all the kudos at some thousand year reign. Rather,
it's about Christ and His bride, and the Bible says that His bride
is one Israel. It's not all that are of Israel
are Israel. The Bible says that the Israel
of God is not the Israel that is the Jew is not one who is
a Jew that is outwardly, but one that is inwardly. It says
that the Israel of God is not the ones who are the natural
seed of Abraham, but the spiritual seed of Abraham. The ones who
have been given the faith that Abraham was given. That's who
the true Israel of God is. That's the Israel who the Bible
says, so all of Israel will be saved. Why will they all be saved?
Right here. The command of God was to go
and breathe upon them and that they will all come to life. And
what will happen when they all come to life? He said, These
bones are the whole house of Israel. Not one of them is going
to be left undone. And he says, Behold, they say our
bones are dried and our hope is lost. We are cut off for our
parts. Therefore prophesy and say to
them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open
your graves and cause you to come out, come up out of your
graves and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall
know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O
my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall
put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord." Who's the
one that performed it? Was it the preacher that did
it? No, it was the Son of Man who commanded the wind to blow
where he told it to go, and it went and did as he told it to
do, and the result was efficacious, or the result was it did it. What he said to do, it did. It
wasn't an invitation. He didn't invite them to come
alive. He didn't coerce them to come
alive. There wasn't 15 hymns of just
as I am to get them to come and receive. than being made alive? No. He commanded it. The Spirit
performed it. They came alive. And not one
was left behind. Not one was missed. In Romans chapter 10, the Bible
says, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Now that word there in that verse
is Rima. Faith comes by hearing. How do
we believe on Christ? See, again, we're pondering this
notion that some say that we are born again by the preaching
of the gospel and we're holding out that the Bible teaches that
we are born again by the immediate work of the Holy Spirit upon
the person without any means. And here it says, so faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So there you go.
You have to have the word of God preached. so that you can
have faith to believe. Well, again, what's the order
there? Faith has to be first before you can believe, right?
You have to be given faith so that you can have faith to believe
in something. But faith comes by what? Hearing.
So hearing has to precede faith, right? You can't believe on something
unless you first have the ability to hear. Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Rima or the command or instruction of God. Now doesn't the Bible tell us
that the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has given
them both? How is it that you hear? By the
command of God to hear. How do we begin to hear? Well hearing is a spiritual thing.
Hearing the Word of God is a spiritual thing because the Bible says
the natural man cannot hear and understand the Word of God apart
from being spiritually alive. So you have to be spiritually
alive before there can be any kind of spiritual hearing. The
spiritual hearing comes when the command of God to the Spirit
of God says give them life. Whenever that happens, then they
have the capacity to hear and with the capacity to hear they
now have the capacity with faith to trust and believe and to repent
and to follow, to hope. You see it all comes down first
to the immediate work of the Holy Spirit being done without
any means because the means cannot work without the Holy Spirit's
work preceding it. Look with me if you would because
I don't want to leave this without what the Gospel actually is for. Because here's somebody just
recently said, well, if that's the case, then what's the use
of preaching the Gospel? There ain't no need to preach
the Gospel. Well, look at 2 Timothy chapter
1. There is a purpose for the Gospel.
Because we believe in predestination, because we believe in election,
because we believe in the immediate work of the Holy Spirit doesn't
negate the need for the Gospel. God has given us the gospel, it's just that men have twisted
what it's given for. 2 Timothy chapter 1, and look
with me if you would, starting in verse 9. Actually let's back up, verse
7, it says, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of a sound mind, be not thou
therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord." Okay, what's another
word for the testimony of our Lord? The Gospel. Okay? Therefore, be not ashamed of
the Gospel of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou
partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power
of God, who hath saved us, past tense, and called us, past tense,
with a holy calling, not according to our works. We were not saved
according to our works, whether it's your individual works inwardly,
outwardly, or my outward works towards you as a preacher. You all want to see that? I pray
the Spirit's given us understanding of that. who has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works."
He didn't call us. He didn't save us according to
our works. It had nothing to do with anything
in us or outside of us or somebody else working on us. But what
was it according to? How was your salvation brought
about? But according to His own purpose and grace. See, you were
saved by grace. You were saved because God purposed
to save you. You were, if you're saved, you're
saved because you were one that God gave to Christ, as we've
seen in John chapter six. All that the Father giveth me.
You're the one that is of the house of Israel, who the Lord
blew on and come alive and became the Israel of God. You are the
one who is the seed. We're gonna see that here in
just a second. It says, but according to His
own purpose and grace. When did that happen? Whenever
the preacher preached to you? When did that happen? When you
knelt down at an old-fashioned altar? Was that whenever it was
given to you? Remember, this is past tense.
