If you will, turn with me in
your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1. He tells us in verse 9, having made known
unto you the mystery of God's will. Now if you want to know
what that will is, you need to back up a few verses. He tells
us that It's according as he had chosen us, verse 4, in him
before the foundation of the world that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. Now that's the will that he's
talking about down here. And He's made known unto us.
He's abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made
known unto us the mystery of His will, according to the good
pleasure which He's purposed in Himself. That, in the dispensation
of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in Him. In whom? This one in whom all
things are being gathered, 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 who first trusted
in Christ. Who's that? That's God. And we're to the praise of God's
glory who first trusted in Christ. What did he trust? His will. His redemptive will. The glory
of God that he purposed to be manifested in the salvation of
sinners. His redemptive will. He gave
it to his son. I said, Son, manifest His will. Christ came, what did He say?
He said, I come not to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. And He's made known, He's abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known His will unto
us. We know what His will is. And we're to the praise of His
glory, who first trusted in Christ, verse 13, in whom ye also trusted,
after that you heard the word of truth, now listen, the gospel
of your salvation. The gospel of your salvation. Is that what your gospel is to
you? Well, that's what it is. And I hope that's what it'll
be to you. My subject this morning is the gospel of your salvation. The preaching of the gospel is
what sets the worship. We're talking about worshiping
God. Where are you all going this morning? We're going up
to Lewisville. What are you going to do up there? We're going to
worship God. Well, the preaching of the gospel is what sets the
worship and the hope and the faith and the life and the assurance
of true believers apart from the world. They gather together,
we gather together. No difference there. They sing
from maybe the same hymn books. No difference there. We read
the scriptures, they read the scriptures. What's the difference? The gospel. That's the difference. No other religion, be it conventional
or mystic, practices the preaching of the gospel. I've warned and warned and warned
you about having your children go down and sit under false prophets
sitting out here in this world's religion. I warn you about it
because it's a danger to the soul. Why is it a danger? Because they
don't practice preaching the gospel. They have another gospel. The gospel is the sovereign grace
of God in the salvation of sinners through the person and work of
Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. That's what
we're sent forth to declare to men. And the gospel is the means
of our evangelism. What do you all do, you know? Well, let me tell you what the
Lord told us to do. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel. Isn't that it? That's the commission.
That's our business. We get caught up in everything
on the sun, but our business is to preach the gospel. It's
the means of our evangelism. It pleads God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. It's the source of our daily
sustenance. Now I want you to listen. Our
Lord had a big crowd of people following Him. He'd done many
miracles. He fed the hungry and He cleansed the lepers and He
was just going about everywhere doing good and God was manifesting
His presence through these miracles and wonders and signs and it
says God did those things through Him. In your midst, Paul said. And there was a big crowd and
they were following Christ along and Christ began to preach to
them, talk to them about these things. And finally, they said,
he said to them, he said, except you eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood, there's no life in you. And they said, he's crazy. He's talking about cannibalism.
No. He said, my words are spirit. They're spiritually understood.
They're spoken in the spirit, with the spirit of God, and they're
spiritual things. They said from that time forth,
many of them wouldn't follow him anymore. So he turned to
the 12. There's only 12 left. There might
have been 500 or 1,000 following him. They all turned tail and
went. I said, he's crazy. I ain't turning around, here's
twelve of them standing there. And one of them was a devil.
And he said, will you go too? I said, where are we going to
go? Thou hast the words, the words
of eternal life. My little granddaughter was visiting
one time down at the old church. And we didn't have much for a
nursery, but we had a little thing in the back. And they were
on their way back to the back. And she stopped, the oldest of
the two, she stopped. And she said, Papa? I said, yes,
honey. She said, are you going to say
the words? Boy, I hope so. Where are we going to go? It's our sustenance. The gospel is our sustenance.
