Brother Gene Harmon is pastor
of the Rescue Baptist Church in Rescue, California, a very
dear friend, faithful pastor, gifted man. Gene is an unusual
fellow, unusual fellow. I've often said in recommending
Robert Hawker's commentaries, Gil is still my theologian and
my favorite commentator, but I started reading Hawker, and
I've never read him on any text or any subject that he didn't
teach me something I didn't know or I had forgotten that was good
for my heart. And I've never been in this man's
company that I didn't benefit from it. He's a remarkable man. I want you to give him a good
hearing. Brother Gene, come preach the gospel to us. That goes both ways. I love this
pastor of this church and his wife, and it's good to be here. I'm glad I'm here. I may not be all there, but I'm
here, and I'm glad I am. And I do so very much appreciate
Don and Shelby and this church and their love for Christ. That's
a faithful, continual preaching of the gospel. The annual conferences,
the labor of love that goes into hosting these conferences. Thank
you. behalf of my wife and I, we thank
you for your loving hospitality and thank God for allowing us
to be here. And I do bring greetings from
our little church family and rescue. Many of them have been
here and all of them are very well acquainted with Donna Shelby.
We have them with us twice a year and so they send their love and
their greetings and they mean it. They love you folks dearly.
Look forward to seeing you again in January. I want to ask you
to please turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. And while you're turning there,
let me ask you a couple of questions and allow me to give the answers
to those questions. Do you know why we're here at
these meetings this weekend? Do you know why this church is
hosting these meetings this weekend? for the glory of Jesus Christ,
God's darling son. I know that to be true, because
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And God has purposed
all things before time ever began, and executes all things at his
own appointed time. For the glory of his darling
son who is now seated on his sovereign throne in glory, ruling
and reigning over this whole universe, as the sovereign monarch,
working all things after the counsel of his own will. My father has highly exalted
his son. He has given him a name which
is above every name, and that's my subject this evening. The
ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to take the things of Jesus
Christ and reveal them to us. That's what His Word teaches.
Well, it's God the Father who sends His Spirit into our hearts,
crying, Abba Father. And so if it's the ministry of
the Holy Spirit to take the things of Christ and reveal them to
us, it's our Father's will that we would know about Jesus Christ,
to have those things revealed to us concerning Him, who He
is, what He has done, and where He is right now. So we read in
Ephesians chapter 4, if you're with me, starting at verse 1,
I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk
worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness
and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love,
endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of
peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called
in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, One baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all
and in you all. Now, brethren, if God our Father
has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, we've been made
partakers of His divine nature. We all have the same Heavenly
Father. We all have the same hope. We
all have the same faith. We all have the same desire.
that Jesus Christ would receive all the praise, and all the honor,
and all the glory, and all that we say, do, or think. And I know
we're still in the flesh, and I know we have problems, and
I know we do things we shouldn't do, and we don't do the things
we should do, but that Spirit of Christ who dwells in us has
this desire building up within us that we might give Him all
the praise, and all the honor, and all the glory. Is that not
right with you? We're here to worship Him, to worship Jesus
Christ. There's only one blessed Holy
Spirit who dwells in the hearts of every believer, who has quickened
us by His sovereign power, who has given us faith to believe.
This is the work of God the Holy Spirit. There's one blessed hope.
That's Christ in us. The hope of glory. One hope,
and what a hope we have, amen? There is one Lord, Jesus Christ
our Savior. He's Lord of all. He's Lord of
all. I just want you to think about
that. He's Lord of all. There was a time when I had no
use for Jesus Christ. except to use his name in a terrible
way when something went wrong. And I bow my head in shame. But he's my Lord and my God because
of his grace and his mercy that he freely bestowed upon me. through
what he accomplished for me at Calvary. I know there are three
persons in the glorious Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
but in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
in a body. And so he's my Lord, he's my
God. There's one faith the faith of
God's elect, which is the gift of God, which enables us, as
hell-deserving sinners, to receive what the word of God clearly
teaches under the preaching of his gospel, to receive that by
faith, to receive Jesus Christ as the one who by himself purged
our sins from God's sight forever, to receive Jesus Christ as the
one who is worthy that we've heard many, many times during
the preaching already during this conference. He is worthy
to receive all praise and honor and glory, and he gives us this
faith to embrace that, to believe that. Let me share something
with you. We have our daughter Shelly with
us, and many of you know her, and she gave me a lot of problems
when she was young. I don't know why I said that. But one Friday night, we don't have a Wednesday night
meeting. We have a small congregation, and many of our folks live quite
a distance. That's typical of a lot of Grace
churches. So we have our midweek meeting
on Friday night and starts at 730. That gives people who work
a chance to get there and we have a good little group that
meet on Friday night. Well the Lord spoke to Shelly's heart
one Friday night during our Bible study and she has not been the
same since. And that's what happens to those
who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world who
were purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ when he went to
Calvary 2,000 years ago at God's appointed time. At God's appointed
time, he sends the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. And it was her appointed time.
