Our brother Wayne Kennel is going
to come and read scripture and lead us in prayer. Wayne? If you would please open your
Bibles to 1 John. John chapter 1. Gospel of John
chapter 1. A reapportion of John one. In the beginning was the word.
And the word was with God. And the word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him and without him was not
anything made that was made. In him was light, and the light
was the light of man. And the light shineth in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent
from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might
believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was
in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew
him not. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, And we beheld
his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth. John bare witness of him and
cried, saying, this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh
after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness have we all
received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. whenever you're there. Smile together in prayer, please. Our great God and Holy Heavenly
Father, we're thankful you brought us here this evening. He's been
the priest to us. Thankful for the service we've
had so far. Cause us to each day to come
to Christ. Show us that outside of him,
we're nothing. And outside of him, we've got
nothing to recommend ourselves to you. But our only hope is
being found in him. Cause us to only plead the blood
of Christ. Thankful for his broken body
and shed blood. Your mercy towards sinners. his
suffering to atone for sin. We're so thankful for your mercy
and grace toward sinners. Father, we pray for this next
service and the rest of this weekend that you cause it to
be a true time of worship. Let this place worship and praise
the Lord Jesus Christ. Exalt his name and his work and
put us in our place and show us where we belong. Let this
be a true many services of Christ being preached in his name exalted. Thank you for the many, many
blessings of this life. Cause us each day to be thankful
and to know that all we have is a gift of your hand. Do not
take anything for granted. Give us patience and wisdom each
day. Leave us not alone as we leave
from this place this evening and After this weekend, we go
back to working, back out to the world. Leave us not alone,
but head us and guide us and direct us. Again, we ask for
another hour of worship here and praise here and let Christ
be exalted. These things we ask and pray
in his name, amen. Stand and sing 334. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart, Naught be all else to me save that Thou art, Thou
my best thought by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence
my light. Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my
true word. I ever with Thee and Thou with
me, Lord Thou my great Father, I Thy true Son Thou in me dwelling
and I with Thee one Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance now and always, Thou and Thou only, first
in my heart. High King of heaven, my treasure
Thou art High King of heaven, my victory won O bright heaven's sun, heart
of my own heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of
all. May be seated. Our next speaker, Pastor Don
Bell, Lantana Grace Church in Lantana, Tennessee. I don't want to date you, Donny,
but I first heard Donny preach when I was a teenager. And here
we are, still here. Still preaching the same gospel
as God's grace. I mean, you can only attribute
that to God's grace. I'm going to tell you my favorite Donny
Bell story. No, it's not that. No. I wouldn't know a story like
that telling, Donnie. No. I was 24 years old, and we were
at a conference much like this, and had food afterwards, and
people sitting down to eat. And people gathered around Bro.
Donnie and started asking questions. And just questions, questions,
questions, questions. And Donnie finally shoved his
plate aside. He said, where's my Bible? He reached and got
his Bible and sat there answering questions for I don't know how
long. I sat there listening, listening to this. And food was
all cleaned up, everything was cleaned up, everything was put
away. They took Donnie's plate away. I mean, he had no food.
And questions were answered, and everybody's getting ready
to leave, and Donnie looked around and said, well, I'll eat later.
And I thought, well, that's the heart of a preacher right there.
And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful
you're my friend. And thankful you've come here
to preach to us. And I pray, Lord, bless you richly. Tell
us what God's put on your heart. I'll tell you what, I'll say
after Todd got through preaching, amen. That was, whatever preaching
is, that's what it was. Whatever it is, that's what we
heard tonight. Whatever it is. A lot of times
us preachers know little about it. I never got up that I wasn't
nervous. And right now, if I had a $100
bill, I couldn't spit. I'm so poor I can't pay attention. I'm just kidding with you. But
you know the gospel is living. The word of God is alive. It's
the living word. And we've seen tonight how alive
that word is, how living it is, how powerful it is, how precious
it is in the hands of the Holy Spirit. It's not so much the
man, it's the message. And God blessed him with the
message. And my heart right now is rejoicing so much. And I'm
so full and so thankful. And you know, you talked about
that. That's happened to me several times. several times, and I'm
going to deal with something like that tonight. If you'll
look with me in Romans chapter 2. Excuse me, yeah, chapter 2. Does this turn on here? Doesn't
it just turn on? OK. 825. Romans 2. Look in verse 28. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. And you know, you can go to New
York City, go anywhere where a bunch of Jews are. They're
like Mennonites. They stand out. Got the big black
hats on and their long beards and their hair down on their
sides and big black coats on. And so you can recognize them
wherever they're at. But he is not a Jew which is
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh. But God, the Lord's gonna tell
us who a true Jew is, a true son of Abraham is, which is one
inwardly. Circumcision is that of the heart.
