Well, good morning. Good to see
you all here back out this morning. Pastor, where are you? Pastor
Roland Browning, pastor of the Dingus Grace Baptist Church,
is going to open our service this morning, reading scripture
and lead us in prayer. So, Roland, you come. Well, good morning, everyone.
It's a joy to be here. Turn with me to the Book of Psalms. I saw this on my way down. I saw a scripture on one of the
church buildings. And I went by it so fast I couldn't
see what chapter and verse it was. So it took me a while to
find it, but we found it last night and I want to read it for
you. But I saw something a few days ago. The media, as we know
it, said that they judge the presidential speeches by how
many standing ovations they have. We heard three messages last
night. Brother Chris and his wife's son, Brother Mike, Brother
Donnie. If we did standing ovations,
they should have been more. But we give God the glory. That's
who we deal with. We deal with God. And we give
Him the glory for all things. So here in Psalms chapter 16,
the psalmist says, Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my
trust. O my soul, Thou hast said unto
the Lord, Thou art my Lord. My goodness extendeth not to
thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the
excellency in whom is all my delight. Their sorrow shall be
multiplied that hath hastened after other gods. Their drink
offering of blood will I not offer nor take up their names
in my lips. The Lord is a portion of my inheritance
and of my cup. They'll maintaineth my lot. The
lines are fallen unto me is places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord. who has
given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in
the night season. I have set the Lord always before
me because he is of my right hand, at my right hand. I shall
not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad and
my glory rejoices. My flesh also shall rest in hope,
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer
thy holy one to seek corruption. This is the scripture here that
I saw on the bulletin board, verse 11. Thou wilt show me the
path of my life, and thy presence is the fullness of joy. Is that
not true? Where else do we have joy except
in the presence of the Lord? In thy presence is fullness of
joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Let
us pray. Our great God and Savior, oh,
we come before thee this morning desiring to hear again of the
greatness of our God, desiring to hear that which our Lord Jesus
Christ has completed, finished, and set down, his work accomplished. Tell us, as these men come to
speak to us, tell us once again of the happiness, the joy, the
gladness for our hearts and our souls for our rest is in Christ
and Christ alone. There is no hope outside of Christ. In him, we have plenteous redemption. Let us rejoice in this. Use these
men to speak to our hearts, not just to our heads, but open our
hearts and pour in the gospel unto our souls. Let us be refreshed,
and let us rejoice at the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And let us give him honor and
glory and power and majesty for all things. And use these two
men this morning, and use the two tomorrow morning for your
glory. Speak to them and through them unto us that we may hear
from thee. For it's in Christ's name we
pray, and amen. Okay if you would turn in your hymnals
to song number 337 and stand as we sing teach me thy way. Teach me thy way, O Lord. Teach me thy way, thy guiding
grace, O Lord. More by faith, less by sight. Lead me with heavenly light. Teach me thy way. When I am sad at heart, teach
me thy way. When earthly joys depart, In hours of loneliness, in times
of dire distress, in failure or success, teach me thy way. When doubts and fears arise,
teach me thy way. When storms o'erspread the skies, Shine through the cloud and rain,
through sorrow, toil, and pain. Make thou my pathway plain, teach
me thy way. Long as my life shall last, teach
me thy way. Where'er my lot be cast, teach
me thy way. ? Until the race is run ? ? Until
the journey's done ? ? Until the crown is won ? ? Teach me
thy way ? Okay, if you would now turn to song number 287.
We'll sing Like a River Glorious. Like a river glorious is God's
perfect peace, over all victorious in its bright increase. Perfect yet it floweth, fuller
every day. Perfect yet it groweth, deeper
all the way. Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed. Finding as He promised, perfect
peace and rest. Hidden in the hollow of his blessed
hand. Never foe can follow, never traitor
stand. Not a surge of worry, not a shade
of care, not a blast of touch the spirit there. State upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed. Finding as he promised, perfect
peace and rest. Every joy or from above, traced upon our dial
by the Son of Love. We may trust Him fully, all for
us to do. They who trust Him wholly, find
Him wholly true. State upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed, binding as he promised, perfect peace and rest. Our first speaker this morning,
Pastor Chris Cunningham from the College Grove Grace Church
in College Grove, Tennessee. Chris was supposed to be here
last year and unfortunately had to cancel. So I told him now
I'm scheduling you this year. And we scheduled a whole conference
around his schedule because I wanted him to be able to come this year.
