You'll turn back with me now
to Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two. We'll be looking at verses one
through nine. I titled the message this morning,
A Kind Word to Sinners. A Kind Word to Sinners. I've been thinking all week long
about how to preach the gospel to men. How do we do that? How do we do that? Brother Mahan
said one time that preaching was like standing before the
great Atlantic Ocean and somebody gives you a canoe and says, cross
it. Or standing before Mount Everest,
hands you a pair of tennis shoes and says, climb it. Preaching the gospel to men is
so much greater than what men perceive it to be. This is a great miracle. He talks
about that in Ephesians chapter one. He said that God would show
you something about the greatness of his power to us for this great
power of God. And what is this power? Preaching
of the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. This is an act of God. It's a
divine miracle. It's seen almost every day somewhere
in this world. God manifests the glory of his
gospel, causes his people to be called out of darkness into
his marvelous light, raises the dead. That's a miracle. That's a miracle of God, and
it happens every day somewhere in this world. But how? How to preach that gospel? My
friend, I know the gospel. I know the gospel. The gospel
of Jesus Christ. I know the gospel of substitution. The gospel of imputed righteousness. The gospel of the reconciliation. Our being reconciled to God.
The gospel of God's free grace and undeserved mercy and love.
I know the gospel. The gospel of the glory of God
manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the
everlasting gospel. He's God's gospel and he's the
gospel of the grace of God. And I'm gonna tell you something,
this gospel, he said, is the gospel of your salvation. I know the gospel, but how does
one begin to preach this gospel to me? Where do you start? Where do you start? He's been
teaching me for a long time. But somebody comes in and they
have no understanding. They have, where do you start? Where do you start? What do y'all
believe on wherever you go to church? Where are you gonna start? How? How do you do this? I don't
want to make this to be a joke or make this to be a, I don't
want to give men a false impression of God when I talk to them. I
don't want to be the offense. I want the cross to be the offense
if there is an offense. How does one begin to preach
this gospel to men? Where do you begin? Well, here
in Ephesians 2, Paul gives us the outline and pattern for preaching
the good news of Christ to chosen sinners. Here's where he begins. And you,
you hath he quickened who were dead. That's where you start. I can't start way up here on
the hill somewhere if you ain't up there. Let's start down here
where they are. You hath equipped who were dead
in trespasses and sins. Now the Holy Scriptures tell
us that the soul that sinneth shall surely die. Now will God
say it? I'm gonna tell you something,
if God says surely, all your excuses are gone. There's no way out. The soul
that sinned it shall surely die. And I don't know, I've talked
to men about their sins and they have no understanding of sin,
but let me just see if I can say a few things to you, maybe
some of you young people that are gathered here this morning,
that maybe you can have some perception of what this sin is.
You don't have to be a reprobate to go to hell. You don't have to be an unbelieving
reprobate. You don't have to be a Charles
Manson to be sent to hell. All you have to do is transgress
his law in one part. Is that right? Just one part? Cursed is everyone, the scripture
said, that continueth not in all things written in the book
of the law to do them. Anybody here thinks they've only
sinned one time? Huh? With good reason, the Holy Ghost
inspires Paul to use the plural concerning our sins. You hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Actually, when it comes down
to it, If you break any statute of the law, it's a breach of
the first commandment and therefore makes us guilty of the whole
law. The first and great commandment, and the second one's like unto
it, but the first and great commandment is to love the Lord thy God with
all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And he said the second's
like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. If you could do
that, the rest of the law will be a piece of cake. But if you break any other part
of that law, it's a transgression of your love for God. It exposes
your love for what it really is. Love, he said, is the keeping
of the law. That's the keeping of the law. And so that leaves us all guilty
of the whole law. Now the man or the woman who
trespasses against God ignores his commandments and ignores
his messengers and ignores his means and exhortations is a dead
man. He's a dead man. He that believeth
not is condemned already. Isn't that what our Lord said?
He's a dead man. He's dead being judged of God
as a transgressor. You think of yourself that way?
