we will hold fast in Christ eternally
secure we'll reach our home at last all of the chosen race shall
meet around God's throne to praise Him for His sovereign grace and
make His glories known. Washed in the Savior's blood,
robed in His righteousness, Freely we're justified by God, our hearts
are kept in peace. All of the chosen race shall
meet around God's throne. To praise him for his sovereign
grace And make his glories known Christ must be satisfied His
dead was not in vain Those sinners for whom Jesus died Cannot be,
sin be slain All of the chosen race Shall meet around God's
throne To praise Him for His sovereign grace And make His
glories known God's purpose cannot fail His grace none can defeat
The spirit by whom we are sealed Was never conquered yet All of
the chosen race shall meet around God's throne to praise Him for
His sovereign grace and make His glories known. Amen. I can't wait for that day.
Anything on the way, Bazie? I don't know how many there are
of the elect of God, but there's, the Bible says that there's an
innumerable amount of people. I mean, there's thousands upon
thousands, 10,000, 1,000. It's gonna be amazing to all
be gathered around the throne singing praises to the King. All right, turn back, if you
would, to hymn number 27. Hymn number 27, Pleading for
Grace. This is to the tune of Rock of
Ages. Sovereign ruler, lord of all. Prostrated at your feet I fall. You are holy, wise, and just. I'm the creature of the dust. All things move at your command. Governed by your mighty hand
Heaven and earth and hell I see Fulfill all your wise decree
Dares a man resist the Lord Stand against the sovereign God I will
bow before your throne, seeking grace in Christ your Son. Through his blood and righteousness,
Lord, I plead with you for grace. If you will, you can, I know. Grace and mercy to me show. Will you, Lord, my soul forgive? Grant this sinner grace to live. I've no other hope but this. Jesus blood and righteousness,
now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hide my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. Oh, the mercy now I plead. Grant me, Lord, the grace I need. Turn, oh, turn to me and say,
all your sins are washed away. In my son, your debt is paid. He for you the ransom made. When I sing that song, I think
of that time in the Bible when Jesus was sitting across and
he seen the, uh, uh, there was a, uh, Pharisee and then there
was a, uh, uh, what was it? A tax collector that was there
that was praying. And the Pharisee was praying,
you know, I thank you, Lord, that you made me like this guy
here, that I'm not as bad as he is. But yet that publican,
he was praying and saying, Lord, forgive me, have mercy upon me,
a sinner. And Jesus was talking to his
disciples and was saying, you know, which one of these men
do you think is gonna go down justified? Who's gonna be the
one that's justified? Well, it was definitely that
sinner, the one that knew that he was a sinner. Whenever we
sing this, especially whenever we sing that third stanza, through
his blood and righteousness, Lord, I plead with you for grace.
You know, he's pleading, you know, Lord, please forgive me. I'm a sinner. I know I'm a sinner.
I need your grace. But the proud and religious,
they think that they can get by, skate by and be okay on their
own religious works. And they don't have any need
of grace. because they can accomplish it on their own, right? That's
what they think at least. So those who have been given
a broken and contrite heart, a humbleness, a brokenness before
God over their sin and a knowledge of their sin and their need for
grace, we know that those are the ones that God has given spiritual
life to because only through that spiritual understanding
can we know that we need that grace. Otherwise, we think we
can attain it in and of ourselves. All right, let's see, 239 in
your Gatsby handbook. 239 in the Gatsby. Let's sing this to the tune of
My Jesus I Love Thee. The Lamb is exalted, repentance
to give, that sin may be hated while sinners believe. Contrition is granted and God
justified. The sinner is humbled and self
is denied. Repentance flows freely through
Calvary's blood, produced by the Spirit and goodness of God. The living possess it through
faith, hope, and love. And own it a blessing sent down
from above. All born of the Spirit are brought
to repent. ? Free grace can make heaven
hearts to relent ? ? Repentance is granted, God's justice to
prove ? ? Remission is given, and both from his love. The vilest of sinners forgiveness
hath found, for Jesus was humbled that grace might abound. Whoever repents of his sin against
God shall surely be pardoned through Calvary's blood. Sorry, I couldn't find the tune
or the notes for that, so I just thought I'd order a place. That's
all right. Does anybody have a song that
you'd like to sing in any of the hymn books? 207. 207 in the old school hymn book. 207, Yad Vashon. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my
Lord A wonderful Savior to me He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock Where rivers of pleasure I see He hideth my soul in the
cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of his love. and covers me there with his
hand and covers me there with his hand a wonderful savior is
Jesus my lord He taketh my burden away. He holdeth me up and I
shall not be moved. He giveth me strength as my day. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of His love. and covers me there with his
hand and covers me there with his hand with numberless blessings
each moment he crowns and filled with His fullness divine. I sing in my rapture, O glory
to God, for such a Redeemer as mine. He hideth my soul, In the
cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of his love and covers me there with his hand. and covers me there with his
hand. When cold in his brightness transported
I rise to meet him in clouds of the sky. His perfect salvation His wonderful
love I'll shout with the millions on high. He hideth my soul in the depth
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of his love, and covers me there with his hand. And covers me there with his
hand. Amen. Anybody else have a song
that you'd like to sing? More about Jesus More about Jesus would I know. More of His grace to others show. More of His saving fullness see. More of His love to die for me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus, more
of His saving fullness see, more of His love who died for me. More about Jesus let me learn,
more of his holy will discern. Spirit of God my teacher be,
showing the things of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness see. More of His love who died for
me. More about Jesus in His Word. Holy communion with my Lord. His voice in every line, making
each faithful saying mine. More and more about Jesus. More and more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness seen. More of His love who died for
me. More about Jesus on his throne,
riches in glory all his own. More of his kingdom sure increase,
more of his coming Prince of Peace. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of his saving fullness see. More of his love who died for
me. A little high for me. All right, anybody else have
a song that you'd like to sing? Scripture verse? Would you like
to read or quote? Anybody want to dance a jig? For those watching, we're Baptists.
