Well, we didn't coordinate it,
but Bill was kind enough to read my text for me this morning.
Ephesians 2. I'm going to use this for a starting
place. I title this message, Divine
Interference. Divine Interference. Interference, the act or instance
of hindering obstructing or impeding. Today I want to look at several
instances where this word, but God, this three-letter word,
B-U-T, is used in the Scripture many times. When it's used, it's
used to show us the contrast between where we were and where
we've come to. where God has brought us to.
This little word, but, means except for the fact, were it
not for, on the other hand, with the exception of, yet, or however. We find numerous accounts in
the Psalms and throughout Paul's writing where this word is used,
and every time it is used, to contrast the vast difference
between where our eternal end was going to be before Christ
interfered, intervened on our behalf, and what it is going
to be now that He has. Usually when we become adults,
we have a plan for our life. We have things planned out, how
we're going to succeed in life. Most people do anyway. And we
usually don't respond well when people interfere with those plans. But thanks be to God that He
chose to step into our lives, the lives of His elect people,
and divinely interfere with the plans that we had. I don't know
about you, but the plans that I had, with no doubt, landed
me in the pit of the damned. And when you hear me pray, and thank
God for not leaving us where we were. That is exactly what
I mean. Praise Him for divinely interfering
in my life and yours. There are many, many instances
of God's divine good providence throughout the Scriptures, and
it would take dozens of messages to look at them all, but today
I want to read just a few, and I trust And in reading them,
we'll rejoice in God's good and wise direction in our life, God's
interference. We're going to look at these
verses just randomly, no particular order. Starting here in Ephesians
2, we read our state before God's intervention in our life. Verse
1 tells us that we were dead, lacking the power to move. feel
or respond. How many of us sat under the
hearing of the Gospel for years? I know I did. Completely unmoved. Completely unresponsive to anything
that was said. Our mind wandered. Wondering
when the preacher was going to get finished. Bored with what
we were hearing. Being warned of God's judgment
for sin that it would ultimately end in our eternal death. We
sat unmoved, hearing things that now make us tremble for those
that we love, for those that are lost. Before God gave us saving faith
in Christ, we were completely incapable of caring for our own
soul or the soul of others. But what changed? How do we go
from being absolutely unmoved to being stabbed in the heart at our part in the death of Christ. Him suffering for our sins, being
punished for our trespasses, being made sin for us. Now we tremble in our minds and
hearts at how close we were to being eternally lost, eternally
damned. Verse 1 tells us why. that change
of heart and mind took place, we were quickened. This word
quickened means to revive or make alive, to restore to a former
flourishing condition. In the Gospel of John chapter
5 verse 21, Christ told the Jews who at that time sought to kill
Him, for the Father raises up the dead and quickeneth them, even as a son quickeneth whom
he will." This word quicken is used several times in Psalm 119. Verse 37 says, Turn away my life
from beholding vanity, and quicken me in the way. Verse 40 says,
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts, quicken me in thy righteousness. Verse 88, Quicken me after thy
lovingkindness, so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth. Verse 154, plead my cause and
deliver me, quicken me according to thy word. Verse 156 says,
great are thy tender mercies, O Lord, quicken me according
to thy righteous judgments. The psalmist here declares that
there's no turning from vanity, there's no longing after God,
There is no loving-kindness, there is no tender mercies without
the quickening Spirit of God. As Christ told us in John 6.63,
it is the Spirit that quickeneth. So we see that we were dead in
sins, but even through the loving-kindness of our God, we are not quickened,
made alive in Christ. Verse 3 of our text tells us
our condition. children of wrath, even as others. I don't think we fully understand
all that that term, children of wrath, means. It means we
were born to damnation. Before God's divine interference
in our lives, we were bound for an unimaginable, woeful inheritance. Being children of wrath meant
that we were, as those angels that sinned, And the Scriptures
tell us are now reserved in everlasting change, under darkness, unto
the judgment of that great day. Verse 12 of our text describes
our condition as having no hope and without God in the world.