When you get up and look at yourself in the mirror, is that what you
see, a transgressor? Because that's what God says
we are. We're transgressors. Oh, you say, that's for them
folks before conversion, is it? Is it? That's not what Isaiah said.
He said we are all as a. All together is an unclean thing.
And all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Not what Paul
said when he cried in Romans 7, O wretched man that I am. He didn't talk about, O wretched
man that I used to be. He said, O wretched man that
I am. He wasn't talking about himself
before conversion or else he wouldn't have had a will to do
that which was right. The things that I would do, that's
what I do not. Why? Because he's an old, wretched
man. That's why. He did. We're judged of God as
a transgressor. He's dead spiritually, having
a sinful nature, and he's dead mentally, having no understanding
of God, whom to know is eternal life. You have the quickened
who are dead in trespasses and sins. Well, how is this death
manifested? How do you tell the sinner, how
do you show him his sins manifested? How is it manifested? Ephesians
2 verse 2. Wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. What's all that mean? That means
we walk exactly like everybody else. That's what that meant. We walk just exactly as all the
other fallen sons of Adam walk. We walk in the vanity of our
minds, he goes on to tell us a little later in Ephesians.
Being deceived by Satan, who's the ruler of the darkness of
this world. Whenever we talk about sin, men and women who
are hearing it for the first time, they're a bit bewildered,
to say the least, and most of the time shocked. And that's partly because they
have a false concept about sin and righteousness, and partly
because they're accustomed to comparing themselves to other
people. That's all you gotta do, Russell,
find somebody that everybody despises and say, well, boy,
I'm a lot better than he is. You ain't so bad compared to
him, are you? What this verse is telling us
is that we are exactly like those around us because we're all dead
in trespasses and sin. Being dead in trespasses and
sins is a universal condition. It's not an isolated condition. It's a universal condition. Listen to these scriptures. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Who's that take in? That takes
in everybody. We are all as an unclean thing
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rag. Man, mankind,
man at his best state is altogether vanity. None righteous, none
that understandeth, none that seeketh after God, all of them
gone out of the way and there's none good, no not one. That's
a universal condition. Death is not the state of a few
transgressors, rather death passed upon all men. What's the evidence
of that? All have sinned. You walked according to the course
of this world, Ephesians 2.2. Not exactly as others walk, but
nevertheless, after that pattern. Everybody's not a Charles Manson. Not every sinner's a serial killer,
a rapist, or a jewel thief, or a con man. But he is by nature. Your nature is such, you see
in the visible. I'm gonna give you something
in the visual. Some of you know a little something
about Charles Manson. He just, boy, he's in a class
all his own. He's a real nutcase. The same potential that's in
Charles Manson is in you. Huh? That's it, look at that. His disciples ate and didn't
even wash their hands. Huh? That makes me sick to hear
somebody say something like that. I used to smoke. Somebody said,
I feel sorry for his wife. Every time he kisses her, it's
like kissing an ashtray. You self-righteous hypocrite.
That's exactly what they were saying to those disciples. Look
at that. Eat that corn. Our Lord said, out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, blasphemy, thefts,
Covetousness, which is idolatry. Huh? Out of the heart of man. This is what defiles the man,
not that dirt on his fingernails. When I was a kid, we had a hideout. Some of you kids might have one,
I don't know, your parents. Because what they did, some of
them keep a tighter rein on you than they did on us. But we had
a hideout back in the woods. And we could go back there and
we could read dirty books. And we could smoke. Somebody
come up with a cigarette, steal it out of mom's purse or something,
we'd go back there and smoke a cigarette. We could talk any
way we wanted to talk. We talked like drunken sailors
back in the hideout. Nobody knew anything about it.
Nobody knew anything about it. Well, this is the thing, see.