It's what we eat. It's what makes a healthy believer
is that he hears and believes and understands. Read Ephesians
chapter 4. He said that's what these preachers
are for. That's why God gave those gifts to men. To make them
healthy. to make them grow in grace, to
make them strong and established. It's the sustenance of the believer.
And he said, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood. He's
talking about eating and drinking Christ every day. That's what
he's talking about. It's that which enables us to
persevere through trials and persecutions. I tell you, you're going to get hit. I've
been hit. This past week, been hit hard. But oh, what comfort. That's how you persevere. I don't
know how this world perseveres through these things. I don't
know. I guess with a false hope, that's what they do. But you can't hurt a believer. His life is hid with Christ in
God. You can't take away anything
that he has. Everything he has is secured
in the person of Christ in glory. What are you going to take from
me? What are you going to take, my life? You just opened the
door to where I'm going to be. You can't have my joy. My joy
is in Him. Take my help, but you can't take
my joy. My joy is in Christ. Take my
children, but you can't take my family. My family is secured
in Him. As soon as you realize that,
better off you're going to be. That's your family. Right here,
you're looking at them. Those of you who know the Lord,
who are saved, your brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers,
this is your family right here. This is who you're going to spend
eternity with. Right here. The sooner we face up to it, the
better off we're going to be. It's that which enables us to
persevere through trials and persecutions and this gospel
preaching is to them who are perishing foolishness. Absolute,
total foolishness. You mean to tell me that you
sold everything you had and come down here to this place? Live in that little house? Live
on that little income? You mean you give all that? All
my soul. I didn't give anything. I received. But it's foolishness to them
who are perishing. You gather in there and you go
over the same old thing. Only thing, that rich man don't
ever get tired of counting his money, does he? Same old thing. Same old thing. But that's where
his hope is. Ours is in Christ. Same old thing. Boy, preach to me the same old
thing. There was a woman got mad at
Scott Richardson one time. And she said, Christ, Christ,
Christ, that's all you ever talk about is Christ. That's all you
ever praise. He said, could somebody put that
on my tombstone? Oh, write that on my tombstone.
That's all he ever talked about. That's all he ever knew. Christ, Christ, Christ. Christ is all. You follow what I'm saying about
this gospel? It's our food. It's the seed
by which we're born. It's our sustenance. It's our
armor. Have your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel. It's our armor. We stand with
it. It's what helps us to persevere
through these trials when it just, pow, just cuts the legs
out from under you. Didn't touch that gospel. Didn't
alter it one bit. And I'm going to tell you something.
Those who truly believe, they're not sorry for it. They're not
ashamed of it. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Want me to read that again? It
is the power of God unto salvation. To who? To them that believe. To the Jew first, also to the
Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it's written, the just
shall live by faith. This world of fallen men and
women are said to walk in the vanity of their mind. That's
Ephesians 4, 17. He's telling believers, don't
you walk like these other Gentiles walk. They walk in the vanity
of their mind. Fantasizing about heaven and
God and salvation and eternal life. You wanna hear something
of the fantasies of men, go to a funeral. Anybody's funeral,
just go to it, listen. They're fantasizing about heaven
and God and salvation and eternal life. In Romans 121 it says,
when they knew God, that is through creation and conscience, those
things which every man is shown of God. You have creation out
here. You gonna deny the presence of
God? You go out here and look at creation
and look at its order? And you're gonna deny the presence
of God in your conscience when you do wrong. That conscience,
boy, it'll let you know, though. Let you know. And when they knew
God through creation and conscience, now listen, they didn't glorify
him as God. They weren't thankful in their
heart, but they become vain in what? Their imaginations. Their imaginations. And their
foolish hearts were darkened and they changed the glory of
the uncorruptible God into an image. Image comes from imagination. Somebody thought up that God
before they whittled it out. Somebody in Israel thought up
a golden calf. Who knows why? They changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like uncorruptible man,
and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. And they
made up gods in their imagination that was half man and half beast. And these lists of vain imagination
sit before us over here in Romans chapter 1. These are the most
gross of the images of a corrupt world, but the same thing is
true of the foolish thoughts of religion which imagine a God
that will compromise his glory to save a sinner. That's a vain
imagination. Who would send his son to die
for a people who would in the end fall under the judgment of
God. That's vain imagination. That man has a free will. That's
vain imagination. that you can somehow do something
to please a holy God. And you know what the Lord said
about this world? He said, I'm going to curse this
world. He said back in Genesis chapter
6, I believe it is. And he said, I'm going to curse
this world. I look at it, it's evil, every
imagination. Every thought of the imagination
of man's, not men's, man's heart is only evil continually. Now that's what the scripture
says. How does this world walk? In the vanity of their mind.
