Well, Madisonville is represented. Well, you could tell him he was
on Indian time. In Cherokee, any part of the hour is 6 o'clock.
So if it's 6.50, it's still 6 o'clock, so you're all right. It's a delight to be back to
see everybody again, to be in the midst of people who love
the gospel of God's grace, I was listening to some conversation
back here in the corner. I think Trent was talking about
the number of times he saw signs with the word grace on it. And
people were talking about it and the names of churches. And
that's what I'm going to preach on tonight. The title of my message
is Scandalous Grace. Scandalous Grace. Romans chapter
3 and verse 8. Paul says this, and not rather as we are slanderously
reported through my lie unto his glory excuse me jump the
line there reported as some affirm that we say let us do evil that
good may come whose damnation is just now Paul in this verse
is declaring that he's being slandered by those who despise
the preaching of the grace of God, and the fact that salvation
and justification and sanctification is the sovereign and sole act
of the unmerited favor of Almighty God. Now the manner in which
He is being slandered is two-fold. First, those who oppose the gospel
He preaches accuse Him of preaching that people ought to sin, so
grace will abound. Secondly, and tied to the first,
is that they are accusing Paul of saying that a man's sin glorifies
the righteousness of God. That's their natural response
to the teaching of grace. And I will say this, any man
who teaches the grace of Almighty God is going to be accused of
these very things. They're going to be accused of
that because the grace of God, as wonderful and as precious
as it is, is anathema to human nature and is anathema to organized
religion. Grace is a wondrous thing. This
is an age-old argument of the self-righteous that to preach
grace, pure sovereign grace, opens the floodgates to sin.
If you know anything about yourself, you know you don't need to open
any floodgates for that. You're already sinful and unclean. I saw a thing on Facebook the
other day where a fellow said, you can call me what you want
to, the songs I sing on Sunday morning tell me how much worse
I am than you could ever tell me. So that's true. We are wretches,
we just sang it, by the grace of God, he saves the ruined and
the undone. To this word, Paul replies that
such a statement only proves that God is true and all men
are liars. Let God be true and all men are
liars, and all men are liars, and all women are too. The only way that sin glorifies
God is that He put it away by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace does not hinder God's ability
to or justness to save people in fact the only way he's just
to save people is by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ he has
received full payment for my sins at the hands of his dear
son and I stand before him by his grace accepted now when I
look at me and I think about me and the older I get the more
the blacker my heart is and the more weak and frail my brain
is, if I look at me, I am absolutely
hopeless. But thank God, He looks at me
in grace. Now, what primarily caused the
ire of the religious men here to slander Paul is that he had
put all men, both Jew and Gentile alike, into the very same category.
He said, they're all sold under sin. They're all sold. The Jews
being the object of natural election as a nation and following the
rights of circumcision, declaring themselves to be descendants
of Abraham, adhering to those things as tokens of God's favor.
They said, God's favor, son. He did all this for us. They
refused to be put in the same category as the pagan Gentiles
who had no interest in God whatsoever when God saved their souls. Paul
tells them that the Word of God, through unbelief, disregarded
the message of the Scripture. They disregarded it, which throughout
declares the coming of the Savior. The Jews had the oracles. They
had the priesthood. They had the sacrifices. They
had the temple. They had the Ark of the Covenant.
They had all the elements of the temple. They had the Word
of God. And yet they never saw the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when He was in their midst,
they rejected Him. Their advantage had been squandered away because
they opted for their own obedience as that which justifies them
before God. That's what they believed. Do
you believe that? In the first two chapters, Paul
puts an end to such things as he declares the gospel to be
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. The only place where the
righteousness of God is revealed is one place, it's in the gospel.