We had no hope because the dead have no hope. The time for hope
has passed. Death has claimed another soul.
And the time for hope is gone forever. While those that we
love are still alive, we have hope that God may yet do them
good. That He may yet awaken them to
the fact that they are indeed children of wrath. And that's why we pray earnestly
for them. Because Once they draw their last breath, there is no hope. So we pray for them that God
would be pleased to yet show them mercy as He did for us. That He may yet divinely interfere
in their lives. But God, sweet words of hope,
but God who is rich in mercy. For His great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together. And not just quickened us together,
but quickened us together with Christ. Because of God's divine
interference in our life, we went from being children of wrath
to being made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. And why did He choose to do this?
To make us alive in Christ. We're told in our text in verse
7, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches
of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
In the same way that eternity will never be long enough for
God's wrath to expire on the damned, so eternity will never
be long enough for Him to completely show us His goodness toward us
in the person of Christ. We will never tire of praising
our God for His goodness toward us in Christ, because we will
never tire of Him showing how He brought us from death to life. Turn with me please to Genesis
45. Genesis 45. This is a story that we're all
familiar with, I trust. The story of how Joseph was sold
by his brothers into slavery, and how God worked things through
his life to set him second only in power to Pharaoh in Egypt.
And there was a very severe drought in the land, a famine, and God
fixed it to where his brethren heard that there was corn in
Egypt, and they went to Egypt to try to buy some of this. And
in chapter 45, let's begin reading in verse 4. This is after his
brethren came to him and Joseph made himself known. And it says
in verse 4, And Joseph said to his brethren, Come near to me,
I pray you. And they came near. And at this
point, they didn't know who Joseph was. And he said unto them, I
am Joseph your brother. I can't imagine what effect that
had on his brothers, knowing what they had done to him, knowing
that he had the power to have them slain at that very moment. He says, I am Joseph your brother,
whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved
nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, For God did
send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath
the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years
in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. But God
sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth
and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not
you that sent me hither, but God. God's divine interference
in his life and theirs. And he hath made me a father
to Pharaoh, and Lord of all his house, a ruler throughout all
the land of Egypt. Haste ye, go up to my father,
and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made
me Lord of all Egypt. Come down unto me, tarry not,
and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be
near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children,
and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there
will I nourish thee. For yet there are five years
of famine, lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou
hast, come to poverty. And behold, your eyes see, in
the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh
unto you. And ye shall tell my father of
all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen, and ye
shall haste and bring down my father hither.' And he fell upon
his brethren, Benjamin's neck, and wept, and Benjamin wept upon
his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren,
and wept upon them, and after this his brethren talked with
him." In these verses we see clearly the hand of God's good
and wise providence. Joseph's brothers hated him,
and years before had sold him, into slavery. They did this for
the same reason that Peter explains to the Jews who crucified Christ
why they did what they did. He tells them in the book of
Acts that it was done according to the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. All things had come to pass on
this earth, both in the lives of chosen sinners and in the
lives of the lost come to pass because of this determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God." We use the word predestination to
describe this determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And
Joseph told his brothers in verse 7 about God's divine interference
in their lives and why that interference took place. He tells them, "...and
God sent me before you to preserve you of posterity in the earth,
and to save your lives by a great deliverance. Joseph certainly
wouldn't have chosen to be sold into slavery and thrown into
prison and suffer all the things that he suffered to get to this
point if he had had a choice. But thanks to God's divine interference
of his life, he was used of God to be the means of a great deliverance
for his brothers, to be a picture of that great deliverer who was
to come. The things we see around us,
the things we view as chaos, and I know many of us do, seem
like the wicked prosper and win at every turn. Those things we
see are simply God bringing to pass His good player. And we're
not alone in this thinking. David, a man after God's own
heart, wrote in Psalm 94, he asked, Lord, how long shall the
wicked How long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they
utter and speak hard things? And all the workers of iniquity
boast themselves. They break in pieces thy people,
O Lord, and afflict thine heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger
and murder the fatherless. Is that not exactly how we feel?
