Okay, we'll get started here.
Can you hear me okay? Okay. Well, I studied this message
that I'm going to deliver to you. This is not what the message
is about, but it just makes me wonder or think about people
who do not know the Lord and who the Christ they think exists. After studying this and reading
this, They limit themselves so much because they can't see much
more than what they are. And their abilities and things
that happen in the world. They say, well, there was a purpose
for that or that happened because God wanted it and that sort of
thing. They have no clue how much God did what He did at the
time they think He did it. We're going to start out here.
You can open your Bibles to Genesis. I had over a week to come up
with a message. And this was one of them times
when it was just dry. Nothing would come to me. It
just was nothing that really would do it. I prayed when I
went to bed Thursday night that the Lord would give me a message.
And as soon as I opened my eyes the next morning, it was running
through my head. I mean, I laid there before I
got out of bed, and I preached that whole message. I hope it
makes sense to you. And then Friday night, I had
tires spun on my car, so I went to my truck, so I went and rode
it all out while I was sitting there waiting on that. So here's
where we are as far as this message goes. I want you to think about
yourself, each one. Not your wife, not your children.
Children, I want you to think about yourself. Not your mom,
not your dad. You particularly, only you. Because salvation is personal.
It's between just you and God. And it has nothing to do with
your spouse. or anything along that line. Now, when you met
your spouse, you may have witnessed to him and that sort of thing.
But when it comes to salvation, it's one-on-one. It's strictly
between you and God. And whatever's happened to your
partner, your spouse, your person sitting next to you has nothing
to do with you. Nothing to do with you. God speaks
to your heart. You're His elect. You're the
one that He speaks to. And so, as I tell you to do that,
I want you to put yourself in mind, because I'm going to go
back, and these things that I'm going to talk about here, we
know them. We've heard them many, many,
many times. But put yourself in the position
of all that the Lord did for you. You particularly. Just you. All that went on In
God's world, before He created the world, all that went on just
for you. But it's all the elect. But think
about yourself in that position. How gracious He is and how merciful
He is. Labeled as you are special in
God's eyes. But we're going to start out
Remember that when God created the earth, God was before anything
according to the Word. He was before anything. The Father
and Son and the Holy Spirit, they were there. Because we just
mentioned in the other room there how that Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
they're one, and yet they're three. Nobody wants to touch
that. By faith you believe it to be
so, but nobody can explain that. But they do different things.
But the thing of it is, is before anything ever happened, the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost existed. And the thing of it is, is what
we know as time, the years and the 2,000 years of Christ and
all that as time, that was established in the middle of eternity. We
can relate to that time. But eternity, we have no clue.
How far does it go? Eternity. How far has it come
from? Eternity. We don't know. But at that point in time, wherever
it was, when God chose a people, He elected a people. Out of all
the people in this world that ever was and ever will be, God
elected a people. the people out of all these other
people. And that's the ones he, he, for
whatever reason, chose. Tara, he knew you, saw you, and
knew all about you before the world began. Nathan, same way. Everything about you. He knew
everything. He knew what you're going to look like. He knew everything
about you before the world began. For whatever reason, we don't
know. Some things we're not supposed
to know. But he chose a people and elect to be his children.
And this happened when there was no time. Time did not exist. And it was just one of those
things. Just think about that. You were chosen before anything
was ever spoken to being. You were chosen then. To me,
that hit my mind and it just blew me away to think that we
relate to time. And we relate to where we come
from and where we went. We came out of central Missouri.
