God is so good to us here. And
He's a miracle-working God. I want you to turn to the book
of Galatians chapter 4, beginning with verse 6. And because you
are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts. And you cry, Papa, Papa, Abba,
Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. How be it then, when you knew
not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods? But now, after that ye have known
God, or rather are known of God, How turn ye again to the weak
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and
times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as
I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all. Time passes, and I meet people on a daily
basis that have come under the influence of my voice in the
ministry of the gospel that I stand in doubt of, that they've ever really been
born again. I marvel that they turn back
to law, turn from Mount Zion to Mount Sinai. Turn from the
Mount of Grace to the Mount of Law. Turn from the perfect, suitable
Savior for every slimy, wormy sinner that ever wormed his way
out of hell to legalism. And I'm made sorrowful that people
have heard me so long and yet have never seen the glorious
Gospel of Jesus Christ. I marvel that people I pastored,
and having attended a funeral of my dear friend this past week,
marveled that many of those people sat under my father for 27 years,
who preached the gospel of God's grace, and then sat under me
for almost 10 years, then quit attending church, just dropped
out. And now their kids' kids don't
know anything about the gospel at all. No church attendance,
no Sunday school, no gospel, no even religious exercise of
any kind. And I wonder, did you hear anything? And I want to move a little closer
now. There are people sitting in this congregation who have
never heard me. There are people who have heard
me, And the Gospel has made you angry. You are only here because
you have to be here. And then there are people who
don't have to be here, have heard me, but you haven't. And then there are people who
have heard me and continue to hear me and rejoice as I proclaim
the Gospel every Lord's Day. John said, I have no greater
joy than to see my children walking in the truth. It's a wonderful
thing as I listen. And I am assured that you know
the Gospel. That you know God. You see, here
in the Galatian letter, these folks were turning from the only
true Gospel to another Gospel which the Apostle said is not
another because there is no other Gospel. There's only one gospel. It's just that narrow. And he
was so emphatic about it. And I want those of you who hear
and don't hear, and those of you who hear and don't like,
I want you to hear me well. You're going to hell because
there's one gospel. Unless you see Christ, unless
you know Christ in an intimate way, you're going to perish.
There is only one gospel. Listen now. And it is emphatically
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. Don't add to it. Don't subtract
from it. Should you do that, you will
perish. There are those who divert the gospel, dilute the gospel. There are those who avert the
gospel. It's a dangerous thing. This gospel is serious business.
In the Old Testament, there was a rock that represented Christ. Moses was instructed on one occasion
to strike the rock. The second time, because Christ
was only to be smitten once, Moses was told, speak to the
rock and water will come out of it. And Moses got mad at the
people and he marred a type of the gospel Here's how serious
God is about His Gospel. Don't mess with the Gospel. And
because Moses messed with the Gospel, he didn't go into the
Promised Land. I didn't say he wasn't saved.
I said he experienced something physically here on this earth. He didn't go into the Promised
Land. You get over into the New Testament and the Apostle Paul
says some folks are dead because they messed with the Gospel in
the Lord's Supper. Some folks sleep. Because you
took the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. And now listen,
there are no perfect people here. If you are, you're in the wrong
church. This is a messed up bunch of sinners who have been saved
by the grace of God here. But when that Corinthian church
met, which was much like ours, there was harlots who attended
and drunks and messed up folks. That was one messed up church.
That's how I know we're a New Testament church. We're messed
up. I hear people often say, we're
a New Testament church. Oh, you have drunks and prostitutes
in your church. In order to be a New Testament
church, you have to have a bunch of messed up people. Because
when you read about the churches in the New Testament, they had
messed up folks. All right, just so we got that
settled. But anyway, Paul says, some of you folks who are members
of the church are dead. because you took the Lord's Supper
in an unworthy manner. And unworthy manner doesn't mean
the Lord's Supper is for perfect people. Literally, unworthy manner
means you didn't enter into it. It's a serious thing to take
the Supper. It's a memorial Supper. It's
about the bruised body of Jesus Christ and the blood that flowed
from Calvary from a wounded side. The precious blood of Jesus Christ. So we enter into it. The Gospel.
of God, the gospel of the glory. I want you to learn that terminology.