We only dance when the camera's off. All right, turn with me if you
would. I guess turn with me to 1 Peter.
That's where we're gonna be looking at first. We're still in Galatians. We haven't abandoned Galatians.
I pray that the little interlude that I've done in Hebrews and
what we started last week in looking at the seeds has not
been a convolution of what we're talking about in Galatians. It
was meant, at least in my mind, was meant to give aid to why
we believe what we believe about Galatians in that the promise,
remember the whole thing about Galatians is that Paul is coming
back to a people who has preached the gospel and that was the gospel
that Christ has done everything for you. Christ has saved you
and he has done everything that God requires, everything that
God demands and justice demands on your behalf. He has substituted
in your place and that he died for you and your sins have been
forgiven and the law you are no longer under the condemnation
of the law, or that you are not under the condemnation of the
law. And so that gospel that was preached
to the Galatians, now remember, they began to listen to the Judaizers,
they began to think that they still had to keep the law in
order to be right before God, in order for some acceptance
before God, to continue with God, that they needed to keep
the law, and that they were trying to keep the law in order for
acceptance or maintaining this relationship with the Lord or
rewarding for, you know, doing these things. But yet Paul here
is telling them that everything was done for you by grace. Everything
was by grace. They've been saved by grace.
They're kept by grace. Everything is by grace. And as
we've looked and seen, we've saw that the flesh profits nothing.
We cannot do anything in our flesh to please God, okay? So everything to do. Now, do
we desire that on the inner man? Yes, we've actually been having
a conversation with some brothers about this this week over this
thing, last few days. Do we desire to be holy? Absolutely. In the inner man,
we desire to be holy. Do we desire to obey God? Absolutely. Do we desire to love God and
to love the brethren? Absolutely. We desire to do that,
but we fail because of the flesh, right? To love God, we have to
love him perfectly. To love each other, we have to
love each other perfectly, and none of us do that. Now, we strive
to do that, don't we? We try to be nice to each other,
and we try to be long-suffering to each other, and we try to
be patient with each other, but there comes a time that that
patience runs out, don't it? There comes a time when I really
just don't love you right now. If you go in your room, I'll
go in mine. We have those times, right? So
therefore, we cannot truly love the way that we say that we do,
right? Even among husbands and wives,
right? Except for Kevin and Jacqueline, me and my wife, we can love.
We can't, we fail at that, but we do strive to do that, we desire
to do that. Remember Paul said in Romans
chapter seven, he says that, that I desire, you know, the
will is in me to do these things, But in my flesh, I cannot do
it. All I see that in my flesh, I am nothing but a dirty rich.
I'm a filthy rags is all that I can produce in this flesh. So everything that we see and
that we talk about as far as striving and doing things for
the Lord is all in the inner mind, is in the inner man who
desires these things. And everything that we do outwardly
that comes out because What we desire and try to do inwardly
is gonna manifest itself outwardly in the exercise of trying to
do something. But yet we always find ourselves
falling short of it because as we see in the scriptures, the
Bible says that if we fail at one point, we've failed at all.
We can't keep it, okay? So therefore, it isn't that we
don't desire or long to and that we try to encourage each other
to do these things. But always keep in mind whenever
we say that, especially whenever I'm preaching on that, and everybody
that's listening and watching and everybody that's here, always
understand that that always comes from the vantage point of knowing
that we can't do anything. We cannot please God by anything
that we do in this flesh. The only thing that is pleasing
to God is his son and what his son did. His son's obedience
is what is pleasing to God, and that's the only obedience that's
pleasing to God. Your obedience, what you think is obedience,
is not pleasing to God. Christ is pleasing to God, but
yet we as his children desire in the inward man to follow after
God, to desire to do what God has said to do, and we strive
to attain those things, even though we cannot attain it, obtain,
obtain it here, not attain, obtain. We cannot obtain it here, okay? We strive for that, we desire
that, okay? So that's the difference between
saying, well, just go out and live however you wanna live.