Our Lord told, God mentioned Israel so many uncircumcised
at heart. Your heart's filthy, your heart's
nasty, it's dirty, it's unclean. And he said that circumcision
is that of the heart and the spirit and not in the letter,
not by the law. Because if it was by the letter,
by the law, men would praise you, but they'd never praise
God. But the Jew that won inwardly, he's going to praise God. He's
going to give God the glory. Then he goes on to say then,
what advantage then has the Jew? If he's only won outwardly. What
advantage? He said, well, he's got a lot,
an awful lot. First, because unto them were
committed the word of God, the oracles of God. God gave him
his word. Moses came down from the mountain.
And what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make...
And this is the way I understand this, and I may be wrong. Make
the faithfulness of God without effect. God don't have faith. So you know, if a man doesn't
believe, is he going to make God deny who he is? Is He gonna
make God's nature to change? Is He gonna make, you know, the
scripture said over in 2 Timothy, it says there, if we deny Him,
He cannot deny Himself. We may deny Him, and people do
deny Him all the time, but one thing God cannot do, He cannot
deny Himself. He is who He is, and He's never
gonna change. He's immutable. And that's our
blessed hope, is that He's immutable, and once His will has been done,
it's never gonna be changed. Never gonna be changed. And He
goes on there to say this now, and He said, is that gonna make
God's faithfulness, God's nature, is it gonna make it any different,
without effect? God forbid. Yea, let God be true, but ever
man a liar. as it is written, and he quotes
from the Psalms here, that God, when you judge, when you are
judged and you come as a judge, you're going to be justified
in everything you say in your word. You're going to be the
judge and you're going to be right in your judgments. And
then here's some of the things that men say about God. Here's
some of the things that men use about God. That's why we say,
let God be true. If our unrighteousness commend
the righteousness of God, what shall we say? And there's people
that accuse us of that. They say, well, you believe in
free grace. You believe in sovereign grace. You believe you're sinless. You believe you're perfect before
God. If you believe that then, why in the world does your unrighteousness,
if you live unrighteous, they say, well, you can just live
any way you want to and still be saved. They accuse us of being
sinners and being awful people. And he says, well, is God unrighteous? Then if we use our righteousness
to make God appear more righteous, how in the world will God come
and judge us then? And he said, I speak as a man.
God forbid, then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth
of God, and this is what, oh, if the truth of God hath abounded
more through my lie unto His glory. If I go out here and lie
on God, and I make a lie, and I don't say the right things,
and I say, well, you know, God gonna get the glory out of my
sin. And I use my sin as an excuse to glorify God. That's what he's
saying here. Why am I also just rather not
a sinner? So I'm going to say this. There
in Romans 4.4. Excuse me, 3.4. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I don't know why I said 4.4. But he says, God forbid, let
God be true and every man a liar. You know, people accuse us of
a lot of things. Of being a cult. Strange where
we got our doctrine. And we believe that as Todd preached
so clearly tonight that we're clean. We're perfectly clean.
Perfectly justified. Clear in the sight of God Almighty.
But men, sinful men, is always looking for a way to clear himself.
And just like over in Romans when Paul says there, God will
have mercy upon him who God will have mercy and upon whom he will,
he'll have compassion. And so it's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Well,
this fellow jumps up right quick and says, well, that's not fair. He said, well, why can he find
fault with me if his will is going to be done anyway? How
can he find fault with me? You know what Paul said to him?
Oh man, who are you to reply against God. And men will take
the truth, take truth and destroy themselves with the truth. They'll
take truth and use the truth even against God's elect people
and accuse them of things they've not done. And they'll use scriptures
and they'll even wrongly interpret scriptures. The whole world today,
the only thing they're interested in is John 3.16. They're interested
in the love of God. Love, love, love, love, love,
love, love. Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance.
Well, here it says God's not gonna tolerate people lying on
Him. He's not gonna tolerate the unrighteous. He's not gonna
tolerate people lying on Him. He's not gonna let people take
His nature and lie on Him in any way. He's not gonna do it.
He don't make no difference who they are, whether you're a Jew
or a Gentile. And they do this. And what if some didn't believe?
Well, is that going to change God? And that's what people think. They think, well, I believe this
because they believe the wrong thing. They think that wrong
thing is going to actually make God different. It's going to
change God. No matter what anybody believes,
it ain't going to change God. I believe exactly what I believe
the Bible says. But that does not change God
just because I believe it. And if I say I'm not going to
believe it, it still ain't going to change God. Is it? And I love
that about him. So let folks use the Bible. I can give you an illustration.