No other. We preach the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Men can stand up and say, well, I preach the word
of God. You don't preach the word of God unless you preach
the gospel. Because the gospel is that seed, that semen that
gives life to men. I don't understand it. Don't
begin to understand it. Don't try to explain it. Some
things you don't need to try to explain, you just need to
declare. Because only faith can believe it. You'll never believe
it naturally. No one can. The only place where
God's righteousness is revealed is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And that's not to works of obedience. It's not revealed to that. It's
revealed from faith to faith. The Gentiles denied God by making
themselves to be gods. And they made gods for themselves.
And the Jews denied God by saying they kept the law when they did
not. Read chapters 1 and 2. The Gentile mind is explained
in chapter 1. The Jewish mind is explained
in chapter 2. Claiming they were entitled to
the blessing of God because they were circumcised. They had tied
them to the blessing of Abraham. The self-righteous always operated
on the sense of entitlement. Always. Read Isaiah chapter 58. The people there, our Lord said
to the prophet, Tell my people their sins. Tell my people their
sins. And you will think, well, He
is going to tell them that they are drunks and they go to bordellos and
they watch too much internet. There has got to be something
that they do. He said, These are their sins. they worship
me and they say I don't pay attention that's what they were saying
we do these things we fast and God doesn't pay attention listen
God never pays attention to you you better hope he never pays
attention to you you better hope he pays attention to his son
because that's the only thing in this world and the next that
recommends you to God is Jesus Christ. Nothing you do or are
or ever can be will ever recommend you to God. Now you might think
if you stop some things like some sinful behaviors that somehow
God's going to be pleased with that. You've heard people talk
that way. Well if you put down them cigarettes
and make Jesus happy, it will make Jesus happy. The only thing that makes God
happy is His Son, Christ and Him crucified. Paul puts an end
to such thinking. In Luke 18, the Pharisees, he
took pride in himself and he hated others, it said. He despised
others. So Paul puts an end to that with
a bold statement and a scandalous statement that shut up both the
Jew and the Gentile. He says, He is not a Jew which
is one outwardly. Says in chapter 2 verse 28 and
29, He is not a Jew which is worn outward, but is worn inward,
a circumcision of the heart, and not of the flesh, whose praise
is of God, and not of men. This is, what kind of talk is
that? An inward thing, an inward thing. These slandered Paul,
and lied on him, and lied about what he was declaring, because
to the natural man, to the moral man, to the religious man, grace
talking about grace on them churches. If they believe that, if the
preacher preached that in most of the churches today, they would
be out of business. The moral man, the religious
man, grace declares that NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NOTHING, AT ALL,
EVER, recommends you to God or is considered by God in the salvation
of your soul. God saves you you are removed
from the equation totally and completely. When we see the wicked
prosper, we think we're the sons of God. They shouldn't prosper,
we should. We have difficulty with grace
too. We have difficulty with it too. the old man and the believer
will never receive grace but thank God he has overridden that
he has subdued the nature of man and has given him his spirit
deep down where we don't want anyone to know even believers
we don't want anyone to know we hold on to our own morality
and think it's worthy of recognition we don't want to talk about it
but we do to the world, even to our flesh, the declaration
of salvation, justification, sanctification, is by the grace
of God alone, and it's scandalous. It's scandalous. Think with me
for a bit about the grace of God. The grace of God. The word grace, you know what
it means, and you know what it means, unmerited That means God
favored you and you could not ever deserve it. There's nothing
about you that could cause it to happen. Nothing. That means
simply that if you received grace, you had nothing to do with it.
Nothing whatsoever to do with it, to the receiving of it. It
means that no matter how vile and corrupt you might be, how
far you've delved into the depths of your own depravity, that your
sin, as vile and as black as it is, cannot withhold the grace
of God, cannot stop the grace of God. It means that though
you are a believer and saved by grace that there remains in
you a wickedness that if displayed or known would be worthy of 10,000
hills and yet is no hindrance to the grace of God. It means that though you may
be immorally upright obedient, a good citizen, that you pray
and give and study the Word of God, that has nothing to do with
you receiving grace. That means there's just nothing
about us, is there? Nothing whatsoever. It means that though you might
steal another man's wife, get her pregnant, have her husband
murdered, You may do all that while at the same time being
shown favor by God and being the apple of His eye. David did
that. A man after God's own heart.