They fantasize about heaven and God and salvation and eternal
life. Talking about loved ones looking
down on you. They got better things to look
at. I'll tell you, if you could see
Christ in his glory, you wouldn't want to look anywhere else. I'm
talking about unmixed glory. Standing in his presence, fully
restored, the wisdom to know what you're looking at and standing
there looking at him, And you want your heart still? I told
Kathy the other day, I said, if the door to heaven was open,
nobody there would come back. And if God said, OK, you can
go back, they'd say, why? Why? True religion. is the resurrection
of the sinner from death unto life. From ignorance to wisdom,
from darkness to light. And this miracle of grace takes
place through the gospel. That's why he calls it the gospel
of your salvation. After that, in the wisdom of
God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Well, they didn't have a Bible. Oh,
yes they did. Oh, yes they did. and they had conscience and they
had creation. They didn't know God. After that, in the wisdom of
God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching. Now listen, to save them that
believe. When the gospel is preached as
it's revealed in the Holy Scriptures and made known by the presence
and power of the Holy Ghost, there's four life-altering facts
that enter into the minds and hearts of God's elect. Four soul-shattering,
heart-rending, and mind-altering facts. A man will not, he will
not continue on as he was if God The spirit takes those things
and applies them to his heart. He'll put a sudden stop in his
life and he'll begin to turn. And if that hadn't happened,
you hadn't heard. What are these things? Well,
first of all, that man's a sinner. What do you mean man's a sinner?
I mean that's all he is. That's all he is. That's what
he says. That's what he thinks. how he
walks. That's his goal. He's a sinner. Not to me. Compared to me, he
may be great. But judgment ain't about comparing
you to me. It's comparing you to God. How
you stack up there? Huh? How often I've said this and
yet how little impact it's had on men. Yet I know both by the
word of God and by my own experience that God the Holy Spirit takes
his gospel and convinces men of sin. You say, Preacher, is that all
you got? The bad news, is that all you got? Man's a sinner,
man's horrible, same old thing. That's what your son said. Same
old stuff. It won't be the same old stuff
if God ever turns your heart and convinces you of sin. You
won't be thankful of anybody else but you. I hear men talk about the presence
of the Holy Ghost being made evident by speaking in tongues
and gifts of healing and all this kind of nonsense. Here's
what the scripture says. When He The Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of Truth, when He has come, He'll guide you into all
truth. He'll glorify me, for He'll receive
of mine and show it unto you. Now that's how the Holy Spirit
is made known. He opens your eyes. He gives you a new heart
and a new mind, and all of a sudden you understand what that man's
been telling you. It goes home to the heart. And it says when he has come,
what's he gonna do? He's gonna reprove the world
of sin. Sin. And his convincing of sin is
primarily in this, they believe not on me. What's that got to
do with being a sinner? Jesus Christ is the sinner's
substitute. Well, you say, I'm not a sinner.
Then he's not your substitute. Because he's the substitute for
sinners. Well, I'm not a sinner. Then
I can tell you without any hesitation, Christ didn't die for you. Because
he came into this. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Well, I'm a sinner, but I ain't
one like you're describing. I'm not describing him, God is.
