I couldn't tell from the way
he told that story whether he's saying, I gave Joe my ticket
and he stayed. I don't know just what his attitude
is. It sure is good to be among you all again. I think I've got
this all right. Okay, we're in business. I enjoy
being Where I am up there in northwest Iowa, believe it or
not, though I am a hillbilly of hillbillies, and spent most
of my childhood in West Virginia, I enjoy the culture and the small
town I live in up there. And actually, I kind of like
the weather. I've gotten where I don't deal with heat and humidity
very well at all. And we don't have to deal with
heat or humidity from October to about May at all. All our
humidity comes in the form of snow. during that time. But the Lord has blessed us up
there. And He's blessed us up there
the same way He blesses everywhere, and that's He's blessed us in
spite of ourselves. He's blessed that church in spite
of the man He sent up there to pastor. And He's blessed the
pastor in spite of the people that He sent him to pastor. I
believe it was Brother Henry Mahan that told us once he'd
heard a really good definition of grace. in spite of. It's a
good definition of grace. And we're going to kind of touch
on that this evening if you'll open your Bibles to Ephesians
chapter 2. A real familiar portion of Scripture. In fact, it is
what you might call the theme Scripture of the church I was
raised in, though I fear they did not understand what it meant.
I went to Grace Gospel Church in Huntington, West Virginia
when I was a child. Which church? That's a good name.
And this was their text of Scripture, for by grace are ye saved. It
says here in verse 8, Ephesians chapter 2, for by grace are ye
saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. If so, you'll know I want to
focus our attention on the words in verse 9, not of works. Now, you wouldn't think that
among grace people that you'd have to say not of works. We
already know that, don't we? Yes, we do. And we must be taught
it over and over again. Because being of a dual nature
such as we are, such as born-again people are, a nature of flesh
and a nature of spirit, we have within us both the works religion
and the grace religion. That's just true. And so we need
to be taught the very basics of the gospel over and over again. I heard a story once concerning
Martin Luther. That, you know, when he pastored
this church, week after week, he preached the gospel. And his
congregation was just like a lot of other congregations. They
started to think he was getting repetitious. And they said, Pastor,
why is it that every week we come here preaching the gospel?
And he says, because every week you come here looking like you
need it. And you look like people that don't believe it. And really,
in our flesh, we never do believe. The flesh cannot believe. The
flesh can only lay hold of that which is seen, heard, tasted,
smelled, or touched. That's all the flesh can lay
hold of. And we have not seen the Lord Jesus Christ. Never
have. We talk about the fragrance of
Christ, but we've never smelled Him. Not in the flesh. We've
never touched Him. Now, the apostles did. John says
that's which our eyes have seen, which we gazed at, which our
hands handled concerning the Word of Life. That's what we're
telling you. But our Lord said, you have seen
and believed. Blessed are those who have not
seen but have believed. That's us. But because we've
never seen, the flesh continually raises up objections. Therefore,
we must feed on this spiritual food of the very simple and basic
truths of the gospel, even something so elementary as not of works. Now, there's a danger in preaching
the gospel. The gospel is the most dangerous thing in all the
world. It's dangerous because natural
men don't like it, especially religious natural men. And even
though we might add that adjective religious, the fact is everybody
is religious. They are. Even the atheist is
religious. And someone said, you know, there's
no atheists in foxholes. I kind of figure that there's
no atheists that are born, and unless they're killed without
any kind of warning, there's no atheists
that die. Because at both ends of life,
people know that there is a God. And men are full of religion,
but the gospel is a dangerous thing. The thoughts of God run
counter to the thoughts of men, and therefore men are deeply
offended if you simply tell them what God has said. You don't
have to rant and rave. You don't have to get red-faced
to offend them. You don't have to pound the pulpit.
Now, they may get offended at such things, but you don't have
to do that to offend them. All you've got to do is tell
them the truth. But it is at the very point of
the gospel's offense that the sinner finds the most good. You may try to take the offense
out of the gospel, but if you do, you take the power out of
the gospel. If you remove that which offends
natural man, you have removed that which can do him some good.
