When I hear a message like that,
and I've got to get up and preach afterwards, sometimes I think
the most effective thing that I could do is say, Amen, you're
dismissed, because I don't really have anything to add to that.
That was such a blessing, and I'm glad I was here to hear that. But I'm going to go ahead and
preach. Turn with me, if you would, to the Psalm of Solomon. I hope I preached. I'll put it
that way. The Song of Solomon. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes
and the Song of Solomon. the song of Psalms, which is
Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savor of thy good
ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Therefore, do the
virgins love thee? Draw thee. We will run after thee. The King
hath brought me into his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember thy love more
than wine, the upright love thee. Now in the midst of this beautiful
passage of scripture, here is the prayer of the church. Here
is the continual prayer of the church. Draw me. Draw me. Now, in my experience,
and I know you'll know what I'm saying, when it feels as though
my heart has become cold and dead and hardened and unfeeling. My prayer is, draw me. Draw me. Now there are other times when
by His grace I see His beauty and I see the glory of His salvation
in my heart is filled with praise to Him. You know what my prayer
is? Draw me. There are other times when I
feel utterly helpless before temptation to sin. And I know
I can't stand up before it. You know what my prayer is? Draw me, and we will run after Thee. Now, this prayer is an ever-present
prayer with the believer, regardless of his condition. This is something
we are always made to pray. Oh, Lord, draw me. Draw me to
Yourself. Draw me, and we will run after
Thee. Now, we have some understanding
of our sinfulness. And we know that if He doesn't
draw us, we won't come. Don't you know that's so? Therefore we pray, draw me, and
we will run after Thee. Now this prayer is throughout
the Psalms. Would you turn to Psalm 19? I
thought of this while Brother Chapman was reading this. In verse 12. Who can understand his errors? You understand your errors? I
don't. Cleanse thou me from secret faults,
sins that I don't even know about. Keep back thy servant also from
presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over
me. Now, he's saying if you don't keep me back from presumptuous
sins, they will have dominion over me. That's the same prayer.
Draw me. Look in Psalm 27. I'm going to
look at quite a few verses in the Psalms just to show how this
is in the heart of the believer. Verse 7, Hear, O Lord, when I
cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me, and
answer me when thou sayest, Seek ye my face? My heart saith unto
thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. We realize when we seek His face,
it's because He said to us, Seek ye my face. Psalm 51. Psalm 51. David says in verse 8, make me
to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou has broken
may rejoice. I won't hear unless you make
me to hear. Draw me to yourself. Look in verse 14. Deliver me. from blood guiltiness,
O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud
of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and
my mouth shall show forth thy praise. The only way this will
be done is as he opens my mouth and my lips. Turn to Psalm 65,
verse 4. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts, will be satisfied with the goodness of thy house,
even of thy holy temple. And I know I won't approach unto
him unless he by irresistible, invincible grace causes me to."
Look in Psalm 80. You know, the Psalms If you want
to find out what a believer is really like, don't ask them,
read the Psalms. If you want to find out what's
really in the heart of a believer, if you just ask a believer what
he's like, probably he'll say something that will make him
look a little bit better. And if you want to know the truth,
what really goes on in the heart of a believer, read the Psalms.
Look in Psalm 80, verse 3. Turn us again, O God, and cause
thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. But if you don't turn
us, we won't be turned. Look in the same chapter, verse
18. So will we not go back from thee, quicken us, and we'll call
upon thy name. The only way we're going to call
upon your name and not go back from you is as you quicken us. Look in Psalm 119. I want to
read several verses in this. Look in verse 5. The psalmist
says, Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. Verse 18, open thou mine eyes
that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Verse 27, make
me to understand the way of thy precepts, so shall I talk of
thy wondrous works. Verse 32, I will run the way
of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart. Look in verse 33. Teach me, O
Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it in the end.