That's not what we're saying. We're saying that there is gonna
be the love of God towards us is constraining us. It causes
us to want to do what's right, but yet we find that in our flesh
dwells no good thing. That every time we do go to do
good, we find that evil is present with us because the flesh profits
nothing, okay? We in ourselves cannot please
God. So Paul here is trying to explain to the Galatians that,
listen, no matter how hard you try at keeping the law, all you
are doing is heaping upon yourself more condemnation. The condemnation
is that you cannot do that. Matter of fact, we're gonna see
that in our passages on down the line, whenever it says, let's
see, I believe it's in, Verse 21 of Galatians 4 says,
tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear
the law? Okay, so Paul is telling them,
hey, do you not understand what you're saying whenever you say
that I need to be under the law or I need to keep the law or
I need to do the law to be right with God, to stay right with
God? Do you hear what the law is telling you? The law is always
telling you and there's never another answer. The law never
has another answer except condemned. Condemned, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, We look to Christ. We rejoice in the works
of Christ. And that is the things that God
desires for us or has given to us by faith. And that's why we see that the
people who do or walk this way, the rule of life, as we'll see
in chapter six, the rule of life is walking by faith, not by walking
by the law. We walk by faith. We don't walk
by law keeping. We walk this life by trusting
Christ alone, looking to Christ alone, giving glory to God alone,
exalting Christ alone for what he has done, right? And so that
is the walk or the rule of life for the child of grace. And the
people who are the seed of Christ, the heirs of Christ, the generation
of Christ, the lineage of Christ, the children of God, however
you want to put it, Those people, like Abraham, will look to Christ
and count Christ alone as their righteousness, and not look to
their own law keeping their flesh to produce that, okay? So, we've
seen that the child of grace then is an heir of Abraham. Look
at Galatians chapter four, verse nine. Put your finger in the
one Peter, because we are gonna start there here in just a minute.
But look at Galatians chapter four, verse 29, It says, and
if ye be Christ, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according
to the promise. Remember, Abraham, verse 16,
chapter three. Now to Abraham and his seed were
the promises made, he saith not, and to seeds as of many, but
as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So the promises were
made to Christ, but now in verse 29, it says, if ye be Christ,
then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
So we are now brought into that same covenant. We are brought
into that same promise, that same
inheritance as the seed Christ, because we are Christ's seed.
And of course, we talked about that. If I have an inheritance
that I've built up for myself, And whenever I die, my children,
who is my seed, will have that inheritance because they're mine,
right? The guy across the street, he
ain't gonna get it because he's not my seed, all right? My children
will receive my inheritance. That's what he's saying here.
If ye are Christ, then ye are Abraham's seed. So the promise
that was made to Abraham is made to you also, if you are Abraham's
seed. And so then we begin to look
and see that because, it says, now I say that the heir, as long
as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be
Lord of all. As a child, sometimes we do not
understand the fullness of our inheritance, okay? We don't understand
that. A little child doesn't understand
how that works. He doesn't understand, he's not
even thinking about an inheritance, why? because everything he has
need of right now is being given to him. He's just, I mean, he's
just living his life. Okay, he's not thinking about
that, what's to come. See, we as children, we just,
you know, we don't think about the inheritance. And so we, like
many, consider ourselves to be a servant that we have to work
for. See, that's what we believe by default. We think we have
to work like a slave to obtain this righteousness. We have to
work for it. We have to work for it. We have
to work for it. And isn't that the default of everybody? Everybody
thinks that if my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then I'm
going to heaven. Right? If I don't drink, smoke,
or chew or go with the girls that do, then I'm going to go
on to heaven. You know, it's all about what we do. It's all
about what we are. It's all about how we walk and
how we live and what we don't do and what we do. Right? Thought I was gonna say
doo-doo, didn't you? It's all about performance. That's
what the world, and you look in every religion around the
world, okay, in every religion all around the world, and I don't
mean to get off on a tangent here, but in every religion,
no matter what it is, okay, whether it's New Age, whether it's Hindu,
whether it's Buddhism, whether it's Islam, whether it's New Age stuff,
whatever it is. And even within so-called Christianity,
and I mean by Armenian Christianity, quote-unquote Christianity, if
you look, there is one thread in every bit of all of those
religions and denominations. But there is one thing that sets
us apart and anyone that's like us, that sets us apart from every
religion, every denomination, every group of people. And that
is the fact is they think that they have free will to choose
and that by their works, by their obeying and things, they are
being pleasing to God, that they can do the law. that it's all
about their works. And they'll say, now the Christians,
Armenian Christians, they'll say, well, we don't believe in
work salvation, we believe in grace salvation, but yet they
believe that you can't be saved unless you do something this,
okay? So that's works, that's a work
salvation. But you look, every religion
believes that they have a free will to do something to be pleasing
to whatever God it is that they serve, right? But the thing that
sets the true child of grace apart, the true Christian apart,
is they believe that they can't do anything. That they can't
do anything. A friend of mine, Hal Brunson,
he said something a while back, and I'm trying to remember if
I can remember exactly how he said it. He said the difference
between the child of grace and the rest of religion is that God becomes the sinner and the
sinner becomes like God. I think that's how he said it. I may have misunderstood that.
I'll have to go back and find that quote. I wrote it down somewhere.
But the difference is, is God does everything for the sinner.