And Chris, I am delighted that you're here and your family with
you. And I look forward to hearing what the Lord's giving you for
us. Well, it's a blessing and a privilege
to be with you. Thank you, brother, for in this
church, for having us. I don't believe there's anywhere
I'd rather be this morning. I hope that's true of you all,
too. We'll be looking at First Timothy chapter one. If you'd
like to turn there this morning, I'm thankful for these men that
preached to us last night. You know, I remembered at some
point. When when they were preaching,
It dawned on me, I believe these men love the Savior. I believe
they do. And that shouldn't surprise us,
because the Lord, he just asked Simon one question, didn't he?
Do you love me? Then feed my sheep. And I believe
they do, and I believe they did, by the grace of our Savior. I was thankful for all the gray
hair I saw. Because you know, you probably,
you might just love him a little more now than you did last year,
you reckon, a year ago. Those gray hairs, don't take
those for granted. That's a precious thing in the
Lord. And I'm thankful for them. First Timothy 115. This is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. How be it for this cause I obtain
mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering
for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. Now unto the king eternal. immortal, invisible, the only
wise God. Be honor and glory forever and
ever. Amen. I like what the apostle
said at another place. He said, let's let's glorify
him right now and forever. Can we do that? Oh, that he might
enable us to glorify His name, not unto us. Paul calls himself
a pattern to all believers who should believe after he did.
Now, the word pattern there means example. It means outline. It means a brief sketch And summary
exposition. It's a summary exposition, a
summarized exposition. Of how God saves a sinner, I
think that's worth looking at. And I pray the Lord will. Will
use his word to teach us something about that. Paul's conversion,
his experience when he met the Lord Jesus Christ. And see. Maybe this morning if we've experienced
that. If the Lord has been gracious
to us and done what he did for Saul of Tarsus. First of all,
and this is an outline, it's a simple outline, and I'm thankful
for that. If you put an outline in front
of a preacher, he's liable to preach it if the Lord is in it. And this is about as simple,
this is, who God saves, who did God save when he saved? It's who did the saving. It's why he saved him. And how. So let's look at it together.
Who did God save when he saved Saul of Tarsus, who became the
apostle Paul? Paul himself said in our text
there that when God saved him, he saved the chief of sinners.
The chief of sinners. That's important. Let's think
about that concerning ourselves. Is this an outline? Is this an
example of what happened to me? Now, I've heard people say, and
I've probably said it at one time or another, That if Paul
wasn't the Chief of Centers, I'm the Chief of Centers. I'm
not sure any of us believe that about ourselves. You think we
do? We don't believe that about ourselves. And it's not a competition. It's not a competition. But you
know what this is teaching us? Is that we can never, never,
never, ever look down on anybody for anything. And I'm not going
to qualify that statement at all. Not anybody for anything. We can never, ever do that. And
the minute we do, we all have the I know more than you attitude. Somebody said they wrote a book
one time called I Know More Than You. And then later on, they
followed it up with a sequel and said, I still know more than
you. And that's all of us by nature. We're just know-it-alls. We're just know-it-alls, aren't
we? If you have a wife or children, then you're responsible before
God to teach them. But beyond that, a man or woman
will stand and fall to their own master. We're not judges
of one another. We don't look down at one another. We don't
tell people, I know more than you. We spend too much time helping
people understand things, don't we? And we don't know anything
either. There's nothing good in that.
The minute we raise our self-righteous noses in the air and start trying
to be superior to somebody else, God saves the worst. He deliberately
chose the base and the foolish, the things that are not, that
all the glory might go to him. And I wish the Lord, I pray that
the Lord will put us in the dust because Paul said, when I'm weak,
that's when the Lord might just use me. He might just use me. If I ever find out what a wretch
I am. That's what he That's where he
shows mercy, and that's who he uses for his glory. What was
your part in salvation? Are you the chief of sinners?
