Let's go tonight to the Gospel
of Galatians. Galatians chapter 1. Galatians,
the first chapter. Paul, an apostle, a messenger,
not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,
who raised him from the dead. and all the brethren which are
with me unto the churches of Galatia, grace be to you, and
peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
present evil world according to the will of God our Father,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. marvel I Marvel that
you are so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ unto another gospel Which is not another It's
not even similar to the gospel of God's grace But there be some
that would trouble that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ What multitudes there are? Who pervert the gospel of
Christ? Use the words given in Scripture,
but gut the words of their meaning and make them say what they want
to say so that the message comes out not to be good news of what
God has done in His Son, but good advice from God as to what
He would have you to do for His Son. That's not the Gospel. It's not even similar to the
Gospel. Look at verse 8. But though we are an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be damned. That's the word. Let
him be damned. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
you have received, let him be accursed. Let him be damned. For do I now persuade men or
God? Am I seeking to please men or
please God? Or it might be read this way,
am I the one who persuades men or is God the one who persuades
men? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. No man who stands in the place
where I stand tonight and seeks to please those to whom he preaches
is God's servant. No man, this one included. If I seek to please you, I'm
not serving God, I'm serving you. I'm not serving your soul,
but serving as one, serving your will and your pleasure. If I
seek to please men, I'm not the servant of God. But I certify
unto you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of
me is not after man. This is not some human invention.
This is not something that man concocted. For I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Now, we've got to pause there
for a minute. Is Paul suggesting that he learned
the gospel without hearing a man preach the gospel? Oh, no. He
had heard Stephen preach the gospel. He was standing there
holding the clothes of those who stoned Stephen to death.
Not only that, but after the Lord struck him down on the Damascus
road, he was blind for three days until a man by the name
of Ananias was sent of God to preach the gospel to him. And
then the scales fell off his eyes and the darkness departed.
But this word we hear from the lips of a man, We come to know
only by the revelation of God. It's only God who can take the
words preached by a man and make them effectual to your souls.
Read on, verse 13. For ye have heard of my conversation,
my manner of life in time past in the Jews religion. How that
beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God and wasted
it. profited in the Jews religion
above all my equals many my equals in mine own nation being more
exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers now here's my text
but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by his grace to reveal his son in me this is when me
and her saying This is when women are saved, when it pleased God. Not a second earlier, not a second
later, no conditions, no circumstances are going to alter it. At the
appointed time of love, every chosen redeemed sinner will be
saved by God's grace. God who separated me from my
mother's womb. God whose hand was on me from
my mother's womb. God who cut me out from among
the pack from my mother's womb. God who isolated me from my mother's
womb. God who pitched a tent around
me from my mother's womb. Read on. And called me by his
grace to reveal his son in me. This is what salvation is. It
is God working for us, working with us, working in us by His
Word, by His Spirit, by His providence, by His grace to reveal His Son
in us. And when God reveals His Son
in you, you know Him. When God reveals His Son in you,
you believe it. Now, we usually look at Paul
as a outstanding, dramatic picture of miraculous grace and salvation. And that's all right. That's
all right. He was gloriously saved. If he was saved, he was
gloriously saved. There's no question about that.
But Paul himself tells us that his Damascus Road experience
That which he experienced on the Damascus road, not the bright,
dazzling bright sun, brighter than the noonday sun shining
from heaven, not the voice from heaven, not that voice, audible
voice calling Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? But the
result, the revelation of Christ in you. He says, I am a pattern
for all who believe. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 1.
1 Timothy chapter 1. Just turn over a few pages. Verse
15. Paul's conversion was remarkable. So was mine. So was yours, if
you've been converted by God's free grace. Just as remarkable. Just as astounding. all for the
same reasons and essentially all in exactly the same way.