It's the gospel of the glory, not yours. God's glory. If you've got a gospel that in
any way, shape, or form gives you any glory, you've got the
wrong gospel. And let me just give you a word
of warning that I give so often. I hope you memorize it. The devil
doesn't care whether you go to hell sitting here in a seat at
Grace Gospel Fellowship or from a bar stool. He doesn't care. So you can sit right here in
all your churchiness and sanctified self and perish. Christ came
to save sinners. Now you need to listen really
close here because you miss the Redeemer, you miss heaven. There
is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ.
If you're outside of Christ and in the self, you're going to
perish. You better quit talking about
your works and your this and your that. Give everything to
us and test. Does it give Him the glory? Does
it give Him the praise? Does it give Him the honor? If
it's a song and it doesn't give Him the praise, don't sing it
anymore. When I was a kid growing up in
the old church, sometimes I'd hear, tell mother I'll be there. Well, the story's not about mother,
it's about Jesus Christ. Or I'm building a bridge. I want
to tell you, you don't have the material to build a bridge from
here to heaven. The Apostle said here in Galatians,
he said, he's talking real quick, and often the Apostle Paul does
something like this, he said, but now after that you're known
of God. And then he goes, or rather,
known of God. He kind of thought about it for
a split second. Herein is love, not that you first loved God.
We need to get this straight. You didn't first love God. You
didn't first call on God. God first loved you. And this
is love. That God first loved you. And because He first loved you,
He gave His only begotten Son. And because He first loved you,
He came for you down in the hood, down in Lodibar, down in the
hog pens. Saul of Tarsus on the road to
Damascus was not riding the horse with a decision card in his hand
thinking about how he was going to give his heart to Jesus. He
was a snake! He was a rebel! He was a bloodthirsty
sheep killer on his way to arrest and kill Christians. And somebody
knocked him on his duck. And when that happened, the Apostle
got up and said, I've been apprehended! I've been arrested! by the amazing
grace of God. Now listen real close here. I'm going to shut the door on
this thing of free will and your works and this and that. You couldn't know God except
God reveal Himself to you. The reason you're religiously
stupid is because you're blind. You can't see. You don't have
eyes to see. You don't have ears to hear.
God must unblock your ears. When you say things like this,
you know, I'm building a bridge. I'm getting better every day.
It's up to me. All of these blessings come because
of what I'm doing and how I'm living. That's all baloney. It's
worse than that. It's dumb. And Paul said, I throw
all that gung overboard that I might win Christ, that I might
know Christ and be found in Christ. No wonder God says so often,
shut up. And especially to religious people. You say, well, I didn't know
God ever used that. Yes. Read the book of Romans. That every mouth may be stopped. You know what that means? Shut
up! that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God. I have not seen nor
ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him, but God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit." Don't you remember? Many of us
do. When we cried out, I see! I see! I once was blind, but
now I see! Whom do men say that I am? Well,
some say you're John the Baptist, Elias, or one of the prophets.
Who do you say that I am? Loud mouth Peter, always opening
his mouth. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Flesh and blood have not revealed
it unto you, Peter. But my Father which is in heaven,
You're blessed, Simon Peter. Let me tell you, if you are sitting
here today and in your heart there rings a melody like this,
it's all of grace. It's all of grace. I want to
tell you, you're blessed. If you're sitting here like this,
going something like this, you know, I don't believe what he's
saying. He acts like that man is just totally passive. I'm
not acting like that. I'm not pretending I'm saying
that. I'm flat out saying that. that you are inactive in the
new birth. The new birth is regeneration.