He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our words, but according to our purpose and the purpose and
grace which was given us in Christ before the foundation. before
the world began. That's amazing. That goes against
everything I learned growing up. I learned that that happened
whenever I made the decision and bent my knee and surrendered
my life and give my life to Jesus. But that's not what the Bible
teaches. That's why I said if doctrine is important, we don't
learn these things without the teaching of the scriptures. If
we just listen to men all day long without looking at what
God's Word says, Those men who can be wrong and often are wrong,
including myself, I pray the Lord keeps me faithful to the
truth. But if we listen to that all day long, we'll never know
what the actual word says here until the Spirit brings us into
light. But why is the gospel given?
See, all that salvation, all that stuff, is something that
happened outside of us, apart from us, by the work of God,
alone. No hand in it at all. from us. But look at verse 10. This salvation that has been
given to us is now made manifest. What does that mean? Made manifest. It means to be brought to light.
To be brought out into the open. For the curtain to be brought
back so you can see what's behind it. You ever watch Monty Hall? Let's make a deal. What's behind
curtain number three? Hope you don't get a wah, wah,
wah. Salvation has already been given. It is already completed. It is
already secured. Listen, it is already appointed. It just needs to be made manifest.
It needs to be brought out into the light. When Monty Hall was
standing there with those three curtains, there was already something
behind every one of those curtains, but nobody could see it until
the curtain was opened up. Whenever the curtain opened up,
you found out whether you got something good or you got something
bad. The gospel is the teaching of
Jesus Christ's accomplished work of salvation. That's what the
gospel is. The gospel isn't about what you
have to do. The gospel is about what Christ
has done. And so it is now being made manifest
by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished
death. And this phrase really intrigued
me several years ago, whenever I read it, over and over again.
And it's just like, it's right there, plain as day. And I don't
know how I never did catch it. Well, I never did catch it because
it hadn't been revealed to me yet. God hadn't given me light
about it, light on it yet. The gospel, or our salvation,
is now made manifest by Jesus who hath abolished death and
hath brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. He didn't
bring life and immortality to life through the gospel. He brought it to light. That
word light there means to illuminate, to be made manifest, to be enlightened. We didn't know it, we've now
been enlightened. Now, that, coupled with Ephesians
chapter 1, 17 and 18, I'll read this real quick because I'm going
long here, but it's fine. That the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Now, we believe
that's conversion. Okay? To be brought into the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done, to be given
repentance and faith in Him, that's all part of conversion.
That happens separate than quickening, which is the giving of life,
which gives you the ability to believe. Believing, repenting,
all those things are part of conversion. He says, that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. So you already
have eyes of understanding, but the eyes of understanding have
yet to be enlightened. So we've been born from above,
we've been quickened already and been given understanding
eyes. But yet those understanding eyes
has to then hear what to understand. It says, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened. Why? That ye may know what is
the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints. See, we have to be given eyes
first. We have to be given ears first
before the understanding and the hearing can actually happen.
Okay? So this notion of all that coming
before you're born again is totally opposite of what the Bible teaches.
Also note this, back in our passage in 1 Peter, beginning at the
first verse, 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1, Notice this in verse 3. Blessed be the God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. Now notice there
that we are begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. We were born from above by the
resurrection. It was by the work of God that
secured our quickening. It wasn't the work of the pastor.
It wasn't the work of an evangelist. It wasn't the work of your choice.
It was the work of Christ on your behalf And it says, to an
inheritance incorruptible. There's that word. That word
was in our verse this morning, right? The incorruptible seed. It says, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled that fadeth not away. That fadeth not away. That
sounds like that endures forever, right? If it doesn't fade away,
it stays forever, right? But it says inheritance. So is
that talking about Jesus or is that talking about our salvation?
Or maybe it's talking about both. Well, I know one thing, Psalms
chapter 16 and verse 5 says this, The Lord is the portion of my
inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The
psalmist reveals that Christ is our inheritance. Now, I know
a lot of people just can't wait to get to heaven so they can
see their mom or dad or sister, brother, aunt, uncle, whatever.
I know some may be wanting to get to heaven because they don't
have a mansion. to live in, you know? Some may want to get to heaven
because they think you're going to be walking on streets of gold. If you look
in Revelation, there's only one street of gold there, by the
way. It says the street of gold, singular, not plural, which doesn't
mean an actual street, but that's for another day. Jesus is our inheritance. Christ
is our inheritance who is incorruptible. undefiled, that fate is not away."
