Well, good morning everybody. Wait here and see. People start
showing up here before I start talking. Here's a couple. We're still here at the Smith
compound. Possibly the last week we'll
be here. I think we're going to go ahead
and start meeting back at the meeting house. We are We have tried to be respectful
of the wishes of our city to try to not spread this COVID,
although I think a lot of it's been, as I've mentioned, the
last few weeks has been blown out of proportion. And our church
doesn't bow to the government. They didn't demand us to stop
meeting and we just stopped meeting. We chose to do that ourselves
just because of the circumstances going around within our membership,
actually. We'll probably start meeting
back next week, Lord willing, and go ahead and continue to
have our time together at the 1218 East 32nd Street. Want to, uh, talk about some
stuff today. I actually, um, was, uh, planning on preaching
on something else this morning, but, uh, I just, some conversations
that I've been having, you know, I thought I might, uh, speak
about something else this morning, uh, than what I had intended.
Um, A lot of people sometimes wonder,
I guess I say wonder, maybe wondering that watches our program that
may follow me on Facebook or whatever, they see that I post
a lot of stuff about Sovereign Grace. And there's a lot of people
that may be out there that's wondering, that may not realize
what we're talking about when we say Sovereign Grace. Why do we talk about sovereign
grace so much? Why do we always preach about
sovereign grace? You know, aren't we supposed
to talk about Jesus's love and aren't we supposed to talk about
the cross and being saved? Absolutely. Absolutely. We truly believe that our preaching
should be centered around the Lord Jesus Christ and to be centered
around his work. We do preach about salvation
and we wanna preach the whole counsel of God though. And so we talk a lot about sovereign
grace. And if you don't know what I mean by sovereign grace,
we mean that the grace of God is something that we can't merit. We know that that's kind of the
definition of sovereign grace. or grace, period. That grace
is something that we can't merit. It's something that we don't
deserve. It's something that's given to us freely by God. The Bible tells that this grace
comes to us freely. It isn't something that we can
earn. We can't work towards this. We can't keep the law and earn
God's favor. We can't go to church and earn
God's favor. tithe, we can't be nice, we can't
be generous, and earn God's favor. The only thing that can cause
favor to be given to any individual is by the divine will of God,
that God chooses to bestow grace upon somebody. We learn in Romans
that God can have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. and
that he will give grace to whom he will give grace. We've talked
about that in the past. We talked about his name a few
weeks ago, I am that I am. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. So when we say sovereign grace,
what we mean is that because God is God, he has not only the
right to give grace, to bestow grace on whoever he wants. He
does bestow grace on whoever he wants. And so we talk about that because without
that, no man would ever see God. We need the grace of God in our
lives to be able to understand spiritual things. And we'll talk
about that more as we get into the message here. But I just
thought I would try to clarify what we mean by whenever we preach
and teach sovereign grace, because I think so many people have a distaste for that because they
have misconceptions about what it is. You know, we're not trying
to make God out to be a mean old God or we're not trying to
make God to be something that he's not. We're
just trying to preach God as revealed in the Word of God.
And it doesn't matter if We have all the zeal for God and are
just so religious. If we don't worship the God of
the scriptures, if we're worshiping and preaching a God that hasn't
been revealed in scripture, then all of that is just futile. You
know, Paul talked about that. He said that, you know, all those
things that he did before he was quickened by Christ, he said,
you know, I was religious. I was, I mean, to the T, I was
the Pharisee of Pharisees. I was educated above anybody
else. I was more religious. When it came to the law, he was
perfect, he said. He said, I did everything. You
couldn't have gotten more religious than Paul. And yet, he said,
everything that I had done, I count that as done for righteousness. All of that was nothing, and
I don't regard that as anything. Why? Because Paul, once he was
given spiritual eyes, he was able to understand and see that
none of that religious work, none of that religious effort,
none of that self-righteousness that he was building for himself,
was able to save him, was able to deliver him. It wasn't by
those things that he was saved. He finally realized that it was
only by the work of Christ that he was saved. And so Paul began
to preach sovereign grace. Of course, Jesus was preaching
sovereign grace. We see that all through the scripture.
As a matter of fact, I've got a series of messages that I preached
on the doctrines of grace. that we spent a lot of time in
the gospels, but also just not too far back in this series that
we have been doing on the church, I've preached the gospel of the
church. And we've seen that the gospel
of the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ and what Jesus taught. And we've seen that Jesus taught
the doctrines of grace. He taught sovereign grace. And
so some may say, well, I don't know what you're talking about.
What do you mean by all that? I mean, what are you really saying whenever
you're saying all that? We're saying that God has chosen
before the foundation of the world whom he would be compassionate
upon, show grace upon, set his love upon, and that he has that
right to do that. And it doesn't have anything
to do with what me or you do to get that favor. And I've not
always believed that, and I've not always preached that. There's
a lot of people that may watch this that have heard me preach
and teach in the past, and you've heard me say something other
than what I'm saying today. This came because of having to
be honest with God's Word. I had to see that the Word of
God is to tell me what to believe and not anything else. We need to let that be our only
rule of faith. And so Sovereign Grace, why do
we preach this? Well, one of the reasons we preach
it is because it is in the Word of God. Another reason that we
preach Sovereign Grace is because Sovereign Grace is the good news
of the gospel. When you find out what the Bible
says about man, then you find out that we need sovereign grace. You know, I know that there are
those that are out there that believe that man has some ability
in and of himself as God has created him to be able to seek
after God or to be able to hunger and thirst after God,
or to come after Him, to love Him, to trust Him, to believe
on Him. But is that what the Bible says?
Does the Bible say that? Yes, we are fully in agreement
that the Bible says to come, to believe, to trust, to receive,
to hunger, to thirst. We believe that the Bible says
those things. But as I've said before, To who
does it say that to? Who are the ones who are the
ones coming, the ones believing, the ones trusting? Who are the
ones that have a hunger and a thirst for God? The Bible defines that.
And if the Bible defines that, then we should look and see what
does the Bible say? Who is it that are those people?
If the Bible says to come unto me, all ye who are weary and
heavy laden, then it would behoove us to find out, well, who are
the ones coming? Because we also know the Bible says that no man
comes, and we'll talk about that here in a minute too. But that's
why we preach sovereign grace, is because sovereign grace teaches
us, or sovereign grace is God doing for us what we can't do. The ones who are coming, the
ones who are loving, the ones who are trusting, the ones who
are believing, repenting, who are following, who are receiving,
accepting, all those things, the ones who are doing that are
the ones that have been given grace. Grace is the one, is what
causes us to do that. And so I wanted to start this
morning, if you want to turn with me, and I really, I would
encourage you again, as always, open your Bibles with me. I know
you're probably watching on a telephone or on a, excuse me, on a telephone
or on a laptop or some sort of tablet device of some kind. But
open your Bible and follow along with me. I tell our church all
the time, follow along in God's word and read it. So often we
skip a week. You know, we have these verses
up in our head and I do too. And there are some verses that
I've read over hundreds of times. And then all of a sudden something
jumps out at me that I've read over a thousand times. But all
of a sudden now, it just has a different meaning than it did
because I noticed something in that phrase. My granny was talking
to me yesterday and was telling me that that she reads the Bible and
she's read it over and over, you know, through it and everything.
And sometimes she'll read something and it'll have a complete and
total different meaning to her that next time that she read
it than it was the time before. Well, that's how the Bible is.
That's how God works. Whenever we read God's word,
we're to not just read it to read it, but read it and meditate
upon it. And the Holy Spirit will teach
us. And a lot of times we skip over
things, and at least I'll speak for myself, Whenever I read things,
especially if I'm reading passages that I've read over and over
and over and over again and I know what they say, then sometimes
I'm quick to just skim over it. But I tell our church, and sometimes
I need to take my own advice, I tell my church, I said, pay
attention, because every word counts. The Bible says that all
scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. The
Holy Spirit has wrote these things out specifically. He's not just
throwing words out there on paper. He's written this in a way, words
have meanings, phrases have meanings, you know, grammar and definitions
and words, they have meanings. And so it's language. We have
to abide by those rules of language whenever we study God's word.
And so, Read with me, if you would, get
your Bibles out and follow along because I want you to see how
the Bible speaks. Because, you know, one of the
things about being a preacher, I've mentioned this to you guys
many times, I'm not a very eloquent speaker at all. You know, I don't
have a silver tongue. You know, my kids remind me of
how many times I say, uh, and I know you probably know that.
I know that a lot of times that my grammar is bad, that I either
make up words or I use words with the wrong endings on it,
you know. I'm not a very good speaker and
I understand that and I didn't sign up to be a great orator,
but only trying to preach God's word as he has given it to me
to preach. And to be faithful to God's word,
whether I'm faithful to the English language or not, you know, that's
to be seen. But I try to be faithful to God's
word. And while I might not say it
properly, you know, It does have meaning. It does have rules,
and we need to try to follow by those rules if we can. But follow with me in your Bible,
because I think this is very important for us to see these
things. Because a lot of times, if you're like me, You are easily swayed by your
presuppositions. You're easily swayed by what
you've always known. Brother Roy Smith, a pastor friend
of mine, made a comment one time, and it has stuck with me now
for several years. He said, the biggest hindrance
to our learning is what we already know. One of the biggest hindrances
to us learning God's word and continuing to be taught in God's
word and for our knowledge to grow in the grace and knowledge
of Jesus Christ is what we already know, what we already know. You
know, mama taught me that, daddy taught me that. Grandpa taught
me that. Aunt taught me that. Uncle taught
me that. Best friend taught me that. You
know, I got a lot of preachers that fit all those categories. Well, not the women, but I got
a lot of people that fit that category. I've got great friends.
I've got great friends that are preachers. I've got great family
members that are preachers. And it's easy to listen to people. And especially if you hear it
your whole entire life, And then just to all of a sudden, when
you see something in the Word of God, you think, well, I can't,
that can't be saying that because, you know, this is how I've looked
at it my whole entire life. Well, brethren, that's where
Brother Royce's phrase come in. The biggest hindrance to our
learning is what we already know. We have to be open to the Word
of God, and we have to be, I say open, it's just not easy to be
open. Unless the Spirit teaches us, we're not gonna know. We're
not gonna understand. But as far as our approach to
studying God's Word is, is whenever I come to this, God, I don't
know anything. You have to teach me everything.
And so, Whenever we come to God's word, a lot of times we are so
flooded with presuppositions about what we already think that
whenever the Bible says something contrary to that, we try to reason
it away or we try to make it something that it's not, or we
try to twist it to fit our meaning. So now we take the word of God
and bend it around our tradition. Instead of vice versa We should
take God's Word and let God's Word establish and determine
our beliefs and traditions and so That's why I encourage you
get your Bible and follow follow along with me So you can read
these things because I think a lot of times we skip over some
of these things and they're so detailed Ephesians chapter 2
Ephesians chapter 2 Now remember, we're talking about why do we
preach Sovereign Grace? What is it about Sovereign Grace?
Why did you name your church Sovereign Grace Baptist Church?
Why do you always talk about Sovereign Grace at your church? Why do you always preach about
Sovereign Grace? Why do you have Sovereign Grace Bible conferences?
What is this sovereign grace stuff? What is it about? Why
is it so important? I thought we were supposed to
be talking about that. That's the question that we're answering
today is what is it about sovereign grace and why are you always
talking about it? Ephesians chapter two and in
verse starting in verse four. Well, I tell you what, we'll
start in verse one and work our way down. It says, and you hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. Every person
who is born of Adam, from the moment that you come out of the
womb, you are born in trespasses and sin. You are born spiritually
dead. There's no spiritual life in you at all. We're completely
void of spiritual life. We have no spiritual ability.