That means God fetches you out. That means God comes first. You
are and does for you what you cannot do for yourself. No wonder you can't sing Amazing
Grace. You actually think you had something
to do with saving yourself. And you divert and avert this
Gospel. You choke on it. I thought, Lord, help me make
it really plain today. You're going to either leave
here bowing to Jesus Christ, or you're going to leave here
a rebel. You're either going to hoist
the white flag and surrender this morning and say amen to
this preacher, or you're going to go on in your rebellion and
one day you're going to die and face God and every knee shall
bow. And every tongue shall confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's just a matter of time until
you lose your bossiness. Some of you in here have accepted
Jesus as your Savior. You've given Jesus a chance.
You have the idea that Jesus needed you. You've had pity for
God. You've got God walking the corridors
of heaven just scared to death. He's really made a blunder here.
He sent His Son and now nobody wants Him. I want to tell you where Jesus
Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. And he's sitting
down because the work is finished. It's accomplished. It's done.
And God the Father has been satisfied with the propitiation, the atoning
work and person of His own Son. And this is the truth of the
Gospel. And anything less than this is
perversion. Known of God? or know God. Let's get the order right. Some
of my favorite passages. Romans 8. And we know. Oh, it's a wonderful thing to
know. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord. For them who are
the called according to this mighty God's purpose. Oh, some
of you little drifting ships. on the ocean of life without
a sail. Just blown about. Blown about
until finally you have to go to the craft house. Some of you
live for credit card and Macy's. Some of you, your only purpose
in life is to go to church and fake it, hoping you'll make it. And you sit in church in all
of your phoniness and you have all that secret cellar deep down
in your soul house. And you know what's in that cellar.
Spooky crawling things. Ugly roots that look like snakes. Dark cellar down there. And you
don't want to go down there and today you're not liking what
I'm saying because I'm forcing you to some degree to face up. You got to face up. Everybody
in here has a cellar. The difference is that some of
us have been down in the cellar. And we have cried out in the
cellar, there is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood
of Jesus Christ. And we're not afraid of the cellar
anymore, because greater is He that's in you than He that's
in the world. Don't y'all make me preach now. I was in Romans 8 when I got
excited there. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord, for them who are
called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow. You know, between my dad and
I, we've preached to some of these folks for, you know, 30,
40 years. And this statement being made kind of prompted me
to bring the message today. Don't miss this. For whom He
did for no. For whom He did before love. Oh, oh, says some of the crowd
at the funeral this past week. After I got through preaching,
I got men of grace as witnesses. I didn't back up at that funeral. But some left that funeral saying
something like this, oh yeah, believe what Kent, yes, God saw
who was going to be saved. And because of that, He elected
them. I didn't say that. I didn't say God chose anybody
because He saw something good in them. There was nothing good
in anybody. What makes grace amazing is that
He chose me. and saw everything I'd ever done.
I was a non-believer. I hear these little panty-waist
preachers running around here talking about a little panty-waist
God that, you know, now here's the way it is. God voted for
you, the devil voted against you, and you must cast the deciding
vote. You weren't a registered voter
when the election took place. The election took place before
the foundation of the world. Here's what Ephesians 1.4...
I want to preach it sweet. Ephesians 1.4 says, "...according
as He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the
world." It doesn't say God foresaw who was going to believe. It
says He chose somebody before the foundation of the world.
And those people will believe. Because God's going to see to
it. Because for whom He did for love, them He also did predestinate. And whom He predestinated, them
He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. For who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who makes intercession for me. I am persuaded that neither
life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Have you ever thought about this?
Before I formed thee in thy mother's belly, I knew you. I knew you intimately. I loved
you. When that sperm hit the egg, it was all predestinated. Your name was already written
in the book. Some of you don't like it, I can tell. You've got
that look on your face. Are you saying it's all of God?
That's right. That's right. He's the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and last.
He's the author and finish of our faith. You ever thought about that?