But in everyone else's viewpoint, it's everything that the sinner
does for God. And see, that's the difference
between law and grace. Grace is everything has been
done for you. And all you do is rejoice in
the good of everything that's been done for you and not rely
upon your flesh. Paul said, you know, we are not
those who boast in what we can do. We have no confidence in
the flesh. I don't have any confidence in
my flesh. If God tells me, hey, go out there and be a good missionary. You know what? I don't have any
confidence in my flesh. I can't do that. Okay. I can't do that. I can go try,
but I never can be exactly everything that God. So what do I do? I
trust the Lord. I trust the Lord in all things.
So we tied in then. After we see that we are, that
only those who are of the seed of Christ can trust in Christ,
because they're the only ones that can hear God's words, right?
In fact, I think that's the verse we left off on last week. John
8, 47. He that is of God, heareth God's
words. Ye, therefore, hear them not,
because ye are not of God. I have friends and family that
are on my Facebook that do not believe these things. You know, they even joke about
them, you know, make cracks at them and things like that. Some
may and everything, but they don't hear what we're saying.
They don't understand what we're saying. They think it's foolish. Why? Because, well, obviously
you gotta have free will. God's telling you to do all this
stuff and you gotta be able to choose yes or no. How can you
really show your love to God if you don't have a true choice?
See? But see, what they don't understand
is we really can't show our true love for God. We can't do it. The flesh profits nothing. Anything
that we would try to produce in this flesh for God is always
going to fall short of the glory of God. Therefore, we need a
substitute to do it for us. And Christ did that for us. Christ
obeyed the Father completely and fully in every aspect, in
every way. He did everything for us so that
when God looks at us, He sees Christ. Everything. He sees Christ. Everything that was required.
And so people don't want to hear that or they cannot hear that
because they're not of God. They're not God's children. They're
not God's seed. They're not God's lineage. They're
not produced from that seed. Remember, we started with everything
reproduces after its own kind. The first and everything that
comes from it, 5,000 trillion apple seed that comes
out of the first apple is gonna produce an apple tree that looks
just like this first one, right? We as the seed of Christ, the
spiritual, now we're talking about spiritual aspects, right?
Everybody with me on that? We're not talking about what
we are in our body and the flesh here. This is corruptible. It's
gonna fall away, fade away. It has to fall away. Flesh and
blood cannot receive kingdom or cannot inherit the kingdom
of god we are not going into god's kingdom by works of the
flesh and blood it's only by the spirit we are not going to
enter into heaven with this flesh and blood because it is corrupt
so we're talking about spiritual things christ's spirit His spiritual
seed, every one of us in the spirit has the same life, and
that life is gonna look just like the original seed. It's
gonna be perfect. It's gonna be holy. It's gonna
be just. It's gonna be righteous. That
seed looks like the originator. We are Christ, okay? This outward flesh is not becoming
more like Christ. Our minds are being conformed
to the image of Christ. But our outward man, this body
of flesh, this thing that is corrupt, is not getting any better.
It didn't get better in your new birth. It doesn't get any
better by you keeping the commands and the laws of God. It is just
flesh, and it never will change. Now, I've said that 1,050 times,
I think, over the course of this deal, and I hope everybody's
understanding what I mean. If not, I will be glad to try
to make it more clear So we have the promise here, and if ye be
Christ, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. But we also find out that even
though that you're an heir, at some points in our lives, we
don't realize that we are an heir, but we think that we're
a servant. But it isn't until that child
comes to maturity or is brought to maturity, it's not by his
own working, he comes to maturity under that schoolmaster, What
is that schoolmaster doing? It's driving into his head. You
think you're serving? You did it wrong. You think you're
serving? You did it wrong. You think you're serving? You
did it wrong. The child thinks he's a servant. I'm serving God. But what does the law keep coming
and doing? You missed it. You failed. Wrong. Nope. Uh-uh. Try again. You're not going to
make it. That's why I brought up that illustration a few weeks
ago. Have you ever had somebody that's just all the time constantly
telling you whatever you do is not right? That person is a pesterer. I mean, you want to just poke
them in the eye and say, go away, leave me alone. Some of it may
even be true, and you know that it's true. But you don't want
to hear it, right? You don't want to hear that over
and over and over and over again. That's all the law does to us.
Whenever a child of grace, though, is converted of the gospel, whenever
Christ gives them understanding and opens up their eyes and opens
up their hearing and gives them the ability spiritually to discern
the things of the spirit, then all of a sudden, that tutor that
kept telling them, you think you're a servant, you're doing
it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. That child
hears the deal. Guess what? You're an heir. And because you're an heir, You
get the promise. You get the inheritance. You're
a child. You're not a servant. It's not
about you trying to serve him perfectly. It's about you're
his child. You get that. My child, my child,
my children, they don't serve me perfectly. But yet that doesn't
stop them from being my children and being heirs of whatever promise
I might have to leave behind. See? So we have to be brought through
this process of realizing that there is a heir of Christ, and
then there are those that are not heirs of Christ. Those who
are heirs of Christ in God's time will bring them to understand
that they are no longer a servant, but a child. And whenever they
realize that they are a child, that everything has been given
to them freely without their work, without their servitude,
then that child no longer has any need for that law to be over
them anymore, telling them that they're wrong, because they know
that they're wrong. They know that they can't keep
it. They know that they can't serve good enough. And so what
do they do? They rest in the fact, well,
I'm a child and that it's coming to me by grace. And I just praise
God for my father. I praise God for my father, for
what he's done for me. because I never could do it.