She grew up under the preaching of the five points of Calvinism,
pointing hearers to Christ because of God himself, who purposed
all of this before this world was ever created. She grew up
hearing the truth, but it wasn't her appointed time until that
Friday night Bible study. And that's God's doings and marvelous
in my eyes. Only God can do that. So there's
one faith and God gave her faith. There's one baptism and keeping
in context with what these verses are teaching, I believe this
one baptism is referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit when
we're baptized into the body of Christ. But here's what I
want us to consider. This is my subject for this evening's
message. Look at verse six. There is one
God. and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all. If God is my Father, and God
is your Father, we're family. We're brothers and sisters in
Christ. And through His divine providence, He's allowed us to
come together, to meet one another, to know one another. I love God's
children wherever they are, but I haven't met all of them. I've
met some of you, and I love you because of the love of God that's
put in my heart by the Holy Spirit. If we have the same Father, we'll
love one another. And this is what the Word of
God teaches. There's one God and Father of all who is above
all and through all and in you all. And our brother Henry Mahan
said this from this sixth verse. He said, there's one eternal,
infinite, omnipotent God of heaven and earth who is the Father of
all. He's the father of all believers
in Christ and who is sovereign over all, taking care of us all
and dwelling in us all. And Paul is saying in verses
four through six that as believers, we have all these things in common. one body, one spirit, one hope,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is our Father. Therefore,
therefore we must and will be one family joined together in
love stronger than anything this world can know and to disturb
that unity is displeasing to God." End of quote. Now let me
take you just back one book to Galatians chapter three. We call
God our father and right the soul. We have received the spirit
of adoption, which he, our heavenly father in love, predestinated
us unto. Every believer delights in our
father's predestinating love. In the first chapter of Ephesians,
we just turn from there, it clearly points to God being a God who
predestinates things. He's predestinated me unto the
adoption of being a son. I've received the spirit of adoption.
I was predestinated to that. We had some people start attending
our church, and they must have come for two or three, four months,
I suppose. Well, they didn't like what I
was preaching. They stayed there for a while,
and while they were there, I pointed this truth out to them right
from the scripture that God predestinated us under the adoption of the
Son. Well, they left the church and then they made a point to
start going to the members of our church saying to those people,
get away from that pastor, he believes in predestination. They had heard it, read it in
the scriptures. Well, being predestinated under
the adoption of son, I kind of like that, don't you? Being predestinated
to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, I like that
too. This is God's work. Why is it that the most professing
Christians do not believe that? God's not their father. Our Lord
told some unbelieving Jews who claimed that God was their father,
he said, you have your father the devil. He that is of God, heareth God's
words. And these people who are insisting
that they're God's children by a work of the flesh or by a decision
for Jesus or by walking to the front of the church and hearing
some prophet of Baal give them the words to say, God's not their
father. They have a different spirit. And they're still serving the
flesh. And we were just like them, till
God, by His amazing grace, called us out of darkness. Are you with
me in Galatians chapter 3? Before God sent His spirit into
our hearts, We had no hope. Absolutely no hope. The Word
of God teaches us this. We're to remember at that time
in our unregenerate state, we were without God, without hope. We had no hope. If there was
something that we could do to unite us to God, something in
the flesh that would cause God to have mercy on us, We wouldn't
be without hope in our unregenerate state. But we were without hope,
dead in trespasses and sins. And a dead man can't do anything. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you are saved. That's God's doings. But look
with me, if you will, at Galatians chapter three, starting at verse
10. We read, for as many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. So there's a curse upon
all of fallen humanity. We fell in Adam. We sinned in
Adam. We come into this world as hell-deserving
sinners. We don't become sinners because
we sin. We sin because we're sinners.
And we would continue in that awful, ungodly, unregenerate,
sinful state if it was not for the grace of our wonderful God.