None righteous. I didn't say that, God did. Read
it for yourself over in Romans chapter 3. Were you saying I can't keep
the law? No, God did. Paul said we know the law is
spiritual, but we're carnal. We're sold under sin. How are
you going to find hope in a law? Jesus Christ is a sinner substitute. He's the propitiation for our
sins. His coming into this world is
to save us from our sins. He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. Everything that Christ did, everything
contained in the redemptive purpose of God is channeled for sinners,
chosen sinners. To deny a sovereign savior is
to deny your sinnerhood. And to deny his representation
and salvation is to deny our fall in Adam. Because that's
how he puts it. As in Adam, all die, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive. By one man's offense, the condemnation
of God fell upon me. You cannot see a suffering Savior
and deny the sin for which he's suffering. Man is a sinner. He's a sinner. Well, how does
that alter a man's life? All of a sudden, he realizes
he's nothing. He has nothing. He don't have
anything. Say, God, all right, I'm going
to quit doing this, and here's what I'm going to do. I had a
fellow tell me that one time. He come here and he got, he come
to her, he got the service time wrong, and I think he'd been
drinking a little bit, and he was sitting right on this side
over at the old church, and he told me, he said, all right,
he said, here's what we're gonna do. We're all gonna gather around,
I'm gonna kneel down, and I'm gonna pray, and God's gonna save
me. I said, no, that ain't what you're gonna do. What you're
gonna do is sit down and shut up, and I'm gonna preach the
gospel to you, and maybe, by the mercy of God, And when I got done preaching,
he went out and he said, I'm a sinner, but not one like that. If you ever hear the gospel,
the first thing God's going to drive home to your heart is your
sinnerhood. You can't do anything, say anything,
pray anything, get anything, give anything. You can't do anything. All our righteousnesses, listen
to Isaiah the prophet, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. What's your righteousnesses?
Your best prayer. Filthy rags. Your best prayer
as a believer has to be washed in the blood of Christ. Sure does. Your best deed, the best sacrifice,
the biggest sacrifice that you ever made had to be washed in
the blood of Christ. God had spit on it. Oh, our sinnerhood. His mind, Romans 8, verse 7,
is enmity against God. Not his God, but the God of the
Bible. Enmity. He can't stand it. You
mean God, it's up to God whether to save me or not? That's right. You mean, you're trying to tell
me that God may withhold His grace from me? He might. He did
goodness. He said it'd be better if he
wasn't born. He did Pharaoh for this purpose. He raised Pharaoh
up to power. Pharaoh had everything a man
could ever dream of. Raised him up for one reason,
dump him in that sea. Show in him his power and his
judgment. God's sovereign. And when he
shows grace, it's sovereign grace. When he shows mercy, it's sovereign
mercy. Man's mind is enmity against
God. He hates God. Not his God, not
his idea of God, not his principles that he thinks God teaches, but
the true and living God. That's who he despises. Man is
a sinner, a vile, God-hating sinner, and his sin has so depraved
him in nature that God himself must come and convince him of
sin. I'll tell you one of the first
things I thought about when God revealed to me my sin. Why didn't I see this before? How come I didn't know this?
I've been doing this my whole life. Why didn't I know this?
How come I couldn't see this? Because you didn't have eyes
to see. You didn't have ears to hear. But when you do, first
thing God'll teach you You're a sinner. You're a sinner. When a man's
convinced of sin, his whole theology comes tumbling down. All this talk about free will, all this talk about good works, all this talk about one One old
lady told me one time, she said, the things that we do in this
world are sending up lumber so God can build us a house in heaven. When man convinced to sin, his
whole theology comes tumbling down. And here's the second thing
which alters man's thinking, comes to him when he hears the
gospel of Jesus Christ. that God is God. Just let that sink in for a minute.