I know I do many times. And then I remember Psalm 2,
that the Lord will hold them in derision. But David also wrote
in the last verse of this chapter, that there's a day of reckoning
that is coming. He tells us, the Lord shall bring
upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their
own wickedness. Yea, the Lord our God shall cut
them off. Now turn with me please to the
book of Luke. We see an example here in Luke
12 of a man whom God chose to pursue his
own path. There was no divine interference
in this man's life. Luke 12, we'll begin reading
in verse 16. And he spake a parable unto them,
saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully,
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because
I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This
will I do. I will pull down my barns and
build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my
goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease,
eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee. And then, whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided? And so is he that
layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Here we have a warning from the very lips of Christ Himself about
spending our lives accumulating things that are little better
than dust. Collecting things that are one day going to be
property of others. Every time I see an estate sale
advertised, I think of how this person, like we do, and I'm no
different, we accumulate things and we're hardly in the ground
before they're being sold to others. And God addresses this
man by a certain name. He calls him, Thou Fool. What person in their right mind
would trade their life for a bag of rusty nails or a few yards
of moth-eaten cloth? And yet that's what men and women
do that trade their souls for this world's so-called treasure. Treasures that are one day going
to be given to another, The shrewd man was allowed to pursue a path
of gathering the world's goods because there was no divine interference
in his life. God laid on his neck the reins
and let him run at full speed to destruction. Our Lord asked
a question in Matthew 16, for what is a man profited if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall
a man give in exchange for his soul? The damned in hell will
spend eternity cursing not only the God of heaven, but cursing
their own foolishness of trading their souls for perishable things. And Peter, he calls those things
that we refer to as precious metals, things that men and women
seek after, refers to those as corruptible things. They become
rotten and tainted. things that cause ruin, corruptible
things. And don't get me wrong, there's
nothing wrong with accumulating nice things, but just hold them
loosely knowing that one day they'll belong to somebody else.
Now turn with me please to the book of Corinthians. 1 Corinthians,
the first chapter. 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 26, For ye
see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. and base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh
should glory in his presence. You see your calling. We did
not make the choice to seek after God. He called you. When you
were heading headlong toward condemnation, He chose to interfere
in your life and to save you from sure destruction. And we
see in these verses that our God, because it seemed good in
His sight, hath called the most worthless, the most base, the
most foolish, the weakest, the most despised people imaginable,
and made them His own. God had His choice of the entire
human race, and yet He chose to sacrifice His Son for a bunch
of losers. Why did He do that? Verse 29
tells us the reason. That no flesh should glory in
His presence. The only glory that will ever
be seen in the presence of God is His glory. Because He has
told us, my glory will I not share with another. While you're
in Corinthians, flip over to chapter 6. 1 Corinthians 6. Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you but
you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God. Here we're
given a list, at least a partial list, of those who shall not
inherit the kingdom of God. Do you see yourself in that list? I know I do. And it certainly
doesn't cover all the offenses that men and women commit, but
it's inclusive enough that it does take in every human being
that has ever lived except one. Remember that James tells us
that if you offend in just one point, you're guilty of the whole
law. So here we have a list of those
who shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. And as I said, it includes
every man and woman who has ever lived. And yet, we know that
there is a number that no man can number of redeemed sinners
who will be in heaven. How can that possibly be? Is
there a contradiction in God's Word? No. Paul explains how this supposed
contradiction can be in verse 11. He says, "...and such were
some of you. You were among those that shall
not inherit the kingdom of God." So what changed? Here's that
little word again, but. But you are washed. But you are
sanctified. but ye are justified. And that's
not all, you're washed, sanctified and justified in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Here we find
the threefold operation of the Spirit, making those who before
could not inherit the kingdom of God not only fit to inherit
the kingdom of God, but to also be joint heirs with Christ. All
because of divine interference in our lives. Flip back with
me please to Romans 5. Romans 5. Very familiar text. We'll read the first eight verses.
