If you'll turn back with me now
to 1 John 5. I'm notorious for leaving you
hanging, so I'm going to read my text first. 1 John 5, verse
20, And we know that the Son of God
is come, and hath given to us an understanding,
that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true,
even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Life is knowledge. Solomon said in Proverbs 4, verse
13, take fast hold of instruction. Let her not go. Keep her, for
she is thy life. Life is knowledge. God's gift to chosen sinners
through His Son, through His incarnation, through His life,
through His appointments, through His suffering and death is eternal
life. That's His gift. John 17, verse
3, "...and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." I want
to say it again. Life is knowledge. It's knowledge. There are certain
things we learn as children that affect the way we live and affect
the way we think, and these things all contribute to our reasoning
and decision-making abilities. Gravity. Gravity. A little child climbs
up on the arm of the chair. And the mother says, sweetheart,
get down. Get down or you're going to fall. Just bouncing around. Get down,
sweetheart, or you're going to fall and get hurt. Get down,
honey. Thud! Now that child understands
gravity. It understands. Heights have
taken on a whole new meaning. It will affect the way that child
thinks and reasons about high places as long as it lives. Heat. I remember as a small child,
my boy, we were visiting some folks, and this fellow had just
finished mowing the yard. And he had a John Deere riding
mower, and he had customized that mower and run the muffler
up through the top of it so it would look like a farm tractor.
And he just finished mowing that yard, and my boy was fascinated
by that mower. And he's just a little fella,
just barely walking. And he went over there to that
mower, and I could see him reaching that hand out for that exhaust
pipe. And I told him, don't touch that, honey, it's hot. Don't
touch that. And I turned my back, and I'd
see that hand go out. I said, now, don't touch that
thing. It's hot. You're going to get burned. After
about the third time, I quit telling him. He reached that
hand out, and on that hot muffler, boy, he squalled and took off.
It affected his knowledge about heat from that day forward. He still talks about it. Heat. Authority. Authority means nothing
to a small child. You talk to an infant or even
when that child gets old enough to toddle around, it doesn't
know anything about authority. You can talk to that child from
now on about doing this and not doing that, and that child, it
doesn't recognize authority until they're confronted with
it. Life is knowledge. It's knowledge. And as we learn
about things and find out how things are, it influences how
we think. It influences how we make our
decisions. And the same thing is true in
the spiritual sense. These things, natural man is
ignorant of spiritual things. He don't know God. He knows a
God. He knows the God he's been told
about, but he don't know God. These things are mysteries. That's
what the Scripture calls them, mysteries. He said to his disciples,
they said, why do you speak in parables? Don't you know that's
belittling to these scribes and Pharisees? Don't you know they're
highly educated, well acquainted with the Scriptures? They're
called masters of theology? Why do you speak to them in parables?
Because it's given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God, but unto them it's not given. They're ignorant of these
things. In that same proverb that I quoted
a few minutes ago, God's prophet said this, he said, the way of
the wicked is darkness. They know not at what they stumble. That's what you remember Peter
said, you stumbled at the stumbling stone. That's what Isaiah told
you you were going to do. You stumbled at the stumbling
stone. The Word of God describes fallen
man saying, there is none that understandeth. of every natural-born
son of Adam, it is said, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of mankind, of man, the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him." Now, that's just so. It's just so. It's just as much
so as that baby who don't know what heat is, and don't know
what height is, and don't know what gravity is, and don't know
what authority is. He's ignorant of these things.
And those who deny this are like little children balancing on
the arm of the chair. They're going to keep on I don't
care how many times you warn them. I don't care how many times
you point them this direction or that direction. I don't care
how many times you try to correct them until God teaches them. They don't know. They don't know. Without spiritual knowledge,
there's no reasoning with men. Listen to this passage over here
in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11. He said, For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
You don't know his purposes. You don't know his goals, his
temperament, or his affections unless he reveals them to you.