The other night we got a lady in the church and she She has
some problems, physical problems, and she says, you know, and she
said, I could use the scriptures, say, no longer drink water. Because
everybody tells her, drink water, drink lots of water. She said,
I could use the Bible, say, drink no longer water. That's over
1 Timothy 5. Drink no longer water. She said,
I could use scripture for that. So I mean, people can use the
scriptures for anything. But I'll tell you what. Every
man can say what he wants to, believe what he wants to, but
they ain't going to change God. I'm not going to change him tonight.
You're not going to change him. But I do want to talk about him
as he is. I want to describe him as he is. And you know why
people do that. They put reason in the place
of God's Word. And you know, I've had this question
asked me countless, countless times. Well, for what you all
believe, you believe in election. You believe God chose you in
Christ for the foundation of the world, and yet they'll turn
around and say, but what about, and they always got a what about,
what about all the Chinese? What about all the people in
India? What about all the people all over the world? Don't God
have to give them a chance? God has to give them a chance.
Surely, surely he would not send people to hell with this never
heard anything. I'm going to give you three things
we're going to have to face, either in grace or in judgment.
God's immutable sovereignty. We're going to have to face Him
as He is. Not like we think He is, like He's immutably sovereign. He sits in the heavens and He
don't bar no lave to be. He inhabits eternity. He declared
the end from the beginning. And He said, all my counsel is
going to stand. He does what He wants to in the
sea, in the deep places, and every place else. He is God,
and He's got all power in heaven and earth. I mean, man's gonna
face Him as He is. When you face Him, you go, oh,
I didn't know it was that way. You know now. You know now. And then there's man. Here's
the second thing we gotta face. Man's utter and absolute ruin. I mean, man is ruined from the
top of his head to the sole of his foot, from the inside of
his heart to the outside of his skin. He ain't got a spot on
him that ain't full of sin, leprosy, like you said. Everything about
us is wrong in and of ourselves. I'll have to repent over this
message tonight. And I tell you, you know, man
is absolutely ruined. I mean, man cannot think a good
thought. He can't do a good deed. Anything
that he ever does, I mean, it's tainted with sin. And only believers
know that. We know it all how we know it.
We're utterly ruined. Man was born and people say,
well, he's going to be lost. He was born lost. And then here's the third thing
we've got to face. God's purpose in redeeming sinners
by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how God taught me the
gospel by that word purpose. God done everything he does on
purpose. I didn't know he purposed to
save me till I saved. God who has saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our words, but according to
his own purpose and grace. that was given us, when? In Christ,
before the world ever began. When I read that, the heavens
opened, glory came down, tears come in my eyes, and I've been
blessing the Lord ever since. I've been blessing the Lord ever
since. But they ask, they ask, well, what about all these people,
you know, that's in all these foreign countries? What are you
going to do about them? Well, there's only one answer we can
give. only one answer we can give, and only one place we can
go, and that's to the Word of God, to the Scriptures, God's
Word. And that's why I said, yea, let
God be true in every man alive. I know y'all know what Isaiah
820 means. If they speak not according to
the law and the testimony, it's because there's no light in them,
no light in them. And so we're gonna go to according
to the Word of God, I'm gonna give you four or five things.
According to the word of God, I don't care whether they're
Chinese, black, white, here, somewhere else, I don't care
who they are, nobody has saved who has not been born again.
Nobody. There has to be a new birth.
That's the first thing God does. I don't care where you're at.
You gotta be saved. You gotta have a new birth. And
that's why Nicodemus come to the Lord Jesus. He said, he said,
Master, Said, there's no way in the world anybody can do the
things that you do unless he's come from God. Our Lord interrupted
him. Just interrupted him while he
was talking. Said, I'm going to tell you something, Nicodemus.
You must be born again. What? What in the world are you
talking about? What am I going to do? Go back
and be born and come out again? He said, you'll come out the
same way you did the first time. And except the man be worn of
water and the spirit, he can't see the kingdom of God and he
certainly can't get in it. But here's what regeneration
is. Regeneration is God taking a man and taking a dead man. And what he does is he gives
that dead man life, he quickens him. You hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sin. And he quickens us, he gives
us life. And when he gives us that life, that life, what happens
is he brings into existence a person who never existed before. You
talked about spirituality tonight. He brings into existence a spiritual
man. He brings into existence a man
that can know God, call on God, look to God. Without the new
birth, you can't understand the Bible. Todd and I know some people,
and I'm sure Frank does too, that they believe a man's only
got one nature. But listen, let me tell you something. And here's another thing, the
regeneration does not change, do anything with the old nature.
