Open your Bibles with me tonight
to Exodus chapter 22. Exodus, the 22nd chapter. Let's just read a few verses
from this portion of the gospel of Exodus, starting at verse
21. Exodus 22, 21. Thou shalt neither
vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the
land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow
or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise
and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry,
And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword. And your wives shall be widows,
and your children fatherless. If thou lend money to any of
my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an
usurer. That is somebody who earns interest.
Neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy
neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him
by that the sun goeth down. For that is his covering only.
It is his raiment for his skin. Wherein shall he sleep? And it
shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, I will hear. For I am gracious. Mark those last four words of
verse 27. God says, for I am gracious. Read the words as they stand
in their context and understand that this is the reason God gives
for all the law that he has just described beginning back in the
20th chapter with the giving of the Ten Commandments. This
is the reason he gives for all the judgments that come upon
those who break his law. This is the reason he gives for
everything he does for us. And this is the reason he gives
for everything he requires of us. I am gracious. God gives us this as the reason
why we should not vex the stranger, Why we should not oppress the
fatherless and the widow or our neighbor. Why even if you just
borrow a man's coat, you should be careful to return it lest
he be cold at night. Why I am gracious. God commends us to be gracious
because he is gracious. This is the character of our
God. I am gracious. Nehemiah put it
in these words. Thou art a God ready to pardon,
gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. Thou art a gracious and merciful
God. The fact that God is gracious
is used throughout the Psalms. I read them a number of times
the last few days, where the psalmist sings praise to God,
saying the Lord is long-suffering, the Lord is merciful, the Lord
is gracious. Oh, how we ought to praise him
who is God, describing himself as gracious. The Lord God intends
for us to know and always remember that he's gracious. The character
of God in his grace is that which inspires hope in poor, helpless
sinners such as we are. It is that which inspires confident
faith in believing hearts, those who are saved by his grace. And
it is that which inspires and motivates us in how we live in
this world. The Lord God says, now you do
this, you behave this way, for I am gracious. Oh God, inspire
my heart continually with the constant remembrance that you're
gracious. Longing to be like Him. Gracious,
gracious, gracious. That's so contrary to my nature
and yours. So contrary to our flesh. But
the Lord God says, you be gracious, you be favorable, you be kind,
you be charitable, for I am gracious. The Lord's gracious character
is used by the prophet to inspire us in just this way. Turn over
to Isaiah 38. I'm sorry, Isaiah 30 and verse
18. Isaiah 30 and verse 18. And therefore will the Lord wait
that he may be gracious unto you. I looked a lot today, I
can't find anywhere else in this book that ever talks about God
waiting to do anything. He's swift in judgment. He accomplishes
his will mightily and suddenly upon the earth. But he waits
that he may be gracious unto you. That word wait, It implies God pants and longs and groans that he
may be gracious to you. His heart moves within him, anxious
for you that he may be gracious unto you. What a description
of God. He waits that he may be gracious
unto you. And therefore will he be exalted.
That's enough reason. That he may have mercy upon you.
For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait
for him. For the people shall dwell in
Zion and Jerusalem. Thou shalt weep no more. He will
be very gracious unto thee. When? As soon as you call on
him. At the voice of thy cry. at the
voice of thy cry. What a word by which God describes
prayer. We hardly know how to speak to
God in prayer. None of us knows what to pray
for as we ought, but we cry unto God and the spirit makes intercession
with our spirits, with groanings, with sighs that baffle words. He makes groans and intercession
for us as we cry to him. And he will be gracious to you
when he hears your cry. When he shall hear it, he will
answer thee. Look in chapter 33, verse two
of Isaiah. Oh Lord, be gracious unto us. We have waited for thee. Be thou
their arm every morning. Our salvation also in time of
trouble. The prophet Joel says, turn unto
the Lord your God, for he's gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great compassion, of great kindness. The Lord our God, the
triune Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, here speaks to
us and says, I am gracious. I am gracious. That's the motive he gives us
by which he inspires us. That's the rule he gives us by
which he rules us. That's the inspiration he gives
us by which he moves our hearts toward him and toward one another. The reason for all that he requires
of us is I am gracious. Now understand this, the source
of all grace is our God. All grace comes from God. If any grace is found in you
or found in me, if any grace works in us, it is the gift of
God's grace. It is the operation of God's
grace. As we exercise love, really as we exercise love as God describes
it, we exercise it only as God works in us. If ever we exercise
faith, really exercise faith, if ever we believe God, we believe
God only as God works faith in us. If ever we're gracious, forgiving,
kind, charitable, as this book describes those things, it is
only as God works in us by His grace. Grace comes from God our
Father, who in His sovereign, infinite mercy, love, and grace,
chose a people to whom He would be gracious before the world
was. For us, he made a sovereign covenant of free grace with his
darling son. And in that covenant of grace,
accepted us and blessed us in the beloved. His salvation is
altogether a work of his free grace in Jesus Christ, his darling
son. This grace of God is found only
in Christ. It is grace by one man, Jesus
Christ. All grace is found in Christ. All grace is given in Christ,
with Christ, and by Christ. And those to whom God gives his
Son, he gives all his grace. And all the blessings of his
grace, for time and for eternity, and he sustains them with his
grace. The Lord God describes this to
us in the scriptures. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. That does not imply in
any way that before the incarnation and birth and obedience of the
Lord Jesus as our substitute in this world, God saved sinners
in some other way. He never did. Salvation's always
been by grace. It's always been by grace in
Jesus Christ the Lord. And that grace, however, that
was always there in the Old Testament, experienced by Adam in the garden,
experienced by Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,
experienced by Enoch who walked with God and received testimony
from God that he pleased God, it was because of God's grace.