And the law teaches us this. The law was not given to save
anybody. It was given to magnify sin.
So we're under that curse. But read on. It says in verse
11, but that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God,
it is evident, for the just shall live by faith. And the law is
not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them.
So if you're going to be under the law, you better be sure that
everything that you have ever done from your mama's womb to
the time you leave this world was perfect in God's sight. There's
only one man that did that. That's Jesus Christ, our substitute. So you cannot be justified by
the law. And the law is not of faith.
And the just shall live by faith. And in verse 13, we read that
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. Jesus Christ redeemed his people
when he hung there on that cross at Calvary 2,000 years ago. He
didn't try to make us redeemable. He didn't try to redeem us. He
didn't try to save us. He saved His people, all of them. All of those who were promised
to Him in the eternal covenant of grace before this world was
ever created, He represented all of them. And when He said
it is finished, the work of redemption was done. We didn't know about it. We didn't
know about it until God sent the Spirit of His Son into our
heart, crying out, Father. But it was a finished work, completed
by God Himself for His people who were promised
to Jesus Christ back in old eternity by God the Father. We're talking
about the work of God the Father. He promised us to His Son. He
chose us. God the Father chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. The work of redemption
was purposed by God and it was a done deal. But our Savior had
to come. The blood of Jesus Christ had
to be shed. He had to come and fulfill all
righteousness so that we would have a righteousness that would
make us as holy as God himself. And we have that in Jesus Christ.
It's not just the life he gave, it's the life he lived. And everyone
that God the Father promised to Christ before this world was
created, we were in Jesus Christ when he walked on this earth. And the word of God says, He
did always that which pleased the Father. That's ours, beloved. We were
in Him. When He did that which was pleasing
in the sight of God, we did that which is pleasing in the sight
of God. His righteousness is ours. But we didn't know that. Turn over to chapter 4 of Galatians. Let me show you this. It was
God the Father who sent His Son to this sin-cursed world to redeem
me from the curse I was under. Now I know people find fault
with that, but Jesus Christ was made a curse. Jesus Christ was
made sin. That's what the Word says. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And when he hung there on that
tree, God made him to be a curse for me, to redeem me from that
curse I was under. But we had to have this revealed
to us. We had to know this. Look at
Galatians 4. Starting at verse 4 we read, But when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,
that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are
sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. So the work had to be done. Jesus
Christ had to come. He had to come and he had to
satisfy the holy justice of God for his people. And he did that. In the fullness of time, God
sent his son into this world. It was God who sent his son to
be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. It was God the Father
who sent His Son to those cruel hands that slapped
Him in the face, scourged Him, mocked Him. Those cruel hands
who nailed Him to that cross. Wicked and cruel hands did that,
but it was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
our God. God did that. My father did that. Sent his
son to lay down his life for his
people. And when Jesus Christ hung there
on that cross, will you hear me? When Jesus
Christ hung there on that cross, It was my father who poured out
his unmitigated wrath on his darling son, so I would be set
free from the wrath to come. That's my father's doings. Look
what it says. Don't overlook this. Because
you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Verse six. because we were chosen
in Christ, because we were predestinated under the adoption of sons, because
we're His chosen people, because God our Father Himself purposed
that there would be a people who would glorify His Son for
all eternity, giving Him all the praise and all the honor
and all the glory and the salvation of His people. It was our Father
who sent His Son so that His holy justice could
be satisfied for a particular people, His chosen people. But don't overlook this. It says
in that 6th verse, Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
It's the Spirit of God's Son that cries out, Abba, Father. The flesh had nothing to do with
that. The old flesh hates God. The natural man hates God. It's
the Spirit of God's Son that cried out, Abba, Father, that's
God's doings. And it's the Spirit of God's
Son in us. that enables us to believe the truths of the gospel. So we have this wonderful truth
brought forth before us right here in verse six, because we
are His children, His chosen people who were redeemed by the
blood of Jesus Christ in God's appointed time, just like it
was with our daughter Shelly, just like it was with my wife
Judy, just like it was with me, and just like it was with you
if your faith is in Jesus Christ, God's appointed time He, because
Jesus Christ met all the conditions of the eternal covenant of grace,
he sends his spirit into our hearts, crying, Father, Father. We're his chosen, blood-bought
children, enlightened by God the Holy Spirit. to believe the
truths of the gospel for the glory of our exalted King, Jesus
Christ. Would you turn over to Philippians
Chapter 2, please? Philippians Chapter 2, Jesus
Christ. is my exalted Lord and my Savior. And I don't know why I even got
these notes. I'm not even looking at them.