You don't know. Even so, the things of God, listen
now, knoweth no man, save the Spirit of God. He knows them. If God's not pleased to reveal
Himself to us, we'll go on in our ignorance and superstition
and speculation until we wake up in judgment. Now, there's hundreds of things
that I've learned about God, about Christ, and about salvation
declared in this book. But we're limited in time this
morning, so I'm just going to give you these five things. The
first thing I came to see, came to understand and submit my way
of thinking to, is the absolute sovereignty of God. The Apostle John on the Isle
of Patmos, he saw things that must shortly come to pass. He
saw visions. He saw seven visions on that
island. And every one of these visions
was visions of this gospel age. It was visions of the reign of
Christ in glory, the ascended Savior. They were visions of
His reign in glory from the day He ascended into heaven until
the day He comes back and receives His people to Himself. All of
them were visions of this gospel age, and each of these seven
visions tell of the reign of Christ from that time to the
end of time. And in Revelation 19, John sees this in his vision. He sees the victorious reign
of Christ, God's Mediator, having put all enemies under his feet. You know, when he ascended up
into glory, it said he sat down at the right hand of God expecting
till his enemies be made his footstool. In 1 Corinthians chapter
15, it says, for he must reign until all enemies be put under
his feet. And John saw in this vision the
victorious reign of Christ God's mediator, having put all enemies
under his feet, and having all things kept by the word of his
power, and all his elect gathered before him. And this is what
it says. He said, I heard, as it were,
the voice of a great multitude. And as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Listen, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth. Reigneth. Does that sound like
the Jesus you're hearing preached on TV? He reigneth. He victorious. He controls all things. He's
before all things. He's the reason for all things.
And He's the glory of all things. Now, this raining here that John
saw is not the beginning of some mystical thousand-year rain. He's always rained. He's always
rained. He's always been God's mediator. His name is El Shaddai. You find
that in the Old Testament. That's his name. You know what
it means? The mighty God. The mighty God. Of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the prophet of God spoke these words. He said, His name
shall be called Wonderful Counselor El Shaddai. The mighty God. The everlasting Father. And the
Prince of Peace. In Colossians 1, verse 15, it
says, He is the firstborn of creation. The Creator of all
things, verse 16, and the reason for their existence. Verse 17,
His eternal existence and power over all things to bring these
things to pass. 18 tells us of His federal headship
and of His representation of His church, His elect. And He
has preeminence over all things. For it pleased the Father, verse
19, that in Him should all fullness dwell." God our Savior, God our
Father, and God the Holy Spirit are sovereign. Our God took one
of the greatest kings who ever lived, had the biggest, most
dominant kingdom that's ever been. And that kingdom, even
now, represents the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of religion. But our God took one of the greatest
kings who ever lived. His name was Nebuchadnezzar.
And He made him not only to appear like a beast in his appearance,
but to eat and to crawl like a beast. And when he was finished
teaching this king, who was really in charge, Nebuchadnezzar
had this to say. He said, When my understanding
returned unto me, I blessed the Most High, and I praised and
honored him that liveth forever and ever, whose dominion is an
everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to
generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his
will. in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What
doest thou? Absolute sovereignty of God. And this sovereignty is given
to Christ, who is God. It's given to Christ, according
to John 17, that He might give eternal life to as many as the
Father had given to Him, and this is the life I'm going to
give them. This is that life eternal. It's
to know you who is true, and your Son, Jesus Christ. God is sovereign, He's always
been sovereign, and He always will be sovereign. And nowhere
is that sovereignty revealed as it is in our sovereign mediator. It says of Christ that in His
times, in His times, times ordained before the foundation of the
world, times foretold by the prophets, in His times, shall
show," now listen, "...who is the blessed and only Potentate,
the King of kings, and Lord of lords." He's going to manifest
that. He's going to show that. And every child of God understands
that. He knows that. And it affects
his thinking. It affects his decision-making
ability from the day he learns it to the day he dies. He's the
head of all things. even of all principality and
power. God is absolutely sovereign. Yes, He's gracious. He is gracious. But it's sovereign grace. Yes, He loves His people. But
let me tell you about this love. The love of a sovereign, you
can't separate yourself from it. Paul goes through the list in
Romans chapter 8, the longest list. He includes everything
that is. Things present, things in the past, things to come,
life nor death nor any other creature shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes, He's merciful, but He said,
I'll be merciful to whom I will be merciful and whom I will I'll
harden. It's sovereign mercy. And knowing that, understanding
that, the Scripture said, so then, it's not of him that willeth. What am I saying when I say that?