Only his grace in Jesus Christ the Lord. But this wondrous grace,
the prophets of old looked into it. They looked into it, desiring
to see it, though it's clearly revealed to them in all the types
and pictures and commandments of the law, yet they couldn't
see it clearly as it is now revealed to us in His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. God's grace and God's glory are
revealed in the face of His darling Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The
glory of God is wrapped up with the grace of God. The grace of
God is wrapped up with the glory of God, and the glory and grace
of God are in His Son. In the accomplishments of His
Son, in the doing and dying of His Son, in the redemption performed
by His Son, in the righteousness of His Son, in the salvation
found in His Son. Grace is God's gift to us in
Christ. And it is that which we enjoy
and are made partakers of only by the power of God, the Holy
Ghost, who comes in the appointed time of love, which God appointed
before the world was, as he waits to be gracious to us. And he
effectually, irresistibly, mysteriously, without announcement applies
grace to the heart. so that the dead sinner suddenly
lives. The unbelieving suddenly believes. But we have to make a choice
to believe. If God waits on you to make a
choice to believe, you'll go to hell like you are. But you
must make a choice to believe. If God waits on you to turn to
him, you'll never turn to him, but turn to him you must or you'll
perish in your sins. Well, how can that be? When God
the Holy Ghost comes in the saving operations of his grace, suddenly
you who could not believe find that you can not believe any
longer. You must believe on him because
God calls you by his grace. You must live because God gives
you life. and being born of his spirit,
you find yourself doing something you didn't dream you could do.
Believing God, trusting his son, coming to Christ, crying to him
for mercy, seeking his face, bowing before his throne. The
only giver of grace is God. The only source of grace is God. The only mediator of grace is
God. It's all found in God the Son,
our blessed Savior. You won't find grace at the front
of a church. Now hang on to your seat. I want
to tell you something. Nobody ever did. All you find at the
front of a church building, badness or otherwise, is the same thing
you find in a confessional booth talking to a priest about your
sins. You just find a delusion. You won't find grace in the waters
of baptism. Nobody ever did. You won't find
grace by responding to an invitation at a big revival rally in a stadium
somewhere. You won't find grace at the end
of the sinner's prayer. You find grace in Jesus Christ
the Lord, and you'll only find it when grace has found you.
That's the only way God saves sinners, is by his free grace
in Christ the Lord. The gospel of God is a message
of grace. It is called in Acts 20 and 24,
the gospel of the grace of God. To the self-righteous religionist,
grace is a stumbling block. To the learned philosophical
worldling, it's foolishness. Why? Because there's nothing
in the gospel, nothing about the gospel, nothing in the grace
of God, nothing about the grace of God that has any appeal to
fallen natural man. There's nothing about it to make
man feel good about himself. Nothing about it to make a man
think highly of himself. Nothing to gratify your pride. The gospel of God declares that
man can never be saved but by the grace of God. You can never
be saved apart from Christ, the unspeakable gift of God's grace.