There is no spiritual life in us. We are dead. The Bible compares
us to deadness. We are dead in trespasses and
sin. And when that word dead talks
about, It means that we are void of life. We have no life. We
have natural life, yes, but we don't have spiritual life. There's
never been anybody that has ever been born with spiritual life.
Nobody has had spiritual life until they are quickened by God. But we are born in trespasses
and sins. That means that our nature, is
a nature of trespasses and sins. It is alive to trespasses and
sins. We are dead in that towards God.
You've used the phrase I'm sure before, whenever you talk about
somebody that you don't like or something like that, you might've
said at some point, you know, hey, that person's just dead
to me. Well, that person that is dead to you, what does that
mean? That person has no effect. I have no relationship to that.
I have no connection with that. From here on out, there is no
contact, no anything between me and that person. Brethren,
we're spiritually dead. That means that we have no connection. We have no reception. We have no fellowship, no communication
with the spirit and the things of God because we are dead to
those things in our nature, in our natural self. God didn't
create us as spiritual beings that can understand spiritual
things. He created us natural. We can
find that in Corinthians chapter 15. But anyway, look what it
says here. It says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins? You hath he quickened,
okay? If God doesn't quicken us, what
does that word quicken mean? It means to be made alive. We
have to be made alive. Well, if we have to be made alive,
then what does that say about us before that? That we were
dead. We were dead. you hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sin. God is the one who quickens us.
Nobody can quicken us. We're not quickened by the work
of man. We're not quickened by any work that we do. God quickens
us. It says, where in times past she walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
There is a group of people who are the children of disobedience.
Those are the ones who are the non-elect of God. Of course,
you know, talking about sovereign grace, You know, that's part
of that, and I won't go into that part. That's not what I
want to talk about today. But there are two groups of people.
There are the children of righteousness. There's the children of God who
has been given the righteousness of Christ. And then there are
the children of disobedience. If you remember back in Genesis,
the Bible speaks of two people. There is the seed of Christ that
was going to come, and then there's the seed of the serpent. And
those two seeds exist side by side throughout all the world.
In Romans, we find out that there are, out of one lump, two vessels
made. There is a vessel of wrath and
there's a vessel of dishonor and a vessel of honor. There
are two rivers. There's the natural man, there's
the spiritual man. There is the duality that's always
there. in Adam and in Christ. There's
the spiritual and there's the natural. And it says here, it
says, among whom we all had our conversation in times past in
the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. Now, I've mentioned this before,
by nature, children of wrath, even as others. That doesn't
mean that we were under wrath. That means that we are children
of wrath. To be a child of wrath means that we are a child who
is wrathful. We are wrathful against God.
The Bible says that we are at enmity with God, that we are
enemies of God, meaning that we view God as our enemy. We do not like the God above. Now, people that are not saved,
may have religiousness in their life. They may have a zeal for
God, a God, but it's not the God of Scripture. And I know
a lot of people and have family that love, they say they love
God, and they're serving a church somewhere, and they're doing
a lot of religious things. But if it's not the God of the
Bible, if it's not the gospel of the scripture, then just like
with Paul, those things are dung. They're not the gospel. Paul
said, if it's not the gospel that Jesus preached, then it's
no gospel at all. It's a false gospel. And he even
said, let any man who preaches another gospel, let him be anathema.
That's how important this is. And this is why we want to be
right in the gospel, is because any other gospel isn't an anathema. It is a curse. the curse of another
false gospel. And so we want to preach what
the Bible says. We want to be truthful about
who God is and about his salvation. And it just isn't a willy-nilly
thing that we can do. It isn't all about just love
and hugs and everybody getting along and about joy. Now that
is part of the Christian life, brethren, no doubt about that.
But listen, when it comes to preaching the gospel, The preaching
of the gospel is a thing that brings division. It brought division
with Jesus. As a matter of fact, Jesus preached,
and we'll read these verses later, Jesus preached a strong, sovereign
grace message one day, and after the end of that, Everybody left
him. And after everybody left him,
he looked to his disciples and said, hey, you gonna leave me
too? But see, they had been quickened of God. And they realized, hey,
where can we go? You have the words of life. You're
the one that has truth. Where else are we gonna go? But yet there was a lot of people
who were professing followers and believers of Jesus Christ,
that whenever they were confronted with the truth of who God is,
who Christ is, and what salvation is all about, they said, I don't
want to have anything to do that. This is a hard saying, and who
can believe it? And who can live in it? Who can
trust it? Who can walk in this stuff? And
they turned around and they left Jesus. And so, We're by nature
against what the Bible says. The Bible says that the gospel
is an offense to those who are perishing. It's an offense, it's
foolishness. And so we look at that and we
say, if that's the case, if natural man has no desire for that, if
natural man thinks it's foolishness, if natural man is at enmity about
what God is and who God is and how he does things, then we realize
that, you know, that's the nature of things. That's who we are.
And something has to be done to us, for us, if we're to change. That's what Paul is leading here.
He's telling everybody here in the church of Ephesus here. And
remember, this began with speaking to those, the saints which are
at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. So he's speaking
to all the children of God there, who have been given, blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, remember.
But he said, you, he is quickened. Even though you have all this
stuff in Christ, you were quickened by God. But once you were not
that, you were by nature, haters of God, against God. And some
of these men were religious men. just like Paul was. And you may
be out there today, and you may be a religious person, and you
don't think, well, I don't have any hate. I was never an enemy
of God. I never did hate God. No, you
hated God of the Bible. You hated the God that is an
electing God. You hated a God who is a predestinating
God. You hated a God who is a particular
redeeming God. The God of the Bible who does
those things, you hated that. You loved the God of modern Christianity. The God that says, you know,
God loves everybody and God wants everybody to be saved and the
God that doesn't do anything to anybody as far as, you know,
He never does make sick, people sick or bring any kind of calamity
or, you know, that He doesn't ever want anything like that
to happen that's bad or anything like that. That God, yeah, you
know, you didn't have a problem with that God. but you have a
problem with the God who says that I am God, there's none beside
me. You have a problem with the God that says, you know, that
what I choose to do, I'm gonna do, and what I do, no man can
change. You have a problem with that
God. It goes on and it says, among whom we also had our conversation
in times past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as others. Here it is, but God, who is rich
in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, who's
us? Remember the context, brethren.
The context is the church in Ephesus and all the faithful
in Christ Jesus. Who's the love of God set upon? It is upon his people, the ones
that he, and if we go back to Ephesians in chapter one, We
find, blessed be God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world. That's election. We preach election
at our church. That's part of being, teaching
sovereign grace. That's electing grace. It's electing
love. God has elected to set love upon
people and he chose them. If you look there, he chose them
before the foundation. That was before Adam ever sinned. That was before you ever come
to Christ. That was before anything ever happened. God chose. I mean, if the Bible has any
meaning, if words have meanings, if these things, what does that
mean? According as He has, He has blessed all those at Ephesus
and all the faithful in Christ Jesus, has blessed them with
spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, according
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
It was then that He give us those blessings. It was then that He
set His love upon us. It was then that we were put
in Christ and given to Him. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will. He predestinated us to be adopted
into the family of God by Jesus Christ according to His will,
not according to your will, or my will, or somebody else's will.
It was according to His will, and it was according to His will
before the foundation of the world. See, that's why we preach
sovereign grace, because that's what the Bible tells us. Not
because we're trying to choose sides and not because we're trying
to follow some guy like John Calvin. We could care less what
John Calvin says. I don't even want to identify
myself with that guy. He teaches a lot of things that
are errant in scripture. I don't believe that he has truth.
Matter of fact, even the doctrines of grace, I think he was wrong
on some things on that. It isn't about theologies and
systematic theologies. It isn't about following a philosophy
of theology. It's about taking the Bible,
and what does the Bible say? The Bible says here that there
is people chosen before the foundation of the world. If God chooses
them, then He chooses them according to His own will. And if he chooses
them according to his own will, then that means whenever those
people that have been chosen according to his will come into
existence, they're the ones who are gonna be the recipients of
those blessings that he give them in Christ Jesus. That's
not me trying to pick and choose. It's not me trying to, you know,
have some sort of a system of my own. That's just saying what
the Bible says. It says, to the praise of the
glory of grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Actually, I was gonna preach on that verse today, by the way,
brethren, but the Lord moved me to talk about this sovereign
grace and what it is today. But back to Ephesians chapter
two. It says, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love
wherewith he loved us. even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved."
By grace you're saved. How are we saved? By grace and
only by grace. We're not saved by any other
way, but by grace. It says here, even when we were
dead in sins, see, God loved us, he set his love upon us,
even when we were sinners, even before we were sinners. He had
set his love upon us. Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ by grace you're saved. But I want you to look there
at verse four. But God who is rich in mercy. Hey, listen, God
is rich in mercy. He is rich in mercy. He doesn't
lack any mercy whatsoever. But the truth, if we're to preach
the whole gospel, is the Bible says that he will have mercy
upon him. He's rich in mercy, but he is not obligated to give
mercy. See, mercy is given by grace.
Mercy and grace are two different things. Grace is giving somebody
something that they don't deserve. Mercy is not giving somebody
something that they do deserve. God has given us mercy. by giving
us grace. He has given us something that
we did not deserve. We are sinners by nature. We
have no desire to do the things of God, but yet he has given
that to us, but he's done that sovereignly. He has chosen that
he will do that. He didn't have to do that. God
was under no obligation to save anybody. He was under no obligation
to love anybody. Matter of fact, he was under
no obligation to create anybody. God didn't have any need or desire,
and he didn't create anybody to do anything special for. The
only reason he created was to show forth his glory. But God who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us. But you may say,
well, preacher, doesn't God love everybody? Well, the Bible doesn't
say that. See, that's another misnomer
that is taught in modern Christianity. That's another misnomer that
is taught in false gospels. God does not love everybody.
And if we want to be truthful with the scripture, brethren,
we have to say that. It isn't that we just want to
be mean old people. It's about, is that what the
Bible says? In Malachi chapter one, the children of Israel here,
God mentions his love for them and they wanna know, how do we
know you love us? If you say that God loves everybody,
how do you know that God loves everybody? There has to be something
that proves or shows that God loves us, right? Well, this was
the question that was posed to God. It says in Malachi chapter
one, I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein
hath thou loved us? Or how? If you say you love us,
how have you loved us? He said, was not Esau Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the
dragons of the wilderness. Okay, so God said here, the way
that I've proven that I love you, my love is shown and proved. One of the ways is that I have
loved you. I've set love upon you. I've
chosen you. He didn't choose Esau. He didn't
set his love upon Esau. It says here, I hated Esau. Now, People say, well, God doesn't
hate anybody. Okay. Well, the Bible says God
hated Esau. You say, well, he's talking about
nations there. He's talking about nations, okay? That he loved Jacob, he loved
Israel, but he didn't love Edom. That he didn't love the nation
of Edom and everything. Okay, well, if he didn't love
Edom, then that's, Edom is made up of individual people. The
nation of, I mean, you're not changing the fact of what it
says. God loved Jacob and hated Esau. Although that's not what
it's talking about there. There is an individuality in
Romans chapter nine. The Bible makes it individual,
not nations. He says in Romans chapter nine,
he says, Neither because they are the
seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall
thy seed be. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God." See, that's
another misnomer that's taught in a lot of modern Christianity,
that we're all children of God. No, there is the children of
the flesh and there's the children of God. There's the natural man
and there's the spiritual man. Only the ones who have the spiritual
man are the children of God. They're the only ones that will
ever be the children of God. It's not the children of the
flesh. It's not the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. It's
the people that are the spiritual seed of Christ. But the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. And this is the word
of promise at the time I will come, and Sarah shall have a
son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also hath conceived by
one, even by our father Isaac, for the children be not yet born. neither having done any good
or evil." So see, the choice of God to love one and hate the
other had nothing to do with whether one was good or whether
one was evil. Matter of fact, Jacob dealt evil much more so
than Esau did at the onset of things, especially. said the children not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil. Now pay close attention to this
phrase, Brandon. Look at your Bible there. Follow
along with me, please. That the purpose of God, according
to election, might stand. Now what is that telling us?
