I invite you this morning to
turn with me to Romans chapter 6. My subject, and I pray God's message to you
this morning, sweet surrender. Sweet surrender. Now before I
get to my text, people get so angry at me. I haven't turned
to a text and then I don't read it for 20 minutes. I had you turn to it so I don't
forget to tell you. But before I get to my text,
let me make a few comments concerning the things I hope to deal with
this morning. The Apostle Paul was a man who
believed in, preached, and worshipped the eternal God. I want you to think about those
two words for just a minute. Eternal God. You can't conceive eternity. Eternal always was. always will be the same yesterday,
today, and forever. The eternal God. Sovereign, unchangeable
God. The God of this world, the God
of religion, is neither eternal nor is He God. He plans to do things, and then
his plans are thwarted, and so in time he has to change. And
then he tries things, and they don't work, and so he has to
substitute other things, and then he gets frustrated, and
then he gets angry, and then he gets desperate. He's neither
eternal, nor is he God. Paul preached the eternal God. The God of this world has no
purpose, He has no power, and He has no say-so in the matter. He has no will. The God of religion
has whatever power men choose to give Him, and He can do a
few things. He can do a few things. a few things in time, but he
cannot predetermine things. He cannot predestinate things. He cannot arrange things to his
own end. Yet this is exactly, in the Word
of God, how God manifests himself through his own declaration.
Listen to what he said in Isaiah. He said, I am God. There is none
beside me. He said, I declare the end from
the beginning. Now let me tell you something.
There is only one way that you can declare the end from the
beginning. And that is to control everything
in between. Sometimes I declare the end.
I'm going here, but it don't work out. It don't work out because
I don't control the things in between. God controls the things
in between. He said, I'm God. 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
pleasure. Paul preached the eternal, omnipotent
God who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. He preached God as the eternal
potter and man just clay in his hands. Just clay in his hands. He can make a vessel of honor
or a vessel of dishonor. He can make a mean vase, I think
is the proper term, and set it on the shelf, or he can make
a slop yard and stick it in the closet. Some of you old enough
know what that is. He can manifest the glory of
his mercy and grace, or he can declare his power and holiness.
So then, Paul concludes in Romans 9.16, it's not of him that willeth,
It's not of him that runneth. It's of God that showeth mercy. If that's so, and the scripture
says it is, then men say, why doth he yet find fault? For who
hath resisted his will? If he's sovereign, he's omnipotent,
he controls everything in the middle, nobody can resist him.
Why does he yet find fault? How can he judge? How can he
find fault? And here's the only answer to
that question in the scriptures. Who art thou, old slop jar, that
replies against God? Shall the thing formed? say unto
him who formed it, why hast thou made me the? Is that what we're
doing? Is that what men and women are
doing who oppose the gospel and who throw these accusations at
God and start talking about God being unfair? That's not fair.
Election's not fair. Mike showed me a picture yesterday,
a postcard, and it's all black. There's nothing
on it. And it said West Virginia at night. That's West Virginia in their
ignorance and sin. All black. No light. And that's why we don't understand
what God's doing, and that's why we bring these accusers.
Who are they? old man that replies to God. Do you really have that kind
of wisdom? Do you really have that kind
of understanding? That you could set the living
God on a stand and demand of Him? David said, Why do the heathen
rage? Why do they imagine a vain thing?
Why do they set themselves against the Lord and His anointing and
talk about breaking His bands asunder and casting away His
cords? Listen. He that sitteth in the
heavens will laugh. He'll laugh. He'll have them
in derision. You know what that word means?
I looked it up. That word means like a public
stalk. In the old days where they lifted
that top up and they put their head in and their arms and they
set them right out there in the square, in the main square of
the city and for their crimes and people come by and mocked
them and threw rotten tomatoes at them and they were publicly
ridiculed. That's what the Lord said. He
said, I'll have the healed public. You look at these evangelists,
these false evangelists, and so on, and boy, in their heyday,
they're just going. And then God makes a public spectacle
out of them. He that sitteth in the heavens
will laugh. Paul preached a sovereign God,
an eternal God, an unchangeable God. And oh, what effect that has
on a man when he understands that. I remember years ago, Kent Clark
was preaching down at 13th Street during a Bible conference. One
of the first ones I went to. And he was going through some
pretty hard times. And he was kind of having a hard
time getting into his message. After a little bit, he stopped.