Came down here to go to school. All the trip in this world, we
understand all that. And then in fullness of time,
God revealed Himself unto us. But the thing of it is, eternity
passed when He chose us. We didn't exist. We weren't anybody
except in God's eyes. And the thing of it is from that
point in time when He chose us, He loved us with an everlasting
love. We weren't here yet, but He already
loved us. And the things that He went through to make sure
that we would be with Him. But you see, He spoke everything
into being. This God The elements. We don't know whether He made
the elements or the elements were already there. But anyway,
He spoke to the elements and they obeyed. And He created all
this world and everything about it before the beginning of time. Let's look in Genesis chapter 1. And let's think about this. Now,
before this ever happened, He knew you. The first day, chapter
1, verse 3, God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
And God saw the light, and it was good. Verse 6, God said,
Let there be firmament in the midst of the waters, and let
it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which were above the firmament, and called it the
firmament heaven. And then the third day, he says,
God, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into
one place and let the dry land appear. And then in the fourth
day, God, let there be light in the firmament of the heaven
to divide day and night. And twenty, the fifth day, God
said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
in that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
open firmament of heaven. On the sixth day, God said on
verse 24, let the earth bring forth a living creature after
His cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after
His kind. And verse 26, God said, let us
make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl and the
cattle and the earth and every creeping thing. And then, God created man in His own image,
and that was the sixth day. And then it says on the seventh
day, he rested. Everything was completed. Everything
was done. Everything was predestinated. that was going to happen on this
earth. Every breath you take, every grain of sand on the beach,
everything was created and was spoke into being. Everything
obeyed Christ, it was spoke into being. And the people this day
have a picture of God in their minds, and it isn't anywhere
close to that. Our God is able to speak and
things move and do as they say. And so, think about your salvation. If He's done the work, and He's
guaranteed it, you're going to be with Him. If you were elected,
you're going to be with Him. He is God of very God. But the thing of it is, before
speaking this earth into being, There was no light. There was
no darkness. We don't know really what all
did exist. We know the Father and the Son spoke to one another
about us. And God elected a people to be
His children that all His love was centered in His Son. And
we also received that very love because everything Christ received,
the elect inherits also. And so he chose the children
and those children, they were us. We were part of them. A number that no man can number,
and yet we were one of them. Think about yourself in this
position. And those that he did not choose, that he didn't call,
they were made for the day of destruction. This all had to
do with Judgment Day. It was already planned out and
set that there was going to be some on judgment day that will
not be with Him in eternity, but they will die an eternal
death. This was all set. And it says here, all men are
sinners, so in order for His children to be with Him, they
had to be like Him. You see, in God's plan, He set
all this up. We know we were going to be sinners.
We were going to need redemption. He wanted us. We were men. We
were men and women. And He wanted us with Him. But
we were all children and we were all sinners. The only one that could be a
perfect sacrifice, He punished for our sins. For sin must be
punished in Himself. See, God made Himself our sacrifice
in His Son. Again, the three in one. The
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God made Himself a sacrifice.
He made Himself a sacrifice, His Son. And He gave the elect, meaning
us, to His Son. And His Son took responsibility
for all that was needed to make us right before God. Because
you see, we had to be so pure and so righteous to be before
God. We have to be the very image
of God. We have to be perfect and pure, just like He is. He cannot look upon us. We have
to be just like Him. And His Son came to the earth
to make us so, just for the elect. But you see, He didn't come for
everyone. He came for us. He came for you,
each one of you. And so in order to do so, He
gave us the elect to His Son. And His Son said that He would
pay the price for our sins, and that therefore, the elect would
be made pure and righteous before God. But the thing of it is,
He said, I'll not lose a one. That's important. I'll not lose
a one. This is God of every God saying,
whatever I do, it's going to make this happen. for the elect. And if He's able to speak everything
into being, believe me, He has the power to do that. And so
He said that He would not lose a one of the elect. So all things
were set in motion that God predestinated to happen to guarantee the elect's
eternal life with Him. Nothing could interfere. Everything
had to be done just the way God set it out. This was all the
work of God, and we were basically just recipients. We were the
ones that received all the work of God. He made us right with
Him. He redeemed us. So, God made and left paradise. Christ, we talked about this
this morning a little bit in the other room, in the Bible
class, about Christ coming to the earth and how He walked amongst
the people. He left paradise and came to
earth. First, He made a garden, a paradise
in the Garden of Eden and created Adam for God to visit with and
for Him to tend the garden. And later on, he made a helpmate
for Adam. And this was all in his plan.
Here's perfection. Here's living in a garden with
everything they could possibly need. Everything. He even gave him a helpmate.
But you see, God's only demand was to not eat of the tree of
good and evil. So you see at this point, in
the garden, Man was okay with God. He was right with God. Because
Adam walked with God. Talked with God. They saw him
in the garden. So he had not fallen yet. He
was able to stand before God. But God's only demand of Adam
and Eve was not to eat the tree of good and evil. When the devil
tempted Eve and she took the beautiful apple and ate of it
and enticed Adam to taste the apple also. You see, the thing
of it is, sin is beautiful. It's something people desire.
That apple was beautiful. It was perfect. Nice red apple. Tempting. No taste as good as
any apple you ever put in your mouth. That was the one that
the devil says, you can eat that. You can eat that apple. And so,
Eve took a bite of the apple. And then took it to Adam. And
what's Adam going to do? This is his wife. Come on, taste
this. Taste it. It's wonderful. The
devil says, we'll be alright. Good and evil, it's okay. Taste
it. And he did. Immediately, God knew what had
happened because it was in His plans. He predestinated all of
that. You see, He's working to take
care of all of us alike. But in that process, He made
that happen. But immediately they saw they
were naked. That's where you come up with
all the evil thoughts in your minds, the things you desire,
everything, this evil wasn't in Adam and it wasn't in Eve
until he ate that apple. And then they saw everything
totally different. The flesh had to be, they wanted
to satisfy the flesh. Immediately they were naked.