You can walk down the street, got your wife's arm in your arm,
and you're walking down the street, and that man in his hideout up
here, He can commit adultery with a young woman walking down
the other side of the street, and his wife doesn't know anything
about it, and the young woman with whom he committed adultery
didn't know anything about it. He's in his hideout. When the Bible talks about our
sins, it's talking about the sin within us. If you sin outwardly,
it comes from your heart. That's what defiles the man. It's not the cigarette he smokes
or the glass of beer that he has. It's sin that's in him. The beer didn't ruin him. He
ruined the beer. Beer's got a bad name now because
of man. You can say the same thing about
sex. You can say the same thing about drugs. The heart of man is a cesspool
of iniquity. It's a secret hideout where he
goes to practice sin. And here's another thing that
men aren't aware of when I'm talking to them about sin and
they're trying to apply what I'm saying to themselves and
they're comparing themselves to other men and all these kind
of things. Here's another thing. It's the
restraining providence of God. God controls things with civil
laws and moral standards and a conscience and marriage and
just plain controlling the circumstances. He let that one fall under the
circumstance, he didn't you. He held you back. And now you
look at him and say, look at him. Don't you mistake the restraining
hand of God for your personal righteousness. But that's what
men think when you're talking to them. One old fellow's mowing the yard,
man, in his 80s. He was out mowing that yard with
a push mower down in Ball, Louisiana years ago. And I felt sorry for
him. I took him out a glass of water. It was 100 degrees out
there. And we started talking. And I said, do you know the Lord? No, well, he said, one thing
I can say, he said, alcohol never touched his lips. I said, you ever had a evil thought? Well, who hadn't? Well, then out the window went
that alcohol on the lip thing, didn't it? Don't mistake God's restraining
hand for personal righteousness. It doesn't matter who you are
or what you have or have not done, we all, Ephesians 2, 2,
walked according to the course of this world. We walk as fallen
sinners. We walk in ignorance. We walk
in unbelief. We walk according to the course
of this world and according to the prince of the power of the
air. the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom, now watch this, among whom also we have all had our
conversation in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath. Now our God is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart. How does he judge men? Does he wait to see men sin? He discerns your thoughts and
intents. That's right. He discerns your
thoughts and intents. The scripture said, neither is
there any creature that's not fully manifest in his sight. He sees everything. And a sinner is a man who, in
his fallen state of being, thinks and walks according to the prints
of the power of the air. He draws his concepts. He draws his fundamental reasoning. He draws all of those things
from the prints of the power of the air. They're not a country that I
know of anywhere. Anywhere. that don't think righteousness
comes from some kind of moral obedience. Scriptures, by the deeds of the
law, no flesh gonna be justified in his sight. I don't care how
moral you are. There's no moral bias or any
sense of right and wrong with Satan. He's equally pleased if
you run a brothel or pastor a church. He don't care. He don't care. All he cares about is that you
miss Christ. He don't care if you're a deacon
or a drunk. He don't care. But his greatest and most diabolical,
I looked that word up. You know what diabolical means? What's another name for Satan?
Diablo? Diabolical means something that
stems from Satan, something that comes from Satan. And his most
diabolical work is religion. It's religion, false religion.