What was your part in salvation? Many people believe, you know,
that Christ did a lot. He did a lot to make salvation
available. To make it possible for us to
be saved, he gave his life, died on a cross, but he left salvation
itself the crux of the matter. up to us. They would say, in
all religion that I've ever heard from or been involved in in my
youth, would say that faith is our part in salvation. The father's
part, of course, was loving everybody. The son's part was dying on the
cross for everybody. And our part is to believe on
him. But the Bible states very clearly that believing is not
of ourselves. That's not our part either. You
know what your part in salvation is? You need it. You need the
Savior. That's our part. Salvation is by grace through
faith, and faith is the gift of God, not of works, lest any
man should boast. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit.
And that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that which
is born of the spirit is spirit. That's the fruit of God's spirit,
not this flesh. Faith. Christ, it says in the
scripture, is the author and the finisher of faith. That word
author means that or he by which anything begins to be. If faith
ever began to be in your heart, it's because Christ put it there. He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. You'd be hard pressed to look
at Paul's example and say that God saved him because
he believed on the Lord. Did you see, we're gonna read
his experience in the book of Acts in a minute. God, Paul was
on the road to hell. He was running to hell as fast
as he could run. And the Lord Jesus arrested him
on his way to hell and gave him faith and life. Was that your
experience? Is that his example? Does that
does that apply to us? You know, religion says, especially
like it's I read this in or used to in, you know, theology books
and things like that, that God saves sensible centers. He saves
believing sinners. He saves repentant sinners. The
only adjective Paul put on it was, he saved a real bad one
when he saved me. That was the only adjective,
that was a real bad one. The worst one, the worst one. How does that stack up with our
experience, I wonder? In our text it says, that God
showed Paul all long-suffering in saving him. Now that tells
us something about God and about Paul, doesn't it? Long-suffering. What Paul says there is that
God had a million reasons to put me in hell and not a single one to save
me, but he was long-suffering. And he saved me anyway. And I'll
tell you this, he don't have any less reasons after he saves
us to put us in hell than he did before, does he? But he's
long-suffering. You know, I wonder sometimes,
do you ever wonder this, does Satan ever think of me? Does
Satan ever think of you? Has he ever noticed you? Has he ever said, this one's
mine now? This one's mine for sure now. He doesn't understand,
you see, Satan doesn't understand about electing love, eternal,
infinite, electing love and grace, immutable love, everlasting love. If he did, he never would have
even taken a shot at Job. He never would have even taken
a shot at him. If Satan had any idea who it is and how much God
loves, Sinners like us, he wouldn't even take a shot. But do you
think he ever looks at us and thinks he deserves hell so much?
Surely that was the last straw. He's a goner now for sure. God's
going to abandon him. When God saved Saul, Saul was
actively employed in murdering God's people. He was arresting
them and murdering him. And the Lord Jesus said to him
when he stopped him on the road to hell, he said, Why are you
persecuting me? He was murdering God in his heart
over and over and over. That's what we do by nature.
That's what we do. That was that was what happened
at the cross on our part. That was the full free expression
of what do you think of Christ? That's what we think of him right
there. We spit on him. You try to think of any way more
that we could have humiliated the son of God. We spit on him.
We punched him in the face. We whipped him and beat him. And we laughed and mocked as
we did it. And we nailed him to a cross.
The most horrible way we could think of to kill somebody. and
laughed at him while he bled there, and blasphemed. That's our free will. That's
the full free expression of what think ye of Christ. And Saul
was carrying that out every day. He was expressing that in every
way that he could. Why are you persecuting me? Why
are you killing me? Why are you murdering me in your
heart? He was overseeing the deaths
of God's preachers We know that he authorized and supervised
the stoning of Stephen. And when the Lord saved him,
he said, why are you doing that to me? But bless God, his love
is such that he cannot let Saul go. Do
you think there was anybody more outwardly, openly horrible on
God's earth than Saul at that time? I don't know who it would
have been. History doesn't record it. And the Lord said, you're doing
that to me, but he loved him so much that he couldn't let
him go. Our heavenly Hosea loved him yet. Have you ever seen that
word yet in the book of Hosea? Let's remember together the story
of Hosea. The Lord told Hosea, go and love
a woman, and I'm not a person to say something just for the
shock value of it, but he said, go love a woman that's a whore.