He said, let me tell you something. You're going to lose that strut
before you get to glory. We're going to lose that strut.
And I tell you, when we lose it, we're going to find out who
God is and find out who we are. My friend, this book sets before
this angry, unbelieving Word, the eternal, omnipotent, unchangeable
God who does what He pleases and is pleased with what He does.
Ephesians 1, 4, and 5 declares that the living God chose a people
in His Son and predestinated them unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.
And in such time as he saw fit, he abounded toward that people
in all wisdom and prudence, making known to them the mystery of
his will, the mystery of his redemptive will, according to
his good pleasure which he purposed in himself. And seeing that God
has purposed His redemptive will in Christ and that everything
in time and eternity will be gathered together in Him, we
find ourselves through God's predestinated means having obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to Him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will. It takes a sovereign,
omnipotent, unchangeable God to save sinners. And every man who obtains this
inheritance does so by an unconditional surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord said, no man cometh
unto the Father but by me. No coming. There's no coming
to an understanding. There's no coming to faith and
trust. There's no coming to love. There's
no coming to the Father but by Him. Salvation is a divine act. It's decreed, arranged, orchestrated,
and brought to pass by God Himself. Do you believe that? Back before the mountains were
arranged. back before the foundation of
the world was laid. Go back to Proverbs and read
about it. God determined to save a young
man, Gabes Donninger. Put him in a
home where he'd hear the gospel. Moved him around the country. to a certain church, and in his
time called him by his grace, and then separated him under
the gospel, and then sent him right here,
Cottageville, West Virginia, to preach to you. Do you believe
that? It's so whether you believe it
or not. Salvation is a divine act, decreed,
arranged. I don't know why men run over
here to this, that, and the other. God has laid this thing out,
predetermined, and it's going to be done that way. And you
can kick all you want to. God ever saved your soul, He'll
do it exactly as He said He would. Salvation is according to God's
free will, not man's. It doesn't begin with us, it
begins with Him. And salvation is according to
God's free grace, not owing to man's work. His work ain't even
considered. He wasn't even born. All His grace. And then the second
thing which takes place in the hearts and minds of God's elect is that Every one of them shall
be convinced of sin. Have you ever been convinced of sin?
Do you know anything about it? Anything about sin? What it is? Before Paul ever gets to our
text in Romans 6, he spends some time working on this thing of
sin and depravity. And in chapter three of Romans,
he proves by the word of God, by the history of man, and by
his present active rebellion to God that all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. I'm gonna tell you something.
Beloved, the gospel will never have any saving influence over
you until God the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin. Never will. You might find some intellectual
value in it, agreeing that it's consistent with the Word of God.
You might find some sense of value in it, believing that your
assent to it is the same thing as saving faith. It's not. And
you may find some argumentative value in it, using these truths
as a basis of argument and debate. But none of these things bring
about any life-changing, life-altering influence in your will, your
works, or your walk. Men and women argue about free
will and work salvation because they've never been convinced
of sin. Every argument and excuse I've
ever heard concerning works and free will salvation ignores the
fact that man is dead in trespasses and sins. Men and women resist the necessity
of gospel preaching. and the work of the Holy Ghost
in conjunction with that preaching, because they've never been convinced
of sin. They still think they have light
and understanding. I was talking to a man at work
one day, and telling him these things, and he said, I've never
heard anything like that. He said, I'll tell you what I'm
going to do. I'm going to go home this weekend and read my
Bible. in the weekend, and we'll come back Monday and we'll talk."
He come back Monday, I said, you read your Bible? He said,
no. He said, that's a big book. It is. It is. Men and women, they rest in false
professions and experiences and they glory in this world's religious
brothels because they've never been convinced of sin. Paul tells the church, chapter
3, that All of the advantages given to the Jew in contrast
to all of the disadvantages suffered by the Gentiles made absolutely
no distinction between the two. Huh? One of them had types and
prophets and Abraham. We have Abraham to our father
this eve. We have Moses to our father.
Our fathers are the prophets. We'd be not born of fornication.
We have one father, even God. They had every advantage, every
advantage. He tells you that when he starts
off in chapter 3. He said, what advantage? Oh,
they had great advantage. They had all kinds of advantage.