God is God. You can't change Him. You can't
question Him. You can't alter Him. You can't
defeat Him. You can't overpower Him. And
you can't alter anything that He has set in motion. He said,
I do declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done. What hadn't been done from the
beginning? Darwin Pruitt never heard the
gospel. David Braden never heard the
gospel from the beginning, but God decreed that you would, and
you did. In God's own time. Christ hadn't
died yet, but God said he would. I declare the end from the beginning
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying
my counsel shall stand. And I'll do all my... That's
God. God is God. Quit trying to bring
God down to your level. He's not on your level. Well,
I don't understand your God. I understand mine. I don't want
a God I can understand. He's God. He's infinite in wisdom. He's all-wise. He knows everything. I know about that much. He knows
it all. God is God. Almighty, eternal,
all-wise, unchangeable God. I'm the Lord, I change not, he
said. That's why you are not consumed. That's what told Israel. When it comes to God's existence,
the scripture just says, in the beginning, God. God is. And all things are of
Him, and He's the Creator and Sustainer of all things. And
any man who talks about God changing, or God being overcome, or God
not having His way, or God not knowing, or God's purpose being
denied him, or His hands being tied, or any of the other religious
tommyrot that you hear out here, spread through this world by
false religion, it's not consistent with the character of the true
and living God. God is sovereign. Whatsoever
the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, and
in the seas, and in all deep places. What did he do? What pleased him? David said, Our God is in the
heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. And there's nothing in time or
eternity that's not under his power and rule. All nations before
him, Isaiah said, are as nothing and counted to him as less than
nothing. We had an old well on my daddy's
farm. Belonged to his great aunt. We
bought it off of. Went down there and there was
an old well. It had a little rooftop over it. It had a rope and a
bucket. And you lower that bucket down there. It had a little weight
on the handle. lower that bucket down there in the well and that
weight would turn the bucket over and it'd fill up full of
water and you'd pull it back up. Now if you really had a craftsman,
he'd have a little thing you could turn and do that, but we
pulled on rope. We get that bucket up here and
we had another bucket and we'd take this water in half for drinking
water. I'd pour that water out of that
bucket. I'd even stand there for two hours with the bucket. that drop in the bucket, I put
it back in the well. He said, all the nations before
me are as a drop of a bucket, not worth getting out. They're
like the balance, as you know, they take gold back in the day
and they have a weight over here and they put the gold here and
when it got even, whatever the weight was, that's what the weight
of the gold was. The scales would get dust on
them. Nobody cleaned the dust off the scales. It didn't even
alter the scales. It wasn't even worth wiping off.
He said, that's how the islands are to me, just a small dust
on the balance. All it is. God is God. He's God. And God is holy. That has to do with the wholeness
of God. Everything that makes him God,
that's his holiness. People talk about a God that
he's righteous, but he's willing to compromise that a little bit.
You just destroyed the holiness of God. God's holiness is about
his wholeness and the consistency of that nature all in one. And it's harmony in Him. That's holiness. God's holy. And He's not going to compromise
that. He's just not. He didn't compromise
that to spare His own Son. And He ain't going to compromise
that to save you either. And God is righteous. Perfectly,
continuously, eternally righteous. And because he's righteous, he
requires righteousness. Not a stab at it, but righteousness. Not the best you can do, but
a righteousness equal to his own. Paul prayed for his kinsmen,
the Jews, And he confessed that they had a zeal of God, but it
wasn't according to knowledge, for they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, were out here going about trying to make a
righteousness of their own. And Paul said, for Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness. Our righteousness is in Him.