Think, please. Think with me here. The words
have meanings. God has a purpose according to
election. That's what he said back in Malachi.
He said, I have loved you. Have I not loved you and not
Esau? Have I not loved Esau, but I've
loved you? I chose you. I elected you. That's what's showing my love.
What's showing my love is the fact that I've chosen to love
you, but I didn't have to love you. I could have, like Esau,
hated you and continued to hate you, but I set love upon you
and not upon Esau, that the purpose of election
might stand. chose one and not the other.
He says, that the purpose of election might stand not of works,
but of him that calleth. It's God that calleth, it's not
of works. It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. So it goes from a, not just a
national thing, but it goes as a individual thing. These, both
these boys, you couldn't have got as identical as you could. They were twins. They were both
in the same womb. They shared the same womb. Matter
of fact, they came out at the same time. If you remember, Esau
came out first and Jacob had a hold of his heel as they were
being born. So it was almost as if one man
was being born, right? Okay. And God loved Jacob, but
hated Esau. Esau was the firstborn. Esau
was the one who should have had the birthright. But yet God chose
to give it to Esau. Why? Because the blessing was
given to Esau because he was the one that God had said his
love upon. We all from the same lump have come out of Adam. We
are as much deserving as anybody else. Jacob, you could almost
say Jacob was as much deserving of the birthright as Esau because
they came out as one baby. Esau didn't come out and the
mother love on it and then all of a sudden a few minutes later,
you know how twins are born within a few minutes apart or so. No,
they came out at the same time. But Esau was the one who was
considered the eldest or the first, and he should have been
the one who had the birthright, but God blessed Jacob. It says, for he said to Moses,
I will have mercy. Well, let me back up. As it is
written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, there
are a lot of people that whenever we talk about God hating people
and not loving people, you know, they have a bad taste in their
mouth about that. But look at verse 14. What shall
we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. Is it unrighteous
for God to love one and hate the other? God forbid. It's not
unrighteousness. It is not unrighteousness for
God to hate Esau. What does that tell us? That
tells us that God, as God, has the sovereign right to choose
to love one and choose to not love another. And no brethren,
whenever it says he hated Esau, he's not saying that he loved
him less. That's not what that word says.
That's not what that word means. Okay. It says, is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid. There's not unrighteousness
with God. It is not unrighteous for God
to love one. And some people say, well, that's not fair that
God chooses one and not the other. See, that's not the case. Fairness
is not the case. We're dealing in righteousness
and justice. And the Bible clearly says there
is no unrighteousness in God when he chooses one and not another. See, election isn't about fairness.
Election is about, is it just? Can God justly do that? Because
God is a just God. Can God righteously do that?
Because God is a righteous God. And so this holy God can be just
and righteous and choose one and not another. Now, I know
some people are gonna say, well, doesn't the Bible say that God
is not a respecter of persons? It does say that. But if you
look at the context, that's not talking about election. It's
not talking about that. It's talking about that God is
not a respecter of persons as far as rich, poor, black, white,
Jew, Gentile. God is not a respecter of servant,
master. He saves all kinds of people.
He's not a respecter on any level of person. But is he distinguishing
in his love? Absolutely he is. He is distinguishing
in his love. Look at what it says here. It
says, is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid, for he
saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. If you
go back to the account of Moses, he also says, I will harden whom
I will harden. So God can have mercy upon somebody
or he can harden somebody and he's not unrighteous. So then
it is not of him that willeth. Now pay close attention to this,
brethren. Again, this is the word of God. It's not Mike Smith.
It's not a denomination. It's not Baptist. It's not Calvinism. It's not anything but the word
of God. And what does it say here? So
then it is not of him, the mercy, the choosing, the setting of
love is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. It doesn't come because you want
it or because you earn it. It's not of the willing or the
doing. It's of God who shows mercy.
God's mercy, compassion, his love doesn't come because you
choose it or because you chose him. And it doesn't come because
you earned it. You did enough stuff to cause
God to show you favor. It is not of the will and it
is not of the action. It is not anything that we do
to fulfill a condition. It is of God in grace, for by
grace are you saved. You don't deserve it, you don't
earn it. What is it? Whenever we talk about work,
What is a work? Whenever I work, I receive wages,
okay? I receive wages. That means that
I did something and I earned that. And so because I did this
work, then that person has to give me something to pay me for
the time that I spent working. Okay? Well, God says that's not
how salvation is. Salvation isn't about wages. It's a free gift. It's a free
gift. And I know there's some people
that say, well, it's a gift, but you have to reach out and
take it. No, you don't. No, you don't. Not whenever it
comes to salvation. Salvation is a gift that is given,
and it's effectually given. Matter of fact, that's what sovereign
grace actually is, is God giving you grace, even though you don't
even know that you want it or need it. God gives it to you,
okay? God gives you that grace when
you couldn't have taken it for yourself, and we'll get into
that later. It says, for it is not of him that willeth nor of
him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. For the scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up that I might show my power in thee and that my name
might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, well,
why does he yet find fault? Do you think that whenever we
preach sovereign grace? Well, then whenever we come before
the judgment seat of God, then nobody's going to be able to,
you know, they're going to be able to stand up there and say,
well, you know, how, how can you judge me? Because you made
me this way. You're the one that didn't elect
me. You're the one that didn't choose me. You're the one that
didn't love me. Can we say that? Are we going
to, or is that going to happen at the judgment seat of God?
Well, that's the question that Paul thought would happen. The
natural mind automatically goes there. Why? Because we think
of fairness. We think God has to be fair. But see, we just
learned that it isn't about fairness. It's about, can God do what he
wants to do? Is he sovereign? Can God do what
He wants to do? And the Bible repeatedly says,
yes, God can do. Matter of fact, His name says
He can do what He wants to. I am that I am. And if He can
do what He can do, then anything that He does, He does because
He wants to do it. And anything that He does and
does what He wants to do is righteous and just. And here we have seen
the Bible says that God can choose one and not the other. He can
love one and not the other and not be unjust. There is no unjustness
in God in his electing and his setting love upon one and not
the other. And the person that says, well, there's a problem
with that. Listen to what God says. Thou wilt say then unto
me, why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? I can't help it. God made me
this way. He made me the child of dishonor.
He made me the non-elect. Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter... And see, this is the rub. This
is what I was saying at the very beginning. See, there are a lot
of religious people who are out there serving a God, but it's
not the God of the Bible, because the God that you're serving in
a system where you do the choosing and that your eternal destiny
hinges upon your choice and your decision, the God that you're
following and choosing and serving and zealously doing lots of activity
for is not the God that is the potter who has power over the
clay to make up the same lump, one vessel unto honor and another
unto dishonor. See, that's not your God. See,
you think that God is one that needs to be like you, that needs
to be fair, that needs to give everybody a chance, that it's
the God that doesn't love one and not the other, that loves
everybody. See, that's the God that you're
serving. You're serving the God that is not the God of the Bible. according to God's Word, that
kind of gospel is not the gospel. That kind of gospel is a false
gospel. And if you continue to preach that gospel, that's a
damning gospel. Nobody's going to—well, I say
damning. That gospel is not the gospel
and it's an anathema. I kind of cringed at that damning
gospel because it isn't what we preach that damns anybody
else. That's not what damns anybody
else. That's why I kind of retracted that statement. But it is a heretical
gospel. Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and
unto dishonor? Is that your God? Is that your
God? The God who chooses one and not
the other? If it's not, brethren, repent. Repent and believe the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel
because that's the God of Scripture. We're reading Him right here.
What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power
known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, fitted
to destruction? Is that your God? If that's not
your God, then you're worshiping another God. Go about your religious
life, but in the end, you're gonna be faced with this God.
In the end, you're gonna be, and it doesn't matter what Mike
Smith says. It doesn't matter what Billy Graham said. It doesn't
matter what Ian Thomas says. It doesn't matter what Ray Comfort
says. It doesn't matter what Adrian
Rogers said. It doesn't matter what C.H. Spurgeon or John Gill or John
Calvin or Martin Luther. It doesn't matter what any man
says. What did God say? God says that
this is who I am. Now, you say, well, if that's true,
if God does that, you know, that's kind of hard to take. Well, the
Bible does say that the gospel is an offense, right? Matter
of fact, just kind of look around at all these mega churches that
are out there that's preaching the gospel of Jesus loves everybody,
and Jesus died for everybody, and that everything is just nice
and wonderful. Look at those churches and see.
The people are packing into those places in hordes. The Bible says
that broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, but the path
that leads to life narrows that way. And there'd be few that's
on that path. And just look, if your gospel
is being accepted worldwide, this gospel that's being preached
in modern Christianity today is accepted by, and look, just
look, there are churches around who are fellowshipping with other
churches of other denominations that have different beliefs than
them, doctrines than them, but yet they all are saying the same
thing. Why is that? Why is it that, you know, church
down the street here, Church of God and Church of Christ and
Church of the Nazarene and First Baptist Church and the Pentecostal
Church and all this, we can all get together and do the same
thing. It's because you all have, it's all the same gospel. It's
all the same gospel. You guys all have the same God
and the same gospel, even though you have these little variance
things, they have the same gospel. But the Bible has a very strict
gospel. The Bible says, matter of fact,
that this gospel is so strict that whenever it comes in, it's
gonna divide even households. It's gonna divide brothers and
sisters and mothers and fathers. It's gonna divide sons and daughters. It's going to divide friends
and churches. It's going to divide people because
there is only one gospel. And this gospel, the Bible says,
is an offense. And it says that the Jesus of
this Bible is a stumbling block to religious people. Brethren,
listen. I was a religious person. I'm
not speaking to people that I haven't been through this myself, and
I accuse myself of the very same things. I was a very religious
person. I was very active in my church.
I was very active in the things of Christianity, and ministry,
and witnessing, and studying, and praying, and fellowship at
church, and everything revolved around that. But I count that
as dung, according to the gospel of Christ, according to the righteousness
that comes from Him. And I learned that these things
were a stumbling block to me, but now, brethren, they are most
precious. And so, I pray that you would
listen as we go through these things. Why do we need sovereign
grace? Why do we preach sovereign grace? Well, the reason that
we need sovereign grace, brethren, is because of what the Bible
teaches about you. About what the Bible teaches
about you. See, Do we teach come unto me? Yes. Do we preach repent and
believe the gospel? Yes. Do we preach choose you
this day whom you will serve? Yeah, we believe that, although
that passage of scripture in the Old Testament isn't talking
about eternal salvation, it's talking about temporal salvation.
But do we believe that we should choose to love Christ and obey
Christ? Do we believe all those things?
Absolutely we do, we believe that. But we have to believe
what the Bible says about those things. In what order does that
happen? Do you do that in order to get
saved? Do you believe and repent so
that God will cause you to be born again and now you're saved? Or is it the other way around?
Does God give you the new birth and that new spiritual life cause
you to repent and believe? Is repentance and faith, is belief,
is coming, seeking, is those prerequisites to get salvation,
or are those the results of salvation? Now, to those who have believed
that it's a prerequisite, you're naturally gonna say, well, you
mean that you gotta get saved to be saved? You gotta get saved
first and then you're saved? That's because your mentality
about what salvation is is not biblical. Salvation is something
that was accomplished outside of you, apart from you. Salvation
is something that is given to you as a gift. That salvation
was something that was an eternal thing. And so the natural man,
whenever you are born of God, or excuse me, before you're born
of God, the natural man can't see and understand those things.