They had the Word of God. They had the priesthood. They
had the types. They had the symbols. Why, Paul? Why was some brought
up reading the Word of God and some were brought up under strict
moral code of justice and some were brought up observing the
types and ceremonies which so clearly set forth the Redeemer?
Why are they no better than those brought up worshiping snakes
and beasts and images of man's wicked imagination? Romans 3,
9. Because we've before proved.
Both Jew and Gentile are all under sin. They are all under
sin. What does that mean? That means
there is none righteous. That means there is none that
understandeth. That means there is none that seeketh after God.
And there is none good. That is what that means. None.
None. Nothing profitable left in them,
depraved in their nature so that they're altogether as an unclean
thing, so spiritually leprous that even their righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. No fear of God before their eyes. Therefore, Romans 3 20, by the
deeds of the law, shall no flesh be justified in my sight. Man is incapable by nature to
contribute anything to his salvation. His disciples seeing a man with
as much potential as any man could have, he was a wise man,
he was a young man, he was smart, he had every advantage. He was good with the people He
held. The people loved Him and they
appointed Him and gave Him offices and positions in the community.
They respected Him. He had every example. And the
Lord sent Him away where His tail took between His legs. A
total failure. And the disciples, His closest
followers, they looked at each other and they said, Who then
can be saved? You know what the Lord said?
With man it's impossible. It's impossible. But with God,
what kind of God? An eternal, omnipotent, unchangeable
God. All things are possible. Salvation is a divine intervention. It's God's intervening in the
sinner's plight. It's God making provision on
the sinner's behalf. appointing for him a mediator,
or appointing for him a savior in high priest, appointing for
him one with the power and will to give him what he needs. And
this intervention is manifested in the effectual calling of chosen
sinners. It's manifested first in the
hearing of the gospel. The gospel tells the sinner two
things. Your dad preached on this so
many times. Tells the sinner two things.
It tells him first that all flesh is grass. That's what it tells
him, just grass. You got nothing to offer, you
got nothing to trade, you got nothing of any value. God said
if I was hungry, I wouldn't tell you. All them cattle up there
that you think was yours, that's mine. All flesh is grass. It comes
forth and it sees and it puts forth this little flower, but
it soon withers and dies and it's good for nothing but fuel
in the fire. The gospel gives to men God's
testimony concerning sin. You say, well, I'm not like that. You just make God a liar. God
said you are. And you know, when God begins
to deal in a man's heart, He says what Paul says at the beginning
of Romans 3. He said, let God be true in every
man's life. Let's see what God has to say
about that. You don't know your condition. You don't know your
condition. And you know, men and women run
around and they think, well, God is just going to all of a
sudden just open my head and just pour in all this inf...
No, it ain't. You're going to receive His testimony. And you're going to receive it
through his preacher. That's how you're going to do it. And
you're going to say, that's me. That's me. He's talking about
me. And then secondly, it sets before
him the awful character of God. Holy. Just beyond your wildest
imagination. Will by no means clear the guilty. perfectly holy, continuously
holy, eternally holy, and just without compromise. God has,
He will, and He shall punish all sin. How do I know that? He spared not His own son. Conviction of sin is in the light
of the glorious character of God, standing before the living
God, helpless, hopeless, hell-deserving sinners. The sinner is brought
at the feet of Christ, and God reveals to that sinner, that
helpless sinner, He reveals to him pure grace and pure mercy. And He throws up His hands. And
he said, I surrender. I surrender. All right, preacher. What's all
that got to do with Romans chapter 6? It has everything to do with
Romans chapter 6. Through the hearing of the gospel,
and the eternal working of the Holy Ghost, the sinner is brought
to see himself dead to sin. Dead to sin. The only way out
of the sinner's condition, the only way out of his actions is
to die. It's to die. The soul that sinneth
shall surely die. The sinner tells, he's going
to die. He is going to die. How does the sinner die to Christ? He dies by way of an eternal
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. How did he get in Christ? God
put him there. God put him there. God made provision
for him before he ever was born. before Adam ever fell, before
this world, before the wrath of God fell on Adam's race, before
any of that, God put him in Christ. Made him one with Christ. Paul, I can't fully comprehend
that. Can you? Made him one with Christ. Every man chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world were put in Christ by covenant union. Listen to our Lord's prayer,
His high priestly prayer. He's about to go to the cross.