Why? Grace. Grace. It means that you've been given
grace by God and yet if you deny Him three times been delivered
by the grace of God, you go on to turn your back on the recipients
of grace in Antioch and side up with those who hate the grace
of God, all the while being the recipient of the grace and the
mercy of God. It means you may sit in the quietness
of your room and have such blasphemous and perverted thoughts that you
doubt that you could even be a child of God, and do so while
being eternally favored by God. This is grace. The fact is that
our flesh even now resists the idea of grace. It resists the idea of grace.
We esteem grace for nothing in ourselves. Our perceived notion
of what a Christian ought to be, which is usually based on
how we esteem our own worthiness, means nothing. Somewhere in the
deep recesses of our mind and hearts, we set up a scale. We
set up a scale, a measuring stick of our notion of our own righteousness. And when we look at it, grace
is scandalous. With grace, what goes around
comes around. God is the sovereign act or the
sovereign actor in grace whereby he chooses, chose before the
foundation of the world, those would be the object of his faith.
And he didn't choose good people, didn't choose religious people,
didn't choose moral people. It's like he reached down into
the pits of hell and snatched up the worst kind of foe. That's
grace. object of His mercy, never considering
what they are, never, or what the world thinks
of them, or their natural religion, and that seems scandalous. That
seems scandalous. Men will abuse it anyway, but
the true abuse of grace is that at the hands of men, those whom,
even at the minutest detail, seek to qualify grace by adding
anything to it. This is what's wrong with religion.
They talk about grace, the unmerited favor of God. They talk about
it and talk about it and talk about it. They say it, they sing
amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. They talk about grace, but it's
just that little thing. That little thing, my assent
to it, makes it no grace. My decision toward it makes it
no grace. It's all of grace or it's nothing
whatsoever. Grace, true grace, pure sovereign
grace is impossible to believe. It's impossible to believe apart
from a work of sovereign grace. It's impossible to believe. And
even then the believer struggles to accept the fact that his salvation
has nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with anything but
God doing as He pleases, when He pleases, with whomever He
pleases. Why is grace scandalous to the mind? Several reasons. Grace is scandalous to the mind
because it makes no distinction between men, none. It is exercised solely by God
and by His choice, race, color, creed, religion, morality, immorality,
Jew or Greek, bond or free, Scythian or barbarian, tribal or independent,
moral or profligate, liberal or conservative, Republican or
Democrat, dictator or slave, prince or pauper, are no consequence
in this matter. No consequence in who receives
grace. Moses said to the Lord, show me your glory. Show me your
glory. People talk about the glory of
God a lot. But glory is a thing that belongs to the one who has
it. Glory belongs to the winner.
Glory belongs to the victor. In the Olympics, they have gold
medals. That's the winner. The silver medal and the bronze
medal are consolation prizes. Up here, the forsythia are blooming. They're blooming back home. I
look at those for 60 bushes, 11 months out of the year, then
ain't nothing much to them. It's either a green bush or a
stripped bush, just ain't much to them. Don't care a whole lot
about them. But about two weeks in the latter
part of March and the first part of April, wow. The yellow bells is what we call
them down south. The yellow bells bloom and I
see the glory of that bush. And that glory only belongs to
that bush. The glory of God belongs to God. What's your glory? What's your
glory? Well, surely people will say
the creation itself is his glory, and he's glorified in creation,
but it leaves you without excuse. Leaves you without excuse. Providence
is a wondrous and a glorious thing. We don't understand it,
can't begin to understand it, and we need to stop trying. We don't understand Providence.