Now, as I said in the first part, the long introduction that I
just had, we need sovereign grace because number one, the Bible
teaches that. Number two, we need sovereign
grace because the natural man has an inability to do the things
that God calls for us to do as far as repent, believe, come,
seek. So yeah, we do not deny all the
verses in the scripture that says seek, to come, to believe,
but we have to know on what grounds do we do that and who are the
ones who are doing that. The Bible defines them. The Bible
clearly defines who those people are and how it is that they've
come to do that. And so we have to preach that
too. And what the problem is, is so many people is putting
so much emphasis on, seek the Lord, or come to Christ, or believe
upon Him, or faith, or trust, or all these things of conditions. You know, they think these are
conditional things. And they are pressing the work of man
so much, and they are putting that first when all those things
are actually the result of the work of God first. The work of
God comes first, and then the activity of man happens after
that. The child of grace is manifested
in all the attributes and characteristics that the child of grace has in
the new birth because of the act of God upon the person first. There must be new birth, There
must be a new creation. There must be a divine life given,
spiritual ability given before spiritual work could ever be
done. Anything done in the spirit must be done by one who is made
spiritual and alive. So that grace that is given to
us by God alone, who has the right to give that to, has to
be done first before we can ever do. So let's look, what does
the Bible say about the man? who has not been born again,
and his ability to do the things like, come unto me, believe upon
me, repent and be saved. All these things that we call
people to do, you know, we tell them to come, but who is it talking
to? Who are the ones that are responding
to that? or can respond to that, I should
say. Let's look at what the Bible
says about the state of man who is not born again, okay, before
he's born again. What is your state? And I think
once we see that, once we see what the Bible teaches about
the state of natural man before he's born again, we'll see why
we need sovereign grace. The first thing I want us to
look at is that the natural man, the man before he's born again,
he has no ability to think like God thinks. Look with me, if
you would, at Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah
55. And look with me, if you would,
down at verse, let me see here, Isaiah 55 and
verse eight. It says, oh, I'm in the wrong
spot. It says, for my thoughts are
not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. See, we can't think on the level
of God. We can't reason upon the level of God. We can't understand
upon the understanding of God. A lot of times we'll use that
verse, you know, my ways are not your ways. Whenever it comes
to, well, I would have done that, but obviously God brought this
to happen. Well, my ways are not your ways,
you know, I wanted it to happen this way, but God wanted it to
happen in that way. And so we'll throw that verse on there and
say, well, my ways are not your ways, you know. My thoughts are
not your thoughts. You know, I thought that this
should be done, but God did it this way." While that's true,
it's also saying that there is no way as the creation that we
can think the thoughts of the Creator. We don't have the capacity
to know and understand and think as God thinks. God's ways are
above our ways. What He's doing is out there
is mysterious. what he is doing out there to
accomplish his will and purpose. We don't have, we can't look
into that and know that. Matter of fact, the Bible says
that God has hidden those things from us. Okay, we don't know. we cannot find out God and know
what He's doing. And so we don't have the understanding
that God has on these things. And so if we think that we can
figure God out or know what He's doing, then we're sadly mistaken. So we cannot think like God thinks,
okay? So the man who thinks that he
can do that is going against scripture. Scripture says that
his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts,
that we have totally different ways. A man has his own way that
he wants to go. A man has his own direction that
he wants to go. And it's not the way that God
directs necessarily. And so, We don't have the same
thoughts as God thinks. Another thing that the man who
is not born again has the ability to do is to understand God. And
that kind of goes along with what I just said about thinking.
He can't think like God thinks, but we can't understand God either.
In Psalms chapter 50, in Psalms chapter 50 and in verse 21, Psalms 50 in verse 21, the Bible
says this. It says, these things hast thou
done, and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest and I was altogether
such as one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in
order before thy eyes. He says there, thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such as one as thyself. Isn't that what Romans basically
says? We make God into our own image. We make God to be like
us. We're trying to bring God down
to our level and to make him to be like us. We think he ought
to think like us, react like us, that he ought to be fair
like us, although we're not fair, are we? It says, thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such as one as thyself. You thought I
was like you, but I'm not like you. I am God and there is none
else. There is none beside me. And
so we can't understand God because He is not like us. There is not
a likeness between us as far as that divine essence is concerned. We are not like God. We are the
creation. He is the creator. In Job, if
you'll turn back to Job chapter 11, And again, I wanna encourage
everybody, turn with me to these verses and follow along and read
along with me and don't take my word for it and let these
words sink in. Job chapter 11, it says, look at it if you would
in verse seven with me. It says, canst thou by searching
find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what
canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst
thou know? So basically the question is
rhetorical here. You cannot search out God. You
cannot find out the Almighty. You're not gonna be able to figure
out God. You're not gonna be able to understand His ways.
All we can know is what God reveals to us. what it reveals. And so many times people want
to, you know, put on God something that God is doing and there's
no biblical reference. There's no biblical backing to
that whatsoever. And if there's no biblical backing
to that, then we need to be careful of pushing that. We want to have
biblical backing to everything we say about God because God
has revealed himself. And we can't search out God,
we can't find out about him, we can't know him, we can't understand
God. So the natural man cannot understand
the things of God or think as God thinks. But here's where it kind of gets
into the crux of things. The man who is not born again,
before a person has been born from above, given the new birth,
He can't see spiritual things. And so for those who are crying
out for men to come and to seek and to do or saying that you
need to repent and believe in order to get saved, God will
not save you unless you repent and believe. Now, again, I wanna
reiterate this. I'm not saying that we don't
repent and we don't believe and we don't trust and we don't,
we do all those things. But again, the question is, do
we have the capability? Do we have the ability according
to God's word to do those things? or do we need grace first? See, the main question is, why
do you preach sovereign grace? Why do you believe sovereign
grace? Why do you always talk about God's sovereignty and sovereign
grace? Well, brethren, because without
it, No man would ever be saved, not one person would ever be
saved if God didn't sovereignly give that grace because none
of us would ever desire it or come. And that's what we're working
towards. I'm trying to show you what the Bible teaches about
that and why we love sovereign grace and why we preach that
as the gospel is because without that, there is no gospel. Without
that, there is no salvation. Without God doing this for you,
you and your natural self will not be able to understand God,
think as God does, and the next thing we're going to look at
is you're not going to be able to see spiritual things. You can't see
spiritual things. Repentance is a spiritual work. Belief is
a spiritual work. Faith is a spiritual thing. All
these are spiritual things, but the natural man or the man born,
not born again, can't do that. Look with me, if you would, at
John 3. John 3. John 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus, now remember,
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Matter of fact, it says here
in John chapter three, that there was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. We're not just talking about
any Pharisee. He was the ruler of the Jews.
And he came to Jesus and asked Jesus about who he was. And Jesus answered, verse three,
answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except
a man be born again, except a man. That means there is only one
way. Okay, only one way. There's an exception. But the
rule is, what? No man can see the kingdom of
God. except a man be born again he cannot what does that word
cannot mean that's that's a that's a that's a word of ability right
whenever you say somebody cannot do something that means they
don't have an ability to do something that means it's talking about
there is there is something within that person that restricts that
person from doing that okay You know, I cannot lift a car over
my head. Why? Because there is a physical
ability that I can't do that. I don't have the strength. I
don't have the muscles. I don't have the stamina. I don't
have the thing. to lift a car over my head, that
speaks of a ability. And here, Jesus is saying, this
isn't John Calvin, it isn't Martin Luther, it isn't C.H. Spurgeon,
John Gill, it isn't some theological system, it's Jesus saying, accept
a man, be born again. So the only way that anybody
can see the kingdom of God, See the things of the kingdom of
God. See and understand spiritual things is to be born again. You
have to be born again first or you can't see spiritual things.
Now, can you see religious things? You absolutely can. Nicodemus
had seen religious things and was acting upon religious understanding
and was a very religious man, but yet he was not seeing the
kingdom of God. He wasn't seeing what the Bible
was actually saying. He searched the scriptures and
he thought that in it he had eternal life, but those scriptures
were talking about Jesus and him being eternal life, and that
only eternal life comes by his will. The Bible taught that. It was by Jesus's will that any
man receives eternal life, and Nicodemus was missing that. He
thought that he was getting it by being religious, by following
the law, by doing the law, by keeping up with religious things,
that he was gonna be that, or by because of his heritage of
being a seed of Abraham. And Jesus said, you know, except
a man be born again, he's not going to be able to understand
these things. He's not going to do that because he cannot
even see what the kingdom of God is all about, because you
have to be born again. You have to be spiritually alive.
So he says, cannot, he cannot. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. If somebody is not born again,
they cannot see the kingdom of God. So they will not seek God. They will not come after God.
They won't do any of those things. Why? Because they have no eyes
to see that. They have no ability to see spiritual
need. They have no ability to see these
things. Can they have You know, consciences that feel bad or
guilt about things, and they try to do religious things to
appease what they think is God? Absolutely. Men do that all the
time. Why? Because God is put within every man's heart to know
that there is a God that exists, okay? But yet, no man can see
the kingdom of heaven, or kingdom of God, no man can know spiritual
things unless they are born again, except, that's the only exception,
you have to be born again to first see spiritual things. Do
you wanna believe? Do you wanna receive? Do you
wanna, you know, all those things? Well, a man has to be born again
before he can do that. And we know that we can't make
ourselves born again, right? We're dependent upon God. If
God doesn't, if God doesn't give us that new life, if God doesn't
give us the new man, the Bible calls it a new man. The Bible
calls it, uh, uh, uh, born from above, uh, all these words that
the Bible uses. If God doesn't quicken us, then we cannot see those things. That's why we need sovereign
grace. That's why we read back in Ephesians, and you have God
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. You were dead in trespasses,
you couldn't see spiritual things because you were dead in trespasses
and sin, but God has quickened you. He has made you alive. He's
brought you to spiritual life. And then that's why Paul, the
Holy Spirit through Paul, added by grace, you are saved from
your spiritual deadness, your spiritual trespassing. You're
saved from your spiritual blindness by God who has quickened you
so that you can see the things of the spirit. Matter of fact,
he goes down and he says, verse five, verily, verily, I say unto
you, except a man is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of heaven. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit. So there's two types of men here. There is those who
are born of the flesh, those who are born of the spirit. Those
who are born of the flesh is just flesh. If there's no birth
of the spirit, then there is no spiritual life. There's only
fleshly life. There's only natural life. And
it can only work and it can only function in its natural ability. And if there's a spiritual thing
that should be done, it's not gonna happen in the natural because
the natural flesh can't produce that. Only the spiritual life
can produce spiritual things. These are the gifts of the spirit.
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, temperance,
faith. That's a gift of God. It's not something that we have
in our natural man. We'll talk about that a little
bit later here in a minute. Okay, so the man who has yet to be
born again, he can't see spiritual things according to Jesus. Matter
of fact, he doesn't even know his own heart. The man who is
not born again cannot even know his own heart. Jeremiah 17 and
verse nine says this, turn with me. Keep turning, Isaiah's a long
book. Isaiah, Jeremiah 17, and verse nine. The heart is deceitful
above all things. The heart is deceitful above
all things. Man, I can think of a lot of
people that are, that are deceptive, but it says the heart, my own
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately with your
heart is wicked brethren. Your heart is wicked. I know
people don't think that about themselves. They don't want to
know that about themselves, but your heart is wicked. It's wicked. And it says, and who can know
it? You can't even know, you can't
trust your own heart. We hear people say, well, God
knows my heart. Yeah, he does know your heart.
What has he said about your heart? That it is desperately wicked
and a deceitful thing. It's gonna lie to you. It's gonna
tell you you're doing all right. It's gonna tell you that you're
doing okay. It's gonna tell you that your way is right. There's
a way that seems right unto man. There's a gospel that seems right
unto man. There's a Christ that seems right
unto man. There's a God that seems right
unto man. But our deceitful heart tells
us that, hey, this is good. You know, I love this Jesus.