Give me understanding. I shall keep thy law. Yea, I'll
observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go. Force me. Make me to go in the way, the
path of thy commandments. For therein do I delight. Incline
my heart unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness. Now,
do you see how he's asking the Lord to do these things for him? and in him draw me, and we will
run after thee." Now, why this kind of language? You know, it
almost sounds like David is laying the responsibility of what he
should do on the Lord. Well, that's because that's what
he's doing. He is doing that. He's saying, Lord, I won't unless
you do. And every believer knows that
that's so. Our Lord said, without me, you
can do what? Nothing. Nothing. Now, we do not lay the blame
on him if we do not. Our sin is all our fault. We're not victims. It's all our
fault. If I get myself into a mess financially
through irresponsible living and I get to where I can't pay
my bills and I can't come up with the money to pay my bills
and you have the money to help me. Is it your responsibility to
help me? No, I got myself into that mess. Well, you could have
helped me. Therefore, it's your fault. No,
it's all my fault. My sin is all my fault. And if I'm not drawn to him,
you know whose fault it is? It's my fault. Now, how do I
respond to that? Well, nothing I can do about
it. Might as well do nothing. No, no. Draw me, draw me with irresistible,
invincible grace. Draw me to yourself and we will
run after thee. Now, the foundation behind this
prayer is the perseverance of the saints. This is how saints
persevere, being preserved by God they persevere in crying
out continually in every circumstance, draw me, and we will run after
thee. Now, I asked Bruce Prattree before
the service if I could use him in this illustration, and he
said, you can do it on one account. If you prove how An ignorant
man like me is actually smarter than all these intellectuals.
I said, well, I'll do that. But he was preaching probably
12 or 13 years ago. It's been a long time. Todd wrote
Grace Church. And he kept mispronouncing a
word. He was talking about the perseverance
of the saints and he kept saying the perseverance of the saints. the perseverance of the saints.
You know, that's a better word. That ought to be the word we
use because in that word we have perseverance and preservation.
We're preserved by God through perseverance. We persevere only
because we're preserved. We know that, don't Isn't that,
that ought to be a new word, shouldn't it? I put it in Webster's
dictionary, put Bruce's name by it, the perseverance of the
saints. That is why we cry, draw me. We persevere in following Christ. He that endureth to the end,
the same shall be saved. We don't quit. We continue in
the faith. We continue in his word, we deny
ourselves daily, take up our cross and follow him. We're called
upon to pluck out the right eye and cut off the right hand if
it causes us to sin. Now, that's how serious this
is. Somebody says, does that mean
literally? And I've actually had a preacher
say to me, it means literally. You go first. I'll follow your
lead. We persevere only because we're
preserved. Now unto Him that is able to
keep you from fault and to present you faultless before His throne
with exceeding joy. Now, our Lord said, I give unto
my sheep eternal life. And so we're always saying, draw
me. That's the language of life. Draw me and we will run after
thee. Someone dead in sins hears that
and uses it as a reason for fatalism and a reason for indifference.
Well, I can't do anything unless he does something for me. Therefore,
I'll just sit here and do nothing and wait for him to do something.
But a believer says, draw me and we will run after thee. Now, you take away the perseverance
or the perseverance, that's a better word. You take away the perseverance
of the believer. And you make meaningless divine
election. You make meaningless justification. You make meaningless the atonement
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You make meaningless the new
birth. You make meaningless invincible
grace. Draw me and I will run after
thee. And I know that if you don't
draw me, I will not do it." Now, here's why we know this. This gives some idea of the power
of sinful flesh over us. Do you know, now listen to me,
this is hard to believe, but did you know that if you're a
believer, you won't be any more holy in heaven then you are right
now, this second. Now, that's hard to get hold
of, isn't it? And you know why? It's because
this flesh brings us down that far. We really can't enter into
that. We believe it, but not much. Not much. But here's the truth.