But with seeing evil, all the thoughts of evil come to mind.
They no longer felt comfortable with God and was afraid. Man
outside of Christ feel this very way. They're afraid of God. The true God of the Bible they're
afraid of. They can't live up to Him. So
they make in their mind their own God. And they hate everything,
anything that does not approve of their sin state. I call it
a sin state. That's what they are. They're
sin. Well, no matter what you do, your actions are sin. But
you yourself are sin. And there's nothing that you
can't make it right. And so therefore, if you can't
make it right, they want their sin to be approved of. It's just
like today, all these weird things that's going on in our country.
And so they make a big deal out of it so everybody approve of
it. They know it's wrong. They know in their heart it's
wrong. but they want us to approve of it. Well, you see, man hates
God because He does not approve of how man is, the sin he is,
the thoughts they have, and all the things that we do. They were
sinners and God cannot, in His holiness, look upon them. You
just can't do it. God has perfection. He's holy.
He's righteous. He's light. So He cannot look
upon anything that's dark or sin. So He cast Adam and Eve
out of the paradise, and in so doing, all men fell into sin,
the same as Adam. And I told you this morning,
I'm not telling you anything new. But picture yourself why
He did that for you. They fell in Adam. Their eternal
life is death as they cannot ever completely pay for their
sins against God. That's why when Christ died and
rose again, He overcame death for us. But those who don't know
Him, things that work of Christ that's not for them, they'll
have an eternal death. They'll live in hell and be dying
day after day after day after day for eternity. And we don't know when that ends.
Because man is not pure, he's not righteous, and he can't not
pay for his sins. And he'll never get them paid
for. So therefore, that's why they'll die and live in hell
forever. And he says their eternal life
is death as they cannot ever completely pay for their sins
against God. But you see, the thing of it
is, God's planted in all men's hearts right and wrong. Those
who don't know God, they know what's morally right and wrong. They know Him if they look around
and see the trees and the grass and all that. It just didn't
happen there. But they know what is right and wrong. And He also gave a law for men
to follow, which if they could, they would be perfect as God.
But of course, we know they're not. But in their fallen state,
they could not obey perfectly. God's demands are perfection.
God's demands are holy perfection. All sin is against God, and He
is the only One payment is due. We sin against God. We tell a
lie, we tell something to our partner, we tell something to
somebody, and it's a lie, and you might say, well, I sinned
against that person. You didn't. But actually, you
sinned against God. Everything has to do with God.
Everything has to do to make us right with God. This is where
God's love is demonstrated. So great, His Son, before the
foundation of the world, agreed to redeem the elect. And let's
turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. 10 and 15. We'll read in 14 and
this will continue through here. By one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us. For after that He had said before,
this is a covenant that I will make with them after those days.
And saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their heart, and
in their minds will I write them." He's talking about the elect
there. But He does that to all people. They know what's right
and wrong. And this is where God's love is demonstrated so
great. His Son, before the foundation
of the world, made a covenant with the Father and agreed to
redeem the elect. And so, He left Paradise. Christ left Paradise. He didn't
have to, but He did it for you. You have to be made perfect before
God's eyes. He did it for you. So, God left
Paradise to walk the earth as a man. Because you see, blood
has to be shed for our sins. Someone has to die. It's like
that lamb they looked at and they made sure that he's perfect
and they watched him. Then they sacrificed the lamb.
That's what they did in the Old Testament. Well, the Lord is
the same way. He has to be that perfect lamb.
And He has to walk amongst us as a man. Obey every law that
God gave. He has to do it perfectly with
the perfect motive and the perfect actions. And so His Son, before
the foundation of the world, agreed to redeem the elect. He
left paradise to walk the earth as a man. Walk among people that
hated Him. Well, can you imagine coming
to earth? People that you literally made
yourself. You created that man. And you
created every man. And He walked amongst them and
they hated Him. The very ones that He had created.