Why does God do what He does? I don't know. He's put the world
in our heart, He says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3. The world's in our
heart. What does that mean? We judge God by circumstance,
and it should be the other way around. We should judge circumstance
by God, because He is the one in charge. What's your glory?
Creation problems. What's your glory? What glorifies
God? He said four things glorify Him. And they're really just
one thing. I will make my goodness pass
before you. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before you. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will be gracious unto whom I will be gracious.
You can talk about God's glory all you want to, but that's his
personal biography. That's what he says is his glory. It's his glory. What a wondrous
thing. Men and women want their uniqueness
to matter, but you ain't unique, and neither am I. We're all sold
under sin. We're all the same. No matter
who we are. Look at the worst person you
know. And you know, we get all vexed about things going on in
the world today and this and that. Look at the worst person
you know. That's you. That's me. No matter how vile you might
think they might be. And unclean. And how much you'd
like to shoot them in the head. That's you. And that's me. Grace
is scandalous to the mind because it puts all humanity on the exact
same level as deserving the wrath of God and eternal punishment.
Men and women cannot believe that philanthropy is the same
as pedophilia before God. We can't get that. The flesh
resists that, but it's so. It's so. It is scandalous to think that.
Don't think so, just say it. I can see your faces. Grace is
scandalous to the mind because religious heritage has no value
in it. None whatsoever. Well, we were
talking about somebody talking to you about, well, this is what
my parents believed. you know, this grace you're preaching,
my parents didn't believe that, I'm going to believe what my
parents believe, give me that old time religious, good enough for
mama, good enough for grandpa is good enough for me, no it
ain't, no it ain't. Surely the fact that I've been
raised in and practiced the religion of my father carries some weight,
it means nothing, nothing whatsoever, even a believer who has done
all his duty must account himself as zero, That's what the Lord
said, when you've done all your duty, you are a most unprofitable
servant. Spurgeon said, add a man up to
zero, you've gone too high. You've gone too high. Even a
believer who's done all his duty, doesn't matter. Surely it can
mean, surely it doesn't mean that, surely it can't, yes it
does. And to mine, that's scandalous.
I was raised in a so-called Christian home. That didn't do a thing
for me. Didn't do a thing. Grace is scandalous
because it declares all of humanity to be utter rebels and sinners
against God. All humanity. They are by nature and birth
unrighteous and ignorant, bad, lying snakes and vipers that
destroy everything they touch. This is humanity. You want to
know what humanity is like? You wonder what you and I are
like before a holy God apart from the grace of God? And what
we are before a holy God in nature even now if you looked at nature?
Read it. Look at verse 10 of chapter 3.
It is written, There is none righteous. How many? None. No? Just in case you thought
there might be one. No, not one. There is none that understandeth
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are all together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they have
used deceit. They are liars. The poison of
Asp is under their lips. They speak words that kill. Whose
mouth is full of cursings and bitterness. You want to describe
this world today? That word bitterness sums it
up as much as I can say. Everybody I meet is bitter. That's
natural man. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. They're murderers. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. Whatever they touch turns. Listen, it was a good
deal in Eden. Adam had a fine thing going on
there. But since he sinned against God, it's all been downhill.
And let me tell you, it will not be rescued. It will not get better. Our Lord
said things will wax worse and worse. The love of many shall
wax cold. Why? Because of our nature. The way of peace, had they not
known. They don't know peace. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. No worship of God. No reverence
for God. No fear of God before their eyes. This is humanity. This is our
resume. What job do you want to apply
for? This is your resume. This is your resume. Nothing
good in us whatsoever. And yet God, because He does what He wants
to, when he wants to, with whoever he wants to. He does as he pleases
in heaven and earth and all the deep places and under the sea. God has shown grace to people
like that. These kind of people. They must
assign this description to others whom they hold in low esteem.