You remember the story of the prodigal son? Everything that
he had, the whole entire thing was his because he was a child
of the father. But yet he went away and he squandered
everything that he had in his flesh. He went and just squandered
everything. Everything that he had, he went
and just squandered. And the Bible said that he wasted
all the stuff that his father had given him. He wasted it all.
He went out and wasted every bit of it. But then all of a
sudden, the Bible says that whenever he came to his right mind, he
realized, hey, I'm out here living like this, and I'm living worse
than the servant in my father's house. But I'm his child. And so what did he do? He went
back to the father. What did the father do? Did the father chastise
him and say, you shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have
done that. You did this wrong. You did this wrong. I want to give you
just a little bit. No, what did he do? He killed
the fatty calf. He welcomed him back in. Why?
Because the inheritance was always his because that's his child.
And no matter how far that child ran away, no matter how far that
child was off in sin and not acting like the child, he still
was the child and the inheritance was still his. See? So we went then to Hebrews and
found out in Hebrews that the only way that we can maintain
this knowledge or this understanding of being a child is because we've
been given faith. And faith undergirds our hope
that this, we have a hope in Christ, that what he has done
and what he has given is ours. And therefore, whenever we have
the faith given to us by God, that undergirds our hope there
comes an assurance that what is being said in the gospel is
said about me, said about me. And so we hope in Christ, not
a maybe so, but an earnest expectation that because I'm his child, I
will receive the full inheritance, okay? So that's kind of why I
took that route over the last few Sundays. And so now we've
been looking at the fact of, well, does the Bible truly say
there are two groups of people? Those who are heirs and only
them, and those who are not heirs and they never will get, okay? Is that true? So that's what
we've been looking at. And so last week we started looking
at several verses in scripture that show that there are two
seeds. There is the seed of Satan. There's
the seed of Christ. The seed of Satan is those that
are the reprobate, that are those who are called the wicked, that
are those who are called the children of the devil. Several places in Scripture that
the Bible talks about this, and Jesus called this out on many
accounts and said, you know, you don't hear me because you're
not my sheep. He said, you don't hear me because
you are not of God. That's the scripture we talked
about last, last week. You're not of God. You're your
father. So you have a father, my children,
I'm their father. Okay. So let's pick up with these,
looking at these verses again today. And we'll start in a one
Peter chapter one and look at verse 23, if we, if you would,
one Peter, Chapter 1, verse 23. It says, being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. Now here we see that we are being
born again. Remember Jesus, his discussion
with Nicodemus. Nicodemus came to him and asked
him, you know, what must a man do? You know, we hear that you're,
you know, all these things you do, we know is somebody that
is more than just a man. You know, you have to have some
sort of favor with God doing all this kind of stuff. And Jesus
said that you must be born again. It comes down to this, Nicodemus,
you must be born again. The only way that you can have
eternal life is you must be born again. And what did Nicodemus
think? In his natural mind, he said,
wait a minute, you mean I have to crawl back up into my mother's
womb and be born a second time? And Jesus said, you know, hey,
are you a teacher? Teacher in Israel, you don't
know these things, okay? No, we're not talking about the
fleshly things. We're talking about a spiritual
thing. You were born one time in the fleshly way. with the
nature of Adam and all you can do is sin. But to inherit or
to have eternal life, to inherit the promise, you have to be born
from above. There has to be a second birth,
not a rebirth, a second birth. OK, not regeneration, but there
must be a quickening. There must be a new birth. There
must be a different birth, a second birth of different kind. The
first kind was of the flesh, of the earth, earthy, you are
born a natural man, and the flesh can profit nothing, and you can't
do anything, and it never will inherit the kingdom of God. But
there is a second birth that comes from above, and that second
birth that comes from above is a spiritual birth, and it is
by that birth that makes you an heir to the promises of God
in which you inherit eternal life. So that was what was told
to Nicodemus, right? Okay, now with that being said,
look at verse 23. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed. See, the scripture is confirming
what the scripture has already said. What Jesus said to Nicodemus,
Peter here is confirming the exact same thing. Not being born
again in the physical. Okay, we don't be born again
in the physical. We're being born again, not of
corruptible seed. The first time we were born of
corruptible seed. but of incorruptible. So the being born again is the
being born again of incorruptible. We're born again in a corruptible
way. We're born again in an incorruptible way. That which is born from
above is incorruptible. It is born incorruptible because the original seed is
incorruptible. Christ is incorruptible. And
because ye are Christ, ye are incorruptible. But it's only
in the Spirit that you are incorruptible. Again, the flesh profits nothing.
He says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible
by the Word of God. Who's the Word of God? It's by
Christ, right? How are you born again? It is
by Christ. The Bible says that he's been
given power over all flesh to give eternal life to whomever
he chooses, right? Now, I'll say this. Let me backtrack
just a minute. I used to preach this verse a
different way. I used to preach this verse this way. Being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Who's the word of God?