I love this God. I love this gospel. But if it's
not the gospel of the Bible, it's not the God of the Bible.
And so our heart is gonna be actively deceiving us. Apart
from the work of Christ in giving us a new heart, our heart is
gonna be deceitfully wicked and be deceiving us. It's gonna be
making you think it's okay, it's all right. You're fine, just
keep being religious and you're all right. You're all right,
keep going to church. Sunday morning, Sunday school,
keep going to church for worship. Sunday night, Wednesday night,
anytime in between. Keep, you know, keep giving your
money to the church. Keep having your women's meetings,
your men's meetings, your camps. Keep having all those things.
Keep doing all that stuff. Keep going and talking about
Jesus. Posting things on Facebook about how good Jesus is. All
those things. Keep doing all those things.
And of themselves, I'm not saying that's bad, but listen. If the Jesus and the gospel that
you're preaching and teaching isn't the one that's revealed
in this scripture of what I'm saying here, the one who does
these things, then it's a futile thing. There's gonna be people
on the day of judgment that's gonna stand before God that done
all those works and they're gonna say, Lord, Lord, did we not do
all these works? in your name." See, their heart
deceived them, thinking that they were serving God and doing
it all for the glory of God. But they weren't. And Jesus is
going to say, depart from me, ye doers of iniquity. Wait a
minute. You mean to tell me this person
was doing things for the name of Jesus? He wasn't doing bad
things. He wasn't out there being a drunkard
or a whore or anything like that. He wasn't out there doing all
kinds of malice and evil. No, this was a person who was
trying to serve what they thought was God, who they thought was
Christ and His gospel. and they thought that they were
doing good. Their heart was deceiving them. They thought they were
truly serving God, but yet Jesus says that they were doers of
iniquity. That means that religious things
are works of iniquity. Doing those things are works
of iniquity. And he said, depart from me because
I never knew you. See, you have to be known by
Christ. Not that you know Christ, but
that Christ knows you. See, that goes back to election.
That goes back to God's choosing. That goes back to God setting
His love upon. He knew them. He loved them before
the foundation of the world. If that's not the God of the
Bible that you preach, then you're preaching another God. Why? Because your heart is deceived. Look at the Jeremiah chapter
10 while you're there in Jeremiah, because not only is our heart
deceitfully wicked and we can't know it, we can't even know our
own past. Jeremiah chapter 10. Jeremiah chapter 10. Look with
me if you would down to verse 23. It says, oh Lord, I know that
the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. The person who is not born again,
he has no way to know his own path. We can't walk in our own
path. We don't know our own ways. Only
God can do those. Only God directs those. See,
the person who's born again knows that it is God that directs our
paths. knows that God has predestinated each step, that God is controlling
where we go and how we go, that God is controlling all those
things. We think that we're just gonna do whatever we wanna do
and go wherever we wanna go and choose whatever we wanna choose.
But whenever you become born again and have spiritualized,
you begin to see, wait a minute, it isn't me that's making those
choices and doing those things. It is God who has purposed all
things after the counsel of his own will and he's doing these
things. according to his providence and bringing them into being
and to perform those things known under God are all his works,
the end from the beginning. So the man who is not born again
can't even properly direct his own steps. As a matter of fact,
in Proverbs chapter 14, I'm reminded It says, there is a way that
seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. You think you're going the right
way. That's the people that's in front of God saying, Lord,
Lord, did we not? Those are the ones that think
that they're going in the right way. They think they're serving
God. They think they're doing that. And again, whenever the
Lord comes, he says, you doers of iniquity. He said, depart
from me, doers of iniquity. You are religious people, but
I never knew you." They're deceived by their own heart. Their own
heart thinks that they are serving God, but if you're not serving
God and preaching the gospel according to the word of God
and the Jesus of the Bible, then you're not preaching the true
gospel. All right, what's the next thing
that the man that's not born again is able to do? Well, he can't free himself from
the curse of the law. In Galatians 3.10, the Bible says this, for
as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,
for it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not
in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them. Unless you're out there doing everything that's written
in the law, then you're cursed. So there's a curse of the law,
and the natural man has no way of freeing himself from that.
He has to be freed by God. Now, here's some things that
we talk about a lot that the natural man cannot do. He cannot
receive the Holy Spirit. We talk about, and a lot of times
people and preachers say, you know, you need to receive the
Lord Jesus Christ or accept the Lord Jesus Christ, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this is where we get into
why do we need sovereign grace? We need sovereign grace because
the man, apart from the new birth, can't receive the Spirit of God. It's an inability in their nature. So that's why we put so much
emphasis on sovereign grace, is because man can't do that.
And again, I'm gonna reiterate this probably another five or
10 times like I already have. Do we preach repent? Absolutely
we do. Do we preach receive Jesus Christ? Absolutely we do. And do we preach
come unto me all you are weary and heavy laden? Absolutely we
preach those things. But again, brethren, we have
to preach the whole counsel of God. We have to teach. Again,
who are those people and how are they doing that? Because
the Bible also says to the negative that no man seeks, no man comes,
no man can repent, no man can believe apart from the work of
God. And so that's why we need sovereign
grace. That's why it has to be all of
God. And if that's what the Bible
teaches, then that's what we should be preaching. and not
trying to hide that and not trying to push man's part of it more
than we are of what God does. In John chapter 14 and verse
seven, turn with me with that. I wanna go ahead and turn over.
I've got it printed out here in my notes, but let me go ahead
and turn over there. John chapter 14 and verse 17.
Again, brethren, this is dealing with the facts of what the scripture
says about ourselves. You know, we can quote all these
verses all the day long that we want to quote about man's
work of responsibility in repenting, believing, coming, choosing,
and say, there you go. Then obviously we have free will.
Obviously we have free choice. Obviously we have all this. But
again, the Bible makes very clear who it is, those people that
are doing these things. John 14 and verse 17. It says
this. Matter of fact, let's look at
verse 16. It says, and I will pray the father and he shall
give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever,
even the spirit of truth, so the spirit of truth is the Holy
Spirit of God, even the spirit of truth, who the world cannot
receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but
ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. Okay. So here we see that the spirit
of truth, the world cannot receive. We cannot receive the spirit
of God into our heart. As the, as the natural man, um,
those who are not born again, cannot receive the spirit of
truth. It cannot receive it. Why? Because it doesn't see him. It
doesn't know him. He may know some facts, but he
cannot receive unless he is spiritually made alive first. That's why
Jesus said, no man can see the kingdom of heaven unless he's
born again. He has to be born again first.
He doesn't repent, believe, trust, come, seek, want, love, thirst,
hunger first. That is all because he's been
given spiritual life once, just like a baby. When a baby is born
and that baby is given life, the first thing it does is it
desires food. It needs to be nourished. Okay? And whenever somebody is born
again, automatically that person is given a spiritual hunger,
and that spiritual hunger is fed by the Word of God. It's
fed by those things, and it begins to act upon those things. And
so repentance, belief, trust, coming, hunger, thirst, all these
things that we tell people that they should be doing, is with
the understanding that, yes, we say that and tell people that,
but it's with the understanding that the only ones that can understand
and hear that are the ones who have been already born again,
the ones who have already been given life and spiritual understanding,
and they are the ones who will respond to that because the natural
man can't do that. He has an inability to do that. That's why we're talking about
why we need sovereign grace. Sovereign grace is when God comes
and gives us spiritual life so that we can do that. So the natural man cannot receive the
spirit of truth. Matter of fact, the natural man
cannot even hear, receive and understand God's words at all.
John chapter eight and verse 47, if you would, while you're
there. John chapter eight and verse 47. John chapter eight and verse
47. Look what it says, it says, Matter of fact, let's go back
to, let's go back to verse 42. It says, Jesus said unto them,
if God were your father, ye would love me. Okay, so there we find
out that the only way that we can love God is if God is our
father, okay? If God were your father, you
would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, neither
came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand
my speech? I've wondered that a lot of times
whenever I preach. Why do people not understand what I'm saying?
Why are people not understanding what sovereign grace is all about?
Why are people still thinking that we have free will, free
choice? Why do people continue to think these things whenever
the scripture is so clear? I mean, through almost every
page of scripture screams the fact that man has an inability
to do spiritual things and that it is only by God's sovereign
choice and will that these things are done and that predestination
is on every page. Why is it that people do not
understand? Why didn't they understand Jesus's speech? I mean, this
is God. This is the best preacher in
all the world. Jesus had more knowledge than any other preacher.
Jesus had all knowledge about his subject. He was the best
orator when it came to delivering his messages, okay? He knew his subject matter better
than anybody else. He knew the hearts of all men
and what they needed to hear better than anybody else. This should tell you something,
brethren, about natural man. And unless God causes us to be
born again, that we can't receive that. It's an inability thing.
It's not about God pushing people away and saying, you're not my
elect. I'm not going to let you in. You know, it's about the
ability. The man has no ability. And we
see this to be a fact because even Jesus, when he preached,
it didn't do anything to them. They could not believe. Why?
There was a reason. Why? Why could they not believe? Why did they not believe? Why
did they not come to Christ? Why did they turn away and go
away and not listen to Him and follow Him, believe on Him, repent,
turn to Him? Why? Well, Jesus answers that.
But are you willing, are you gonna take what Jesus says and
say, okay, that's the truth and so I'm gonna believe that and
I'm gonna trust that Well, if the Lord's given you the spirit
of Christ, you're gonna do that. But if you're not, you're gonna
continue to rebel against that. But here in this very, very verse
here, Jesus answers the question. So I ask you, whenever Jesus
gives you the answer on why people don't believe, are we gonna keep
looking for another reason? Jesus says, why do you not understand
my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my
word. Again, the word cannot is a word
of inability. No man can see the kingdom of
God. No man can see the kingdom of
God unless he's born again. Cannot is a term of inability. inability. There is a spiritual
inability in man's nature. Unless he is born again, he cannot
do these things. He has to be born again first.
That's why we preach sovereign grace is because sovereign grace
is the giving of that spiritual disposition where people can
respond to Christ. so that they can love Christ,
so that they want to come to Christ. We need him to do that
work for us. If he doesn't do that work for
us, brethren, we're gonna be left to ourselves, which is enemies
of God, wrathful against God, hateful against God. Religious,
absolutely we're gonna be religious, but we're not gonna be saved.
We're not gonna be trusting and following after Christ. He says,
why do you not understand my speech? even because you cannot
hear my word." That's Jesus saying that. That's not a philosophical
group that I'm in on Facebook, okay? That's not Calvinism. That's not Arminianism. That's
not, you know, anything that has to do with theological constructs. That is Jesus giving the facts
from God's perspective on why people does not believe the truth
of what Jesus was preaching or any other preacher preaches.
when they're preaching the word of God. The reason that they
do not understand is because they cannot hear my word. Look at verse 44 though. This
is where it gets interesting. Ye are of your father, the devil. See now, remember in verse 42,
Jesus just said, if God were your father, ye would love me. But instead they weren't loving
him. They didn't even want to hear him. They couldn't hear
his words. He said, you are your father the devil and the lust
of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and a boat not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he is a liar and
the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
ye believe me not. There again, that goes back to
the two different lines of people. There's the elect and the non-elect.
The vessels of honor, the vessels of dishonor. There's Jacob, there's
Esau. There are those who are spiritual.
There are those who are only natural. There are those who
have been given the Spirit of God to know the things of the
Spirit of God. And there are those who are not. And those
who are the children of disobedience, they cannot know. The only thing
that they know is what their father tells them. They'll only
believe what their father tells them. And their father is gonna
tell them that your salvation comes by something that you do.