A fellow whose music I kind of
like. He wrote a song in which he was
saying he's going to preach the gospel. He needs to tell the
truth, even if nobody loves him. And one of the lines in there,
he says, the truth is never flashy. So it's not an easy sell. You
can dress it like the culture. She'll shock him just as well.
And there's no way to package the gospel that it won't offend.
And if you ever do find a way to preach the gospel so that
it doesn't offend men, what you've done, you've removed the offense
and you've removed its ability to do them any good. Man's sin has separated him from
God, but it's man's righteousness that keeps him from God. It's
man's feeling that he has something good in him. We reason within
ourselves our natural thoughts, since it was by evil doing that
men were made sinners. It only makes sense that by good
doing we're made righteous. And let's face it, that makes
sense. And the fact of the matter is, if you could do good, it'd
make you righteous. So there's nothing wrong with
the logic of what they're saying. It's just that they draw a conclusion
from there that isn't logical. I must be able to do good. And
so they try. Now right at that point,
the gospel offends men by teaching us that we are utterly incapable
of doing anything good. Now understand, that's different
from telling a man that he's sinned. You can get anybody to
admit that. If by sinner you simply mean
somebody who has committed a sin, sure. We're all sinners, aren't
we? The offense comes when you say
not only are you a sinner, you've never done anything good. Now
wait a minute. Wait a minute. The old Phil Donahue
show, there was a A preacher on there, a man who I do not
agree with, but on this particular issue, he did a good job of standing
for the truth. And he was saying that salvation
was by grace and through faith in Christ alone. And this woman
got up in the audience and says, I've been taking care of my old
mother for 10 years. She's an invalid. And you're
telling me that that doesn't mean anything? He said, no, it
doesn't. But men believe they've done
something good. Or if they haven't yet, they're
surely capable if they just put their mind to it. But to teach them, as the Scripture
teaches us, that the heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked, who can know it, to teach them that there's
none good, know not one, there's none that doeth good, there's
none that worketh righteousness, there's not even anybody seeking
God. Well, I go to church. No, that doesn't mean you're
seeking God. I pray doesn't mean you're seeking
God. The scriptures teach us that
our salvation, that is our acceptance with God and all the blessings
that attend that, it is not in any way based on any good thing
that we have done. And one of the reasons that God
designed the gospel, that it does not in any way rely upon
our good works, is simply this. There are no good works of ours
to rely on. You know, the gospel, the religions
and the gospels that are popular today are just fine. They're great for people that
can do good. Really. They'd work perfectly
well if you were capable of producing a righteousness. If you were
capable of somehow or another putting away your sin, if you
could do that, those Gospels would work just great. But then
it's like saying this medicine would work just fine if you weren't
sick. You know? This money would be real good
for you if you didn't have any debts. You see, the Gospel takes a man
off the insane path of trying to earn God's blessings by his
own works. and causes him to rest in the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, Paul, speaking to Timothy,
said, God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of wisdom
and of love and of a sound mind. That word translated sound, you
could translate a saved mind. And it's also the word that the
Greeks used to describe somebody's healthy, a healthy mind. That
doesn't mean every believer has an emotionally healthy mind.
Good grief, we're all a mess. Some of us more a mess than others
when it comes to emotions and our way of perceiving the world.
But here's something where every believer's mind is healthy. He
knows how it is God saves sinners. He's not on that insane path
anymore of trying to work to obtain the blessings of God.
He's no longer spiritually crazy. Do you realize that, that you were
insane? Until God saved your mind? Gave you back your spiritual
marbles? Nowhere is this message, if not
of works, any more dangerous or more likely to produce offense
than in a religious community. Now, I preach. You all think
you've got a religious community. About 2,500, maybe 3,000 people,
11 churches. Most of them are under one version
or another of Reformed churches, and they've got stout-sized congregations. There's more in the churches
than live in the town, because they also feed, of course, all
the rural area around us. Only the Lutherans, the Methodists,
the Catholics, and that weird Sovereign Grace Baptist church
on the north end of town, they're kind of small. Everybody else
is pretty big. Religious. For that reason, it's a rather
safe town to live in. We leave the doors unlocked.