In Him. His righteousness is equal to
God. He's the God-man. That's my righteousness. Ignorant religious zeal builds
hospitals and schools and food shelters and halfway houses and
seminaries and sends missionaries. There's no end to the working
of religious zeal, but it's ignorant of the righteousness of God. Believers know something about
the righteous character of God, and they know that nothing short
of the righteous obedience of the God-man could ever satisfy. a righteous God. And God is just. I'll never forget this. A man
told me this one time. He said, all I want is what I
got coming to me. Boy, you don't want that. You
don't want that. You don't want an unmerciful
justice. God said, I'm going to put you
here in the cleft of the rock, Moses. You want a merciful justice that
was accomplished in Christ. He's my justifier. He was delivered
for our offenses and raised again for our justification. God's justice demands payment
for sin. I ignorantly signed a house note
one time for some folks, and they were in the process of building
their home. And I didn't realize until it come time to do the
permanent loan, the bank said, well, they're just not going
to qualify for a permanent loan, and you're going to have to co-sign
permanent note. And I said, well, I'm not prepared
to do that. And they said, well, are you
prepared to buy the house? I said, what are you talking
about? He said, when you co-signed that note to build this house,
what you did, the bank can demand full payment any time they want
to from you. And you either come up with it,
or you lose all your credit. And after you paid it, The house
is not yours, it's those people you cosigned for. When Christ stood as our everlasting
surety and guarantor, he paid the uttermost for our sins. He
paid the full ransom and he satisfied the justice of God for us. Who
gonna lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies and Christ that died. And I'm gonna tell you something. It's a life-altering fact to
come to know the true and living God. It alters, it stops all
these foolish vain thoughts that you had about God come to an
end. The bubble gets busted. And the
third soul-shattering fact of the gospel is that salvation
is altogether an act of God's sovereign grace. It's all about
grace. All of it. Well, you say, is
grace that important? Is it important enough to bring
division? Oh, yeah. It's everything. It's everything. In every part of salvation, grace
is preeminent. Everything contained in the epistles
of Paul were preempted by this declaration, grace be unto you. Where there is no grace, there
is no friendly providence, there is no messenger of peace, there
is no gospel of Christ, there is no leading to repentance,
no gift of faith, no worship of God, No preservation of the
soul and no hope of everlasting life. We're saved by grace, by
grace. We have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his
grace. And Paul said, by grace are you
saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should bow. Paul said that both Christ and
the Father hath loved us and given us an everlasting consolation
and a good hope through grace, through grace. You know, scripture
said to grow in grace. That's the only way you can grow,
by the grace of God. What if God shut the tap off?
You think there'd be more growth? growing grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Salvation finds its objects
by a divine and sovereign act of grace. And the scripture tells
us that there's even now a remnant according to the election of
grace. That's how it finds you. God
chose you. And John 1, speaking of the presence
of the God-man in the earth and His eternal benefits, John said,
And of His fullness have we all received, now listen, a graceful
grace. Provenient grace is grace decreed
and promised and procured in Christ. And when the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us, the Scripture described that
act as grace and truth. coming down from God to men. The law came by Moses, grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. And when God put us into an everlasting
union with His Son and quickened us together with Christ, He summed
up this act by saying, by grace ye are saved. The gospel is the gospel of the
grace of God, Acts 20. 24. And the gospel addresses every
child of Adam as a fallen, polluted, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinner
utterly incapable of changing his ruined condition. And the
grace of God is the only hope for the sinner. Is grace important? And then lastly, and I'll try
to hurry, The last life-altering fact of the gospel is that salvation
comes through Christ alone. You can't be saved apart from
Christ. We won't have this man reign over us. You won't be saved. No other foundation under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. If you're going to
be saved that way, you ain't going to be saved. Why is that so important? Because
I want you to look to Christ, to embrace Christ, to find Christ,
to look to Him, trust Him, rejoice in Him, worship God through Him. That's why. Because in Him alone,
He's the one mediator between God and me and the man, Christ
Jesus. There's no other way to come
to God. No man cometh unto the Father, now listen, but by me. Christ the Lord. I'm gonna tell
you, when those four things go home to your heart, your whole
life will turn. All of your thoughts, all of
your theology, all of your hope, all of your desires, everything
will be altered by those four things. And there's no other
way to know them except through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, I tell you what a precious
thing we have in this place. God been pleased to send the
gospel. I'll be thankful for it, rejoice
in it.