Am I saying that man doesn't have a will? No. I'm not saying
that. Of course you have a will. Well,
are you saying that man doesn't use his will when he comes to
Christ? No, I'm not saying that. Every man who comes to Christ
will exercise his will. But his people, according to
the Psalms of David, are made willing in the day of his power. You can't be willing to come
to Christ unless you've been taught of God. Isn't that what
it says over there in John 6? He starts out by telling you,
"...all that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will no wise cast out." He said, For
I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing,
but raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will
of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life. And the Jews murmured,
because he said he came down from heaven. And here's what
he told them. He said, Don't murmur. No man
can come to me except my Father draw him, for it is written in
the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of my Father cometh unto me." The reason why men resist this
truth is because they are ignorant of the sovereignty of God. The
second thing that does not enter into the thinking of a natural
man is the grace of God. Pure grace is defined in Romans
11, verses 5 and 6. Paul said, Even so, at this present
time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And
if by grace, then is it no more works. Otherwise, grace is no
more grace. Grace is free and sovereign grace. It's the only kind of grace there
is. It's not given because it's deserved. Quite the opposite. The nature
of grace is to give where it's not deserved. The nature of works is reward,
approved, deserved, election. The representation in Christ,
substitution, regeneration and calling, faith and perseverance,
they're all gifts of God's grace. God's grace. Election is an election
of grace. It's according to the good pleasure
of His will. Accomplished redemption is the
gift of God's grace. We beheld His glory, John said,
the glory of the only begotten of the Father. full of grace
and truth. A fixture calling is the gift
of God's grace. Paul said, He called me by His
grace. God's purpose is called in the
Scripture, the purpose of grace. And then faith. What about faith?
I listened to a woman on TV. My wife turned it on for me.
She recorded it and turned it on for me to hear. in talking
about this faith that we're born with, that people exercise. But the Scripture 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 boast. And
our daily service, Peter said, let us have grace to serve our
God. And what about our growth? What
about our spiritual growth? Doesn't he call that growing
in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? And though we are of all creatures
the most hindered, unable, and unlikely to serve Him, yet we've
all learned this lesson, all that He's called, all that He
calls His own, have learned this lesson, His grace is sufficient. Is it not? Grace. Salvation is by the free and
sovereign grace of God being justified, Paul said, freely
by His grace. And then the third thing that
natural men are ignorant of and need to come to know is that
God is just and holy. It affects the way you make your
decisions. It affects the way you think.
It affects the way you reason. We tolerate sin in our children
and in others because it seems natural to us. It's all we've
ever known. Why wouldn't it seem natural
to us? It's natural for a baby to cry for attention when there's
nothing wrong with it. You come running in there, that
new mother does, and grabs up that little child, and it's not
wet, and it's not hurting, and it's not sick, and it's not hungry. What in the world is wrong with
this child? It wants attention. It wants attention. It's natural
for a child to want something that doesn't belong to them.
It's natural for a child to lie, to make excuses and deny its
guilt. I came in one time and caught
my kids on top of the washer and dryer. And of all the excuses, they
were explaining to me why they weren't really on top of the
washer and dryer. Went on for 15 minutes. It's
natural for a child to lie and make excuses and deny their guilt. It's natural because we come
forth from the womb speaking lies. All have sinned and come
short of what? What did we come short of? Did
we come short of what Moses said, or did we come short of civil
authority? What did we come short of? Did
I come short of somebody else who set up as my example? No. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. When we're talking about righteousness,
I'm talking about that pure and perfect righteousness of God. The glory of God here spoken
of is the glory of His justice and righteousness. And God will
not, cannot, under any circumstance, excuse sin. He said, The soul
that sinneth shall surely die. Listen to this scripture. Cursed
is everyone who continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. And this he says over in Hebrews
2, every transgression, be it of angels or men, every transgression
and disobedience received a due recompense of reward. How then
are you going to escape if you neglect so great a salvation?
Sin must be paid for. God's justice and righteousness
demands it. How do I know that God will not
simply overlook sin? How do I know that? Because He
spared not His own Son. That's how I know it. Isaiah 53, 6, The
Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and because He did,
our great Substitute and Redeemer was oppressed and afflicted.
Now listen, and opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living. Why? For the transgression
of my people he was smitten. God forgives the sinner his sin
because his sin was justly paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else can satisfy the
justice and righteousness of God. You can repent from now
to eternity. You can do whatever it is that
men do to try to make recompense for their past sins. It's not
going to satisfy God. The only thing that will satisfy
God is the death of Christ, the suffering and death of Christ.