That's what you would say, well, I know people like that. I'm
people like that. I'm people like that. But even
if they do see themselves as humanities here described, even
if you see yourself and can say, yes, this is me, that will not
cause the grace of God. Grace is scandalous. It just
leaves us out of the picture altogether. Grace is scandalous
to the mind because of the description of the recipients of grace. God came into this world to save
sinners and He saves them by His grace
through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Grace is scandalous to
the mind because it is not bestowed on anyone who abides by the law
to stand before God. to bring a believer under the
law is blasphemy. But what does the law say to
you? What does the law say? Look at verse 19, now we know. What thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth might
be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God. This
is what the law says to you. You know how we're all going
to keep the law. You know how we're going to do it? We're going
to die. That's how Christ kept the law.
He fulfilled the law in his life to become the perfect sacrifice
for sin. But he kept the law this way.
He died. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. He never sinned. He knew no sin.
Yet he was made to be sin. Go ahead and try to explain that.
I hear people trying to explain it. Give it your best shot. He
was made to be sin. He knew no sin. Perfect, spotless,
Lamb of God, who never had an evil thought. Everything he did,
he did for somebody else to please his Father. He was made to be
sin. And when he was made to be sin,
wonder of wonders, God cut the light off. For three hours, God
punished him for our sin that was made to meet on him. Rolled
up his sleeve and beat him bad. What man did to him was horrible.
Can you imagine when God's wrath is poured out? And then, he come
out of that alive. On the other side, he said, Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthanah, my God. My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? He said, I thirst. And they gave
him some vinegar on a sponge. He didn't take it. And he gave
up the ghost. What does that mean? He who is
life by his power stopped living. You and I don't do that. Death
overtakes us. He overtook death. He accomplished death. He died. Why? Because that's what the
cost of sin is. Ten million eternities in hell
won't pay for sin. That's why hell lasts forever.
Because God will never be satisfied. His law will never be satisfied.
His justice will never be satisfied. It lasts forever and ever and
ever and ever. Because He'll never be satisfied.
Jesus Christ's death on Calvary Street satisfied God in His justice
and His law. And everybody for whom Christ
died received the grace of God. Everyone. Who did He die for?
His people, His elect, His church, His bride, His sheep. name however
you want to call them, His people, those whom He chose, His children,
His children. Grace is scandalous because it
is not bestowed on those who abide by the law. The law reveals
sin and keeping it does not change the sinner or put away sin. There
is no righteousness to be had in the law on any level. The
law has no mercy. The law has no grace. This is
scandalous to think that if I follow the Ten Commandments that it
counts for nothing. Yeah, it counts for nothing. It counts
for something. It counts to shut your mouth
according to this and counts to make you guilty. It has no part with the grace
of God. Grace and law have no part with each other. I am not
under the law. As vile as I am by nature, the
holy searchlight of God's holiness can scan me from the top of my
head to the bottom of my feet and can find no fault in me before
God. See, how can that be? G-R-A-C-E. Grace. Grace is scandalous because
it declares that if you are saved, it's wholly based on the merits
and person of Jesus Christ alone. not your will or your supposed
righteousness, not your decision or your tears or your mourning
or your obedience has to do with your salvation. Your salvation
is merited by Jesus Christ. What He did is your salvation. What He did. Merited by another. Everybody knows you've got to
be righteous One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, all good children go to heaven. That guy that made the song Teen
Angels, you probably don't even remember that. Some of you do.
He said, if I'm going to heaven, I've got to be good. Everybody
understands that. And it's true. You've got to
be righteous to stand before God. But this is the issue. Whose righteousness? Whose righteousness? Yours? Won't
work. Your righteousness is as filthy
rags. And that is a nice interpretation
of that passage, as filthy, minstrel-less rags. Now that's important because
when a woman was in her minstrel cycle, she was cast out of the
camp. She was unclean until she stopped her minstrel cycle. filthy rags also means that there's
no life. You see, when a woman menstruates,
it means there's no baby in there. There's no life in there, because
if there's a baby in there, she'd stop. So, accursed and dead. That's what our righteousness
is. And if I'm going to get back into camp, an atonement has to
be made. Verse 21. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. All the law and the prophets spoke of Jesus Christ.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus
Christ, an interesting little phrase that Paul often uses to
speak of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. unto all, and upon all them that
believe." How does a person believe? I'll just work it up, go ahead.