This right here, this Bible. Who preaches it? This guy right
here. How did they get born again? Whenever I as a preacher preach
this word and you hear it, then you get born again. That's how
I used to preach this. That's how a lot of people I
know preach this. That's how modern day Christianity
preaches this. That people are born again by
the preaching of God's word. But that's not the case. The
case is this. Jesus Christ is the word of God.
It's whenever Christ speaks. Not with the outward ear, but
with the inward. He speaks life, he speaks light,
he speaks hearing, seeing into us. He tells us to hear, he tells
us to see on a spiritual way and we do. Being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. It does not the word
of God, Jesus Christ liveth and abideth forever. Is that not
speaking again? Now, some has argued with me
and they say, well, Pastor, that word, word there is not Logos,
it's Rhema. By the word of God. I still think
that's talking about Jesus. And here's the reason why. Look
at verse 25. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever. Is that not saying the same thing
as what verse 23 says? By the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever, the word of the Lord endureth forever?
Is that not saying the same thing, right? Now look, and this is
the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Now, if
the word of God is talking about this right here, the Bible, then
that's saying, and this is the word of God, which by the word
of God is being preached to you. That don't make any sense. It
says, but the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is
the word which by, what is preached to us by the gospel? You see
that? Look at it. Don't check out on
me here. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached to you. Do we preach the Bible to people?
No, we're preaching Christ, right? We're preaching the word of God
to people. We're preaching Christ, the Logos
to people. So that's what's telling me that
verse 23 is not talking about preaching the gospel to people,
that it is Christ that is giving life. And in verse 25, it says
that's who we are to preach. We're to preach Christ, not the
preaching of the preacher, okay? There are a lot of people that
want to exalt the preacher and the work of the preacher as so
great that, you know, without that, and see, and that's why
the Baptist split way back in the 1800s. over these things. Whenever that began to infiltrate
the Baptist churches that, you know, all these people are dying
out there and we got to get them preachers out there as missionaries
because people are going to hell that would go to heaven if we
could have a preacher because you have to have a preacher for
them to get saved. That's not what this is saying,
brother. Do you not believe that Jesus
can keep all that are his and make sure that they're saved,
make sure that they come to him? He said, all that the father
gives me shall come to me and all that come to me I will in
no wise cast out. Every one of those children will
not be lost. So with that being the case,
we know that all of his seed will be saved. Being born again,
not a corruptible seed, Satan's seed, but of incorruptible seed,
Christ's seed, by the word of God, which is Christ, which liveth
and abideth forever. So here we see two types of seed.
The corruptible seed, the incorruptible seed. Look with me if you would
at 1 John 3, 9. We talked a little bit about this first few
weeks ago. But here again, we see Christ's
seed here. 1 John 3, 9. Whosoever is born
of God, if somebody's born of God, that means that they're
a seed of God, right? There's a seed. That's his seed. Whoever is born of God doth not
commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin because he is born of God. I know that's
a hard verse. Matter of fact, I was reading
through some of these verses this morning, especially all the verses
around this, and I was telling Lori, I said, these are some
hard verses to look at and understand. You know, whenever we read these
things, it kind of goes against, you know, our understanding of
a lot of times and how to look at this and understand. But it
says here quite clearly that whoever is born of God, and we
know that he that is of God, we know that there are people that
are born of God, right? All of his children are born of God.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, and he cannot
sin because he is born of God. Now, how do we reconcile that
with the rest of Scripture? Especially with the context that's
here in 1 John that says if you say that you have no sin, then
you make God out to be a liar, because he says that every one
of you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right?
How do we reconcile these two things? Just as Paul reconciled
them. In my flesh I will serve the
law of sin, but in my mind I will serve the law of God. In my flesh,
I can do no good thing. I'm wretched. I cannot please
God. It's nothing but evil. But in
my spirit, in my mind, in that inner man, that thing that's
born from heaven, that thing that's created, not from earth,
not of incorruptible seed, but that which is created in the
incorruptible seed, that cannot sin. It's perfect, it's holy,
it's just, it's right. Why? Because it's the life of
Christ. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. It cannot sin. Christ cannot sin. Therefore,
his children in seed, in spirit, cannot sin. Now, there's a lot
to say about all those verses around there, but I don't have
time to do that. Let's move on. It says, Let's go to Psalms, back to the
Old Testament. I want to read a few back here. Let's go to Psalms 14. Psalms 14. Didn't get as far
as I wanted to get today. But we got as far as the Lord
wanted to go. Psalms 14. And look with me at verse five,
it says, there were they in great fear
for God is in the generation of the righteous. So here we
see that there is a righteous generation. There is a righteous
lineage. And it says, they were they in
great fear. They feared the Lord. You know,
the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge. The Bible says that the fear
that they, the children of God, they're the ones who fear him.