Let me put them up. Let me share something with you
here in Philippians chapter 2 that all of us know, but it's always
good to hear it again. We read in Philippians chapter
2, starting at verse 5, Let this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not
robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men, and being found in a fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given
him a name which is above every name. God my father has highly
exalted his son Jesus Christ because he was obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross, and has given him a name
which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow of things in heaven things in earth and things under
the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You know what that's
saying? That's telling us that Jesus Christ is in sovereign
control over everything in heaven and earth and under the earth. That's saying that Jesus Christ
is God Almighty. God has always been sovereign. God has always been in complete
control of everything. He wouldn't be God if that was
not true. But God has not always been a man. Now, the glorified
Son of God, the God-Man, is seated on His throne in heaven, ruling
and reigning over everything. And He has us in His hands. Does
that bless you? Absolutely nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
They're going to have to take our Savior off the throne before
anything can happen to us except that which God has purposed for
our good and for His glory. Romans 8.28 proves that very
truth. Can I give you one more? I know
I should quit. Would you turn back to John chapter
5? Let me give you one more passage
of scripture. If we've come to Jesus, folks
listen, if we've come to Jesus, we've come to God, the judge
of all. We read that in Hebrews chapter
12. Jesus Christ is the judge. God's
committed all judgment unto his son. There's a reason why it's
called the Judgment Seat of Christ. Amen? We're all going to stand
before the Judgment Seat of Christ. And we read here in John chapter
5, starting... Let me start at verse 21. There's
so much here. For as the Father raiseth up
the dead, and quickeneth them, Even so, the Son quickeneth whom
He will. That word quickeneth is an old
English word, means gives life. For the Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, it says in verse
22. Well, why has God done that? Well, look at the next verse.
That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him. Now we're talking
about our Heavenly Father and His work. He's committed all
judgment unto the Son for this very reason, that all men might
honor the Son even as they honor the Father. And if you don't
bow down to Jesus Christ and honor Him as God Almighty, you
don't honor God the Father who sent Him. Years ago, I had a
preacher friend who, I have to admit, really contributed a lot
to my ministry, a Sovereign Grace preacher. And we got into a discussion on rewards in heaven. And I was
sharing with him what I believe the Lord had taught me, how that
every saint will receive the same reward. There's no degrees
of rewards in heaven. It doesn't matter if you're saved
one minute and go to glory the next, or if you serve the Lord
Jesus for 30, 40, 50 years in this life, we're all gonna get
the same reward. And boy, that did not set right
with him. He said, you mean to tell me
that a preacher who preaches for 40 or 50 years won't have
more rewards than a man who just gets saved one day and goes to
glory the next? I said, that's exactly what I
believe the word of God teaches. Well, we had a falling out. And
I had invited him to speak at our conferences prior to that,
so I just took him off my list. You know, if we have a falling
out, you don't agree with what the Word of God says, well, go
preach somewhere else, I don't care. Well, his wife, and this
got back to me, his wife said, I believe Gene's gonna have a
lot to give account for on a day of judgment because he quit inviting
my husband to his conferences. There is therefore now no condemnation,
no judgment to them which are in Christ Jesus. When we stand
before Him, we will give an account of what we've done in our body,
both bad and good. But in His presence, when we
stand before Him, we're going to have a brand new glorified
body. It'll be nothing but good in us. There's no bad there. And we're going to hear these
words, well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into
the joy of the Lord. Well, when was I a good and faithful
servant? Jesus Christ is a judge, and
he is a righteous judge. He's omniscient. He knows all
things. You know what he sees in his people? Himself. And the good, and I mentioned
this earlier, the good that's ours, he established when he
walked on this earth. And any good that we have done
since we have been quickened by our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is the result of God working in us. It's God who worketh
in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So anything
that we have that is pleasing in the sight of God is the result
of Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us and is
now on His throne. Waiting for that appointed day
when we'll be delivered from the body of this death and be
ushered into his presence where we, for all eternity, will praise
the Lamb of God who is worthy of all praise for what he accomplished
for us when he came to this earth. And that's pleasing to God our
Father. when we give his darling son
all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. Amen. Thank
you.