We believe according to this
book. We believe. We know. We know. And when I say we believe, that's
what I'm talking about. We know. When we speak of faith,
it's not a supposition. It's that which is the result
of being taught of God. We know that all things work
together for good. to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose. All things. All things. I know very few people,
I know very few people who cannot quote at least a portion of Romans
8.28 correctly. And I know very, very, very few
people who know that all things means all things. All things are sovereignly, absolutely
manipulated by our great God and Savior. Well, that makes us puppets on
a string. Let me tell you something. Like puppets on a string. All things. Absolutely manipulated. All things in heaven, all things
in earth, and all things in hell. Every angel, every man, every
demon, and Satan himself. All things. All things good and
all things we think are bad. All things pleasant and all things
painful. All things. Every event. Every event. Every creature. Every human being. All things
work together for good to them that love God. To them who are
the called according to his purpose. 49 years ago, soon will be 49 years
ago, 49 years ago I was sitting in church services like this,
and I started attending the services, and I had the privilege of sitting
under the instruction of two men, Brother Leroy Pack, Brother
Lloyd Moore. They were just not much older
than me. I was 16 at the time, and they
were probably 20, maybe 22, 23. And they were teaching the adult
class, clearly taught the gospel of God's grace, both of them
preaching the gospel to this day. They clearly taught the
gospel of God's grace. And I sat in the ministry of
Brother Tammy Davis, listened to him preach the gospel. And
then on the last Sunday of May, 1967, there was a fellow who
came to South Park Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
And I had the privilege of hearing the gospel. I mean hearing the gospel. And
God gave me faith in Christ. The man preaching was from Orlando,
Florida. His name was Jewel Smith. And I followed something of his
ministry as I could through the years, but I never met him. Never
had occasion to. Never had occasion to. Then I
told you a few weeks ago last spring when we were In England,
I met his grandson, Jared Smith, who pastors Kensington Place
Baptist Church in London. And I'm planning to go preach
for him, the Lord willing, next spring. And just remarkable coincidences. Remarkable arrangements of God's
sovereign manipulation. Now let me tell you something
about why all that happened. God Almighty had, from the beginning,
performed everything. From the time He said, let there
be light, and there was light. God Almighty had performed everything
in this world. Raising up nations, tearing them
down, scattering peoples over the earth, bringing about war
and bringing about peace, slaughtering thousands, preserving thousands,
all the ages of time. According to His wise appointment
of grace for me, when He would cause me under those specific
circumstances, to hear His voice and believe on His Son. I often say, I can tell you so
many things God has done just for me. Let me clarify that a
little bit. I know, Bobby Estes, God Almighty
has always done everything just for me. just for you, who He is. In the light of that, let's look
at our text. Romans 6, verse 17. Last Sunday morning when I came
to this text, I simply read a portion of Hawker's comment on the passage
and told you I hoped the Lord might be pleased to allow me
to preach it later. Well, later has come, and I'm
confident God's given me a message for you. Romans chapter 6, verse
17. But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of
sin. But ye have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you. But God be thanked, ye were the
servants of sin. but ye have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Be sure you don't
miss that little word, but, with which our text opens. It refers
back to what Paul has just told us about all we've experienced
of God's saving grace, all that we confess in believers' baptism,
all that Christ accomplished for us Redemption all that God
the Holy Ghost brought in us in his grace in Regeneration
and all the blessed assurance God has given to every believer
who trusts his son that sin shall not have dominion over you We're
redeemed Bought with the precious blood of Christ We've been saved
by God's free grace We're dead indeed unto sin We're now alive
unto God. Christ is our life and we live
in Him. Christ is our life and we live
in Him. After assuring us of these things,
the Apostle Paul, writing by divine inspiration, I remind
you, writing by divine inspiration, writing exactly what God the
Holy Ghost dictated must be written, says this to you and me who believe,
but God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
you. Oh, what great reason. saved
sinners have to give thanks to God and live for His glory. But God be thanked. I want you
to have this text memorized before you leave here. That ye were
the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine which was delivered you. God be thanked. That's my subject. And let me
remind you what Mr. Hawker said concerning this text.
For myself, if I know anything of my own heart, I hope that
I can truly say I hate sin. I would not willingly and willfully
commit a single sin for the world. Yea, I loathe myself. in my own sight for sin, the
sin of my poor fallen nature. And sin becomes more bitter to
me as Christ becomes more precious. But with all this, I say, I would
rather be a sinner saved and saved in such a way as I am saved
by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ than
to have never known sin, neither known Christ as a Savior. That's just exactly what Paul
tells us in our text. That's just exactly what Paul
tells us in our text. I have spent a good portion of
the past week studying this text again, and sadly, except for
Hawker, I can't find a commentary anywhere or a comment by any
man that states Paul's words as they're given in this text.
Everyone that I've read who comments on it, and I'm not belittling
them. I'm talking about some good, faithful men. Everyone
I've read interprets the text like this. God be thanked that
though you were the servants of sin, You're the servants of
righteousness. But that is not what the text
says. Every word in our English translation is exactly as it
is stated in the Greek text. Every word translated exactly
right. To add one word to it or take
one word away from it is to do injury to the text. Paul does
not say, God be thanked that though you were the servants
of sin, he says, but God be thanked that you were the servants of
sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you. The question is asked, and I'm
sure you may be thinking to yourself, can it be imagined, can it be
imagined that the apostle would thank God that we were once in
the drudgery of Satan doing his service as the servants of sin? Paul's answer is crystal clear. If the glory of God is thereby
the more advanced, if sin is so overruled by him as to show
forth his greater glory, we must indeed And we do delightfully
say, but God be thanked that you were the servants of sin.