What God does is he brings into existence a new man, a new creature,
a new being born again, not by corruptible seed, but incorruptible.
And so what happens is God puts that seed in there and that seed
is Christ himself. the Word of God that dwells in
us. And so what happens is, and I asked a fellow this one time,
he said he only had one nature and he's a sovereign grace preacher,
pastor of the church. I said, well what nature is it
then that you recognize God with? What nature do you call on God
with? What nature do you understand the Bible with? What nature do
you worship God with? What nature causes you to desire
God and hunger and thirst after God and hunger and thirst after?
What nature is that that you got? I didn't have that nature
until God gave me life. I never thought about God. I
never thought about Him. Didn't care about Him. And Him
when He comes and He gives me life. This Bible is His life
to me as anything. The Word of God is real. The
relationship with brothers and sisters is real. I can call on
God and come into the holiest of holies. And I can sit and
I can groan in my heart and God hear that groan. How does those
things happen? That's that regeneration, that's
that new nature God gives us. And when He gives you that new
nature, I'm going to tell you another thing. I never had a
problem with sin until God gave me my new nature. And then after that, the flesh lusts against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh, and you cannot do the things
that you would. We cannot be as spiritual as
we would, You know why we can't? Because of the flesh. And we
can't be as fleshly as we would because of the spirit. Ain't
that right? So oh my, he raises us from the
dead. You remember that infant talking
about regeneration. You remember that infant in Ezekiel
16? You know he's born. They didn't
wash him up. He had his mother's blood all
over him and all the things that comes out of him when they come
out of the womb. And his navel had been cut, and they throwed
him out in the field. And that's what God done. He looked. And you know what the first thing?
He said, I saw you polluted in your blood. I saw you polluted
in your blood. But I passed by you. Put my skirt over you. And I
said, live, yea, I say live. And he decked that infant out,
dressed her up, and said, you know what? You're perfect through
my coming. But that's what God has to do
to us. He sees us polluted in our blood, and he's got to come
where we are. And you know what he says? When he says live, you
know what's going to happen? You're going to live. And oh
my, those Valley of Dry Bones, can they live? Lord, you're the
only one who knows that. Speak. Well, how would you like
to go preach to a Valley of Dry Bones? Sometimes we have sometimes
been places where I thought it was. You know, but he went
down there and seen all them dry bones. And he said, preach
to them. Preach to dead dry bones. What do you want me to do? Just
preach to them. Tell them bones to get bone to bone. Bones started
grathering again. And then he said, tell them to
stand up. And they stood up. And then he said, preach and
flesh come on them. And he said, command the wind.
They still standing there like Adam was four years later made
out of the dust of the earth. He was inanimate. He was just a stick of clay standing
there, looking like a man, but he did not have any life until
God breathed in his nostrils. He'd have been a stick of clay
standing there if God hadn't breathed in his nostrils. And
that's the way these bones are. If God does not command the wind,
go wind, and never one of them fellas come alive. And that's
what God does. He said, where the wind blows,
where it lifts it. Oh my, well, Lazarus, What? What? What do you want? That's
what Armenians say. What do you want? If you'll come
out of there, I'll give you a chance to be saved. You come out of there, start
living right, and I'll take you to heaven. Lazarus, come forth. And I love what the next verse
says. And he that was dead came forth. And let me tell you something.
Faith does not give life. Repentance does not give life.
Christ gives you life. That's when you believe. And
that's when you repent. Faith doesn't do anything for
us. Christ did it all. Just unites us to him. Well,
let me tell you another thing. Let God be true in every man
of life. Nobody is saved, I don't care
where they're at and who they are, who does not believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ. If a man doesn't believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, he's not saved, he cannot be saved. Our Lord
Himself said, except you believe I'm He, you'll die in your sin.
He says, no man can come under the Father but by Me. He said,
you want to speak to my Father, deal with Me. You want to go
to my Father, deal with Me. You wanna know God, deal with
me. You wanna know the Bible, deal with me. You wanna know
anything, you deal with me. You want rice, I got the only
one that's got it. You want life, I'm the only one that's got it.
You need something from God, I'm the only one that's got it.
And I tell you what, that's exactly what happened. And I tell you,
this is something, when we talk about believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ, We're not talking about believing some historical fact.
People say all the time, but what's the gospel? It's the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's facts, but that's not
the gospel. That's not the gospel. Look with
me over in 1 Corinthians 15. You know, we're talking about
a living Lord, a blessed person. You know, when we talk about
the Lord Jesus Christ and what Todd preached tonight, when he
went over there and said that he was moved with compassion
That just, oh, I tell you what a blessing. 1 Corinthians 15. You know, we're talking about
a person, a living person who's got a personality. If any of
you all, when you think about Christ, how many years has it
been since you conjured up in your mind what He looked like?