Now, this is my second point, and you think, well, goodnight,
second point now, but it's a quick point. We know the Word of God
in our passage here, verse 23, is not the Bible because of the
context that we find the phrase. This incorruptible seed that
I'm talking about, the incorruptible seed is Christ and the life of
that seed that has been planted within the vessel of clay. Christ
is the seed that's incorruptible and He places within us that
incorruptible seed. It's Him and Him alone that causes
us to be born again by the giving of His life. It's His life. In Genesis, everybody that comes
to church here has heard me preach this often. There's a principle
found in the book of Genesis at the very beginning that life
begets life that God has created all things and they reproduce
after their own kind. They reproduce after their own
kind. So every peach tree, it never
does produce grapes, okay? The peach tree makes peaches,
right? I'm never gonna walk out to, you know, an apple tree,
staring at it, all the apples in there and say, well, man,
where'd the watermelons go? I should've got a watermelon,
okay? That's not, You know, that's
not how it works. Adam begat everybody of his kind,
which was corruptible. Jesus produced everybody of his
kind, heavenly, which is incorruptible. It is him and him alone that
has caused us to be born again. And he did that by giving us
his life, which the Bible says that his life is eternal life. And He gives us that life by
His Holy Spirit, who He commands to go and be given to, to breathe
upon, to give life to everyone that has been given of the Father.
That life was already ours. It was already ours. The Bible
said that we were saved and called with a holy calling before the
world began. But it's now being made manifest
by the appearing of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who
through that gospel, makes life and immortality brought to light.
It's showing light, throwing light on what was already there.
We didn't have knowledge of it because we weren't spiritual
yet. We didn't have spiritual understanding to know that we
have been saved. But now because of the spirit
being given to us, we are able to believe the word of God when
it's preached and the gospel of God that is given, that it
is for us. You see it there in verse 23,
it's contrasted with the incorruptible and the corruptible, they're
contrasted. It says, being born again, not incorruptible. See, this is a parallel verse
to John 3, 16, where Nicodemus and Jesus was talking. Remember,
Nicodemus said, you know, how can I get back in my mother's
womb? And Jesus is like, hey, Nicodemus, you're crazy. You're
thinking on physical things, not spiritual things. You were
born once. of the flesh, that which is flesh
is just flesh. And all it produces is flesh.
The flesh produces flesh after its own kind. The flesh, the
first seed, has the life of all the seeds after it. Everything
that's in that seed is going to happen at the end of time,
whenever the very last seed comes out of that first seed. And it's
all going to be the same. It's going to be flesh. And it
doesn't change. It doesn't become anything different.
But that which is born of the Spirit, there's another birth.
There's another seed to take into account, Nicodemus. And
it's not the physical seed. It's not the fleshly seed. It's
the spiritual seed. It's the heavenly seed. And that
is the seed that is eternal life. Being born again, not of the
corruptible seed. You don't get back up in your
mother's womb and be born again. But of incorruptible. This is
a spiritual birth. And that is by the Word or the
Logos of God, Christ Jesus, which liveth and abideth forever. So we see there's even the contrast
between the flesh, Adam, and the Spirit, Christ. But also, thirdly and lastly,
the context bears witness in the following verse that a distinction
is made between the spoken Word and the true Word, Christ, Look
at verse 25. It says, But the word of the
Lord endureth forever. So there that is again. It says,
The word of the Lord endureth forever. Now, we've already seen
several places where the Bible talks about Christ being forever. I mean, we didn't even get into
all the verses about the immutability and the eternality of Christ,
you know, Jesus the same yesterday, today, and forever. I mean, we
didn't get into all those verses even. But just the verses that
we looked at that talked about that He's our, He's our inheritance
that fadeth not away. Right? But it says, the Word
of the Lord endureth forever. Now pay close attention to the
phrasing here. And this is the Word which by
the Gospel is preached unto you. So the Word of the Lord is in
view here. What does that mean? Well, in John chapter 12, verse
34, it is Christ who endureth and abideth forever. When we
read that, it is because of that. So, look here. The word of the
Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. What do we preach when we preach
the gospel? We preach Christ, right? Who
is preached whenever we preach the gospel? Now, I know if you
listen to TV preachers and radio preachers and, you know, half
the people on every corner in the United States, they're going
to tell you what do we preach. We preach you choose. You believe. You receive. You come and get
something. You come and give something.
Whatever it is, you come and do. You have to do this. Fill
in the blank. Okay? But according to Scripture, who
do we preach in the Gospel? What do we preach in the gospel?
We preach the finished work of Jesus Christ. We preach what
He has done. The gospel is not an invitation. It is a declaration. The gospel is not a command.