A lady told me one time after I preached, she said, I can believe
if I want to. I said, well, go ahead. Go ahead, believe for
me. Believe! You can't. You can't believe what you don't
believe. You can only believe if something wonderful happens,
that God takes this word miraculously It finds purchase. He causes
it to find purchase in your heart. And you have faith. And suddenly
you can hear things like what I'm talking about, and you can
read this book and say, yeah, I believe that, even though you
can't explain it. Say, that makes sense to me, even though you
don't understand it. Because God's given you faith. That's
how a person believes, and he doesn't believe until you're
not born with faith. All men have not faith, Scripture
says. being justified freely, that
means without a cause in you, by His grace. Verse 23 says,
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation. You'll notice those two little
words are in italics, to be. That's found every time this
Christ is said to be a propitiation in scripture to be now somebody
who don't know anything about anything would take those words
to mean what were you talking about intent he meant for them
to be a propitiation if it's in italics it can be lifted out
of the context without doing any damage to the context whom God has set forth a propitiation
a not to be a propitiation, a satisfaction, an appeasement, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time, now, His
righteousness, that He might be just and justifier of him
that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a wondrous thing. Bruce, as wicked and as vile
as you are, is unclean in your heart and your mind. God says,
when I saved old Bruce, here's the right thing to do. His righteousness
is declared. Think about that. You know what
you are. God said, here's the right thing
for me to do. I know a lot of people, when the Lord saved me,
said that wasn't the right thing for him to do. You weren't supposed
to do nothing, not with him, not with that wretch, not with
that vile thing. I had people coming to me, don't
tell me that the Lord saved you, I don't want to hear it. I know
what kind of person you are. They didn't know the half the
story. God declares that he saves the vilest creature that's ever
walked this earth. He says I'm right to do it. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the satisfaction
of God, the propitiation of God. So God, who could not save you
as you were, in the sense that, and be just, He couldn't just
let your sin go. He couldn't put it aside. If
He's going to save you, that sin must be punished. And it
was punished in the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
He punished your sin, He'll never punish you again. He punished
your sin in Jesus Christ. When people talk about chastisement,
some preachers, some teachers call it punishment. It ain't
punishment. Listen, if you, in this life
as a child of God, are CONDEMNED by your own actions, listen very
carefully, it ain't God doing it. God will not condemn you. There
is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. No condemnation. God's not going to accuse you.
I know religion has him standing around the corner hiding in the
dark waiting to thump you on the head for every wrong thing
you do. But he's never going to accuse you. Satan will accuse
you, but he won't stand. I may accuse you, but he won't
stand. You may accuse me, but he won't stand. Your conscience may accuse you,
but it won't stand either because a perfect sacrifice has been
offered on your behalf. Conscience shuts up because it
don't have a ground upon which it can accuse you. Say, I'm going
to charge him with a sin. What? What sin? Word. Charge him before God. Go ahead.
Say, he's a sinner. No, he's not. Not before God. Grace is a scandalous It's a
scandalous thing. Further in this, it is scandalous
to the mind because God declares that He is right in saving the
worst of mankind, bestowing His grace to such that
cannot on any level or any way deserve it to any degree. Grace is scandalous to the mind
because there's no room ever for boasting in it. That's what he says, where is
boasting then? It is excluded. No room for boasting. God has
shown you grace. You have nothing to brag about,
except God Himself. We boast in Christ for what He's
done. Salvation, wondrous salvation
is by grace. amazing, wondrous grace. I don't usually do this, but
I'm going to do it anyway. Cherokee, amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound to save a wretch like me.