He's done that from the very beginning. You can be like God. You can be like God. You can
be like God. Make your own choices. Make your
own way. You don't have to listen to him
and do what he says. You can do it yourself. Now, look at verse 45. And because
I tell you the truth, ye believe me not, which of you convinces
me of sin? And if I say the truth, why?
Do ye not believe me? Here again, I'm telling you the
truth, but why aren't you believing me? Now, listen to what Jesus's
answer is on why they're not believing him. He that is of
God, heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not, because
ye are not of God. So what's the grounds on why
one believes and one doesn't? They either have to be of God
or they're not of God. If they're of God, they hear
his words, right? Doesn't the Bible say of Christ,
it said, my sheep hear my voice. You have to be his sheep to hear
his voice. He says, Ye therefore hear them
not because ye are not of God. So that tells me the prerequisite
to believing. We tell people to believe. But we also tell people that
belief comes from a supernatural work of God. Belief is given
to us. Faith is something that's given to us as a gift. We don't
have it inherent in our natural self. There are many people that
are out there saying that we have faith, that we have faith
to be able to do these things, to trust Christ, to come to Him,
that we have a natural faith, but we just have to put it in
the right object, okay? That's of the devil, okay? That
whole thing is fallacious. It isn't about taking my faith
that I already have in the natural man and placing it in an object,
okay? That isn't it. Faith is the substance
of things hoped for, okay? Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. Faith is a trust and a belief,
but that trust and that belief on that object doesn't happen
in the natural man. It cannot happen in the natural
man. It has to be given by God. We'll
read that here in a minute. So Jesus here says, he that is
of God, heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not, because,
because, because, because ye are not of God. Then answered
the Jews and said unto him, say we not well that thou art a Samaritan
and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a
devil, but I honor my father and you do dishonor me. For I seek not my own glory,
there is one that seeketh and judges. Jesus is very clear in his teaching
that the reason that people do not believe on him is because
of a spiritual issue. They either need to be of God
or they need to be born from above. Look at 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. This is a passage of scripture
we've talked about quite often. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse
14. Again, these things are so clear
and very pointed, and again, it goes back to you're either
of God or you're not of God if you don't hear these things.
We need to pray that the Lord would give you ears to hear.
It says, Verse 9, 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9, But as it is written,
I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have 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 Spirit. See, God reveals these things
by the Spirit of God. It's not by just learning. It's
not by opening up a book and reading it. It's not opening
up the Bible and reading the Bible and then putting my faith
in another object than what the one I was already looking at.
It is being revealed by the Spirit. It has to be revealed by the
Spirit. If it's not revealed by the Spirit, the natural man
is not going to pick up on it, is not going to receive it, not
going to trust in it, not going to believe it. He's not going
to do that. Okay? He has to be made spiritual.
And we'll see that here. He says, but God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
Even so, the things of God knoweth no man. Again, that's an inability. No man knows the things of God,
but the spirit of God. Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God, the
spirit, which is of God, the spirit that comes from God, the
spirit of God comes to us. And then that makes the difference.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit, which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us. So we can't know the things that
are freely given to us until the spirit comes to us. That's
why we need sovereign grace. New birth has to come before
any come, believe, trust, follow, hunger, thirst, seek. All those
things that we tell people to do, the Bible truth is that that
comes because one has already been born from above. They have
been chosen of God to receive those spiritual blessings which
God has prepared and given to us before the foundation of the
world, Ephesians 1. and that He has given those things
to us, and because of His purpose of God in election, He has chosen
one and not the other, and then that person becomes the recipients
of the blessing. Those persons that God has set
His love upon becomes the recipients, and that's what shows that God
has loved us. is that those people have received
the blessings of God. And the blessings of God are
the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the understanding of the mind,
those things that we might freely know the things given unto us
by God. So if you're out there preaching
and teaching that somebody can, before they're born again, receive
and believe and understand and know and all these things, what's
revealed in scripture, then you're going contrary to God's Word.
I don't care how good of a person you are, how much you say you
love the Lord, how much activity you're doing in religion, it
doesn't matter. It matters that you are working
and speaking contrary to God's Word. God's Word says that the
man who is natural, the man who is not born again, before he
is born again does not have the spiritual capability or the natural
capability to be able to do these things he has to be spiritually
made alive first and spiritually made alive is not it's something
that you choose to do that's something that the wind blows
where it listed it goes where it wants to go He gives eternal
life to whomever he chooses. Jesus has been given power over
all flesh to give eternal life to as many as has been given
to him. That's what the scriptures say.
We gotta be scriptural in our preaching and in our gospel.
And he says right here, he says, which things also we speak not
in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost
teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. See, that's
what's happening in a lot of these churches out there today,
brethren, and why there's so much confusion on the gospel
is because we have too many men out there that are speaking in
the wisdom that the world teaches, that man teaches. But only the
Holy Ghost can teach us the things of the Spirit of God. We have
to have that first. Now, here it is, verse 14. Very
familiar verse. But the natural man, who's the
natural man? Well, that's the man void of
the Spirit of God. That's the man of Adam. That's who we are
by creation in Adam. That's who we are born from the
womb. We are born without any spiritual
life, dead in trespasses and sin. That which is of the flesh
is flesh. That's all we are is natural
apart from the Spirit of God. If we're not born again, we're
the natural man. The natural man is that old man,
that natural man. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. Now, we already seen that a while
ago, okay? That was a truth that was already
told to us a while ago. It receives not the things of
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Now, I looked up and did some
study on some of these words on here. The word receiveth,
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
The Word of God defines that word receiveth. 52 times the
word is receive. But here's how the Word of God
also defines that word, that Greek word behind receiveth.
four times take, two times accept, one time take up or take to yourself
or to be able to make that for yourself or to grab hold of for
yourself, okay? So the natural man takes not
the things of the Spirit of God, or taketh not the things of the
Spirit of God to himself. He doesn't accept the things
of the Spirit of God for himself, okay? So he's unable to take
them for himself. That's the things freely given.
I can't take the fact that God has imputed righteousness to
me without any conditions on my part. The fact that God saved
me, justified me, sanctified me, one of these days is going
to glorify me apart from anything that I've done, regardless, anything. belief, trust, calm, hunger,
before any of that was ever done by me, God saved me. And he applied
that to me. And that I am righteous before
God, even though I have yet to do any of those things, or even
can do those things. And while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And that death was applied to
every person that Christ died for. And brethren, listen. If I am to receive that for myself,
accept that, take that to myself, I have to be born again. The
natural man is not gonna do it. He's gonna say, that's foolishness.
That's foolishness. What do you mean? You mean to
tell me that I don't have to repent? You mean to tell me that
I don't have to come to him? That I don't have to believe
on him? That I don't have to hunger and thirst and love him?
You mean to tell me that I don't have to do all those things and
he saves me anyway? Well, then why does he preach
that we have to believe in God? There again, that's where your
thinking is backward. Again, we're saying that we are
saved without any conditions, but once that is applied to us,
once the new birth is given to us, that's what causes us to
repent. causes us to seek after God,
to desire holiness, to chase after Christ and desire Christ. It is that new birth, that new
spiritual life within us. It is to have that new man in
us that desires after those things. That has to come first, brethren.
You can't get the cart before the horse. You can't have a man
repenting and believing and all those things that are spiritual
works before he has spiritual life. A man can't do that. And
this is what this scripture is saying. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness
unto him. Okay? Neither can he know. There's
that word again, can. It's an ability thing. There's
an inability in natural man to be able to do spiritual things.
Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
Now think about that for just a minute. Because they are spiritually
discerned, what does that phrase mean? He cannot know them because
they are spiritually discerned. So that would tell me that in
order for me to know them, I would have to have spiritual discernment. So spiritual discernment must
be given before I can understand them rightly. That doesn't mean
I can't amass knowledge of what is in this book. I can memorize
what's in this book, but to know its true application, I can't
know that unless it's revealed by the spirit with spiritual
discernment. Spiritual discernment must have
had to be given. And we only have spiritual discernment
when we've been made spiritually alive. Isn't that what it said? Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but we received the spirit, which is of God that
we might know. that we might know the things
freely given to us. The natural man cannot know those
things freely given to us, cannot rightly know the things of the
Spirit, cannot do that without a spiritual birth, without a
spiritual awakening, a new creation being formed in you. That's why
we need sovereign grace. Sovereign grace does that to
us when we are oblivious to our need, oblivious to what our inability
is. We think we're all right because
we're being spiritual in the sense of religiousness. We think because we go to church
and because we do all these things, travel around the world preaching
or singing or whatever we're doing, we think that we have
got all this stuff going and everything. But until the Spirit
of God gives us life, all that stuff, we're not gonna know the
right application of that. And so we must be born again
first. We must have spiritual discernment
given to us. But here's the thing, we cannot birth ourselves into
the kingdom of God. We cannot birth ourselves into
the family of God. In John chapter one, verse 13, the Bible says,
which were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God. To me, that right there, that
verse there is enough to settle any question on whether or not
we can repent and believe to get born again. The Bible says
that birth doesn't come by the will of the flesh or the will
of man. It isn't about me choosing. It's not about my choice. It's
about God showing mercy to me. And then that choice is made
because I've been given spiritual understanding. I choose God and
choose to come after God and love God and to serve God because
I've been given a spiritual hunger by a spiritual life that's been
implanted into me by God. In Romans chapter nine again,
verse 15 to 16, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but
God that showeth mercy. So the natural man cannot birth
himself into the family of God. The natural man cannot produce
repentance and faith in Christ. Now this seems to be an ongoing
discussion with me, with a lot of people. But we cannot repent
and we do not have faith in Christ apart from the new birth. In
2 Thessalonians, well, matter of fact, turn with me to Ephesians
chapter two. Ephesians chapter two, verses
eight and nine. Familiar verses to all you, I'm
sure. Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine. The scripture
says, for by grace are you saved. Now there's that phrase again
that we read earlier in verse five, but At this point, it was just, by
grace are you saved. It didn't tack on anything else. It said
before, by grace are you saved. But here it says, for by grace
are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, and people say, well, there
you go. We're saved by grace through faith. And matter of
fact, I'm hearing a lot of people here lately saying that we are
saved through faith or saved by faith. Okay, that we are saved
by faith. The Protestants talk about justification
by faith, that we are saved by faith. It says here that we're
saved by grace through faith, and that, not of yourself. What does the that mean? We had
a discussion on Facebook about this the other day, and I preached
a whole message on this. If you wanna go back through
my archives and look, I preached a whole entire message on what
does the that mean, in this verse. What is the that referring to?
And in our discussion that we was having on Facebook about
this, it came up that this word here, the for by grace are you
saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. What is the that referring to?
Is it speaking of grace? Is it talking about salvation
or is it talking about faith? And they said, well, it can't
be talking about faith because the Greek genders don't match
up. One's neuter, one's feminine.
and it doesn't match up. And that was absolutely true. The word faith and that is in
two different genders and it doesn't match up. And for all
intents purposes, it could not refer to the word faith. That could not refer to the word
faith. However, what we felt or what
was stopped short of was the whole thing. The word grace and
the word saved there, that whole entire phrase, is in the masculine. And because of that being in
the masculine, that whole entire phrase, grace through, for by
grace are you saved through faith, that whole entire thing, none
of that matches the that. The genders don't match up. So
the only way that you can interpret that whole entire thing because
of that being masculine, that whole phrase being masculine,
is that the whole thing is what the that is referring to. That
refers to grace, that refers to saved, and that refers to
faith. And that, not of yourselves.