A woman of whoredoms. And you know, he wasn't just
telling him to do that, he was making him do that. He caused
him to fall in love with her. And he did. And she didn't stop
being what she was. And you remember why he said,
I'm going to do that, why he said do that. You go love her
because I'm going to teach you something of my love for you,
for my people. And he did, didn't he? And she
didn't change. And Jose didn't stop loving her
either, did he? Even while she was engaged in
ripping his heart out, he would bring good things and leave them
at her door so that she wouldn't want for anything. And when she
was used up, when there was nothing about her that the flesh could
possibly desire, the Lord said, you go down there and love her
yet. You love her yet. That's who we're talking about.
That's the one who saved Saul. He had to love him yet, didn't
he? Who is it that loved and saved the Apostle Paul? Well, God commendeth his love
toward us. This is the kind of love we're
talking about. Isn't that why we were yet sinners? Christ died
for us. Who would save a wretch like
you and me? Who would do that? Well, we have
that in our text also, don't we? Look at the glorious language
of this. Look at verse 13. Let me get
over there, 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy. who was before a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy. I obtained
mercy. How did, how did, how did Saul
of Tarsus obtain mercy? He wasn't looking for it, was
he? How did he obtain mercy? The one who said, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, just had mercy on him. He just
had mercy on him. Verse 14, look at what he said.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith
and love, which is in Christ Jesus. God's love is in Christ. And it's important that we understand
that. Don't lay any claim to the love
of God if you despise his son. If you don't worship his son.
If you're not in on the ministry of his son. If you're not interested
anymore in the Lord than to pay him a passing visit every now
and then, then don't lay any claim to God's love. You don't
have to look to Christ. His love is in Christ. But his
love in Christ is abundant. And His grace is exceeding abundant
with faith and love. He's going to give you faith and love for the Savior by His
abundant grace. The Apostle Peter called God
in 1 Peter 5.10. I believe Brother Mike read this
It might have been Nani, I can't remember, but 1 Peter 5, 10,
but the God of all grace. The God of all grace. You know,
there's only one kind of grace. They talk about, you know, grace
church this and sovereign grace that. There's just one grace. And it's a person. the God of all grace, who hath
called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that,
you've suffered a while, make you perfect and establish and
strengthen and settle you. I believe it was Mike as he was
going through first Peter there. To him be glory and dominion. Grace comes from the one who
has dominion. He has the right to have mercy
on sinners. He has the right to have grace. I can't forgive you of your sins.
Only he can do that, because you didn't sin against me. His dominion forever and ever,
amen. The only one who could save somebody
like Paul saved him. The only one that could ever
save somebody like me saved me. And he did it just because he
wants to. Paul said in Ephesians 1, the one that does everything
because he wants to, after the counsel of his own will, had
mercy on me. He said in our text in verse
15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save me, And here I
am saved. That's how that works. It's the
sovereign Savior who saved Paul. Sovereign. He didn't give Paul
any options, did he? He didn't say, here's an opportunity
that I wanted to present you. He didn't try to coax him into
anything. When you read of Paul's conversion,
does it sound to you like Christ was waiting on Paul? to do anything,
he would have just gone and killed more people if the Lord would
have waited on him. Turn with me to Acts chapter
nine and let's read his account. Verse one, Acts nine. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high
priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues,
that if he found any of this way, any preaching the gospel,
any following the Lord and giving glory to the Lord, whether they
were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And
as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there
shined round about him a light from heaven. Isn't that beautiful? You reckon that could happen
here this morning? I'm not talking about something
you would be able to see. But how are you going to know
the Lord Jesus Christ unless he shines a light from heaven
down upon you? What a beautiful thing that is.