I Timothy 1 verse 15, this is a faithful saying and worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtain
mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering,
now watch it, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe
on him to life everlasting. Paul says, I was a pattern. I was a pattern. What God did
for me. He set out a pattern of what
God does for all who are called by his grace. I can't help but
to think when Paul wrote these words here in Galatians 1, 15
and 16, he had in his mind that prophet Jeremiah. The Lord said,
when you were in your mother's belly, I knew you and sanctified
you. I've loved you with everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I called you. I chose Galatians
1, 15, and 16 for my text because Paul was here inspired by God
the Holy Ghost to use his own experience of grace as an example
of God's marvelous prevenient grace. And that's my subject
this evening, prevenient grace. We don't often hear folks talk
about it these days, though in days gone by, faithful men did
so frequently. Prevenient grace is grace that
precedes grace. that prepares the way for grace,
grace that leads to the revelation of Christ in you, prevenient
grace, grace going before grace, grace going ahead of grace, grace
opening the way for grace. The scriptures give us much instruction
and many examples of this marvelous, marvelous aspect of God's free
grace. And I love to think about it.
I love to meditate on it. I started studying this subject
yesterday afternoon and went to bed last night and was studying
it still about four o'clock this morning after I went to bed.
But it keeps me up at night, not with torment, but with delight.
Oh, what a wondrous, marvelous work of God this is. His marvelous,
prevenient grace. I'll summarize the message in
these three heads. Prevenient grace involves preserving
grace. It involves providential grace. And it involves that preparatory
grace making the way for grace. Let's look at it in these three
ways. Turn back to Jude, verse 1. The book of Jude, verse 1.
We'll begin here. this opening verse of Jude it
is declared that as that as that grace by which we are preserved
in Jesus Christ. Jude the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Now when you
read the scriptures and you see the things given in a distinct
order Sometimes you want to say, well, Jude's just saying this
a different way than Paul said it in another place or Peter
said it in another place. No, each one was inspired to
give us the account exactly as they gave it for a distinct reason.
Jude did not mean to say that we were called and then sanctified
and then preserved. He meant to say we were sanctified,
preserved, and called. He's talking about that which
we experience in God's grace. Sanctified by God the Father
in sovereign election before the world began. Set apart by
Him. Made to be one with Christ before
the world began. And preserved. Preserved through
all the ages of time. Preserved through the fall of
our father Adam. Preserved through the flood that
swept over the earth. Preserved through all the judgments
that passed upon the earth. Preserved from the time we came
out of our mother's womb. Preserved all the days of our
rebellion. Preserved in Jesus Christ and
then called. That's when God reveals his son
in you. preserved in Jesus Christ. God
the Holy Ghost here tells us that all God's people have been
from everlasting preserved in Christ. Watched over, guarded,
kept secure, kept from loss, kept from injury, kept from harm
of any kind. The verb is actually a passive
verb. So the sweet message of our God to our hearts in these
words is just this, because God has set us apart to himself in
Christ in eternal election, we are absolutely kept from any
harm coming to us because we are in Christ. Made the objects of God's unceasing
care. Oh, wondrous, wondrous grace,
the objects of God's unceasing care. How can I begin to speak this
with enough emphasis? I try to take care of those for
whom I'm responsible as a father, take care of my daughter, which
is a little girl. But I could not take care of her unceasingly. I could not take care of her
totally, also take care of her. also have to take care of you.
Have lots of cares and all of them pulling in different directions.