Right now, if you're a believer, You won't be any more holy in
heaven than you are right now. But the one thing you won't have
is this sinful flesh. And that's how far it brings
us down because we can't even imagine, we can't get a hold
of this thing of us actually being holy. We believe it by
faith. But what power the flesh has,
therefore we say, draw me. And let me tell you something
about eternal security, if that's what you want to call it. I believe
in eternal security and I'm scared to death of falling away. I am. I'm scared right now. All the
Lord has to do is remove his hand in any degree. And I know I will leave. I'll compromise the gospel. I'll
fall into some kind of horrible, evil, wicked sin. All he's got
to do is take his hand off of me and that's the direction I'll
go. Therefore, I cry, draw me. I know what will happen if you
don't. Draw me and we will run after
thee. Now turn to John chapter 6. Very familiar passage of scripture. Verse 44. The Lord says no man can come
to me. He does not say no man may come
to me. You may. You may. He says no man can come to me. No man has the ability to come
to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. Draw me, Lord. I can't come unless you draw
me. Now, this drawing is what is
called irresistible and invincible grace. Now, that's the kind of
grace I need, grace that I can't resist. grace that overcomes
me. I'm the problem. Therefore, I
cry, draw me, and we'll run after thee. Irresistible grace. Let
me show you some examples of this in the scripture. Turn to
Romans chapter 5. Here's irresistible grace. Here's sovereign grace.
Verse 20. Romans chapter 5. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, overflow. That's all the law says. It reveals
to me that the offense abounds in me, but where sin abounded. In that place where sin abounded,
and only in that place where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound. Now you find me a place where
sin abounds. And I'll show you a place where
God's grace over abounds. Now look, go on verse 21. That
as sin has reigned unto death. Now, how much power do you have
to prevent death? You have no power to prevent
death. No matter what you do, you cannot
prevent death. Now, just as sin hath reigned
unto death to where you can't prevent it, even so might grace
reign. Grace reigns in the same way.
You can't prevent grace. That's irresistible grace. If
God puts his hand on you, you'll be saved. And there's not one
thing you can do to stop it. Isn't that wonderful? That as
sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness. This is righteous grace. It doesn't
make sin okay. It comes through the righteousness
and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it doesn't wink at
sin. It's through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ,
our Lord. Turn to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. Verse 12, Wherefore, my beloved,
as you've always obeyed, Not as in my presence only, but now
much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both
to will and to do is good pleasure. You know what my response to
that is? Lord, work in me both to will and to do your good pleasure. I remember Brother Mahan saying
this. Paul thought you were preaching. You're talking about what you're
saying makes people robots. I remember you said this. I'm
not so sure that's a bad thing. I want to be his robot, don't
you? Programmed to do his will. Irresistible, invincible grace. Strangely, mysteriously, by his
grace, He makes us willing. Psalm 110.3 says, Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. And here's our will.
Our will is that His will would be done. That is our will. Oh, the supremacy of His will. I love this. By the witch will,
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Irresistible grace causes us
to find the Lord Jesus Christ irresistible. That's what happens. It causes us to find the gospel
irresistible. We must hear the gospel. We can't leave. The Lord said
to his disciples, after that 5,000 left him, he looked at
his 12 disciples and said, you fellas want to leave too? He's
not going to hold anybody against their will. You see, he changes
the willer. He makes us willing. Peter says,
to whom shall we go? It's not like we even have an
option. Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living
God. Now, here's why he draws us.
In Jeremiah 31 3, he said, Behold, I love thee. Oh, I want to hear
him say this to me. Behold, I love thee. with an
everlasting love, a love that had no beginning. You know, I've always had personality
before the Lord. I've been around the whole lot
longer than before. Nine, nine, 59. That's my birthday. But I have always been in Christ. And he said, behold, I've loved
you with an everlasting You know, people look for something
to feel good about. Now, there's something to feel
good about. Behold, I've loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness,
have I drawn thee. When I say, Lord, draw me, it's
because He's drawn me. That's why. Turn to John chapter
12. John chapter 12. Verse 32. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth. And if you read the next verse,
you know what he was talking about. This, he said, signifying
what death he should die. If I be crucified, if I be nailed
to a cross and that cross is lifted up, And if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men. And notice the word
men is in italics. Not all men without exception.