There's no salvation for any man and the state of all human
beings is desperate, hopeless, and irreversible without God's
free grace. Except God intervene. The gospel
declares men and women are depraved, guilty, condemned, perishing,
justly condemned, justly perishing, justly under the wrath of God. It puts us all on the same level. And that level's as low as it
gets. The gospel declares that the purest moralist is in exactly
the same condition as the most vile, profligate reprobate. The gospel declares that the
most zealous religionist is no better in character than the
most profane infidel. None whatever. All of us alike
sinful. All of us alike, indecent. All
of us alike, immoral. All of us alike, filthy. All
of us alike, fallen. All of us alike, helpless. All
of us alike, justly condemned. Without hope, separated from
Christ. Without God, separated from Christ. Lost, separated from Christ. Undone, separated from Christ. Without Christ, We're without
grace and lost. The gospel you see addresses
us and only addresses us, the descendants of Adam, as fallen,
polluted, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinners. Sinners utterly incapable
of changing our ruined condition. When we talk about what we are
by nature, And let's always talk about what we are, not what we
were. We talk about what we are by
nature. Remember, remember, never forget,
this is our condition indeed by nature. Sin, sinners, transgressors,
workers of iniquity. black, vile, base, corrupt, deceitful,
cunning, crafty, nothing good, nothing righteous, nothing pure,
nothing worth recommending to anybody, nothing. Hear what God
says to you who are sinners. If you're yet without Christ,
the wrath of God is upon you. The very wrath of God that fuels
the fires of hell is upon you right now. Did you hear that? The very wrath of God that fuels
the fires of hell is upon you right now. It's not waiting to
be upon you. It's not that someday you're
going to be condemned. You're condemned already. That's
the language of scripture. Our Lord Jesus says, he that
believeth not on him is condemned. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
He that believeth on the Son, John said, hath everlasting life,
and he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life. but the wrath of God is upon
him. God, teach me, teach me, teach
me to look upon every object of my love and care and influence
who is yet without Christ with the sword of glittering justice
swinging over his head now. Not tomorrow, now. The wrath
of God abideth on him. And if God will teach me that,
nothing else will much matter concerning them. Nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing else. Oh, but I want
this, my children. Every mama and daddy does. Every
mother and father does. All of them! God teach us to
understand. Those who are dearest to us,
who know him not, the wrath of God abides, hold on, now. They're but a breath from hell.
Did you hear me? You who believe not, you are
but a breath from hell. But a breath from hell. But a breath from hell, the wrath
of God abides upon you. But our text declares that this
God, whose wrath abides on you, by which you are condemned already,
this God says, I am. This God, who in the previous
chapters threatens law, and judgment, and sword, and famine, and foe,
one after another, with death consummating eternally in hell.
He says, I tell you this, for I am gracious, the God of all
grace. It is he who gives the law. The
God of all grace, it is he who exercises judgment. The God of
all grace, it is he who will send you to hell. But he declares,
I am gracious. All the religious world talks
about grace and salvation by grace. But few understand the
character of God's grace as it's revealed in this book, very few.
So let me look at that with you for just a little bit. When the
Lord God declares I am gracious, he's declaring his great glorious
attribute of grace. Grace, like love, is exercised
only toward God's elect. Nowhere in the Bible, nowhere
in this book will you find any indication of what being called
common grace or general grace or universal grace. Common, general,
universal things are useless, common, general, universal things. If everybody's got it, it's of
no benefit to anybody and no value to anybody. No, no. Grace is not a common thing.
Grace is not a universal thing. Grace is not a general thing.
It's very particular. There is a sense I know in which
God's mercy is over all his works. And so I suppose it is right
to say that anything this side of hell is mercy. Mercy in the
experience of it. But, uh, mercy. It's not what we're talking about
here. That is God just letting you live on this earth while
you gather for yourself greater condemnation. No, no, no. We're talking about grace. God
says, I am gracious. It's solitary source being from
him. It is completely unmerited, unsought
favor. In fact, this very word, when
God says I am gracious, means I am favorable. I am favorable. Grace is something
that is unattracted by us. It can't be bought, it can't
be earned, it can't be merited by anything in us or anything
done by us. If it could, it would cease to
be grace. If you slip works in, you push
grace out. The two won't mix at any point. So there's no part of salvation
to be attributed to your will, your worth, or your works. No
part of salvation in any way depending on you, determined
by you. No part of salvation that hinges
upon man. It is altogether the work of
God's free grace. Let me tell you five things about
it that characterize it. I'll be very brief. These five
things always characterize grace. If you think of grace in any
way contrary to any of these, you think of works. You just call it grace. That's
all. Grace is eternal. Grace is eternal. It has no beginning
and it has no end. It's eternal. It's not just everlasting,
it's eternal. Something may be everlasting
that we have life, given us life that was ours with Christ before
the world was, so it's eternal life in that sense, but it is
everlasting life as we experience it. We come to possess it and
it's ours from now on forever, but eternity, I've been trying
to find a way to talk about eternity for 50 years. I hadn't figured
it out yet. Eternity, how does a finite man who can only think
about beginning and end, past, present, and future, even think
about eternity? Eternity has no beginning. And when God speaks to us about
eternal things as if they are things that started back yonder,
he's just accommodating our puny brains because we're just men.