And he fell to the earth, and he heard a voice saying unto
him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art
thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. Is it hard for you to kick against
the pricks? That word is goads. The Lord
Jesus had been goading him like a wild animal. And he, trembling and astonished,
said, Lord, What will thou have me do? What will thou have? Two questions. Who are you? And then Lord. Lord, that's who he is. What do you want? What's your
will? And the Lord said unto him, Arise
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou
must do. And the men which journeyed with
him, and stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And
Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he
saw no man. And they led him by the hand,
and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without
sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain
disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I'm here,
Lord. And the Lord said to him, arise and go into the street
which is called Straight and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth and hath
seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting
his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias
answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much
evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. Maybe questioning
the Lord a little bit. Are you sure this is the one?
Are you sure this is who you want me to go see? Then here
he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call
on thy name. And I'm supposed to come to him
in your name? But the Lord said unto him, go
thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before
the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I
will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's
sake. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house, and
putting his hands on him said, look at that. At first he said,
I don't want anything to do with him. He's killing people for
using your name, and you want me to go in your name and speak
to this guy? The Lord said, I chose him, and
the next word out of Ananias' mouth is brother Saul. That's
good enough. That's good enough, isn't it?
The Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou
camest, has sent me that thou mightest receive thy side and
be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from
his eyes as it had been scaled. And he received sight forthwith,
and arose, and was baptized. And when he had received meat,
he was strengthened. Then saw certain days with the
disciples, which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ
in the synagogues, that he's the Son of God." He knew how
to preach that now, didn't he? He's the Son of God. You know,
that's all you need to know. If he's the son of God, of course
he's sovereign. If he's the son of God, of course
he redeemed everybody he died to redeem. If he's the son of God, he can
save you. I don't care how far. Far down you are. If he's the
son of God, he has power right now this morning on Earth. To
say your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. That's who saves all. How about
you? Is that how it was with you?
Paul said in our text in First Timothy, he came into this world
to save sinners, to save me. He said, I'm the chief of sinners.
So he came, he came to save me. having chosen me from the beginning,
having loved me with an everlasting love, and when he got good and
ready, he saved me when it pleased him, when it pleased him. No wonder he said down in verse
17, now unto the king, unto the one who saves whom he will, when
he will, Under the king eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, honor and glory unto him. The
one who saved me is the king of salvation. He's the king. How did God save Paul? Look at
it. As he journeyed, he came near
Damascus and suddenly there shined around about him a light from
heaven. That's going to have to happen
now. We can't get anybody saved. I can't talk you into it. If
you could do that, I ain't smart enough to do it. But you can't
do that. There's going to have to be a
light from heaven. He that is born from above, a man must be
born again. That born again means born from
above. Until that, you're just flesh.
God's got to turn the light on. And what a beautiful picture
that is. And I tell you this, it's no less beautiful this morning,
just because we can't see it. It's no less beautiful. And if
the Lord shines his light round about you, the light of Christ,
the light that he is to the soul, God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in my heart. I love, isn't
that a power? The one who said let there be
light and there was light said let there be light and there
was light. To give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's how he saved sinners yet. He shines his light when the
gospel is preached it pleased him by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. And he'll shine his light by
these means now. Christ is the light. And we are
his, he said you're the light of the world too because what
did he send us to do? To proclaim him. To shine forth
his light. Shine forth your light that men
may see your good works and glorify him. That's a good work. That's us shining the light.
How shall they call on him in whom they've not believed and
how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard, and
how shall they hear without a preacher? He'll shine in your heart now.
How long did he say that you ought to take heed to this more
excellent word of prophecy? How long? Until the day star
will rise in your hearts. Until the sun comes up in your
heart now. That's how long. Just keep it.
Keep listening. Keep hearing. I don't know if
he'll save you or not, but I know how he'll do it if he will. This
is how he does it. Are these men preaching his gospel? And look at what Christ said
to salt. Why persecute us? Tell me, why do you hate me?
Why do you despise me? You know, that's the same thing
as Adam. Where are you? Adam, where are you? He got to
deal with our sin, doesn't he? When the woman at the well, he
said, where's your husband? Go get your husband. What did
he say in Isaiah? Come now, right now. Now is the accepted time. Now
is the day of salvation. Come right now and let us, you
and I, reason together, saith the Lord. About what? Your sins.