Romans 5. Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh
not a shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we
were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward
us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In this chapter, we have another
example of us being on the path that led to destruction, and
God stepping in and completely interfering with our plans, setting
us on that right path, that right path that leads to the feet of
Christ. And verse 6 tells us that when
we were yet without strength, without the least shred of ability
to do anything about our standing before God, without strength,
In due time, at that time that was appointed by God, in due
time, Christ died for the ungodly. And then Paul explains that in
some circumstances a man might lay down his life for a friend,
a man that he considers to be a good man. War many times brings
out the worst in man. But many times it also brings
out the best. There's many a soldier who is
in the heat of battle, giving his life for his fellow man,
for his friend. And that's both commendable and
understandable. Christ Himself told us that greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends. Yet here in these verses we read
of an astonishing show of grace and exceeding Abundant mercy. And verse 8 starts with these
three-letter words. But God tells us in His Word
that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not
our ways. While a man might die for a friend,
on the contrary, our Lord laid down His life for us when we
were enemies. But God committed His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. While we were enemies, perfectly
content to be so, God interfered in our lives and reconciled us. to Himself by the death of His
Son. Long before we had any desire
to change, long before we were ever born, Christ accomplished
all that was necessary for us to be transformed from enemies
of God to children of God. And we didn't ask for this. God
had other plans for us. Flip over a page or two to Romans
6. We have a similar Reminder of
God's divine interference in the lives of His elect. Romans
6, verse 16. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves service to obey, his service are ye to whom ye obey,
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, that ye
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
to you. Being then made free from sin,
ye became the servants of righteousness." Before mercy found us, we were
quite content to be enslaved by the change of sin and despair. We didn't even realize our condition. But when our God removed those
chains and made us servants of the best possible Master, we
became the servants of righteousness. But some would say, as we all
feel, I am merely a wretch, sinned with
every breath, How can I possibly be the servant of righteousness?
And that's a good question. I feel the same way. And Paul
gives us the answer both here and in Romans 7 and 8. And in
verse 17 of our text, he tells us that, "...ye have obeyed from
the heart, that new heart which is given to us when God gives
us spiritual life." And in Romans 8, verse 9 he tells us, "...but
ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." And lastly, in
Romans 7, he tells us, with the mind I myself serve the law of
God, but with the flesh the law of sin. So how is it that we
can be wretched sinners in the flesh, and this is how we can
at the same time be servants of righteousness in the Spirit?
And when it comes time to die, our God also divinely interferes. Turn with me to the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms, chapter 49. We've looked at how God divinely interferes
in our lives. And these verses tell us how He divinely interferes at
the time of death. Psalm 49, Hear this, all ye people,
give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world, both low and high,
rich and poor together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom,
and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. I
will incline mine ear to a parable, I will open my dark saying upon
the harp. Wherefore should I fear in the
day of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass about
me? They that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them
can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for
him. For the redemption of their souls is precious, and it ceases
forever, that he should still live forever and not see corruption. Verse 6 tells us that they that
trust in their wealth and boast themselves in their multitude
of riches, that none of them, with their riches, can redeem
their brother, nor give God a ransom. Dropping down to verse 14, we
read, They are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them, and
the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and
their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. Like sheep, they are laid in
the grave. But in the very next verse, we
see the final act of God's divine interference in our life, or
rather I should say, in our death. But God will redeem my soul from
the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." Notice that
it doesn't say, He shall redeem my body from the power of the
grave. It says, He shall redeem my soul from the power of the
grave. This is the reason that Paul
was able to look death in the face and say, I am now ready
to be offered. The grave has no victory over
the believer because God redeems our soul from the power of the
grave. Even death, that final enemy,
is subject to God's divine interference. So for those of you sitting here
today that know not Christ, perhaps in His good pleasure,
God will choose to interfere in your life. You have your plans,
as we all did. But hopefully, for your soul's
sake, our Lord will divinely interfere, derail those plans,
and bring you to the feet of Christ. Jimmy, come lead us in this holy
place.