You ever thought about, out of all those millions of little
curly sperms and that one egg, God had prepared to be you? You! And you came out of the oven,
out of your mother's womb, a little rattlesnake. And real quick, about two years
old, year and a half, you learn to go, ah! Hayden looks at us sometimes
like this. And then she knows that's not
going over, and she goes, What a precious little rattlesnake
she is. Who's been in that cookie jar?
The dog. You mean the dog got up on the
counter and stole those cookies? Yeah. Rover. Give Rover a spanking. Little
liar. And you go spank Rover. Are you
crazy? No, no, Rover. You don't want
to deal with your babies, a rattlesnake. Get about 16, 15. And that precious little thing of
yours starts smoking pot. Yes, that's true of those inner
city kids, Pastor. That's true of the kids at Athens
High School in Troy. That's true of the kids at Birmingham
High School. You think we're surrounded by
wealth here. You think it all happens in Pontiac? You ought
to have read the paper yesterday. Right downtown Birmingham, somebody
pulled a gun on this guy and robbed him. Rattlesnakes are rattlesnakes
no matter where they live. Total depravity isn't just a
Calvinistic doctrine. It's a Bible truth. It's a Bible
truth that man is totally depraved. Before I formed thee in thy mother's
belly, God watched you down, down, down. Started early going
down until finally you were in Lodibar. A place with no pastures,
no bread. Down there in the hog pen eating
husk. Down there in the hood. Shooting
things in your vein. Sniffing stuff up your nose.
Any way you can get it in. Just trying to invent something
to take you out of this life. Some of us have learned there's
no high like the Most High though here. Some of us take comfort and get
our comfort from the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
Jesus Christ. Love lifted me. When I was sinking
deep in sin, love lifted me. I was far from the peaceful shore. But love lifted me. I was sinking
to rise no more, but love lifted me. Foreknown of God. I just want
you to get it. You know, I want you to believe
this because it's true. And you will if you ever become
a believer. I mean a real one. That God saved
me. That salvation is of the Lord.
He watched. I love the stories that many
of you tell about the bottom dropped out. Everything was gone. No friends. Just down there in
the hood, no friends. Somebody gave you 50 cents to
get on the bus to Pontiac, and you got off right in front of
Grace Center as a whole. Man, you were lucky! That's the
way you thought. But all the time, I know some
of you here are going like this. You're telling me I'm a puppet.
You know, I don't mind being a puppet if I'm God's puppet.
I like God pulling the strings. He always pulls them right. Know this, it is grace that puts
you in the way, grace that leads you along the way, and grace
that takes you all the way. Nothing good comes out of you
except God puts it in you. It is the gospel of the glory.
That means He gets all the glory. Moses over there was all confused.
He had that law thing down straight because he saw it for himself.
He was up there on the mountain. That mountain had to be fenced
off. And God said, you better not let your pet dog get to the
mountain because if you do, I'm going to kill it. You know why?
God's holy. You can't approach God through
your works. You'll die. You'll go to hell. You'll perish. God is holy, holy,
holy. The seraphims and the cherubims
and innumerable angels circle God's throne crying, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. So Moses said, okay, I've seen
this law thing. That doesn't work for me. In
fact, the Bible says that Moses exceedingly feared and shook
I'm glad we don't have to stand in the presence of God that way.
But we can come boldly to the throne of grace. Moses said, I know there's more
to you than this law thing. Will you show me? And God said,
I'm so good that if I show you how good I am, you'll die. You'll
have a heart attack. You'll just flat leave here. I'm going to hide you in the
cliff to the rock. And I'm going to let you see
some of my behind goodness. You're just going to see the
spillover just a little bit. Moses said, tell me about it.
And here's the essence of it. This is where the rubber hits
the road. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. And whom I will, I will harden.