All of them pulling in different ways of putting your heart and
your mind. But the infinite triune Jehovah unceasingly cares for
you as though you alone were the object of his care. with
all the totality of his infinite being, God cares for you. Can you grasp that? You're always
under his care, always under his watchful eye, always protected
by him, always led by him, always guided by him, absolutely. Let all who trust the Lord Jesus
Christ understand this and rejoice in this blessed fact. In eternal
sanctification, God set us apart from all humanity in Jesus Christ,
his son, adopted us as his sons and daughters. gave us to his
son and set us apart from the rest of humanity and preserved
us in Christ. The words might be translated,
I'm sure I've told you this before, kept for Christ. God kept us
for his son, kept us until the son should have the satisfaction
of his soul in the salvation of our souls and having been
preserved unto the time of God's calling, we are still preserved
in Christ forever. They are, the psalmist said,
preserved forever. Now, let me add what folks, it
just scares preachers to death to say, no matter what. Preserved forever, no matter
what. The Lord Jesus has called you
by His grace. If you believe Him, you believe
Him because He's called you by His grace. And He says, I give
unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. We tend to
think, our flesh thinks, we're taught to think, we're conditioned
to think that when we misbehave, or we don't have faith as we
know we ought to have, devotion as we know we ought to have it,
commitment as we know we ought to have it, or when we fall into
some horrible evil, we begin to think, I can't be saved. There's no way I can know God
and think like this, act like this, no way possible. Hear me,
children of God. Your salvation is not conditioned
on you, not even on your obedience. It is conditioned on the doing
and dying of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. A preacher, you
can't tell people that and make them go out and live like hell
and make them have no responsibility. They're not God's people. I fail to understand how anybody
can get the idea that grace can be preached to such an extent
that the recipients of grace become indifferent toward it.
Oh no, oh no. That's like requiting love experienced
in your household with horrible evil. That doesn't make any sense. God's people are preserved in
Jesus Christ and preserved for Him to the time of their calling
and preserved for Him to the time of our resurrection glory.
Preserved not from Adam's fall. We were all children of wrath
just like others, that is, wrathful children, God-hating rebels.
We fell in Adam, we sinned in Adam, we died in Adam. We were
born in death, in trespasses, and in sins, but preserved in
Christ. And even having been called by
God's grace now, with Christ revealed in us, still preserved
in Jesus Christ, because we are one with him. One with him. Not preserved from indwelling
sin. You know that. not preserved
from false corruptions, evils that we loathe. Not one
of you here would imagine such a thing, but still preserved
in Jesus Christ. We recognize, God help us more
and more every day to recognize the evil of our depraved hearts. God's left us here in this body
of flesh as he did the Israelites in the land of Canaan to have
to deal with the Amalekites all the days of our lives. The Amalekites
of our own heart's lust, our own heart's evil, our own heart's
wickedness, ever looking to him for grace and mercy. By God's
sovereign grace united to his Son eternally, I can never be
divided from my covenant surety. God's free love from everlasting
made me one with his dear Son. Blessed union, strong, unchanging,
I am with my Savior one. Preserved in Christ. What blessed
words, what unspeakable blessedness, what unknown wonders are here
described? Only eternity will tell. It takes
in every circumstance, every condition, every trial, before
conversion, and at conversion, and since conversion, and every
one yet to come. preserved in Jesus Christ. Preserved in Jesus Christ. Lord God gives us a picture of
it back in Isaiah 65. You don't need to turn there,
you're familiar with it. Thus saith the Lord, as new wine is
found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a
blessing is in it. So will I do for my servant's
sake, that I may not destroy them all. We who are gods are
the salt of the earth. The Lord God doesn't destroy
this world until all his elect have been called to life and
faith in Christ. That's the sense in which we
are the salt of the earth. We are the people by whom and
for whom the whole world is preserved in the long suffering of God.
How often Do you think to yourself, surely, surely the Lord's, we're
near the end. Things can't get any worse than
this. God's gonna have to come soon. The Lord's gonna have to
come soon. Things just can't get any worse. He'll come at
the day He calls the last of His elect to faith in Christ. We recognize that God Almighty
is long-suffering to usward as he deals with the world even
in judgment. We have illustration after illustration. Once Noah, the blessing, was
safely in the ark, God destroyed the rest of the world. Once Lot,
the blessing, was in Zohar, the Lord God poured fire upon Sodom. The rest of the world, I repeat,
exists only because God, our God, has in this world a people
called the remnant, according to the election of grace, preserved
in Christ. Now second, prevenient grace
is providential grace. I want you to take the time to
turn back to Psalm 107. I'll get there in just a minute.