In fact, in the winter, you leave the car running when you park and go
in the store, so it'll be warm when you come out. You don't
worry about it. People treat you pretty decent.
I'll tell you this, even though they say not of works with their
mouth, it's not what they believe in their heart. But you know something else?
We're a religious people. Don't ever think the Scriptures
were written for someone else. They were written for you. Don't ever say, yeah, that'll
offend those free willers. If you lay hold of it, it'll
offend you. You may be a believer this day,
but if you lay hold this evening once again of this knot of works,
it will offend your flesh. Because your flesh still thinks
it can do something. You may rejoice. I know you will
if you're a believer. But you're going to rejoice while
you're trying to put the mouth over your flesh who's going to
complain. Because we like to work. If nothing else, we like
this. And let me tell you, what is
a work? It's real simple. Verse 9. Not of works, lest any
man should boast. Anything man boasts about, that's
a work. Well, you've got to understand, preacher, we believe in sovereign
grace. Now do you? So what? Is that your plea? Is that really
your plea? If it is, you're lost. If you
think that's why God favors you instead of someone else, you're
lost. Well, at least I know I'm a sinner.
I had a man tell me that. He judged all the self-righteous
people in our town by saying, well, at least I know I'm a sinner.
And probably if I'd have been smarter, I'd have said, no, you
don't. Because if you knew you were a sinner, you'd never say
that with that tone of voice. Because he was really, in one
way, saying this, I thank you, God, I'm not like those self-righteous
Reformed people over there. Because after all, I know I'm
a sinner. Oh, how deceptive is the human
heart, how utterly, desperately wicked it is, that it will take
a confession of sin and turn it into a work of righteousness. That's why you and I, Sovereign
Grace Baptists, preachers, need to be reminded, not of works. That there is nothing I have
done in my life to which I might point and say this is why I am
sad. Not of works is the negative
expression of the phrase through faith. It says for by grace are
you saved through faith, not of works. Now that's how we kind
of understand what works are and kind of what we understand
what faith is. Because they are two mutually exclusive systems. Now, it is not as though one
is a good system and the other is an evil system. Works is not
an evil system. It's just a useless one when
it comes to us. If a man says, I believe in salvation
by works, I can say, so do I. And if you want to try that way,
go ahead. But you're going to fail. And truth be known, and we'll
get to this in just a minute, truth be known, even the gospel
preaches salvation by works. Just not ours. Now, salvation cannot be partly
through faith and partly by works, that's the Galatian heresy. The
Galatians did not say that grace was unnecessary. The Galatians
did not say that Christ was unnecessary. Says these things weren't sufficient.
That's all they said. They put a plus in there. They
would say salvation is by grace. Plus. Salvation is by Christ. Plus. That's that plus that killed
them. That's why Paul said, if ye be
circumcised, that was their plus. It doesn't matter what you plus
on, but that was their plus. And if you be circumcised, he
said, then Christ profits you nothing. The thing is, Christ
is one of those things you add anything to him, he becomes a
zero to you. But you can't mix the two. This
business of salvation by our own works is the heresy that
permeates a great deal, probably even most, I know most of what
goes under the name of Christianity today. It's rather difficult to find
a church of people who do not believe that their works do not
somewhere enter in and contribute something to their salvation.
Everybody thinks that there's something to be found in them
that can explain why they're on their way to heaven and their
neighbors on the way to hell. They just believe that. Besides
pastoring that church up there, I work with a man in our church
insulating houses and we We do this for those who qualify for
heating assistance. So we're, generally speaking,
in poor homes. And we did this one precious lady. Really, she
was a very nice lady. Had a mentally challenged daughter. And I mean, the woman was 80.