You know, God doesn't have to do anything for you to go to
hell. Just let you go. You go yourself. All we like sheep have gone astray. You say, well, I don't believe
that. Well, let me ask you this. Did somebody drag you into their
crack house or did you walk in? Did somebody Force that crack
pipe, that radio antenna with a little bit of tape around one
end? How did you get those blistered
lips? Did somebody torch you? Or did you willingly do that?
Let me tell you, honey, God can save you or damn you and still
be God Almighty and holy and righteous. No, God's not indebted to you.
But I'll tell you, the folks He saves in sovereign grace are
shouters. Those of you who are wondering
why all these people are shouting about it, they're excited. They're
caught up in the wonder that God loved them. Some of you religious
folks sitting out there like this, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know
you. I know your theology. Your theology
is that God loves everybody and is trying to save somebody. But
He needs your cooperation. I heard a preacher say this morning,
God's done all He can. Well, let me ask you, Crackhead,
if God has done all He can and you yourself have made a mess
of your life, who's left to help you? You better hope God hasn't
done all He can. Now, I don't want to just pick
on the crackhead. I want to talk to some of you self-righteous
folks who are here. You're so churchy, nobody can
get near you. Stand off. I'm holier than thou. You're
going to hell too. You're worse than the crackhead.
Because you sit in church and talk about God and God's Son. And you sing amazing grace and
don't believe a word of it. You think you're the captain
of your ship, the author of your own salvation. No wonder you
don't clap. No wonder you don't smile. No
wonder you don't shout. You're not caught up in the wonder
of it. We're caught up. We don't divert, dilute, or avert
the gospel. We stay on point like a bird
dog. We're on point. Wherever I am,
I'm on point. Somebody says, come over here.
I can't. I'm on point. Sometimes I try to sneak in on
the gospel like this. But I'm still on point. I try
to get close. God says, steady. Whoop, whoop,
whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Now you hunters know what I'm
talking about. I'm a bird dog for the gospel. Staying on point. Now I just think there's somebody
here probably that's going like this. Pastor. Pastor, I know that's true, what
you're saying. But is it for me? Are you saying
to me, some of you may be sitting way back there. You've wallowed
in the stables of sin. You're as black as all hell.
And you're sitting here today and you're going, I've never
heard anything like that. You mean He can take away my
past and my present and all my mess? You mean He can wipe the
slate clean? Do you mean He can carry my sins
into the sea of forgetfulness? Never to be remembered against
me anymore? That's the gospel I'm talking
about. You say, oh, I wish I knew it was for me. It is. Because
you wouldn't be asking those questions if it were not for
you. Because actually, you've already been regenerated. Oh
yeah, you've already been born again. Well, how do you know? Because you're hungry. You're
hungry for gospel bread. You're thirsty for gospel water. And so because of that, and you're
asking those questions, I say this, the Spirit and the Bride
say, Come. Let Him that is a thirst come.
And whosoever has a will to come, let Him come. without moving a muscle, right
where you are. I'm not asking you to come to
the altar. Jesus is the altar. You don't have to come up front.
Oh, you'll upchuck it. It's just a matter of time. There
are no secret disciples. You're not a closet Christian.
You coming out? You're going to upchuck it. Simon Peter was going like this
by the fire. Blanky, blank, blank. I never
knew the man. Blanky, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. And
the little maiden goes like this. I've often wondered why they
would say something like this. He just finished cussing. You're one of them. Your speech
betrayeth thee. Well, he just got through cussing.
Yeah, but he didn't cuss right. When you get saved, you hold
the crack pipe different. I know somebody's going, if you
ever get saved, you're never going to use again. Your flesh has not gotten any
better. And just so you young people
know, the older you get, the worse your flesh gets. Don't
think old age is going to cure your flesh. But I'm going to tell you, you've
been born again. You have a new nature in you. And the flesh
and the new nature are at war. Now, you hold a crack pipe different.