You never look at a physical, you never think of a physical
person anymore, do you? You never think about this blonde-headed,
blue-eyed, As Tim James called him, Wild Bill Hickok. We don't think about that. We
think about a person with this wonderful character, this most
glorious personality, this precious, precious person who has the most
glorious and gracious and powerful words. He is so compassionate
and so tender and so merciful and so gracious, and he is so
ready and willing to sit down and eat with sinners, converse
with sinners, save sinners. And when you touch that leper,
if I touched a leper, I'd become a leper. Christ could touch a
leper and he wasn't contaminated. He touches us and he's not contaminated. We're the only one that benefits
from it. But oh my, not just, we're talking about a living
person, a living Lord. Look what He said here in 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 3. This is what we're talking about. It's not just the facts of His
burial, resurrection, ascension. For I delivered, first of all,
when I started preaching the gospel, this is the first thing
I preached, how that Christ died for our sins. When I think about Christ, Dying
for sin, just mine, just mine. I just, it just, it's overwhelming
when you really think about it. Christ taking me, taking my sin,
and I can't bear him myself in my own nature. But he took, he
took. Died for our sins. And how did
he do it? According to the scriptures.
According to what God said. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. Chastisement of our peace was
laid upon him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. It pleased God to make his soul an offering for sin. God
saw the travail of his soul, and he was satisfied. He was
led as a lamb to the slaughter, and he opened not his mouth.
Numbered with the transgressors. Ah, that's according to the scriptures. And look what else he says now.
And that he was buried. He died for our sins, according
to scripture. They buried him. They buried
him. Our dear brother Bruce Crabtree
has two funerals this week. And if it ain't been recently,
we took his wife out. She's dead. We buried her, put
her in the ground. Our Lord Jesus Christ, they came,
took his body down off that cross, pulled the nails out, took him
down, folded his arms in, wrapped him up in some linen clothes,
carried him over, and put him in a tomb. Because he's dead. With no blood, no eyes, he could
see. And oh, look what happens now. He's buried, but he didn't stay
buried. But he rose again the third day, and again, according
to the scripture. The only way you can know the
gospel is going according to the scriptures, going to the
scriptures. And I say this without a shadow
of a doubt, the only savior of sinners. And if I had an opportunity
to preach to a great, great big crowd, the only message I was
preachers is only one savior, only one savior in this whole
universe, one savior, one savior. Not two, not three, not four,
not five. You can't choose and pick who
you want. God said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm welcome. And he came to save us from our
sins. There's only one Savior. And
you'd have to tell the world, one Savior, just one. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone has the power to save. He alone has the power to give
righteousness. He alone has the power to do
anything for anybody. And if you ever get saved, it's
going to be Christ Himself that saves you. And fight and fuss
and debate and argue and twiddle your thumbs and chew your gum
and do anything else you want to do. But when you get to the
end of the way, you're going to find out there's only one
Savior. People say, what's in a name? In His name's everything.
What's in a name? In His name is Savior. What's
in His name? Redeemer. What's in His name?
Justifier. What's in His name? Mediator.
He's everything. Oh, in His blessed name. But
oh, He's the only Savior of sins. And you said to God, you're going
to put all your eggs in this basket? That's what God did.
He put all His eggs in one basket. And that's in His blessed Son.
Huh? And I got the, when you get Christ,
you get the whole basket, too. Oh, we get the basket. I'm going
to tell you, I'm going to stop and tell you something. You know,
when we receive our inheritance, when Christ rose, every one of
these days, he's going to raise us. When we get our inheritance,
we all got an inheritance. We're joint heirs with Christ.
We're inheritors with Christ. Now, some of you have inherited
things. You've inherited things. Your family's left you something,
your mother, your daddy, an uncle, aunt, or somebody. And if you
have four or five people in your family, you have to split it
up. You have to split it up. Well, I'll tell you something.
When we get our inheritance, it's like a pie. If there's four
in the family, everybody gets a quarter of a pie. If there's
six, it gets one piece of the pie. And the more there is in
the family, the little piece of pie you get. But when we have
Christ, when we get the glory, we get the whole pie. Every single
one of us get the whole thing. It's just hours and hours long.
Well, he got a pie. I got one too. Oh, let me tell you, let God
be true. Oh, man's not saved. He's not born again. Who does
not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? And I tell you this,
and I believe this with all my heart, because I know this, I
know this. A man's not saved who has not heard the gospel.