And so he speaks about eternal things in what, I'll get ridiculed
for this, but I'll use it anyhow, in what we might call the eternal
past. Something that took place and
was finished in eternity. Well, Brother Don, that never
happened. Oh, I beg to differ. Let's look at it in the book
of Romans, Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight. Grace doesn't originate in time. It can't be controlled by time.
It can't be directed by time. It's eternal. Romans 8, 28. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are thee
called, and this is how they work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are they called, according to his And then he tells us, in verse
28, he's talking to us about what God's doing. Like you, I
spent a lot of time calling the names of friends in Texas and
Louisiana last week. Spent a lot of time calling them,
writing to them, calling their name for the throne of grace.
And I said to our God, on more than one occasion, I shall be
and I'd bow for prayer. God, I don't know. I don't know
what you're doing. I don't see how you're working
your will here. I can't see his way in the floodwaters,
can you? Can you? I can't see his path
in the whirlwind, can you? But I know he walks upon the
floods. He rides upon the storm, and
he has his way in the whirlwind. And I know it's all exactly according
to his purpose. And I know that that which he's
doing in time, he does because of something he did before the
world was in eternity. He saved us and called us with
a holy calling. And the works were finished from
the foundation of the world. Let's see what it says. For whom
he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his son, that his son might be the firstborn
among many brethren, That's what God's gonna do. He's gonna fix
it so we're just like his son. In the blessed reality of life,
in our knowledge and experience of it. Oh, Frank, I don't feel like
him at all. I mean, I don't feel like I'm
like him in the least, do you? Not in the least. Do you? I know nothing about it, but
I know the reality of it because God stated it. And when he's
done with me, I'm going to experience the reality of it and know it. Bowing before him, just like
his son, holy. and without blame, unflammable,
perfect, righteous, loving God with all my being. And what God is going to do is
what he already did for the next life. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
they be also called. And whom he called, they be also
justified. and who be justified, then be
also glorified. Oh, before the world was, the
Lord God, the triune Jehovah accepted us in his Son, called
us his sons, justified us and glorified us in his Son, one
with Christ our Lord. The grace of God's eternal. And
the grace of God is free. Free. We're justified freely
by his grace. Isn't that wonderful? Free, free. I'm reluctant to say it because
I know folks get upset with it, but I'll say it just for that
reason. Grace is the cheapest thing in the world. It's the cheapest thing in the
world. If you pay anything for it, you can't have it. It's free! Without cause. without cost, without condition,
absolutely free. Well, Brother Don, you can't
tell folks that. Well, let me try it another way. Grace is
the cheapest thing in the world. If you pay a tear for it, you
can't have it. You can't have it. It's free. It's without cause. It's without
cost. It's without condition. It's
absolutely free. But what if it made sense? Grace
is the cheapest thing in the world. You can't buy it. It's without cause. It's without
cost. It's without condition. Grace
is free. The grace of God, the third thing,
is sovereign. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. We don't know much
about sovereignty in our nation. Really, we don't know much about
sovereignty in our world around us. There are still some monarchs,
but not in the sense that David was. He who reigns is sovereign. And grace reigns. reigns through Jesus Christ,
through righteousness. The throne of God, our Savior,
is called the throne of grace. He's sovereign. That means he
has mercy on whom he will have mercy. He has compassion on whom
he will have compassion, and whom he will he hardens. Grace
is sovereign. Not only is grace sovereign,
but this sovereign grace is always discriminated. It's always discriminating. How many times do you hear somebody
say, that's just not fair. I've got news for you that nothing
fair in this world. Nobody fair in this world except
God. Except God. He's absolutely sovereign
and he fairly gives grace to whom he will. He separated came
from Abel. He distinguished Abraham from
all the rest of his family. He separated Jacob from Esau. He made a difference between
Ishmael and Isaac. He and he alone is he who says,
I put a difference between Egypt and Israel that you may know
that I am God. It is he who separates the human
race into two groups, elect and reprobate, wheat and tares, sheep
and goats. And the elect will never become
reprobate and the reprobate will never become the elect. Sheep
will never become goats and goats will never become sheep. God
is sovereign in his grace. He says, Jacob have I loved and
Esau have I hated. Well, I don't understand that.