Leading men to hope in things that there's no hope in. Leading men to walk in a way
that's not the way of God. False religion is a work here
connected to every fallen son of Adam. False religion affects
the whole world, leaving them with some kind of idolatrous
concept of God. Paul was a Pharisee. He said,
as touching the law, he said, I was blameless. I was blameless. And he's talking about how he
saw things when he was in religion. But listen to how he sees things
after he believed. Listen to this. He wrote to Timothy. He tells us in 1 Timothy 1, 13,
he said, I was before a blasphemer. A blasphemer. A persecutor. An injurious man. That is, he caused death. because
of what he believed, his false notions of religion. He blasphemed
God with his self-righteous phariseeism and religious ideas, and he persecuted
men because of it. And he brought death and injury
upon men. Religion is the work of Satan,
and it's so subtle that men believe, practice it, support it, and
rejoice in it, even though it's totally contrary to the word
of God. They'll stand and talk to you
about their works, their works, their works. And how many times
have I read back to them from the word of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. God has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Not of works. By the works of
the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Now that's where we have to begin
with a clear explanation of man's fall and his state in sin and
depravity into which he's fallen in his father Adam. You have
to start there. That's where he's at. This is
God's testimony of every man's condition. I don't want to shock you. But
if they will receive God's testimony concerning their sin, we can
go on and give them a kind word. But if they don't, stop right
there. Just stop. Those Pharisees come along and
over and over and over and over they would receive not the things
of the Spirit of God Christ preached to them as no other man could. He did. And they wouldn't have
it. And the disciples just kept saying
the Pharisees said this and the Pharisees think this and the
Pharisees did. He said leave them alone. Why? Because they don't believe God. If a man won't accept God's testimony
concerning his sins, I've got nothing else to tell him. One thing I can tell him for
sure, Christ didn't die for him. Because this is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. He died for sinners. The just
for the unjust. He didn't die for self-righteous
men. He didn't die for taught men. Our Lord said they shall all
be taught of God. Don't teach themselves, God teaches
them. This is where we got to begin,
a clear explanation of their sin and if they'll receive God's
testimony concerning their sin, we can go on and tell them about
the mercy and love of God for chosen sinners. The purpose of God in the salvation
of sinners is to manifest the glory of His mercy and love and
His grace. Ephesians 1 verse 6, it says,
to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made
us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. in whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,
that we should be to the praise of his glory, the Father's glory,
the praise of the Father's justice and righteousness and wisdom
and love and mercy and grace, to the praise of his glory who
first trusted him. in whom we also trusted after
we heard the word of truth. And if they won't hear God's
testimony about their sins, just don't go any further. Here's
what the Lord said to those Pharisees. He said, the whole need not a
physician. They don't need me. They don't need anything that
I'm about. They don't need me. Behold, need
not the physician, but the sick. And here's what he told them.
You go learn what this means. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice.
I'm not come to save the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. Having fully set forth the condition
of the sinner, Paul tells us by divine inspiration, but God. who is rich in mercy. For his
great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in
sin, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are you
saved. Salvation begins with God, but
a sinner is the only one who needs saved. Deaf, righteous
men don't need to be saved. You can't even hardly talk to
one about the scripture. Salvation begins with God. I want you to listen to this
proverb. This is in Proverbs chapter 16, I think it's verse
one. He said, the preparations of
the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Is there a poor sinner who suddenly
hears the truth about his sin? who having heard this terrible
truth is struck down by it, left hopeless by it, finds himself
guilty before God? It's of the Lord. It's of the Lord. Is there an
ignorant sinner suddenly made aware of his ignorance of God?
It's of the Lord. It's the Lord working in him.
God himself is intervening in his life and preparing
his heart to receive the gospel. He gave us a parable about the
seed. You remember that parable? Well,
let me say this about that parable. Where there is no plowed ground,
the gospel seed withers and dies. It's choked by the weeds, or
it's trodden underfoot by men. The only place the gospel seed
prospers is in the plowed ground. You understand what I'm saying?
God plows the heart. That's right. He prepares the
ground, the preparations in the heart of man, and the answer
of his tongue is of the Lord. Not only does salvation begin
with God, but it's brought to pass by God. Even when we were
dead in sins, He quickened us together with Christ. Even when
we were dead, He quickened us together with Christ. I didn't
know anything about that for years and years and years after
I was born. I didn't know anything about
it. When we were dead in sins, when
did we die? We died in Adam, as in Adam all
die. This quickening is inclusive
of our election in Christ. He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world. Having put us in Christ and made
us one with Christ, He can then tell us that we were buried with
Him in baptism and raised up with Him to walk in newness of
life. In Ephesians 2, 6, and He has raised us up together.