In John 17, 19, He prays, For their sakes I sanctify myself,
that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray
I for these alone, that is, just as apostles, But for them also
which shall believe on me through their word. Now watch this. That they all might be one. Preach that's talking about one
in fellowship and harmony of faith. I beg your pardon. That they all might be one. Now
listen to this. As thou father art in me. Just like that. And I in thee,
that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me. What's that mean, he sent him?
He sent him as a representative. And everything he did, I did
in him, in him. And he goes on, and he said,
in the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they
may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one. That's what's necessary. It must
be perfect to be accepted. And that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Chosen
sinners see that by way of divine union, they are dead unto sin.
They were in their substitute, and by way of that holy union
in their substitute, He was made sin. All men kick about that. I don't understand it. If He
took my place before the cross, He was made sin, wasn't He? That's what I am. That's what
I am. That was me. That was me. But it was Him. But it was me. Because we're one. We're one. God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under
the law. Christ has redeemed us, listen to this, from the
curse of the law being made a curse for us. Is this not the sinner nailed
to the tree, cursed of God? Is this not a just God extracting
from the sinner all that the law demands? Is this not the
condemned sinner hanging naked before heaven and earth, receiving
the just recompense of His reward? Christ opened not His mouth because
He had no plea. He had no plea. And neither do
you. Neither do you except in Him. For He, Paul said. You want to
know something about reconciliation and preaching reconciliation
and being a minister of reconciliation? Here it is. For He hath made
Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Romans 6.3 Know you not that so many of
us, as we're immersed into Jesus Christ, we're immersed into His
death? Therefore, we're buried with
Him. That is, in holy union, we're
buried with Him by baptism into death. That is, confessing and
picturing what we truly believe. that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. Verse 12. Now, let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust
thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, But yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin, that which
once ruled and reigned within, shall not have dominion over
you. For you've got a new set of commandments,
We said, you're not under the law. And you ain't going to put
me under it. I don't care who you are. You're not going to put me back
under that law. He set me free. He set me free. You're not under
the law. You're under grace. You know
that last verse up there? before we got into chapter 6
and chapter 5, that has sin hath reigned unto death, dominating,
controlling, using, influencing, even so, might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life, now watch this, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Men take these passages And they
try to teach that now you're saved. Now you're saved. Just
like the Galatians. Just like those worms that crawled
into Galatians and began to hammer on them. Now we believe you're
saved by grace. But now, now, now. As you have received Christ Jesus,
the Lord Paul said, now walk in Him. Walk in Him. Walk in
this righteousness. Walk in this liberty. Walk in
this love. Walk in this freedom. Walk in
this grace. Walk in it. Lay in it. Roll in it. Oh, don't you know when them
sheep came out of that confines and there's their master out
there, they just rolled in the grass. Rolled in the grass. Oh, verse 16, Know ye not that
to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are
to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto
righteousness. Now let me tell you something.
The key to a right understanding of Romans chapter 6 is this little
word, yield. You know the most valuable book
other than the Bible that I have in my library? A dictionary. A dictionary. Half the time,
we don't know what that word means. We just read over it. We know what we think it means,
but we don't know what it means. And I read everything I have
in the way of dictionaries and concordances and word helps. And the gist of this word is
threefold, this word yield. First of all, and this is first
in the dictionary, right at the top, it says, throw up your hands
and surrender. You remember the old knights
of the realm? The king would send them out,
and there's rebels out here, boy. They're coming against the
king and coming against his questioning his power and authority over
them. And he sends out the knights of the realm in a battle spot. They draw those swords, and those
rebels draw their swords, and they slash and hack. And after
a while, the rebels on the ground. And if the king is gracious and
a merciful king, the knight puts his sword to his throat and he
says, do you yield? Yield your sins. He's gracious. His intent's not to kill, it's
to put down your rebellion. It's to put down your rebellion.