Her mentally challenged daughter was about 60. And she'd been
caring for this woman, this daughter, all her life. And was happy.
And was a little bit embarrassed that we were there working on
the house. But just so appreciative of everything. Really enjoyed
doing the job. But she found out I was a preacher. In some
ways, I try to hide that fact. Because as soon as you're a preacher,
they find out you're a preacher, they treat you different, you know.
But just as I was about to leave, she found out I was a preacher,
you know. She says, oh, she says, well, you know, I don't go to
church much anymore, but I still say my prayers. There it was. But I still The preachers have
their bachigadas, and you say, what's a bachigada? Well, it's
those things where they say, well, salvation's by grace, bachigada,
and they add something there afterwards. It's hard to find
a preacher that doesn't have a bachigada somewhere. And they
hear the bachigadas, and so when people speak, it's always, yes,
I do this that's bad, but I still do this that's good. You might even get to be such
a weak confession of righteousness, well, I never killed anybody.
There's your good legacy. Bob, born and sold, never killed
anybody. Can you imagine that's the only
thing they could say at your funeral? Only good thing they could come
up with. Well, never killed anybody, at least nobody we know of. But there you go. But if we're
honest, We must confess that this principle of work still
rattles around in our thoughts to this very day. Sometimes it
shows itself in the sense of guilt and fear that arise in
our hearts when we fail to accomplish the level of righteousness we
believe we should accomplish, when we fall to some pet sin
When we indulge in some transgression with which we have wrestled all
of our lives and thought by now we would have got a hold of it
and it wouldn't bother us anymore, and then we fall through it again
and we begin to think, maybe I'm not saved. Or maybe we'll do like some in
the Galatian church were doing. It's not like they put so much
salvation as a matter of works, but they thought God would quit
working among them because they hadn't been good enough. That's
what Paul said. He said, does God work miracles
among you because you believe or because you keep the law? I wrestle with that one all the
time. I was just talking to John about that on a service here
a month and a half or so ago, a couple of months ago. I was
scared to death to get in a pulpit because all at once my conscience
was awakened. and the remembrance of my sin,
my failures and weaknesses and all that, and I thought, God
is not going to bless me to preach today. God is done with me. I've offended Him too much. Where
does that come from? I can tell you one place it doesn't
come from. It doesn't come out of the Gospel. It doesn't come out of the system
of grace. That fear, that anxiety, that
arises in our hearts over our failures is not a product of
the grace of God. That's a product of the law.
That's a product of a guilty conscience, an evil conscience,
a conscience as of yet unsprinkled with the blood of Christ. Sometimes this idea that salvation
is in some way promoted by our own work, sometimes it shows
itself in a self-righteous judgment of others. You know, I know that the scriptures
teach us to be discerning, to discern between truth and error. And there are some of whom we
might say they are lost simply because they are professing a
false gospel or professing that they don't believe any gospel
at all. But then we're not judging them. We're just telling them
the conclusion of what they believe. You know, that's not a judgment
of a person. A man says, well, I don't believe
in Jesus. Well, we aren't judging you by
saying you're lost. Either believe or not is condemned. That's the
judgment of Scripture. And I tell you, there is within
our flesh And this is a principle we've got to fight all the time.
There is within our flesh a certain delight in judging other people
in such a way that we come out better than them. And there is
a tendency in us to find minor points of doctrine and find some
way to twist the words of people to make them say things they
really didn't intend to say or they accidentally said and twist
them around and declare them lost. simply because they didn't say
something the way we would have said it. Oh, we have to be so
careful. In fact, you know, I find in
the Scriptures that there were gifts given for pastor,
teacher, and there were gifts given for works of mercy, and
gifts given for all manner of good things. I don't find anywhere
in the Scripture any mention of the spiritual gift of judgment
and condemnation. Did I dare say most churches
open an office for most high judge? Everybody would want to
be it. We love to sit in judgment over people. And that's because
our flesh is still enamored of this concept of works. And we've
got to find a way that we look better than other people. They don't do like we do. They
don't talk like we do. They have fallen. We can never
say with absolute certainty that any particular person is lost
unless, of course, they've professed a false gospel or no gospel at
all. But, you know, God's people take their tumbles. They do.