Fallen sinners of Adam. He told of His Father and His
gracious love. All men had to do is believe
Him. But sons of Adam did not like it. Their sins not approved
of. So you see, He walked this earth
and He was told about His Father. I guess when I say brought in
the opening, opened the sinners, the ones who will not come to
know Him. He made this available. He made it where everybody could
see what sinners are. And yet, He did this for us. See, He's working up to take
care of you. He set this before the beginning
of time. He set this up. And so, same as today, things
aren't changed at all. his message has to be seen and
heard. But he walked this earth, and
he was a pure light, and men had loved darkness of sin. They
loved pride, they loved works, they loved free will, and yet
he walked amongst them. And everything he had to give
to them was free, but man could not see it. He wanted to work
for it. He desired it. He wanted to get
it himself. Free will was so important to us, to the lost
man. He wanted it himself. But Christ
walked this earth among people that hated Him. He spoke of Christ. The whole world hears about who
God is. And yet, some will never see
Him. Some will never understand Him.
Some will never, ever see that light. They fell on Adam, and
so therefore, it was a complete fall for every single one of
us. Even the elect, it was a complete fall. We were sinners before
we'd come to know God. It was a complete fall. We were
dead in our sins. We could not move. We could not
see. We could not hear. We didn't understand who God
was. Didn't understand it at all. Scriptures are laying there
before us. And still they could not see who God was. We thought
He was somewhat like us. But He did all things perfectly. With perfect motive and perfect
actions. We see so many people doing things
for other people. And yet, the motive behind it,
what they do is not pure. It's not right. And so therefore,
He had to come and do what we could not do. He is the perfect
man, the perfect sacrifice that will die and be killed for the
sins of the elect. So Christ came to the earth,
walked amongst men. He did it for you. He did it
for you and you, each one of us. And so therefore, at the appointed
time, Sacrifice had to be made. Someone had to die for our sins.
Death was the payment for our sins. Just like that lamb, it
had to be killed and sacrificed. Death had to be the payment for
our sins. Somebody had to die. And so,
Christ was the one. He fulfilled the law and everything
about it in motive and in deed. And He was that perfect sacrifice. There had to be a man And He
had to be perfect. He had to be one of us in order
to pay for our sins. And so this is the way God set
it up before the foundation of the world. God killed His own
Son for the love of the elect. For us. Killed His Son for the
love of the elect. The elect will not die because
Christ overcame death. And we are also in Him. So we inherit life the same as
Christ did. But you see, He had to die for
our sins. Blood had to be shed. And so,
when He died, one of the most important things in this, one
of them, is the fact that He overcame death. You see, if I
was a sinner and didn't know Christ, I couldn't overcome death. I'd have to spend eternity paying
for my sins. But He did this for the believer.
He did this for the elect. And blood was shed, and then
when He died and came back to life, He overcame death for us.
And so we did too. We were in Him when He did this. You see, the thing of it is,
this is not the end of it. How do we come to know the Lord?
How do we get this sorted out? How do you look in these Scriptures
and see it different than what you did before? There's got to
be a way that we've got to understand that. We're like all the sinners
in this world. We can't see Him. Until our fullest
time that He reveals Himself unto us, we cannot see Him as
He is. But He sent a Comforter for us,
He says. The Holy Spirit made us see Christ
in the Scriptures. And the message that we couldn't
see before, we now see in the Scriptures. But He sent this
Comforter. The Comforter He said He'd send
to the apostles, but it's the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit
comes to the elect. And when you use the preaching
of the Word, and the Holy Spirit causes you to be able to see,
He makes it so that you see God as He is in truth. That's why
we see so many other churches out here and other people, they
won't come here. Because they don't see Him as
He is. We wouldn't be here. If God had
not shown Himself unto us and revealed Himself unto us, we
wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be struggling to
keep this place. We wouldn't be doing all these things. We'd
just go uptown and think we was alright. And it's a good thing
those folks do think they're alright, because I don't know
if they could live if they knew what was ahead of them, really.
I don't think they could stand it. But the Holy Spirit made
us to see Christ. and the message that they couldn't
see before. And he gave us faith. Faith is something that we know
that something is true, without a doubt, and yet we can't see
it, we can't touch it, and we can't feel it. But faith is one
of the most important things that we have to have. Because
that's how we believe who Christ is. That's how we know this message. That's how we are set free by
knowing the message of Christ, seeing the message of Christ.
But He gave us faith. It was something that we know
without a doubt, facts about Christ, even though we don't
physically see Him. He made us to love Him and want
to be like Him. So this love is only given to
the elect. Now, it's not a prideful thing.