Matter of fact, you go, you look back at Cornelius. Cornelius was a man who feared
God, but yet he had never heard the gospel preached to him. But
yet the Bible said he feared God. And the Bible said that
he prayed to God and God heard his prayers. Now how did that
happen if he hadn't heard the gospel from some preacher so
that he could be born again? Well, I think it's because he
was already born again. And I think that he just hadn't
heard the gospel and wasn't converted to the truth, hadn't repented
of his wrong thinking to the right thinking, but he still
was a child of God. And because he was a child of
God, he feared God. And because he was a child of
God, God heard his prayers. Even though he had not yet experienced
that gospel yet or heard that gospel yet, he was a generation
that feared God. He was a seed. He was the lineage
that feared God. The lineage of God will fear
God. Those who don't fear God are not gods, right? So look at with me if you would.
Psalm 22 in verse 30. Psalm 22 in verse 30. It says a seed shall serve him. It shall be accounted to the
Lord for a generation. A seed shall serve him and it
shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall
come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born
that he hath done this." What does the generation of Christ
do? Well, the generation of Christ
declares his righteousness, right? The generation of Satan, what
do they do? They declare their own righteousness.
But the generation of God declares Christ's righteousness. They
shall come and shall declare his who's the Lord's. They shall declare his righteousness.
What are we doing here today? We're declaring the righteousness
of the Lord. We're not exalting man and declaring
the righteousness of man and what we should do in our repenting,
believing, receiving, being dumped under the water, becoming a member
of a church, going out and doing all the good deeds to the poor,
to the widows, and to the orphans. All these things that the Bible
talks about, about being good and all that. Whatever you want
to lay to it, okay? Whatever you want to lay to it.
Now we declare His righteousness. Paul said, I am what I am because
of His righteousness. Paul said, what causes you to differ than everybody
else, Christ's righteousness is what causes you to differ,
right? A seed shall serve him. Look
at chapter 24 and look at verse 6. It says, this is the generation
of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. So there is a generation of people
that seek him, that seek his face. We don't seek until he
first gives us the ability to seek, right? There is no contradictions
in the Bible, okay? The Bible does not contradict
itself. We have lots of people out there
that say there are people that are seeking the Lord, okay? But yet the Bible says, there
are none that seek after me. Now, is that a contradiction?
Where it says right here that these people seek after the Lord?
No. We just have to understand the biblical timing or the biblical
order in which people seek. Apart from the new birth and
apart from conversion, God giving them eyes to see and ears to
hear, opening up their understanding, giving them spiritual discernment,
apart from that, no man seeketh after God. But only whenever
they are given that, then they come and seek after God. That,
as I said, that publican that was praying, you know, give grace
to me, a sinner. He was seeking after God, right?
He was seeking the Lord's forgiveness. He was seeking the Lord's favor
and grace. What caused him to do that? Because he was given
a broken and contrite heart by the Spirit of God. It's always
initiated by God first. God must have to give you that
desire. God has to give you that want.
God has to give you, the Bible says that my people shall be
made willing in the day of my power. They're not willing in
and of themselves. Nobody is willing. But God makes
us willing, but it's only in the day that he exerts the power
over us to break that hard heart and give us a heart of flesh.
The Bible says that I will give them a new heart and then they
will follow after me. They will come to me after that. But it's only those who are of
his seed there. It says his generation. This
is the generation of them that seek him. Look at Psalms 102. Want to move kind of quick through
here because I want to get to a certain place at least before
we start. Psalm 102 and verse 18. It says, this shall be written
for the generation to come and the people which shall be created
shall praise the Lord. This shall be written. These
things of Christ in the Old Testament shall be written for who? It
shall be written for the generation to come. and the people which
shall be created shall praise the Lord." And you think, wait
a minute, God created Adam and all of us are born of Adam. It's just life rebirth. It's
not creation after creation after creation. Is that what the Bible
teaches? But what are we talking about
here though? We're talking about a generation that is a spiritual
generation, not a fleshly lineage, but a spiritual lineage, right?
And those who are born in the Spirit, the Bible says that we
are a new creation, created in Christ Jesus. Not in Adam, we're
created in Christ Jesus, but we're called a new creation.
Whenever we are born from above, it's a new creation. It's not
the old creation reworked or made better, it's a new creation
and here he says that this shall be written for the generation
to come and the people which shall be created shall praise
the lord whenever they hear this message of what christ is about
what christ has done who christ is for them what will they do
they'll praise him they're not going to praise themselves they're
not going to praise the preacher not going to praise the missionary
they're not going to praise the deacons or anybody else Who are
they gonna praise? They're gonna praise Christ. Psalms 112, verse two. It says, his seed shall be mighty
upon the earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. Christ's seed, that's what's
in context here, verse one. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is
the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his
commandments. His seed, the Lord's seed, shall be mighty upon the
earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. The generation of Christ is gonna
be blessed. We're gonna be blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places, right? The Bible says
that we're gonna be blessed with the promise that God has given
to his children. Now, lastly, let's look at Isaiah
53, and we'll stop there today. We've been showing that there
is a seed of Christ, and that differs from the seed of Satan.