Now that's a fact. Now, I tell you, you know, Paul
said, I marvel that you're so soon removed from the gospel
of Christ and the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Another
gospel. And you know, all it takes to
make another gospel is somebody just to add just that much. and becomes another gospel. And
he says, you know, and you move to another gospel. You say, yes,
I believe in Christ, but, but you got to do this. I believe
in Christ, yes, but we need to do this. You know, they always
say, I believe in Christ, but they have to add a little something.
But he says, I tell you, if I or an angel from heaven come preach
any other gospel to you, let him be cursed. Let God himself
curse that man. And I tell you, and I'm going
to tell you this, the gospel can be defined. It can be defined. Look over in Romans with me.
Romans chapter 1. The gospel can be defined. I
don't have time to go into it as much as I'd like to, but the
gospel can be defined. First of all, it's called the
gospel of God. Look what he said here in verse
1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated
unto the gospel of God. It's God's gospel. And there's
one reason, one way you can always tell it's God's gospel, the gospel
always starts with God. It starts with God. God's the
one People say, God had a wonderful plan. God never has planned anything. He don't have to make a plan.
You know, if you're going to build a house, get you some plans.
But God has not made a plan. Everything He did, He did on
purpose. He don't make plans. We make plans. God don't. Oh,
He's got a wonderful plan. The gospel starts with God. God
who has saved us. Thank God who has from the beginning
chosen you unto salvation. We start with God. The Bible
starts with God. And so, you know, the gospel
starts with God. That's gotta start with God. And then look
what he goes on saying. And this gospel has been promised. It's by the prophets in the Holy
Scriptures. This is not something new. It's
always been in the Bible. Always been from Genesis to Revelation.
And this is what the gospel of God concerns. Concerning his
son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. There he is in his Godhead. There
he is, the son of God. And here he is in his flesh.
Here he is in his humanity, which was made of the seed of David,
according to the flesh. When he come into this world,
he was a king. He was a seed of David. He had
David's throne forever and ever and ever. And look to this, declared
to be the son of God with power. According, the spirit of holiness
himself resurrected him from the dead. And this is the thing
about the gospel. The gospel is, this is the question. How can God be just and justify
sinners? That's the thing right there. How can God be a just God? How
can he be just and righteous and holy? Eternally so, infinitely
so. And then here we are. We're flesh. We're unclean. We're weak and
we're frail. And here's this eternal God.
And He says, I want to save these men. I want to cleanse these
men. I want to take their sin away. I want to take their guilt
away. I want to take their shame away. Well, how can I stay just
and stay holy and stay righteous and stay on my throne and do
that? How can I do that? Justice said, you know, I got
to be satisfied. Law said, I got to be honored.
Truth said, I got to be upheld. But mercy said, is there not
one? Is there not one? The Lord Jesus Christ stood up
and said, I'll go. You give them to me, Father.
You give them to me, and I'll go. And I'll take every one that
you give me, every single one of them. And their sins will
come marching like two great big armies on me. When I'm on
that cross, two great big armies full of sin, marching like great
and mighty armies. And they'll all come crashing
down on me. And because of who I am, because
of my worth and my power and my glory and my ability, I'll
be able to bear it all. Would you be satisfied with that?
Yes. Would that satisfy your justice?
Yes. Would that fulfill your Lord?
Yes. Could you then go and justify
them people he died for? Yes. Oh, bless his name. Oh, bless his holy name. Oh my. Here he comes. I stand up. God said, bring him
before the bar. Bring him before me. Christ stands
up and says, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't have him. Why
not? He ain't got nothing, you know.
I've done, took all of his sin. How do you know? Look here at
my hands. Look at my feet. Oh, bless his holy name. Is there
any God, any Savior like our Savior? Anybody like our Savior? Anybody like our Redeemer? Anybody
got the power, the grace, that even tonight, even tonight, in
our own frail flesh, he comes and blesses us, teaches us, and
speaks to us, and has mercy on us. Well, I've got a couple more
points on that, but I'm going to let it go. I'm going to let
it go. Well, I ain't going to let it
go. You know, I looked up the clock,
and I still got a couple of minutes. To me, there's three points to
the gospel. There's three points to the gospel.
And I think, and you all correct me if I'm wrong. First of all,
you got to deal with sin. You got to deal with man as he
is. And if man as he is, then he's got to have a substitute.
He got to have somebody take his place. Somebody to bear his
sin. Somebody that God would accept
in their room instead. And the third word is satisfaction. If we're like we are, and Christ
is our substitute, and sins can't be in two places at the same
time. If they're on Christ, they can't be on me. And so if they're
on Christ, they're not on me. And so if our substitute so honored
God and put away all our sin, then God says, well, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. I don't want any
more. I'm not asking any more. You gave me everything you had.