He don't have to establish his power. He has all power. What
he's establishing is his grace, his mercy, and his love. Do you
yield? Do you yield? Every fallen son of Adam is ruled
by a strong man or He's armed with lies and deceits. He's armed
with cunning and craftiness. He's armed with a smiling face
and an outstretched arm. And as long as he rules, his
goods are at peace. He can take full advantage of
the situation, full advantage of the deceived to do his bidding. But when a stronger than he comes
upon him, He takes away all the armor wherein you trusted. Now,
you've read this a hundred times, haven't you? And you've got this
strong man up here armed, and this guy up here, and a stronger
than... Let me tell you something, that
strong man on him, he's talking about you. Just like he told
Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. He wasn't talking to somebody
else, he was talking to Peter. Huh? Was Satan working to him? Well,
sure he was. Sure he was. But he's talking to Peter. A
lot of times we mistake both ends of that. We mistake things
like that and then we turn around and mistake when he's talking
to us about things that we did that we're getting credit for
what Christ did. And we put that way out here
somewhere in the abstract. He's talking to you. Talking
to you. When a stronger than he comes
upon him, he takes away all the armor wherein he trusted. Paul
said, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're spiritual.
They're spiritual. They're powerful through the
Holy Ghost. You know what to do? They take away them old vain
imaginations. Just throw them down. Just throw
them down. Cast them down. Take them strongholds
and just rip them apart. Set him free. Set him free. When the sinner lays defeated
in the dust, and he sees the exceeding sinfulness of his sin,
and he sees who it is, and why he's conquered, it's sweet surrender. Sweet surrender to the person
and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm going to tell
you something, where there is no surrender, there is no salvation. I don't care what kind of feeling
you had, I don't care what your grandmother said, All right, the second meaning
of the word yield is to bear fruit. Bear fruit. When God himself by way of the
Holy Spirit grafts a man into his son, that branch finds in
the vine flowing into him that which will cause him to bring
forth fruit unto God. What kind of fruit? Well, if
you're a woman, that means that you're going to lower your dresses
down. That's not what he's talking
about. Myself. Well, if you're a man and you
have a beer or two, that means no more beer. You thought I was going to confess
something to you, didn't you? That's not what he's talking
about here. He's talking about the fruit of faith. The fruit
of repentance. The fruit of love. The fruit
of gratitude. He's talking about real fruit.
Real fruit. Now he said any man that's not
in the vine, he can't produce anything. He's just going to
weather up. And the guy that owns that farm,
he's just going to go out there and rake up them old dead branches
and throw them in the fire. I am the vine, Christ said, you're
the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth fruit. Didn't say you ought to,
said he will. He will. He bringeth forth much
fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. Romans 6.22, listen to this. But now, being made free from
sin, free through that holy union,
free through an understanding, free through the sprinkling of
the Holy Spirit, that blood of Christ on your conscience, being
made free from sin and become servants to God. Listen to this. You have your fruit. You already
have it. We are not trying to produce
it. We already have it. We have it. Your fruit unto holiness,
I've already got that. I've got that in Christ. And
the end, I have that too. Everlasting life. The full surrender of the sinner
to Christ is a fruit of his eternal union with Christ, and the result
of this union is a vital union of faith. And so Paul tells us
in Romans 6.22, I just read it to you, being made free from
sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. And then thirdly and quickly,
The third meaning of this word yield is the full surrender of
a bride to her husband. Believing in his affections for
her, being persuaded of his willingness,
being persuaded of his ability to provide for her, being convinced
that he'll never leave or forsake her. She gives him her public
pledge and then gives herself body and heart to him. And they too become one flesh. And this is a great mystery,
Paul said. But I'm talking about Christ
and the church. Yield yourselves. I used to watch TV, and in particular,
I don't mean that I don't watch it anymore. But I used to, boy, I reveal
my heart all the time to parents. I used to like to watch the World
Series of Poker. Didn't y'all ever watch that? hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They got their little cap on, you know, don't have no top on
it, and they're shuffling and playing cards, and they get these
cards, and they're looking at them, and they don't want anybody
to know what they got, you know, and they're covering them up,
looking at them. And there's about 800 or 900
of them to start with, and they just keep whittling down, whittling
down. Finally, there's four or five men left sitting around
this table. Best in the world. And they play for a little bit,
play, and it goes this way a little bit, it goes that way a little
bit. Finally, everybody on that table gets a good hand. And one of them looks at his
hand, and he's convinced that he has what it takes to claim
that pot. You know what he does? Here's
all this money stacked up around him, He takes the whole thing
and shoves it into the middle. And He says, I'm all in. I'm
all in. Are you? Are you? That's what it means in Romans
chapter 6 to yield yourselves to Him. Heal yourselves. Sweet, sweet surrender. Thank
you.