Psalm 107. It'll do us good to look at it again. Prevenient grace is the secret
operation of grace that precedes and prepares the way for God's
saving grace. And it's illustrated for us in
many, many ways in the scriptures. in the early years of your life,
set you where you were in exactly the circumstances you were in,
with all the DNA that comes from your family genes, all of that
stuff. God put you there and put you
in the environment you were in, be it one that men would admire
or one that men would find disgusting. God put you there. to form you as clay in the hands of the potter,
to form you as he would, to prepare you to receive his grace, to
know his grace, and serve him in his grace. Paul told Timothy,
he said, from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which
is in Christ. Many of you had such a privilege. Some didn't. Each of us, though, were put
where we were with all the influences, wicked and righteous, all the
influences, moral and immoral, all the influences that mold
a person. God put you where He put you
to make of you what He would make of you in His Son, Christ
Jesus the Lord, performing His will with you and accomplishing
His purpose for you, little by little. gradually shoving you
to his side. Just keep, just keep shoving
you to his side. Several years ago, my friends,
Brother Ed Parker and his boys, Tommy and Johnny, started a chicken
business down in Spring Lake, North Carolina, where I was born.
And I happened to be there when they were getting in a load of
chickens, little chicks, 100,000 of them. Little chicks, can you
imagine how you take care of 100,000 chickens, little chicks
in a big barn? They're going to be there for
six weeks feeding until they get fat enough to kill. They,
before they unloaded the chickens, they rolled out a black plastic,
the width of that barn. It's bigger than this church
building. And they put the chickens in there. And then we just kept
pushing the roller up. Just kept pushing it. Just kept
pushing it. Those chickens, they tried to
get over there. They weren't big enough. Just
keep pushing it. Just keep pushing it. Until finally, they got all
100,000 of those birds in one little section of that barn.
And they'd up and down the feeders, just low enough so they could
get their beaks in the feeding trough and drink and eat. And
electronically, by computer, they'd raise that trough just
a slight little bit every day, a little more each day. And that
roller would go back, make room for them. God so graciously works
with his people. this marvelous work of providence
that he hedges us in, and sweetly, gently, with irresistible
power, forces us to his Son, and makes us willing in the day
of his power. He graciously fixes it so that
he has prepared our hearts to be conquered by his grace. Many
times he restrains men from evil as he did Abimelech, as he did
his servant David when he was about to and go down and kill
Nabal and Abigail sent out to him, she don't want to do this.
And Abigail persuaded him to cool down and not act according
to his temper and behave in such an evil way. And David recognized
such wisdom in that, I can expect he said to himself, well, when
that old boy's gone, I'm gonna marry that gal as he did. She
was a remarkable woman, but God used her to keep David from evil. Oh, my God. How I thank you for your providential
restraining grace that through the days of my rebellion kept
me from performing things I plotted and planned. Kept me from performing
the evil I was determined to accomplish. Kept me from performing
things that would have been my certain destruction. Why? Because before the world was,
the Lord God preserved me in Jesus Christ. Loved me with everlasting
love and would let nothing harm me, not even me. It's called God's providential
grace. He works his providence in such
a way that he gives us countless examples of this. But you look
here at Psalm 107, the Lord overrules things. works for us and keeps
us by his grace, determined to save. He watched over my path
when Satan's blind slave I sported with death. Like David, I've
got to say, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the
days of my life, and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Let me get here to this 107th
Psalm. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good. For his mercy endureth forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed
from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands
from the east and from the west and from the north and from the
south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found
no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord.