He saw of the travail of his soul, and the Scripture said
he was satisfied. God sent forth His Son as the
propitiation for sin, that is, that which enables a just and
holy God to forgive vile sinners. And they receive this through
faith in His blood with this understanding that God is righteous
and just in His forgiveness of sins. Your readiness to believe In
the fairy tale of free will works, religion will disappear when
you're brought through the gospel to see the justice and righteousness
of God. Your reasoning will change forever
as these things become fixed in your mind and heart. You can't
possibly even drive the thought into your head of Christ failing
if He reveals the sovereignty of God to you. There's not even
a possibility of it. Not even the shadow of a possibility. And then fourthly, the perfection
of righteousness demanded of God from the sinner. Perfection,
continual, eternal righteousness. And every religion that I've
heard and read of or had contact with teaches and reasons with
men and women of a righteousness which consists of their doing
the best you can do. I want you to close your eyes
for just a minute. I want you to imagine the most
nauseous, gross, sickening, repulsive thing that you've ever seen in
your life. That's man's righteousness before
God. He uses the most sickening things
not to describe our sin, but to describe the sin of our self-righteousness. The lepers rag that he wore over
those puss-covered... his face was just... leprosy
just makes a man rock from the inside out, and his open runny
sores, and he had this old filthy rag, and he held it over his
face, and he had to call out to anybody who'd come within
earshot of him, you know, I'm a leper, I'm a leper, I'm unclean,
unclean, don't come near me, I'm unclean. He said, our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. A dead body, an old rotten, swollen
corpse covered in maggots. That's our righteousness. God describes men and his efforts
to produce a righteousness before him by his prophet Isaiah. And this is what he said, We
are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. And we do fade as a leaf, and
our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And then listen to this. Listen
to what Job said about this. In Job 15, verse 14. What is man that he should be
clean? And he which is born of a woman,
that he should be righteous? Behold, God putteth no trust
in his saints, yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How
much more abominable and filthy is man, not men, man, which drinketh
iniquity like water. Do you know anything about this?
Do you know anything at all about what I'm preaching up here this
morning? Has this ever been established
in your mind and heart and become a part of your experience before
God? Does this have any bearing on
your thinking and reasoning at all? God is righteousness. He demands perfect righteousness. Paul said, "...it became Him
for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing
many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect."
Perfect through suffering. Perfect. Romans 10, verse 4,
said, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. He is our righteousness. Oh,
Paul said that I might win Christ and be found in Him not having
my own righteousness. I tell you, you won't want to
be found in your righteousness when you see a misfilthy race. Brother Walker was telling me
about Brother Henry bringing a message on righteousness one
time, and he called it hospital righteousness. He said, you know
those gowns they put on you in the hospital? They cover you
good from the front, but they expose you in the rear. Hospital
righteousness. Looks good when you see it from
the front. His coming into our flesh, His
subjection to the law was to redeem us who were under the
law, to deliver us from the curse of our fallen nature, and to
cover us with His own righteousness. And then lastly, and I'll try
to hurry, the purpose of God. God did not create the universe
with the expectation that everything would go smoothly and godly.
God had a purpose in creation, a purpose in the fall of the
angels, a purpose in the fall of man, and the chaos which followed
his fall. Creation, the Scripture said,
was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him
who hath subjected the same in hope. How do I know this is so? Because God created this world.
by a mediator, a substitute, and a redeemer. He created this
world. It was made not only by Him,
but it was made for Him. It was made to manifest this
redemption of God and to glorify the name of God in the salvation
of His elect. God made provision for the sinner
before man ever seen. Had he not made provision for
him in Christ, the world would never have survived the fall. You and I have been granted a
special knowledge, making known to us the mystery of his will
and the redemptive purpose of God in Christ, in whom we have
obtained, Paul said, an inheritance. being predestinated according
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel
of His own will. And I'm telling you this, you
learn these five things. You learn these five things.
I mean learn them in your heart, not just your head. You learn
these five things, it'll change the way you talk. You'll quit
talking about getting saved. You'll quit talking about I've
made my peace with God. You'll quit talking about your
good deeds altogether. You won't even want anybody to
know you did anything. The quieter you sit, the better
off you are. Everything you say exposes what's
in you. I don't know how many times in
the Scripture it said, be still. Be still on your bed. Just be
still, he said. And the Lord will speak to you.
He'll talk to you. These five things, just like
it does in that child who learns about gravity and learns about
heat and learns about these things, it changes his way of thinking.
When you learn something about the true and living God and His
Son, Jesus Christ, it changes how you think about things. It
changes it all together. You say, well, it couldn't be
that way. It has to be this way because
of what He did, because of who He is. Because of where He is. Because of what He intends to
do. All these things. May God be pleased to teach you
this morning and to teach me.