Grace is not of yourself. Save, salvation is not of yourself,
and faith is not of yourself. It is a gift of God. Now, brethren, I can take the
time to go through and show many other verses that talk about
grace being the gift of God, salvation being the gift of God,
and faith being a gift of God. And we're gonna talk about faith
here in just a minute, but particularly the other two. But it says, not
of works, lest any man should boast. Now look at verse 10,
for we are his workmanship. were his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them." Any of those good works of faith,
believe, receive, repent, come, hunger, love, thirst, all those
spiritual works that are considered good works, were ordained before
the foundation of the world that we should walk in. That goes
back to what we were talking about in Ephesians chapter one,
where it said that we were blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. in Christ Jesus, according as
he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will. Not your will, his
will. It was a before the foundation
of the world thing. Jesus did that before the foundation
of the world. Okay, so faith is not of yourself. It's a gift of God. Matter of
fact, we know that to be true because that is a gift of the
Spirit, right? That there are spiritual gifts
given to us, and that is the Spirit, or that is a gift of
the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith, it's all a
gift of God. So faith is a gift of God, but
let me ask you this, because one of the things that come up
in a discussion that we're having is that God has given every man
faith, and when you just have to, you know, put it in there,
and there's often an example of sitting in chairs and being
able to have faith that, you know, I gotta put my faith in
the object that it will do what it's gonna do, okay? That isn't,
Godly faith, that isn't faith that is the gift of God, it isn't
divine faith, that's just natural faith, okay? There is a difference
between natural faith that man has in trusting whether an airplane's
gonna get him over the ocean or trusting that, you know, I'm
gonna eat this food and it's not gonna kill me. There's a
difference between that kind of faith and faith that receives
spiritual things. We've already seen that the natural
man can't receive spiritual things until he's spiritually born again.
Okay? And so there is a difference
between faith. There is different kinds of faith. There is natural
faith, and then there is divine faith, the faith of Christ that's
given to us that comes in the new birth. The Bible says that
the devils believe and tremble. So that's not the
faith that we're talking about, okay? Because they're not saved,
but they believe. So it's not just about belief.
It's not about changing the object of who I believe in, because
the devils believe that he is God. The devil believes that
he is the Christ. Matter of fact, the devils believe
that Jesus is the Messiah who was sent to be the savior of
the world. They know that. They believe that, and they tremble
at that. Most Christians today that preach those things, they
don't even tremble at those things. They don't have any kind of trembling
about who God is. But the devils believe that and
tremble, but that is not the faith that is talking about here.
The faith that we're talking about is this faith that is not
of ourselves. It's a faith that is a gift of
God. Okay, so if it's not of ourselves and a gift of God,
that means that it's something that comes from outside of us.
This is a faith that is foreign to us. So how do you get that
faith? Is that just built up in you?
Okay? No, that faith is given to us
by God in the new birth. We have to be given that. The
Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word
of God. Hearing by the word of God. God has to declare to us
to be able to hear. That's not talking about the
Bible, by the way. It's talking about the fiat of God, God's
command to hear. Remember, the Bible says, the
seeing eye and the hearing ear, the Lord has given us those things. The hearing ear to be able to
hear spiritual things comes from God. And so we have to be made
spiritually alive to have spiritual ears to hear spiritual things.
And so Does every man have faith that they can just place it in
the object that they wanna place it in? Okay, can I take it off
of the object of myself and place it on the object of Jesus Christ?
Can I just do that before I'm born again? Can I believe or
have faith before I'm born again? Well, the Bible says that I can't
do that. In Philippians 1, verse 29, the Bible says, for unto
you it is given, to believe on him. It is given. So that means if it's given,
I didn't have it. It was given to me. So I had
to, it was something that I didn't have, but then it was given to
me and now I do have. And it's to believe on him. 2 Timothy 2 in verse 25, it says, If God, perventure, will give
them repentance, God has to give repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth. In 2 Peter 1.1, it says, to them
that have obtained like precious faith with us, they have obtained
that. They didn't work it up in themselves,
it was obtained. It was a gift that was given
to them. But does every man have that?
Has God done that for every man? The Bible does say that to every
man he's given a measure of faith, but does that every man mean
every person head for head that has ever come across the world?
No, it hasn't. Well, why do you say that? Either
it says that or it don't, preacher. Are you making God's word to
be contradictory? No, I'm not. He's given to every
man a measure of faith, He's given to every man that has been
given that faith a measure of it, but not every man has that
faith. You say, well, where does the
Bible say that? Well, the second Thessalonians chapter three in
verse two, the Bible says, for all men have not faith. for all
men have not faith. Then that tells me that the faith
that is in view here is a spiritual faith, is a faith that is a divine
faith, that is a faith that comes from above, and it's a faith
that we can't work and exercise apart from being spiritually
alive. We have to be spiritually born
again. Why do you need sovereign grace? Because of that. You can't
have faith without being born from above. There is no faith
in Christ. There is no faith in what he
has done, truly resting upon that for your salvation, unless
you've been born from above and given spiritual life. Why? Because all men have not faith.
Now that's God's words, not mine, brethren. That's not my theological
system. That is God's Word that says,
all men have not faith, but to you it has been given. If you
have that faith that reaches out for Christ and trust in Christ,
it is because God gave it to you. It is because that God gave
you repentance. If you repented, And now, again,
and I don't want to get too far off on this, the word repentance
there, whenever the Bible talks about calling men to repentance,
yes, it is talking about turning from sin, okay? And it means
that. But first and foremost, repentance
is repentance from dead works. Repentance from thinking that
you can do something for salvation. that righteousness comes as a
condition, that your acceptance before God, that your relationship
with God is all hinged upon performance of some sort, or a condition
that you keep up. It's repentance from dead works. It is repentance from false gospels,
from false thinking. It's repentance from those things.
That's why John the Baptist wouldn't baptize those religious leaders
because they still were holding to that whole system that they
thought was going to be saving them. And they hadn't trusted
truly in Christ. And John the Baptist said, you
know, show forth fruits of repentance. He wasn't saying turn from your
sins. He said, show forth fruits of repentance. Show that you're
not trusting anymore on your religious activities. Lay that
stuff down and come to Christ. Look to Christ only for your
salvation. So repentance here that is given
to us is a repentance that looks away from our works and conditions
that we keep. Okay, so the natural man or the
man that's not born again, he cannot repent and he cannot have
faith in Christ unless he's given to it from above. That's sovereign
grace. We need that because the natural man has an inability
to do it. But if God gives us grace, then
we can do it. And so we are beholden to God's
sovereign grace. Okay, we talked earlier about
the word come, come to Christ. Do we preach come to Christ?
Yes, we do. I preach come to Christ. But what does the Bible
say? Turn with me to John chapter
six. John chapter six. I know this is getting long,
brethren. I pray that you bear with me. It looks like eight
of you are still with me. John chapter six. If you don't listen to it now,
come back to it later. But I pray that you stay with
me here. John chapter six, again, we're talking about why we need
sovereign grace. Well, it's because the natural
man, the man that's not born again, the man prior to the new
birth cannot come to Christ. You can't come. Now that's not,
you're not allowed to come to Christ. That's not what that
means. You cannot come to Christ because you have an inability
to come to Christ. You don't have that ability to
come. And again, let's go to the words
of Jesus himself. You don't believe that Jesus
preached the doctrines of grace and sovereign grace? Well, listen
to Jesus. John chapter six, verse 44. It says, no man Here's the word again,
can come to me except. Now we heard him tell Nicodemus,
no man can see the kingdom of God except he be born again.
Same phrasing. No man can accept. No man can
accept. There's only one exception to
this rule, to this law, and when I say law, I mean a precedence
that God has established in the natural realm, okay? That natural
man cannot accept. Man cannot come to me. Now does Jesus preach, come unto
me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden? Yes. Is he preaching
a contradiction? No. Why? Because there is a certain
group of people that can hear, come to me. There is a certain
group of people that can understand the need to come to Christ. There
is a certain group of people for which that preaching is directed
to. Now, me and you, we don't know
who that is. We can't see into the heart of
man. We don't know. We haven't looked beyond the
veil and seen in the Lamb's Book of Life, whose name has already
been written down before the foundation of the world. We don't
know who is in God's elect people. We don't know that. And so that's
why we preach to every man, come to God, come to Christ, believe
on him, trust in him, all these things. Now we want to preach
the whole gospel, we want to preach both sides, we want to
preach that that is what there needs to be done. If you notice
whenever Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, He didn't bring
out repent and believe until after the gospel had already
been preached. So repentance and faith is not the gospel.
Preaching repentance and faith is not the gospel. There's a
lot of Protestant preaching out there and teaching that says
that the gospel is repent and believe. That is not the gospel.
The gospel is the finished work of Jesus Christ, what Jesus accomplished
and the application of it. And whenever that application
is made, repentance and faith comes. So the gospel is not repentance
and faith. So if you're out there preaching
repentance and that's all you're preaching is repentance and repentance,
but you're not preaching what Christ has accomplished for his
people and is effectively applying it to his people, you're not
preaching the gospel. That's not good news. Good news
to repent and believe, how can that be good news when the natural
man cannot repent and believe? We must know the whole story,
brethren, to know if that's good news or not. We need to know
that there has to first be given this life and understanding before
that is ever good news. Otherwise, we don't receive it,
it's foolishness to us. Jesus said, no man can come to
me except the Father, which has sent me, draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. Now notice the same ones that
get drawn are the same ones that get raised up at the last day.
So if your philosophy is that God draws everybody at some point
in their life or not, then your philosophy is wrong because the
ones who are drawn are the ones who are raised up at the last
day. Look down if you would at verse
65. It says, and he said, therefore,
I said unto you that no man, matter of fact, let's back up
because this is what I was talking about a while ago. After Jesus
had been teaching all these things, matter of fact, he was teaching
about him being the bread which came down out of heaven and that
this bread was his flesh that came down out of heaven. And,
um, He said, except you eat of this flesh and drink of this
blood, you have no life in you. Now that eating and drinking,
when Jesus talked about eating and drinking and coming, that he equated those words with
believing. No man can come, that word come
there means believe because Jesus equated those two words together.
To come to Jesus means to believe on Christ. to hunger or to eat
of Him is to believe on Him. To thirst or to drink of Him
means to believe upon Him, okay? So it's talking about faith here.
Jesus' whole illustration about eating and drinking and coming
is about coming to Christ, trusting on Christ, believing on Christ. And after He said all that and
made the comment that no man can do this except the Father
draws them, Jesus said, or excuse me, in verse 59, these things
said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore
of his disciples, people that were following Jesus, had a good
outward show of religion. When they heard this, said, this
is a hard saying, who can hear it? You may be here today watching
this video, watching me preach this message, and you may be
saying, you know what? That's a hard saying. Who can
even hear it? Who's gonna listen to that? That's
not good news to anybody. It sure isn't good news to the
religionist. It's sure not good news to the
self-righteous. It's not good news to you. It
is good news though to those who have been made to know their
sin. To be made to know that there is an inability within
them that they can't reach out and they can't take and they
can't come because they don't have the ability to do that.
And until they're made to know that by the new spirit that's
in them that teaches them of their inability, that teaches
them of their inadequacy, that teaches them of their need for
sovereign grace, until the spirit teaches them of that, it's not
good news. But to them who hear it and understand
it and know it by the Spirit, it is good news. But to many
of them, many disciples, many followers of Jesus, quote-unquote
followers of Jesus, whenever they hear the doctrines of sovereign
grace, they say, that's a hard saying, who can know it? You
mean to tell me that Jesus loves some and doesn't love others,
that Jesus chose some and not others, that Jesus died for some
and not others, that I can't make the choice myself, that
I don't have free will, that everything is planned out by
God, we're all just robots, we're all just puppets in some system
and everything like that. Brethren, if you're thinking
like that, you don't know the God of Scripture because you've not
been given spiritual understanding. Do I care whether I'm a robot?