After He quickened us together with Christ, He raised us up
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Salvation to which God elects
chosen sinners is by way of an eternal union with Christ. He
put us in Christ, chose us in Christ, looked upon us in Christ. He tells us over in the book
of 1 John, I think it's somewhere toward the end of chapter 4,
as Christ was in this world, so are you. Huh? Hard to imagine, isn't it? Hard
to imagine. walking before the holy law of
God without transgression of thought, motive, or deed. As He was in the world, so are
you. You were in Him obeying that
law. Huh? That's just hard to perceive,
isn't it? Paul tells us in Colossians 3.3
that we are dead, Now watch this. And our life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. How
come? Because God hid ye in him. And then he did all that to bring
this to pass, Ephesians 2 said. all this quickening, all this
eternal election, all this accomplishing salvation and redemption, all
of these things that he did, he did to this end, that in the
ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Who's he gonna
show that to? Everybody that God chose in him. All that the Father hath given
me," now listen, "...shall come to me." That's right. When they come to Him, what are
they going to find out? Oh, they're going to hear some kind words
now. They're going to hear some kind
words from God. He's going to show to them the
exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. And every man chosen of God to
salvation is chosen through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth. And all those sanctified of the Spirit and belief of the
truth are called by His gospel. 2 Thessalonians 2.14. And this calling is an effectual
calling. 1 Thessalonians 2.13. It's an
effectual calling, the word of God which effectually worketh
also in you that believe. Why do you believe? Because his
word effectually works in you, that's why. Those who truly believe
submit. They submit, they bow. One of the hardest things for
a man to do, it's impossible for a natural man, is to bow.
He can't do it. He can't do it. Submit, repent,
rejoice, turn to God from their idols and wait with expecting
hearts for their Lord's return. And then fourthly and quickly,
he puts them under tutors. Puts them under tutors, so to
speak. Pastors and teachers, till they
all come in the unity of the faith. We say, Preacher, I know
a lot of people. I've not known very many churches
in the unity of the faith. They disagree on this and they
disagree on that. The unity of the faith, and now
watch this, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. We have unity on our knowledge
of the Son of God. We know who He is. why he came,
what he did, and where he's at. To all come in the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man. Oh, there you go, he's satisfied,
he's gonna reach that plateau where he reaches perfection. No, that's not what they're talking
about. They're talking about that perfect man of faith, the
Lord Jesus Christ. The unity of the faith. Faith
sees a perfect Savior. What's it take to save this vile
sinner that he talked about over here in Ephesians 1? It takes
a perfect Savior. God's perfect, isn't He? Doesn't
He call His attributes His perfections? He's perfectly just, perfectly
righteous, perfectly holy. He's perfect love. To be saved requires a perfect
Savior. And that's what faith finds,
that's what it hears, that's what it finds in the Word of
God, a perfect Savior. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. Why? Because in Him is perfect
righteousness. You remember that illustration
I gave you about that painting up there in Washington, D.C.
and that big man standing over there in the corner? And there's
a little bench there about five feet away from that painting,
and you can sit there all day. But if you get up with a pencil
in your hand and start toward that picture, that man going
to take you down. He'll take you down. These are paintings by the masters. The master accomplished perfect
righteousness. And when we get this idea in
our head that we're going to touch up that righteousness a
little bit here and there, He'll take you down, take you down. He puts us under tutors until
we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God unto a perfect man unto, now watch this, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now that's
what He's revealing to us. That perfect man or perfection
of man is the man who is our hope, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's not so much our perfection that the Apostle's speaking of
here, although Christ is, but he's talking about our Savior
in whom we are made perfect. Faith lays hold of a perfect
Savior, perfect in love and justice and righteousness and perfect
in grace. So the unity of the faith is the unity of salvation
in the person and work of Christ. And to this end, the Spirit of
God works in conjunction with the preaching and teaching of
the gospel. That's what we teach. That's
what the Spirit of God will reveal. The man, he's not going to talk
about himself, not going to reveal things about himself. He's going
to take the things of mine, he's going to show them unto you.
gonna show you those perfections of Christ. And in knowing Christ,
you're gonna know the Holy Spirit. Is that right? This whole generation
got this whole thing backwards. You know the Holy Spirit and
then you come to Christ. No, don't work that way. Holy
Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them to you. And as
he does, you perfectly understand and know the Holy Spirit and
the Father. Is that right? That's exactly
right. I pray the Lord, Thank you.