in their trouble. And he delivered them out of
their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way,
that they might go to a city of habitation. Oh, that men would
praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to
the children of men. For he satisfieth the longing
soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness." Now, obviously,
he's referring to the nation of Israel. But he's referring
to the nation of Israel talking about God's work of grace for
us and with us and in us both before we knew His grace and
after we come to know His grace. Read on, verse 10. Such as sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God. They
brought the trouble on themselves. and contend the counsel of the
most high. They despised the word of God. God, shut up, get
out of my way, I won't hear you. Therefore, he brought down their
heart with labor. They fell down and there was
none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble
and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out
of darkness in the shadow of death and broke their bands in
sunder. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children
of men, for he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars
of iron in sunder. Fools, because of their transgression
and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth
all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he saveth them
out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them
and delivered them from their destructions. Oh, that men would
praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to
the children of men and let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving
and declare his works with rejoicing. They that go down to the sea
in ships that do business in great waters. These see the works
of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and
raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven. They go down again to the depths.
Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and
fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end.
Then, oh, what a great place for God to bring a man to. Then
they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he bringeth them
out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm so
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they
be quiet. So he bringeth them to their
desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children
of men. You see how often he says that? All these troubles,
all these difficulties, not outward things, troubles on the inside. This is God's goodness. This
is God's wonderful work with the children of men. Let them
exalt him also in the congregation of the people and praise him
in the assembly of the elders. He turneth the rivers into a
wilderness and the water springs into dry ground. A fruitful land
into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He
turneth the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground into water
springs. And there he maketh the hungry
to dwell that they may prepare a city for habitation and sow
fields and plant vineyards which may yield fruits of increase.
He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly,
and suffereth not their cattle to decrease. Again they're minished,
brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. He poureth
contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness,
where there is no way. Yet he sitteth the poor on high
from affliction and maketh him families like a flock. Now watch
this. The righteous shall see it and
rejoice and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise
and will observe these things, even they shall understand the
loving kindness of the Lord. Pastor, are you saying that all that God's brought us through,
all of this, ordered of God for the saving of our souls, that's
exactly what He's saying. He works all things together
for good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. One more thing, quit. I won't
be getting done but I'll quit. Prevenient grace is preparatory
grace. It's grace that prepares the
chosen redeemed sinner to receive the Word of God. Turn with me
to Matthew Chapter 13, Matthew 13. You're familiar with the parable. Verse 3, He spake many things to them
in parable, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow, and he sowed
some seeds. When he sowed, some seeds fell
by the wayside, and fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell
upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith
they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. And when
the sun was up, they were scorched because they had no root They
withered away, and some fell among thorns, and the thorns
sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground
and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold,
some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear." What's this good ground? He's talking about your heart.
But pastor, our hearts aren't good. No, but he makes the heart
to be like soil prepared to receive the seed with a lot of plowing
and harrowing. And if the ground, I don't know
if any of you fellows still raising garden, but Bobby, you got to
plant this field for us every year for so many years. If the
ground could speak, every time you stuck that plow down in there,
it's screaming, holler, stop. That's the picture. The ground
is plowed, plowed deep, broken up to receive the seed. It's
called good ground. And God, our Savior, prepares
the ground of our hearts to receive his word. Who hath ears to hear? Let him hear how indescribably
sweet the work of God's providence is and his grace by which he
prepares his own to receive the word. I could give illustration
after illustration from history, from people I know. Let me remind
you of a few in this book. There was a man by the name of
Bartimaeus, a poor blind beggar. blessed poverty, blessed blindness. It put him sitting by the wayside
when the Lord Jesus passed his way at just exactly the time
the Savior passed by and the Son of David made him whole.