You cuss different. Next thing you know, you'll be
saying, what I want to do, I don't do. What I don't want to do,
that do I. Oh, wretched man that I am. I'm
not who I used to be. Romans 7 was written 30 years
after his conversion on the Damascus Road. And he didn't say, I used
to be a wretched man. He said, O wretched man that
I am! And all of you who think you've
got past this thing of sin since you got saved, you know you're
lying. You know what you think. And you really are prey for the
devil. He's right out there sneaking
up on you. This old boy thinks he's already sanctified. I'll
bring a little prostitute by. We'll see how sanctified he is. Have you, say, people ever noticed
how quick you lose your sanctification? Some places I can't go. It doesn't
help my sanctification. Some days I can't do it. It doesn't
help my sanctification. If you're on a diet, don't go
near the bakery. Well, I'm just going to go back
to the crack house and witness to them. Who are you kidding? You'll be nodding in a very short
time. What I want you to do is, if
you don't believe this, at least when you tell people you come
to church here, just say this, old man Clark, he's totally on
point. I don't believe what he says,
but I tell you, that old man, you just can't move him. He won't
move. He preaches the same thing every Sunday. If you've heard
him once, you've heard him. He's like the soap opera, as
the world turns. Or turns. You can just go back watching
those soap operas anytime. I don't care if it's 15 years.
And Jack's still running off with whoever. Same old mess when
you stop watching. This is the way I want it every
time you come to see me. Or when you see somebody that
attends here, go like this, is he still? And I want you to say, yes, he
is. Yes, he is. No change in here. It's grace
alone. It's Christ alone. It's the Scripture
alone. And that's what we're going to
proclaim. And I want to tell you this. God just keeps honoring
us here for one reason. We lift up His marvelous grace. We point to Him and Him alone.
We give Him all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise. Just tenderly now, I know I've
been a little on the rough side today, but tenderly now to the
little elect. You goats, you like tin cans. I don't have anything to say
to you. But if I can find a little wandering sheep here, you're
all messed up. You're scared to death. You have
no assurance. You don't think it's possible
that you could be a child of God, that you could go to God's
heaven. You just think you're beyond
all of that. The very fact that you think
that way, you're the one I'm talking to. All of you good people,
I have nothing to say to you. The gospel is not for good people.
So I have nothing to say to you. If you're just perfectly satisfied
with yourself. You know, I was trying to get
tender here. I want to talk to you that are
hurting. I mean, life's been a mess. You were molested when
you were ten. You were abused by your mother,
your father, your uncle, your aunt? You have followed in the
path of sexual perversion? Maybe you're a lesbian. Maybe
you've been acting out in that point. God can save a lesbian.
God can save it. Somebody else say amen here.
You know, I hear guys go like this. You know, he, where? You could be too if certain things
happened to you. We need to get real church here.
Can God save a homosexual? Absolutely. As far as I know,
homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin. Some of you real religious
people have committed the unpardonable sin. That's when you know something's
of the Holy Spirit and you attribute it to Beelzebub. You're through.
You're through. I don't care where you've been
or what you've done, there's power in the blood. Boy, I lean back on that. You
know, days like today are the happiest days of my life. Right
here, the happiest moments. See, because when I preach, I'm
preaching to me. Sometimes I enjoy my preaching
so much. Sometimes I say, you know, when
you're saying amen, shouting, I'm shouting too. I'm going like
this, preach! Oh, I'm the preacher. See, because God takes over a
human body. And God speaks through His messenger
boy. That's all I am, a messenger
boy. Bringing you good news, glad tidings. Bringing you the
bread of life. Bringing you the water of life.
And here it is. Pastor, what must I do? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to Thy cross I cling. Isn't that true? I hope that
right where you are, I don't know your name, perhaps. I don't
know your background. I don't know where you're from.
I don't know what you've done, and I don't care. I know One
who sits at the right hand of God, who is a perfect Savior
and a Redeemer of poor sinners.