It's a good feeling thing to think that the Lord had favor
upon us. But it's not something that we
brag about, because we know that if it weren't for Him, we would
have had no hope. And if we didn't know that we
were the sinners that we are, He reveals that to us when we
see Him. When the Holy Spirit shows us who He is, we can see
the desperate sinners that we truly are. But that's all the
work of the Lord. And that's only for the elect. He made us to love Him and want
to be like Him. This love is only given. It's
freely given. It's the grace of God. The grace
means that there's something that you receive without any
merit. Let's turn to Ephesians. We use this Ephesians so often. that you almost, in some sense
of the word, you almost hate to go back to it because we just
have talked about it so much. But Ephesians is so clear in
here about our salvation and what I'm talking about. Ephesians
2, verse 4. This is what the Lord did for
us. But God, who is rich in His mercy for His great love wherewith
He loved us, that great love, when you picture yourself in
all eternity in God's favor, That is one great love. It says,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ. That's where the Holy Spirit has made us to see Him
and to love Him and to understand who He is. It says, and hath
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
with Christ Jesus. that in ages to come He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. And it's
not the works of man, lest any man should boast. But we're His
workmanship. And so He did all this for us. All this is done by God. So if
you have If you have tasted who the Lord is, if you know that
you are the Lord's, don't take that for granted. Don't just
go and live willy-nilly like you want to do or that way. Anytime
God shows grace to you and you're very aware that it's grace, go
to prayer. Thank Him. Look in the Word. Establish the fact that it is
grace. Because more and more, every time He shows you grace,
He shows you Himself. He shows you His love. We should
look and see and hear. Turn to Hebrews 10, verse 23. So we see the Scriptures and
we know the gospel of Christ. We love Christ because He gave
us that love. But you can't always depend on
your feelings. And you can't depend on your
knowledge. It has to be together. It has to do with love. And so,
when we see Christ, we profess that we know Him. And He said,
let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,
for He is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching." So don't take your salvation
for granted. Think again. Go back. Think again. All that has happened Just for
you. That verse, all things work together
for good for those who love Christ and those who are called. That
verse is so important. It shows that everything from
before time, before there was that period when we measure time. Before time, you were His. You were thought of. A covenant
was made between God and Christ. And He came and He planned everything. Just think about that. He planned
every minute thing out for His elect. We should never take our
salvation for granted. Never. Always be sure that you
do believe Him. You know Him. Check yourself
out. Never take it for granted. Rest in it. You can rest in it. We're supposed to rest in Christ.
We're supposed to have peace in Christ. We're not supposed
to be going around doubting and wondering, and should I do this?
Should I do that? Did I do bad unto God? Did I
sin? Yeah, you sinned. But we should
never go around feeling that way. We should know in our heart
that if we belong to Him, we would know that He would do.
Check yourself out. And then rest. Have peace with
Him. Don't live every minute thinking
that, am I doing right? Am I doing wrong? Boy, the way
I act, I wonder if I know Him. Of course you know, you know
Him. If you believe this Word, and
if you know who He is, but we can't live perfectly. So, don't
tear yourself up because you can't live perfectly. You know
you can't. You know you have to have Christ.
And He promises that even though we're like we are, we're His. And He'll never lose a woman.
Salvation is sure as the sun comes up in the morning. Your
salvation, you should know in your heart that it is true. And
if you have doubt, don't let that doubt stay there. Search
the Word. Pray. Be sure of your salvation. And live the wonderful, wonderful,
peaceful life that God has made for us. He's made it so that
we're supposed to be happy. We're supposed to have peace.
We're supposed to be able to rest in Him, not struggle every
day over our knowledge of Him. We know we know Him. And He's
made it so that we do. But the big thing I wanted to
bring out here in this message is the fact that for each one
of us, He planned and done all this before there was ever time,
there was ever earth, there was ever water, there was ever anything. We don't know how far back it
was that He did that. Eternity has no time period.
But you see, He did that for us. Each and every one of us. You think that if He elected
you, that He wouldn't carry it through, that it's done to salvation
to be with Him in glory? No way. He's done all that. You
see, the thing of it is, before the beginning of time also, you
were on His mind. This is what He wanted. Why He
chose you, I don't know. But it always says in the Word,
no matter what happens, it's for His glory and His glory only. And we don't know all those answers
until the day we stand before Him. That's all I have. Nathan, would
you pray? I'm glad you have brought about
all things for our good. It is amazing to us, ones that
have finite minds, to think of all the possibilities that could
have happened, but all of them did bring us here. And you have Drew and Melinda
at another church this day, and that's for a reason. And we don't
have to know what that reason is, but Lord, you have given
us something precious that we would want to come together and
worship, regardless of who is here or who is not. Lord, we
ask that you would keep that faith for us. And we know that whatever you
do, it will be done. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. I'll get it. OK. I have not taken this, for
sure.