The righteous fall, says the Scriptures. Now, the Lord restores
them. But they do fall. And sometimes
they fall terribly and sometimes they fall for a long time. If you were to come to a tree
in winter, you might suspect it's dead. There's no leaves. There's no fruit. It looks like
a dead tree. And you might come to someone
in the winter of trouble, in the winter of trial, in the winter
of temptation, and you won't be able to see anything with
your eyes to convince you that they believe God. They may have
even retreated within themselves and gone through a great struggle.
You don't see them at church like you think they ought to.
And it's our temptation to say, well, they're born of God. They
wouldn't do that. Hold on, brother. It may be your turn next. It
may be. Take heed when you stand, says
the scripture, lest you fall. Oh, how we like to judge. What
that teaches us, our enjoyment of judging. teaches us that our
flesh has still not come to terms with the fact that salvation
is not of works. Now, I used to like to judge
people and tell folks they were lost. You know, I always knew
I wasn't supposed to tell people they were saved, but that wasn't
my business. You know something? It's not
my business to tell them they're lost either. You know who can tell them they're
lost? The one who has a right to tell them they're saved. It's
God. And he does so through his gospel. If my preaching of the
gospel doesn't convince a man they're lost, me telling him
he's lost doesn't even want to convince him. If I preach the gospel and
it impacts him, confronts him with the error of his way, the
error of his faith and all that, and yet he's not convinced he's
lost, me coming up and saying, well, you realize you're lost,
don't you? They're not going to go, oh. The understanding and knowledge
of being lost is every bit as much a spiritual thing as the
understanding and knowledge of being saved. And I can't do anything
spiritual with you or with anybody else. I can talk to your brains.
It's only God can talk to your heart. When Paul says not of works,
he means not by our works. Titus chapter 3 verse 5, he clarifies
it a little bit. He says, not by works of righteousness
which we have done. Now there are works which we
do which may outwardly appear righteous. We give to some charitable
cause. We help those that need help. We worship God. These things
look righteous from the outside. And so Paul He's not trying to
make an argument here that these are righteous or they're not
righteous. That wasn't an argument. He just said, in case you ever thought
you did something righteous, understand this. It wasn't by
any righteous works you did. God has saved you, but by His
mercy. That's all. Salvation is by works. God will
not be satisfied by anything than full conformity to His law
and full accomplishment of all His demands. Not because he's
mean, but because he's God. God can't accept anything less
than Himself. Not like He wants to and can't.
He doesn't want to. You take a really good musician.
He can't stand to listen to bad music. Or even good music poorly
performed. It grates against him. It's against
his nature. He's got a good ear. He can tell
this isn't right. And that's kind of the way it
is with God. He's good at being good. And it's difficult, impossible for
Him to tolerate anything than the perfection of His own nature.
The Gospel is not a declaration that works are no longer required,
but that all the required works have been done. That's the declaration
of the Gospel. The difference between the law
and gospel is not what works must be done, but who it is that
has done them. That's the difference. And in
truth, here is the very place that we learn what not of works
means. When we say, Here's where we learn it, when
we see, that is, see the works of Christ and perceive that they
fully complied with all God's law and fully accomplished all
that He demanded. That's where we learn that salvation
is not of our works. The foundation of not of works
is our Lord's declaration from the cross, it is finished. What
was finished? The works. We can stand here and make a
doctrinal argument that salvation is not of works. We can make
even this scriptural argument, simply this is what Paul said,
so it must be so. We can make that argument. But
I'll tell you where your heart will learn it, and that's at
the cross of Christ, hearing in your spiritual ears our Lord
Jesus saying, the works are finished. And then you know why it's not
of works. When a job's done. He quit. I usually quit before it's done.