You gave me yourself. You gave me all you are. And
I tell you the most blessed word to me in the gospel is that word
satisfaction. That word satisfaction. Because
if God is satisfied with Christ entirely and completely, forever
and eternally, that means God's satisfied with us. So when you
go home tonight and lay your head down on your pillow, say,
if God takes me out here in the morning, he's satisfied with
me. Ain't that right? Oh, bless his
name. Well, let me go to my fourth
point. A man who's not saved, let God
be true and every man a liar. A man who is ignorant of the
righteousness of God is not saved. If he don't know anything about
God's righteousness, he's not saved. Look in Romans 10. You know, I know, I understand
people talk about imputed righteousness all the time. And really, I guess
that's the way it ought to be said. I don't know. But when
I talk about the righteousness of Christ, I talk about Christ
himself who is righteous. You know, I don't have a, you
know, Christ didn't stick a righteousness on me. He didn't stick a rice
on me and make me look good. Christ Himself is my righteousness. God gave me the righteousness
of Christ Himself. Call it whatever you want to,
but I call it the righteousness of God in Christ. Look me over. Look me over. When they got on Bunyan's Pilgrim
Progress, they come and they Bunya's sin rolled off of him.
There was two shining figures standing there. And then this
man come and put a beautiful coat on him. And one looked at
him and said, boy, you got the most beautiful coat on I believe
I've ever seen. That thing shines. Oh, it shines so bright. He said,
oh, no. He said, man, love, you're the
one that's got the beautiful coat on. And that's the way we
are with one another. We see the righteousness of God
in one another. But we don't see a whole much
in ourselves. But oh, it's the righteousness of Christ himself.
But look what he said here in Romans 10. And this righteousness
is ours. It's ours. It belongs to us.
God gave it to us. But look what he said here. Brethren,
my harsh desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might
be saved. I want to see people saved. I
want to see God saves people. But then I've got to go on record
for them. They're zealous. Oh, how zealous they are. I mean,
they love to pray standing on the street corners. They love
to pay tithes to the men and eyes incoming. They have a great
zeal for God. They go to the law and they go
in there and read the law to one another and go to the walls
and pray and jump up and down, do all kinds of things. But their
zeal is not according to anything that they know. Well, they're
ignorant. What are they ignorant of? God's
righteousness. How do you know? Because they're
going about to establish their own. Establish their own. You know, I was talking to a
man. I've known him, oh my goodness, ever since I've been in Tennessee.
And he got real sick, had to have a lot of work done on him.
And I sat and talking with him. And he goes to Armenia Free Will
Baptist Church. And I said, boy, God really had
mercy on you. I said, God was real merciful
to you. And he said, oh, no, no, no, no. I said, I was just
determined to get better. He didn't want to even mention
it. He established his own righteousness right then and there. I was trying to talk about what
God done for him. He said, no, no, no, no, no. I did this myself.
Oh, my. But here we go. This gospel. And he goes on to say, they go
about to establish their own righteousness. And I'll tell
you something, beloved. If anybody ever asks you, how
do you deal with, how do you discipline your church? You say,
with the gospel. How do you counsel your church?
With the gospel. How do you straighten people out? With the gospel.
I ain't got a stick that straightens people out. I've seen a few I'd
like to take a stick to, but that's a whole other story. My uncle, when I was young, you
know, you used to work in the back of fields. And if I got ugly
sometimes, you know, he'd pick up one of them packer sticks,
you know, about that long, put six big old things of burley
on them. He'd pick up that back stick, you'd open your mouth
again. Shut up, I shut up, I'm learning real quick. But that's
not the way this righteousness. Men go about to establish their
own righteousness. They want to brag on what they've
done. They want to brag on how they've kept the law. They go
to Calvary to get saved, and then they run back over here
to the law to get sanctified. They run back over here, and
they start talking about the things that they've done, the
things they're going to accomplish. They brag about how many people
they've got converted and all those things. But Paul said,
if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. He just died vainly. And then
I'm gonna close with this, this is my last point. A man has not saved, not only
has not been born again, who does not believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, who does not have and has not heard the gospel.
And you know, they talked about over in Ephesians 1, 13, after
you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Henry Mahan, you say that all the time. If you heard the gospel
of your salvation, It's the gospel that saves you. Not your wife,
you. Not your mama, you. And that's
what it is. The gospel becomes the gospel
of our salvation. It's what saves us. And here's
the fourth. If they don't have the righteousness
of Christ, if they're ignorant of that. And here's the fifth
thing. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Nobody is saved who does not
continue in the faith. These all died in faith. All
of them died in faith. You know, he said over in 1 John
2.19, he said, these went out from us. Why did they go out
from us? Because they were never of us.