Yes, you do. That's the reason you don't like it. You most certainly do understand
it. You can't misunderstand it. You can't misunderstand it. You
can either bow to it or buck it, but you can't misunderstand
it. Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Grace is the sovereign
prerogative of God Almighty, and he has mercy on whom he will. I'll tell you one more thing
about this characteristic of grace. The grace of God is like
everything else about God. It's immutable. God's grace is immutable. In
fact, in the one place where he declares his absolute immutability,
what's he talking about? He's talking about grace. He
said, I am the Lord. I change not. And that's the
only reason you sons of Jacob aren't in hell. I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. That's my creed. That's my confession. That's my constant experience. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. And that's my message. I've been preaching this message
for 50 years. And nobody has ever heard this
man speak as a preacher who didn't hear that message. I don't mean it's occasionally
my message, I mean all the time. All the time. We were down in
Asheville one year, one time several years ago, and some fellas
came around kinda dabblin' and toyin' with us, and one of them
said to me, he said, he said, how often do you preach these
things? I said, what things? He said, well, the doctrines of
grace. I said, you mean how often did I preach total depravity
and unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace,
preservation of the saints? He said, yeah. I said, every
time I preach. How often did you preach them last year? all the time. I am gracious is
God's declaration. The Lord God almighty in all
his works involving salvation works by grace, just by grace. Election, adoption, redemption,
forgiveness, sanctification, preservation, holiness, righteousness,
justification is all by grace. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Well, why does the Bible say
that so much? that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's why. Because
you see, we want something to trust other
than God. I've known that preacher sitting
right there for a long time. Been a friend a long time. Loved
the free grace of God for as long as I've known him. And you're
looking for something to trust. And you are, and you are, and
I am. That's the nature of our flesh.
We want something to lean on. Some experience, some knowledge,
some sensational feeling, some deep remorse, some great act
of repentance, some self-sacrifice, some self-denial, some great
act of love. We will, if we can, find something
else to trust. Oh, God, knock every prop out
from under me, every second of every day, and teach me to glory
only in the Lord, in his grace, his free grace. Now, let me give
you some examples, some trophies of grace. There was a king by the name
of Manasseh. You can read about him in 2 Chronicles.
I suppose of all the kings of Judah, all the kings of Israel,
he was the most vile, the most base, the most propagate, the
most corrupt, the most self-serving of all their kings. No king like
Manasseh. He sacrificed his own sons in
the fires to Moloch. What does that mean? It means
exactly what you think it means. He laid them on a burning altar
and burned them up for God. But Manasseh was conquered by
grace. God resets, crowned with glory,
in white robes, perfectly righteous, exactly like his Redeemer. We read in the book of God of
a fellow named Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus was a bloodthirsty
religious zealot. He would make Osama bin, what's
the name of Osama bin Laden? He'd make him look like a choir
boy. He wanted to rid the world of the name of Jesus Christ in
Christianity. He stood by and held the clothes
of folks while they stoned Stephen to death. And grace caught him because
God said, I'm waiting to be gracious. And at the appointed time of
love, grace broke out on him and conquered him. And yonder
sits, right beside Stephen, worshiping the lamb on his throne. We read
in the book of first and second Corinthians about a group of
people who lived in a place called Corinth. And I guess that was about the
most corrupt church you could ever read about in history. Galatia
might have been worse. They were legalists. At least
the Corinthians didn't have that against them. But base, vile,
corrupt, infected with every corruptible thing imaginable.
And Paul lists them off in chapter six and he says, such were some
of you. I wonder why he said such were
some of you. He could have said such were all of you. That's
what you are, you know. Our Lord said so. That's what's
in your heart. There's nothing in the heart of any man outside
of hell that's not in your heart. Nothing. Nothing. Or mine. But you're washed. But you're
sanctified. But you're justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God. But of all the trophies of grace, there are none, none so much
a trophy of grace as a man talking to you. You see, I am Gomer. I am Onesimus. I am the prodigal
son. You may have never met me before,
my name is Jacob. A supplater, a deceiver, a liar,
a cheat, a thief, a blasphemer. A man conquered by grace. In whom Christ has revealed himself. who thankfully, thankfully, thankfully
can tell you that while I live in this world, I hobble through
this world on a broken thigh. A man broken by grace. And thank God, Brother Todd,
a man being broken by grace. This grace is free. It's free. Come here, come here. It's yours for the taking. As soon as you cry, God hears,
and the grace is yours. If free, why not for me? If free, why not for you? Amen.