But, you know, I've got a house full of unfinished projects.
But the Lord has no unfinished projects. It's done. And therefore, He entered His
rest. It's right for Christ to rest.
Because He finished. And the Scriptures don't say
that we enter our rest. It says we enter His race. If you want to learn the doctrine
of salvation, not of works, you need to go where the works were
finished. Because that's the only place your conscience is
going to find any peace in not doing any works. So long as you
think there's something left to do, your conscience will give
you no rest. Because friends, if there is
something to do, then salvation is still of our works. That easy,
that simple. Men do all kinds of works, all
kinds of things that they boast in. They do works of righteousness,
works of the law, Sabbath keeping and all that kind of stuff. They
think they're better than others because on Sunday, I heard one
guy, he was so strict, he wouldn't read the color comics on Sunday,
nor the sports section. It was okay to read the news,
but sports is entertainment, understand? And the color edition
of the comic, that's just double entertainment, you know? So you
don't read that on Sunday. In fact, now this is an You know,
I live in a Dutch community, and there's another Dutch community
up around Grand Rapids, and the newspaper there, I don't know
if they do it anymore, but I knew a fellow that worked there back
in the fifties or sixties, something like that. They had a pre-midnight
edition on Saturday night, so all those Reformed people could
get their paper before the Sabbath. Now, if a man's conscience Paul
said, if he regards one day above another, fine, we can leave him
with that, unless he's going to boast in it. Works of righteousness of the
law, works of ceremony, works of public religion. I don't know,
I've been gone from here so long, I don't know what they're doing
around here anymore, but up there where I am, they are so big.
Well, do you remember the promise keepers? Do you remember hearing
about them? They had a local chapter of that outfit. You know
what they call them? I'm not lying to you. Men of
integrity. Men of integrity. They have young
people. They're going to take those virginity
vows. Boy, I hope you young people here don't get the idea I think
that that's inconsequential. As much as you're able to keep
yourself pure until your marriage and stay pure to your spouse,
just do that. It's good for you. It's the right
thing to do. I want to tell you something, if you can make all
the vows you want, it's not going to impress God. If you can even
keep them, it's not going to impress God. But they got them
doing that. I heard of a wedding that went
on in Nashville. Not in the churches we know there. This was a friend
of mine who's got a friend in Nashville. His older daughter had flipped
up and ended up pregnant. So they were already engaged,
but they had to move the wedding up, you know. And it was kind
of a, well, they got the wedding done. Well, then the next daughter
wants to get married, and she managed to make it through. Oh,
what a big shindig they threw. And they had been wearing virginity
rings, and they traded those or whatever it was. Just a big
hoopla about all this. All the things in which men will
boast. They wear their what-would-Jesus-do bracelets. And whether or not you consider
it idolatry, they wear the crosses around their neck. Primarily,
everybody else knows, hey, I'm a Christian. I'm better than
you. You don't wear a cross. We don't do anything. We might
feel better than them. I don't wear a cross. I'm better
than you. Aren't we a mess? God, works
of morality. Whoops. This extra step only
goes so far back. I'll try to wrap this up quick.
Works of morality. Just being decent. Boy, I like
being decent. I do. I live around decent people. At least publicly
decent. And like I said, it makes for
a nice place to live. A good place to raise kids. These
seem moral rectitude, but then they're just like that Pharisee
who said, I thank you I'm not like other men. And the truth
is, we are like them. We may not do like them. God
may hold us back from acting like them. But we are like them,
aren't we? Works of piety. I get up every
morning at five o'clock and have devotions in my quiet time with
God. I wake up every morning at five
o'clock and roll over and try to get another hour's sleep.
You know something? If you want to wake up at 5 o'clock
and read your Bible and spend time in prayer, that's fine.
If that's what your heart longs for, or if you want to do it
at 7 o'clock in the evening, or in five-minute bursts through
the day, that's all well and good. Just don't boast in it.