All the elect. All for whom I have died. I will draw all to me. And you know what draws a believer
to him. The cross. There is an irresistible
drawing power in the truth of the cross that if you ever hear
it, if I ever hear it, we're drawn to it and we can't get
away from it. The truth of the cross, the truth
of who God is. God cannot be known apart from
the cross. All of his attributes are displayed in the cross. The
truth of who I am is found only in the cross. I don't find out
how sinful I am by looking within my heart or seeing the bad things
I've done. I find out how sinful I am when
I see men nailing Christ to a cross. That would be me. I'd be right
there. Turn to Colossians chapter one.
I want to see if this has a drawing power. Colossians chapter one. Verse 20, And having made peace through
the blood of His cross, He made my peace with God. I've heard
people say, preachers, Have you made your peace with God? No,
I haven't. He made my peace with God. All reasons for God's anger have
been removed. My sin has been paid for. It's
been put away. He made my peace with God through
the blood of His cross by Him. To reconcile all things unto
himself, by him I say, whether they be things on earth or things
in heaven, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in
the body of his flesh through death to present you. And this is not talking about
a future presentation. having presented you. When He
ascended back to the Father, this presentation was made. It's
not something that's going to happen. It's something that's
already taken place. To present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in His sight. Now, my soul is drawn to that.
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
to me. Now, notice in our text, the church says, draw me and
we will run after thee. We're not going to be slack.
We're not going to be distracted. We're not going to be turned
aside. Draw me and we will run after thee. In Psalm 119, verse 32, David said,
I will run in the way of thy commandments when thou hast enlarged
my heart. Now this is when I'm going to
run, as He draws me, as He enlarges my heart. Now what does the Bible
mean by the heart? You said it at some point, or
somebody did. The heart is the understanding, the will, and
the affections. It's the whole man. With the
heart, man believeth under righteousness. That doesn't mean in some kind
of sentimental way, although no doubt sentiments involved.
It means with his understanding, with his affections and his will. With my understanding, I understand
that the Lord Jesus Christ is my righteousness before God.
I understand that. I've made mention, David said,
of thy righteousness, even thine only. I understand that. But
not only do I understand it, I love it. I love Him being my
righteousness before God. Not only do I love it with my
will, if given the choice, would you rather be saved by your righteousness
or the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? You know which
choice I'm going to make? His righteousness. Now, that's
the whole man, the understanding, the affections, the will. Now, I'm going to run after you. when my heart is enlarged, when
my understanding is enlarged. The more I understand, the more
I see that I do not understand. Do you find that to be true? The more mysterious and incomprehensible
and glorious and majestic the gospel becomes. The more I understand, the more
I see I don't. But I do understand, I've got
some understanding of this. This is my understanding being
enlarged. I understand more clearly than I ever have that the only
hope that I have is that Jesus Christ the Lord died for me.
I know that's my only hope. I understand that his righteousness
is the only righteousness there is and the only righteousness
I have understood. Now, when my heart, when my understanding
is enlarged, I understand that more clearly. But not only is
the understanding enlarged, the will is expanded. Your will is
what you wish. It's what you desire. That's
what your will is. It's what you really are. The other stuff
isn't what you really are. What your will is what you really
are. What you truly desire. That's
what you really are. And I'll tell you what, as my will is
expanded, this is my only aspiration. This is my will. This is what
I desire more than anything else, that I may win Christ and be
found in Him. That's my greatest desire, that
I might simply be found in Christ. I have no other will, but that,
as far as, I mean, I've got the sinful will, I pray the Lord
will put that away, but this is my only spiritual desire,
is that I might be found in Christ, so that all God sees, when He
sees me, is His blessed Son, and I'm in Him. My affections
are expanded in my heart. I love his gospel. I love his
word. I love him. I love his people. Now, follow me, or draw me, and
we will run after thee. You see, we're pursuing a person. a doctrine, not a better way
of life, not a more accurate way of understanding things.
We pursue a person, and what we believe is determined by who
we believe. We pursue a person. Draw thee,
and we will run after thee. Now, here is the prayer of my
heart and yours. We pray this together. Draw me." Is that the prayer of your heart?
Draw me. And we will run.