Now, next week we're going to look at some verses showing there
is an actual seed and a generation of Satan, but let's end today
with Isaiah 53. The whole chapter actually is
wonderful for us. Matter of fact, the whole chapter
here is the gospel in one chapter. To me, Isaiah is the Romans of
the Old Testament. It is the theological Goliath
of the Old Testament. But let's look, if you would,
starting in verse eight, Speaking of Christ, he says he was taken
from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation
or who is going to who is going to talk about or who is going
to proclaim who is going to who is going to consider or ponder
his generation for years to come? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. See, the Bible has been talking
about and all these promises have been talking about the sea
and his generation, right? We've been reading all these
verses, especially here in the Old Testament. We've been reading
these things, talking about the generation that is to come, the
generation of Christ, all these people. And it says, well, who's
going to declare these things if he's going to be cut off out
of the land of the living? He says, for the transgressions
of my people, was he stricken? And He made His grave with the
wicked and with the rich in His death, because He had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief, when
thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin." Now here it is, He
shall see His seed. Who is He dying for? Who is Christ
being bruised for? Who is Christ being put to grief
for? Who is Christ's soul being made
an offering for sin for? His seed. If people don't believe
in election, they don't believe the Bible. The Bible is replete,
Old Testament and New Testament, in absolute election of God. In individual election. I'm not
talking about this wishy-washy compromising, trying to be on
both sides of the fence election that some people preach that
says, yeah, but that's talking about nations and not people.
Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard someone say,
well, the election in the Bible is talking about nations, not
people. It's not talking about individuals.
Romans 9 is not talking about, it's not talking about individuals. It's talking about Esau and Jacob,
two nations of people. Well, let me ask you, what makes
up a nation? People, right? You can't have
a nation without a people. If God chose this nation and
not this nation, he still made a choice not to choose this nation
and to choose this nation. God still said yes, no. God still
said these people, if you want to go to Malachi and say these
are talking about nations and not individuals, go to Malachi
and it says what? It says that this nation I'm
not blessing and I'm not gonna ever let them be blessed. This
nation over here I love and I have blessed them because I called
them, elected them, okay? So whether it's many people or
if it's just individuals, God still made a choice of one over
the other. You can't get away from that.
So you can try to water it down all you want. But what does he
say here? Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put
him to grieve, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
inequities." Whose inequities? The many. Who are the many? The
seed. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with
the strong, because he had poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, Satan's seed, and he bared the
sin of many, Christ's seed, and made intercession for the transgressors
of his seed. See, we are transgressors just
like Satan's seed, but he made He made intercession for us,
His seed. He didn't make intercession for
anybody else. He only made intercession for
His seed. So here we see Christ has a seed
and that seed has promises made to it that they will be this
kind of people and that they will be a people that listens
to Him, hears His voice, looks to Him alone, cast all their
cares upon Him. They look to Him for their righteousness,
all these things. They will do that because they
are His seed. It will be their declaring His
righteousness. It will be their being the generation
that makes these things known to the rest of the world. Okay,
it's their, His seed and their seed only. And so whenever we
talk about being seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise,
it is not for everybody. It is only for Christ's seed. All right, we'll stop right there,
and we'll look at Satan's seed next week, Lord willing. I was
hoping to only do this in two Sundays, but it looks like we're
moving to another Sunday. Anybody have any questions or
comments about today or about anything? Any additions? Estify about something? Lord them? All right, we'll continue to
Continue to pray for my grandmother and her health. Continue to,
pray also for, we have a good friend, his name's Larry Armstrong. His family is friends with ours. And he has seemingly has COVID
again for the second time. Don't know whether that's true
or not. He's waiting to get his test
results back again. But they think that he has caught
COVID again. So anyway, he's not feeling very
good. He's an elderly man. I can't
remember how old Larry is. I think he's somewhere in his
70s or so, I would guess, in his 70s. And he lives alone. His wife passed away a couple
years ago, a year ago. And so he lives by himself, except
for some dogs. So be in prayer for Larry Armstrong. And Tom also said, I think that
Dalton and Lisa and them also has COVID, or at least Lisa has
COVID or something. Anyway, pray for that whole family,
the Armstrong family. Anybody? All right, let's go to the rules. Father, we once again come to
you this morning thanking you so much for Christ Jesus. We
thank you, Father, for all the things that you've done on our
behalf. We thank you for this day that you've given to us,
the time of fellowship with the brethren. We thank you, Father,
for all the grace and mercy that you've given to us through him. We thank you, Father, for forgiveness
of sins, for the reconciliation that we have in Christ Jesus.
We thank you for a righteousness that is given to us We thank
you for the word of God that is here to tell us these things
and the spirit of God to teach us what it says about the things
it's freely given to us, Lord. We pray for our family, we pray
for our friends, those who may not believe this gospel, Lord. We pray that you might give them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, Lord. We pray that
you would help us to be meek and to be long-suffering, patient
in our discussions with them on the gospel. Father, we pray
that you would draw your people to yourself as you've promised
you would. We ask, Lord, that you would just be with us this
week, that you might keep us safe. I pray for these brethren,
Lord, that you might have edified their heart this morning through
the message. I pray, Lord, that it's been
of truth and not my own devices, but it's truly been the word
of God that has been preached today. Lord, I pray that you
bless the food that we're about to eat, the nourishment of our
bodies, in Christ's name, we pray.