All prayer. Church going. They take all kinds of vows.
In the Catholic Church, vows of silence and all that. I wish
all of them would take vows, son. Quit preaching, you know. All kinds of vows. People being
dedicated. When I was at the church I was
raised in, I was always going up front during the invitation.
Not to be saved, because I thought I did that when I was seven,
you know. I was a teenager and I was kind of a goody-two-shoes,
a little church boy, you know. And they'd always say, well,
who wants to dedicate their lives to full-time service? And I'd
go up, you know. I remember my friend one time
saying, well, can you do part-time service? Twenty hours a week
or something like that, you know. But at the end of the missionary
conference, they'd ask all the young people that are willing
to go to the mission field, come up and stand at choir lofts.
And I'd be the first one up there. Who wants to rededicate their
lives? It's kind of funny when you're 15 rededicating your life,
you know? Well, what happened when you
were 14 and dedicated your life? Well, what can you dedicate your
life to at 14? But they do all this. I did it.
We all do it. Works of humility. Professing
oneself to be a sinner. There's one church in our town,
it's amazing the blasphemies they'll utter under the guise
of humility. I was talking to one of them
one time, and they're just determined to act as though they don't Like,
you know, they're just too sinful to be saved. And really, to say
you're too sinful to be saved is just to say you're so self-righteous
you think you could have been better. But I was talking with
this guy, and every time I would present the freeness of the gospel,
he had some way to ruin it all. I said, do you believe God? And
here was his humble answer. Well, sometimes I'd like to think
I do. And I wish, and I guess the Lord just wasn't going to
confront him that day. But later on, you know, I kind of did one
of these things. I wish I said, oh, so the rest of the time he's
a liar. Because if you don't believe God, you just called
him a liar. There's nothing humble about
saying you're an unbeliever. That's as brash and bold a statement
of blasphemy as there is. You just said, I don't believe
God. He who cannot be untrue, I'll call him a liar to his face.
That's exactly what John says it is. And he that doesn't believe
it hath made God a liar, for he has not believed the record
which God has given of his Son. Oh, we can make it sound like
it's humble. I'd like to think I do sometimes. Well, what is our hope then?
It's the works of Christ. His works of righteousness. His
works of ceremony. I'm going to wind this up in
about two minutes. We got the two ceremonies. We're
kind of proud of that, too. We only got the biblical ones,
you know. You know, we don't get them right. I don't care
how right we get them, we don't get them all the way right. And
our heart's not right when we do it. You know, our Lord was
baptized for us. Our Lord instituted and celebrated
the Lord's table. And he did it right. Works of public religion, he
did it right. Works of morality, he's the only
moral man that ever lived. Works of piety, he's the only
truly godly, pious man that ever lived. I wish I were godly, and
I know in some respects I am, in the same sense that Locke
was called a godly man. I know this. I don't want to
get to heaven on my godliness. I'm not going to try. The Lord
was godly for me. Well then, what is the place
of works? It says, we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus under good works. I was talking to John about this
fellow named Paul Potts. He was a cell phone salesman,
but he had a little bit of instruction in operatic singing and he had
a natural talent for it. And he got on to Britain's equivalent
of American Idol with Simon Cowell. And I've seen the tape of it.
And the man sang Nessun Dorma, I think it's called. If you recognize
any of that, it's some famous piece. He brought tears to my
eyes. He brought the audience to its
feet twice. And if you know anything about
the show, he impressed Simon Cowell. The man was born to sin. I told
John, I said, you know, I just wish I knew what I was born to
do. If there was anything I was born, I was made for that. It tells us right here what we
were made for. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus under good works. That's what we were born again
to do. And do you know, in that nature
that was born again in us called the spiritual nature, It's what
we do. Trouble is we've got to squeeze
those good works out through this fleshly body and they get
messed up on the way. But it's what we do. It's what we love to do. That's
what we were born to do. May the Lord bless you.