Your sins are scarlet. Your deep died. From the top
of your head to the soles of your feet, there's no soundness
in you. There's none that doeth good, no not one. You're not
gonna decide your way out of it. The more you decide, the
more you sin. The more good works you do, the
more you sin. And then Saul had this question,
who are you, Lord? Who are you? He kind of answered
his own question, didn't he? Who are you, Lord? You know that word Lord means?
Look that up in Strong's Concordance sometime. It means the one who
owns you and has the power of deciding with regard to you. that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God raised him from the dead, he's who he said he is,
thou shalt be saved. That's how. Is that what happened
to you, or did you get talked into walking down an aisle and
saying, repeating a few things and saying a prayer that somebody
else may have? It didn't even come from your heart. And they
said, well, now you're saved. Then notice these these two verses
carefully, he said, who are you, Lord? Verse five again. Who are you, Lord? And the Lord
said, I'm Jesus. Whom thou persecute us, is it
hard for thee to kick against the goats? And he trembling and
astonished, said, Lord, what would you have me do? And the
Lord said unto him, arise and go into the city. Why do you
goad an animal? Why do you goad an animal? It's
not for cruelty. You're getting that animal to
do what its master wants him to do. That animal needs to understand
that what you say goes, or it's useless. What good is it to you? Is it all right with you if the
Lord did that to you? You know, repentance is a change
of mind. That's the gift of God. We're
going to be, well, if the Lord had just let Saul go, waited
for him to do something, what do you think Saul would have
done? He was on his way to do it when God met him. God's going
to have to bring us down. That's the message. He's got
to bring you down. Humiliation is a blessing. If he's going to save us now,
he's going to have to break us. If he's going to clothe us, he's
got to strip us. He does so graciously. But it's
not pleasant to the flesh. It's not pleasant. And it happens
in every aspect Every step along the way, is he still goading
you? Does he still have to goad you? And that goading is more than
just accountability. It's ability. When he does that,
he enables you to do what he's pleased. He works in us, the
scripture says, both to will and to do. That's the problem
with that animal. His will doesn't align with yours.
That's why they make goads. But he works in his people both
to will and to do of his good pleasure. Further on in Acts where we read
there Paul set to praying and seeking God and he He had been
such a horrible wretch before that Ananias didn't want to have
much to do with him, but God said, I've chosen him. We see
in this outline of the Apostle Paul that it takes place over time,
doesn't it? The Lord saves us immediately.
But salvation's not a one-time event. It's a life. It's life, it's Christ in us,
and it's ongoing. But it began before the foundation
of the world. You know, Paul preached that
all through his letters and his ministry. We're bound to give
thanks to God all the way for you, brethren, beloved of the
Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. Where unto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That word where unto refers back
to salvation. He hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation and he called you to that by this gospel. By
this gospel. Thank God that the The purpose
of God according to election that it might stand. He said,
I love you. I love you. That brings us to
our last question. Why did God love Paul? You know,
you can ask a lot of questions about that, but every one of
them is going to lead you back to this because he loved you. Then if you ask another further
question, why did he love you? I can't answer that. I don't
know. I know it's because of Christ.
But listen, You could say, well, God saved Paul because he was
one of the elect. But why did God elect him? God saved Paul because Christ
redeemed Paul with his precious blood. Yeah, but why in the world
would he do that? God saved Paul because of the
everlasting covenant. But why would God make a covenant
with me? There's really just one answer
in there. And you have he quickened who were dead. And trespasses
and sins wherein in time past you walked according to the course
of this world according to the prince of the power of the air.
Satanic every one of us and talking about free will free
will free. We saw free will something or
other church on the way here. The Lord says you're Satan's
puppet. Satan's puppet. It's his will that you follow. Among whom also we all, we all
had our conversation in time passing, the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 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 you're saved, and hath raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Chris. That was such
good news. That's who saved me, and how he saved me. I hope you
can say the same thing. If it is, that was good news,
wasn't it? Thrilling for your heart. All right, we're going
to take about a 10 or 15 minute break. When you hear the music,
come back in, and we'll have Todd Niver's going to preach
for us, all right?