There was a woman with an issue of blood, a woman who had been
bleeding with an issue of blood that couldn't be stopped for
12 miserable years. Can you imagine how weak, how
withered, how gaunt, how pained that poor woman was? And she'd
wasted all her substance on physicians of no value. And one day she
heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And she said,
if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I've been made
whole. And the Lord Jesus passed by
and she touched him and immediately she was made whole. Oh, blessed
12-year misery that brought her into contact with him on that
day. It was a lame man. Been lame
from his birth. Oh, blessed lameness. The Lord
Jesus came to him and raised him up by his power There was
a wild Gadarene living in the tombs, a wild beast of a man,
a man nobody wanted to get near, a man everybody avoided, a man
nobody wanted their children to ever know he was around, a
wild beast of a man. Oh, blessed wildness. Possessed
of seven devils, that wild man, met the master and followed him
in the way. There was a woman taken in adultery. I wouldn't wish that on any of
you. I wouldn't wish that on any of
our children. She's caught in adultery by a bunch of self-righteous
Pharisees and brought out publicly and shamed. But they brought
her there hoping somehow to trick the Lord Jesus into denying himself. And when he was done, there he
was alone with the woman. And he said, where are your accusers? Well, they seem to be gone. And
he said, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. He was a dying thief. A riotous man. A man guilty of
theft and of murder. A man lawfully being put to death. Any sane society would put him
to death. But he was called to the tribunal
and sentenced to die on the very day that God Almighty, before
the world began, ordained that His Son should die. And here
He is hanging beside the Savior. And He hears men as they taunt
and jeer and poke fun at the Lord Jesus. And He joined in
the crowd, mocking Him, laughing at Him, deriding Him, and then
at last, conquered by Him. Till he cries, Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. Blessed, blessed life that man
had. Blessed life, as blessed as Mark
Henson's life. How could that be? Such a horrible
life. Oh, it brought him to the master. It brought him to the experience
of God's grace at the appointed time of love. There was a fella
by the name of Onesimus. He stole his master's goods,
ran off down the road. And just at the time he was caught
and put into prison in Rome, there was a fella that he knew
well, the Apostle Paul, who had preached for his master Philemon
a lot in his house. And Onesimus chose not to hear
him. But now he sits and listens carefully. And God called him by his grace. Hosea gives us a beautiful picture.
Hosea's wife, Gomer, ran off and left him. She went after
her lovers. She thought to herself, these
are my lovers, they take good care of me. And all the while,
the Lord said, now this is a picture of my love for the children of
Israel. I found out where she was and I gave her groceries
and provided everything she needed. She didn't know who it was. She
said, look what my lover's given me. But in the time appointed,
I'll come and I'll take away her oil and her wine and I'll
allure her to me in the wilderness and I'll speak comfortably to
her. And Gomer came to know Jose's love like she could never have
known it were it not for the fall. We who are gods are the
objects of his marvelous, prevenient grace. Grace that goes before
grace. Now, you know what I expect tomorrow? You know what I expect? I expect grace. Wonder what God's gonna do to
prepare the way for it. Whatever it is, it's right, it's
good, it's best. God teach me so to trust you. Let me share a hymn with you
I wrote a long time ago. I put in the bulletin for sometime
in March. Throughout my days, my path's been marked by God,
my father's loving heart. He's ordered every step with
care. I've met his goodness everywhere. When I was lost and you had not,
prevenient grace marked every spot, and angels came from God's
elect, though in rebellion to protect. Then in the time and
at the place which God had purposed by His grace, the Spirit came
and made me live. God caused His chosen to believe. Through all my days, since first
I saw that Jesus Christ is all in all, my Savior has in faithfulness
sustained and kept me by His grace. When fallen, He restores
my soul, forgives my sin, and still upholds. His erring child
with love and grace and proves His covenant faithfulness. When
sick, my savior makes my bed and soothes my aching, fainting
head. And when I leave this world of
woe, to God, my faithful God, I'll go. No more to sin, no more
to sigh. The tears you see will soon be
dry. When I drop this robe of flesh,
I'll leave behind all signs of death. Immortal life awaits my soul.
When I'm with Christ, I shall be whole. Conform to Him who
died for me. With Him, at last, I shall be
free. Amen.