It is a declaration. He is not commanding us to repent
and believe. We repent and believe when we're
given life. It comes by the nature of the Spirit that is in us. So who is it which by the
gospel is preached unto you? Jesus Christ. Well, it just so
happens that Jesus Christ is the Word. So read that again. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever." Let's just say Christ. But Christ endureth forever. And this is Christ, which by
the gospel is preached unto you. So going back to verse 23, we
see, being born again, not of corruptible Adam seed, but of
incorruptible Christ seed by Christ, which liveth and abideth
forever. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord
Christ endureth forever. And this is the Christ which
by the gospel is preached unto you." This whole thing is going
all the way back to the whole premise of this whole thing is
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. To
an inheritance incorruptible and undefined, and that faith
is not a way reserved in heaven for you. I mean, all that down
through there is about talking about Christ. For as much as
you know that, verse 18, for as much as you know that you
were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold, from
your vain conversation received by tradition of your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was, what, there's that word again, but
was manifested in these times for you. Who by him do you believe
in God? It's by him that you believe.
How is it by him? He sent the Spirit to quicken
you so that you could believe. The whole context of 1 Peter
chapter 1 is the central point, which is Christ. So why do we
want to all of a sudden break off at these last two verses
here and want to make it about us? Make it about the Spirit. I mean, make it about the preacher
preaching a message. It's about Christ, brethren.
We are born again because of Jesus Christ. And the distinction
is made here. The word of the Lord endures
forever. Excuse me. Yeah, the word of the Lord endureth
forever and this is the word which by the gospel, which is,
that's talking about this, the word, the spoken word, is preached unto you. We preach
the spoken word and who do we preach? We preach Christ in it.
So scripture tells us that the gospel is given to bring life
and immortality to life. It's given to us here. that it
is the scriptures have given to us to reveal or to make manifest
what has already been done to us and for us. It's a manifesting
of an already existing truth. And so many think, and Jesus
even said this, brethren, if you'll remember, many think that
they have eternal life by searching the scriptures. But what did
Jesus say? It's them that testify of me.
And see, we have brethren here today, and they're good brethren.
And many of them I love, that I know I love, that are in the
Lord. And they are preaching that you
are born again or that you are quickened by some instrumentality
or by some means of grace and not by Christ alone, by His Spirit
in an immediate way. That it has to take some effort
of man before that can take place. And we just pray that the Lord
would give understanding to that, that it is a manifesting of something
that is already there and that we can't search the scriptures
and get eternal life by doing so. It is in Him and Him alone
who gives life. And so I pray, brethren, that
we always will magnify Christ over what we do, over what somebody
else does. Does anybody have any questions
or comments or review or correction. I pray that you were edified
by the word today. Always available if you ever
have questions or if you ever want to talk privately. Sometimes
you don't like to talk in an open environment, that's alright
too. I'll spend as much time as I want to give reason for
why I believe in what we hold to here. So if anybody doesn't
have anything to add, then let's pray and we'll be dismissed.
We have lunch prepared, so if anybody wants to stay and have
lunch, they're welcome to eat some lunch with us. Or if you
need to get on down the road, we understand that as well. But
we do have lunch provided. Heavenly Father, Lord, we come
to you now, and we thank you so much again for Christ Jesus.
We thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the Word of
God, the truth that we can go to for everything that we need. We truly believe that it is the
source of our faith and practice. And Lord, we just are so grateful
today for the work of Christ in salvation, for the work spirit
being sent to us to quicken us, for the spirit that is inside
of us to give us understanding and knowledge of Christ, to hoping
in Christ and upon Christ, looking unto Jesus, the author and the
finisher of our faith, for giving us a hope of life to come, that
this life is not all that's left for us, but that Christ will
return, and in His return, The sheep will be separated from
the goats, the wheat from the chaff, and your people will be
gathered in together with you to spend eternity praising and
exalting the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we just thank you so
much that you have given us grace. Lord, we know that we don't deserve
everyone in here. We're sinners by nature, and
we all have transgressed your law. We cannot keep it. We cannot
perform it. We have no righteousness of our
own, and we're in desperate need of a righteousness outside of
us, and you alone are our righteousness. And so, Lord, I pray that today
that you give that same hope to all these that are here. Lord,
I pray that they're your children and that they are your seed and
that you will bring them in, Lord, in your appointed time.
And so again, we thank you for the visitors that we've had today.
Lord, we pray that you give them safety in any of the travels.
We pray for our brethren that are in Oklahoma City today, that
you might give them safety in their travels back home. Lord,
we just are so grateful again for the meeting that we had together
here. And we just ask that you would
be with us now as we leave this place, that you might keep us
safe this week and that you might give us opportunity to speak
of Christ. And Lord, we pray for the food that we're about
to eat. May you nourish our bodies by it. And it's in Christ's name
that we pray. Amen.