I don't care whether I'm a robot. Who am I to say to God, why has
thou made me thus? That's the attitude of the child
of grace. He realizes that God is the creator
and he does what he wants to do and he is accomplishing his
purposes and that does not involve what my choices are. I am doing
what God has purpose for me to do and he is working out all
of his purpose in the armies of the heaven and all in the
habits of the earth, none can stay his hand. That's who God
is. Until you have spiritual life,
brethren, that's just foolishness to you and you don't like it.
But what does it say here? Many therefore of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying, who can hear
it? And when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at
it, he said to them, does this offend you? What if you shall
see the son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the
spirit that quickeneth. And here it is, brethren. It's
the spirit that quickeneth. It's not you and your preaching.
It's not you and your reading. It's not you and your choice.
It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The flesh profiteth nothing. There's nothing you can do in
the flesh that profits anything. So unless you're born again,
everything you do is in the flesh. There's nothing that you can
do in the spirit until you're in the spirit. You have to be
in the spirit to be able to do the works of the spirit. Well,
I have to cut this short. My phone is about to die. I guess
I should cut it long. He says here, the flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you
that believe not. Now again, we already seen, Jesus
already said, who are the ones that believe not? Those who are
not of God. Those who are not of God believe
not. He said here, he said, for Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believe not and who should betray. How did
Jesus know that? How did Jesus know from the beginning
those that believe not and who should betray him? Well, it wasn't
because he was a fortune teller and saw down the corridor of
time. It was because it was his purpose. God knows what he knows
because that is what his purpose is. He knows because that is
what he has planned out to be. Known unto God are all his works,
the end from the beginning. He says, for Jesus knew from
the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray
him. And he said, therefore said I unto you. Now remember, look
at that, look at that with me. If you got your Bibles open,
look, verse 64. There's this little parenthesis in the writing,
but let's take Jesus as he's talking. Imagine yourself there
beside him as he's teaching these things. That little parenthesis,
if you got a red letter Bible that was in black, for Jesus
knew from the beginning they that would believe not and who
should betray him. Okay, lift that out. and go to what the
conversation actually was that Jesus was saying. There wasn't
no break, okay? There wasn't some narrator from
beyond that stopped and said, for Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed. Okay, Jesus was speaking and
let's keep on track with what he was saying. So it would have
been this. But there are some of you that believe not, therefore
said I unto you, that no man can come unto me except it were
given unto him of my father. So if you want to preach come
unto me, You wanna preach, well, obviously we're to come, we gotta
come. Absolutely, yeah, agree. But again, who are the ones that
come? What does the truth of the scripture
say? The ones who are coming are the ones who have been given
to come. Except it were given unto him
of my father. It was given to you to come to
Jesus. unless it was given to you, you
would not come, you would be in the first part. There were
some that believe not because the coming and the believing
is the same thing. There are some of you that come
not. Therefore said unto you that
no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my
father. If anybody has come to Jesus
Christ, it is because it was given to him. So that means that
we are beholden to God to be given to come. But we just seen
in verse 44 that not everybody is given to come because there's
a group of people that's gonna be raised up at the last day
and it's only the ones that was drawn by God. And so we can't
lay that to everybody. Everybody doesn't have that ability
to come, only those who are given. I got just a couple more here,
brethren, if you can hang with me so I don't have to bring this
over to next week. So the natural man cannot come
to Christ. We need to be born again. We
can't believe on Christ. While you're there in John, turn
to John chapter 10. John chapter 10. John chapter 10, look at verse
25. Jesus answered them, I told you
and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, why? Why didn't they believe? Did
the preacher not lay it out good enough? Was he not clear enough? Did he not have any illustration?
Maybe he didn't have any PowerPoint behind him. That's probably why
they didn't believe. There was no PowerPoint. Maybe
because they didn't have a good enough worship team to get everybody
prepared for worship. That's probably it. Maybe it's
because the music was too fast and not
hymns. Maybe that was it. Well, maybe
they believed just because they didn't like the preacher. That
might not be his favorite preacher. Maybe he didn't wear a suit.
Something's up. I mean, Jesus here has preached
to these people and they don't believe him. He told them, but
they didn't believe him. Well, why didn't they believe
him? Maybe because he didn't say it enough. Maybe he has to
say it more times. Well, he's already said it quite a few times,
getting to chapter 10. I told you, and ye believe not,
the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
My words testify, my actions testify, but ye believe not. Why? Because ye are not of my
sheep, as I said unto you. What has Jesus already said unto
them? Well, he's already said unto them that no man comes to
me except the father draw him. No man can come to me except
to be given to him. That you believe not because
you are not of God. You believe not because you are
of your father, the devil. That's the reason why you don't
believe. That's why you never come to the acknowledging of
the truth because you've never been given repentance. You've
never been given that faith. You've never been born from above
to be able to do the things which by nature you cannot do. He says,
because you are not of my sheep. So what does that mean? That
means you have to be of his sheep to be able to believe him. He didn't say it backwards. He
didn't say, because you're not my sheep, you don't believe.
He said, you believe not because, because the causal factor of
not believing is not being the sheep. My sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them. Who does he give eternal life
to? The sheep. and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which
gave them me, all that the father giveth me shall come to me. My father which gave them to
me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out
of my hand. I and my father are one." And what was their reaction?
Everyone said, amen, good sermon, praise God. That was the most
doctrinal sermon I've ever heard. I tell you what, that theology
just excited me. That is the good news of the
gospel. I am so glad to hear it. Now, what did the natural
man say or do? Then the Jews took up stones
again to stone him. Brethren, that's the reaction to natural
man. Whenever this gospel, whenever
this Christ, whenever this salvation is preached to the natural man,
they hate it. It's an offense to them. It's
a stumbling block to them. It's an agitation to them because
they are self-righteous. We, by nature, are self-righteous. I'm including myself. I was the
same way. And listen, I still am. I still battle with the natural
man that still wants to do things for himself, that still wants
to be congratulated, that still wants to make his own self-righteousness
in some aspect. He says, that only the sheep are gonna
listen to that. And the Jews took up stones.
People hate this message. They don't want to listen to
it. No man can believe on Christ
unless it's been given to him. No man can please God. In Romans
chapter 8, verse 5, the Bible says, for they that are of the
flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after
the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. So that means if you're
not born again, you can't mind the things of the Spirit because
they're not there. There ain't no Spirit there. He says, for they that are of
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. There is no do this and then
get eternal life. There is no do this and get salvation. There is no do this and be born
again. No, the born again comes first.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Do you think coming to Christ
is pleasing to God? Do you think repentance is pleasing
to God? Do you think love for God is pleasing to God? Do you
think believing upon Him is pleasing? Hungering and thirsting after
righteousness is pleasing to Him? Well, the Bible says that
the flesh cannot please God. So if you think that you can
do all these things before you're born again, you're in contradiction
to God's Word. Not to Mike's philosophy, not
to Mike's theology, not to Mike's church system or whatever. You're
in contradiction to God's Word. God's Word says that the man
that's not born again in that state cannot please God. That
he cannot do anything but mind the things of the flesh. But
it goes on to say, for those who are born again, but ye are
not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit
of God dwelleth in you. So those who are in the spirit
are the ones who have the spirit of God dwelling in them. So that
tells me again, I have to be born again before I can do the
things of the spirit and be in the spirit. If so be that the
spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he is none of his. That's Romans 8.5. Romans 8.8 and Romans 8.9. And
lastly, brethren, the natural man in his natural self is haters
of God. Romans 1.30 says that we are
haters of God. Romans 8 and verse 7 says, because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the
law of God. And here's that word again, neither
indeed can be. The carnal mind, the natural
mind, the mind that has not been born again, is not subject to
the law of God. If you want to say repentance
is a command of God, the natural man, what does the Bible say
there, cannot be subject to that command. The natural man cannot
subject himself to that command to repent. Why? Because he doesn't
have the spiritual ability to do so. He cannot submit himself
to coming. He cannot submit himself to loving.
He cannot submit himself to these things. Why? Because he is at
enmity against God, the God of the Bible. And he's not at enmity
with the God of the modern Christianity. He's not at enmity against those
gospels that are being preached all over the world that puts
man at the center of his destiny. He's not at odds at those. He's
not at enmity with that. He loves that God. But the God
that chooses, the God that elects, the God that is distinguishing
in his love on who he puts it on, the God that has a particular
redemption, a God that has predestinated all things, the fleshly man,
the natural man, he is at enmity with that God. And he is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can he be. Why? Because he is not spiritually
born again. He has to be born again. Why do we need sovereign
grace? Because that is who we are, apart
from being born again. That's who we are, brethren.
All these things are the facts of Scripture. All these things
that we've talked about is the estimation and the state of man
who is dead in trespasses and sins. And because of these biblical
facts, because of this estimation of what God says we are and what
God says we can and can't do, that's why we need spiritual
life. That's why we have to look to sovereign grace. See, it's
impossible and unbiblical to say that man can and must make
a decision, confess, repent, believe before he is born from
above, before he's made spiritual, before he's quickened, made alive.
Why do we need and preach sovereign grace? Because that's our only hope.
And that's the good news. The good news is that not all
of us have been left in that state. God has not left man in
that state. God has chosen to save men that
are in that state. And you, hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins? He has chosen to bring us out
of that dead state and to bring us into a spiritually alive state.
And that spiritually alive state is one in which we seek and love
and hunger and thirst and come after Christ. We need Him. No, brethren, faith and belief
is not an act of natural man. It is an act of the spiritual
man, the new man, created in Christ Jesus unto those good
works. And so, That's why we preach
that. That's why we teach that. And
I pray that that's been a blessing to you. I pray that you search
these scriptures out. If you'd like a copy of this,
my notes here, I'll be glad to send them to you. You can add
a comment down below. I'll send you a copy of those,
and a whole lot more. Man, I've got so many verses.
Just over the years, I keep compiling verses as they fit into each
subject that I study. I'll compile those verses in
there that speaks on this, and the more I go back and study.
I was talking yesterday at a men's breakfast. uh talking with a
brother and i i said you know the more that i keep going back
and looking at this you know uh i i'm more and more uh convinced
by scripture it's you see it more every time you look in the
scripture you find somewhere else that you didn't realize
there it is i mean this morning i was reading in psalms 80 some
of you may have seen it i posted it on facebook this morning,
that passage in Psalm 80 that talks about that we are His vineyard
and that He is the branch and that God has raised up that strong
arm or that strong branch. And it talks about that unless
He turns us, unless He quickens us, that we can't do anything,
that we're not going to be anything. It speaks of his death for us
and his work on our behalf. Salvation is all of God. It's
all of the Lord. And that's what we must proclaim.
If we proclaim anything else, if we try to give man more, Paul
told us not to lean on the arm of the flesh. And there are many
out there that are preaching the gospel that leans on the
arm of the flesh. instead of trusting in Jesus Christ and
what He has done. So I pray that it's been a blessing
to you, and I pray that the Lord give you understanding of this. If I be in error, I'll be glad
to have a correction as long as it's biblical. And we can
sit down and talk about these scriptures. There's been many
scriptures that's been given to me over the last several days
in conversations about this. all through the Bible, but whenever
you look at those in their context and take them as the whole of
God, just like, you know, today, does the Bible say, come unto
me? Yeah, it does say that, but the Bible also says that no man
comes. So we had to find out who's the ones that's coming
and who's the ones that's being told to come so that we might know
the whole story. And as Paul Harvey says, that's
the rest of the story. Anyway, I think that's what he
says. I think that's who said it. But
anyway, that's all for today, brethren. I pray the Lord bless
you. Lord willing, I think we're gonna
be meeting back at our meeting house next week. And so we'll
be there. May God bless you and keep you
this week. Keep you safe from the storms. Supposed to have
some pretty bad storms come in. uh tomorrow and hopefully we don't
have a repeat of a few years ago big tornado through town
but anyhow i'm bad about closings and sometimes i'm bad about intros
so i'm just gonna stop it praise the lord