Because if they had been of us, they no doubt would have continued
with us. I had a fellow quit one time
for eight years, he come back, stayed a couple of years, now
he's gone again. I had a couple said, you know, they've been
gone a couple of years. They called the other day and said, are they
going to come back? But you know, I'm telling you something, and
I've said this countless, countless times. If you can quit, if you
can actually quit, you will. You will. You will. If there's a spot, wrong spot
in there, it's going to come out on you. Ain't that right?
It's going to come out on you. And you know, let me show you
this in Hebrews 10. Then I'm going to show you another,
and then I'm going to quit. Oh, my. You know, you're all
so easy to preach to and so delightful. You know, those who know it best
love it. Was it to him say, you know,
those who know it best love it the most? They really do. But look what he said here in
Hebrews 10, 38. Now the just, those that have
been justified, how are they going to live? By the law? By
doing good? Being good? Being devoted? Living good prayer lives? Living
right? No, the just shall live by faith. But if any draw back, my soul
shall have no pleasure in him. But this is what he says, but
we are not, we are not of them who draw back unto perdition
or damnation. but of them that believe till
our very souls enter glory. And let me show you John 8.30.
John 8.30. And then, you know, John 8.30.
And what our master says here, It says in verse 29, first of
all, I do always those things that please him, please his father.
As he spake these words, many believed on him. And then said
Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. Listen to it now. If you continue in my word, are
you my disciples indeed. Continue in my word. Not just in church, in my word. You know, y'all, you have heard
it preached many, many times. Todd used it tonight over in
John 6, 65. He said, I said unto you, no man can come unto me
except the Father which sent me drawing. And from that time
forth, many disciples turned and walked away. And he turned
around to the 12, just like I turned around to you. I reckon y'all
going to leave too. I guess y'all just going to quit
too. Oh Lord, oh Lord, to whom shall
we go? You've got the words, words of
eternal life. Let everybody else go. I'm staying
right here because you've got the words that I need to hear.
Amen. Amen. Appreciate you all very
much. Thank you. You know, Todd said in his message,
come to Christ. Go compel them to come in. Aaron, Chris, and I were talking
between the services. You know, in false religion,
they compel people. They use psychology, and they try to manipulate
people and trick people, get them to do something. By God's
grace, we compel people to come in. You know how we do it? Not
by trying to get you to do something. By preaching Christ. This is
who God is. This is how God saves sinners.
He is holy, yet loves a sinner like me. He chose to save. He
set His love on sinners and chose to save. He came into flesh to
save them, to justify them, to put their sin away. He gives
them life and a new birth. He saves them and He keeps them
saved. He won't let them go. That's who Donnie just preached. For the life of me, I can't figure
out why He won't come to me. except for I know. It's because
God hasn't given you life. And that's my prayer, God give
you life. If he will, you come to him. And one more thing, if
you fellas don't quit looking at that clock, I'm going to get
Wayne and take it down. I don't want to put no
pressure on you, but I'm telling you, to hear Christ preach. You just
preach. Abby and I were talking about, we grew up, we listened,
we went to conferences, man preached an hour at a conference, the
next fellow got up, preached an hour, he got out and do him,
you know, preached an hour and 10 minutes and we survived. Just
preach, would you? Just preach, would you? All right. Now tomorrow morning we'll start
at 10 a.m. David Edmondson and Todd and
I will be preaching to us and then we'll have our picnic tomorrow
at six and I hope you all can stay for that. Let's bow together
in prayer before we sing. Our Father, how we thank you
for this time where you've enabled us to hear your gospel, that
you enable us to hear Christ our Savior exalted. Father, I
pray you give each of us faith to believing, to go home tonight
believing, trusting, resting in Christ our Savior. Father,
we're so humbled that you give such a great blessing, such a
great opportunity Poor sinners like we are to have this opportunity
to hear your gospel. Oh, cause us to take it seriously. Cause us to be thankful that
you've enabled us to hear of such a glorious Savior. Father,
I pray you'd enable us to go home tonight, get some rest,
and we pray you'd prepare David and Todd, prepare their heart
to preach. And Father, prepare our heart to hear, that we might
hear the message with hearts of faith. It's in Christ's precious
name, for his sake, All right, Isaac, come lead us in the closing. Stand and sing 37. O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made, I see the
stars, I hear the thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to thee, how great thou art! How great Thou art! And sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then through the woods and forest
glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and
feel the gentle breeze Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think that God, His
Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. And on the cross, my burden gladly
bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When Christ shall come With shout
of acclamation And take me home What joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow in humble adoration, And there proclaim, my God, how
great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! It sings my soul, my Savior God,
to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! you.