You see, poison is sometimes made medicine for healing. If
you get bit by a snake, what they will do to help you get
over the snake bite is give you some venom. Is that correct?
Give you some venom. is sometimes for healing. When
I had cancer years ago, had Hodgkin's disease, they had just started
using something called chemotherapy. If I understand it correctly,
Fred, that's a deadly mixture if it's not just right. Is that
correct? But here I stand. The deadly
mixture was beneficial to my body. Sickness, real sickness. is often made by God's blessing
a means of health to the soul. And here we're told plainly that
the sin and fall of our father Adam and our sin and fall in
Adam laid the foundation for something that could never have
been had it not been for Adam's sin and fall and our sin and
fall in him. It laid the foundation for the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ, our crucified Savior. It laid the foundation for God
the Son to be our Redeemer, our Savior, our surety, our substitute,
our representative. our shame in sin, afforded the
opportunity for the display of His great glory in washing us
from our sins, we would never have known redemption by His
blood. Here then is a reason for thanksgiving. The Holy Lord God, by infinite
wisdom and grace, has made our sin and misery the occasion of
our greatest possible blessedness. God in infinite wisdom, in infinite
mercy, in infinite grace, wisdom, mercy, and grace, higher than
the heavens, such as no man can begin to grasp, has on purpose
made our sin and misery the occasion of our everlasting blessedness.
Oh, what great reason this is for thanksgiving and praise to
God. Now let no one misunderstand
my words. I know I'm going to hear from
this. I know I'm going to, well, folks
won't write me. They'll write, they'll put stuff
on Facebook so you can see it. And they'll put stuff on the
internet so other folks can read it. And they'll cuss and fuss
and carry on a Don Fortner, some kind of horrid monster. I'm getting
too old and just, I don't care. I can say what I want to. But
don't you misunderstand my meaning. I offer no excuse for sin, any
sin. Not Adam's, not yours, and not
mine. I offer no excuse for sin, especially
not mine. We don't attempt by any means
to escape our own responsibility for sin. And no man who knows
God would dare charge God with sin. God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth He any man. But our great God is so
infinitely wise, gracious, and good that He turns our greatest
misery into our greatest good. and sovereignly overrules and
uses the evil to make it an occasion for eternal blessedness. Now
do you remember what I said to you in the opening of the message?
We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. By the redemptive work of Christ,
the sins of God's elect are turned into the means by which God accomplishes
our everlasting happiness, joy, and glory, more so than we could
ever have known had we not sinned. As Paul put it back in Romans
5, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. I am saying
that God in infinite wisdom ordained our fall in our father Adam and
overrules our abounding sin that his elect may forever enjoy grace
and glory in Christ. Now let me show you this in four
or five ways. Number one, number one, you turn
back to John 17, John chapter 17, and listen while you turn. Sinful man, fallen sinful man,
you and I who are God's elect, sinful man is brought into a
nearer union with God in the person of Christ our substitute
than we could ever have enjoyed had we not known sin. Had we
never sinned, Christ would not be our surety. He would not be
our redeemer. He would not be our substitute.
But now, because sin entered into the
world and death by sin, God stepped into humanity. God assumed our nature. God became one of us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. And we beheld His glory. The
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. Because Sin entered into the
world and death by sin because we were made sin Our members
are made members of Christ We are members of his body in Ephesians
chapter 5 Paul gives great instruction Josh. He tells you kind of husband
you ought to be and Tells the little kind of wife you ought
to be He says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for it. And that's how we ought to love
our wives. He says, wives, be obedient, be in subjection to
your own husbands. And that's how you ladies ought
to be, the kind of wives you ought to be. That needs saying and saying
a lot in this day of stupidity, just stupidity. But that's what
it says. But that's not what he's talking
about. That's not what he's talking about. That's not the subject. Paul makes clear, this is good
instruction. This is proper instruction. But
he says, this is a great mystery. A man should leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife and they too be one flesh.
But don't think that's what I'm talking about. I'm just using
that to illustrate something. I'm talking about Christ and
his church. For we're members of his flesh and of his bones. We're members of his body. bone
of his bone, flesh of his flesh, spirit of his spirit, soul of
his soul. Really and truly one with Christ. Christ is our brother and he
is our husband. We are now the sons of God in
Christ Jesus the Lord. Our temporary separation from
God by sin has been made the means of our eternal union with
God in Christ by redemption. Look at John 17. Our Lord in
the first 19 verses has been addressing the Father specifically
concerning his disciples present with him on the earth. And then
he begins to talk about Bill Raleigh and Don Fortner. He begins
to speak our names as our intercessor to God. And he tells us that
we are one with him. Oh, I hope someday, before I
die, God will let me tell you something about this union with
Christ as it ought to be told. It's more real than any union
of two persons that you can ever imagine. It's more real than
the union of this body, the members of this body with one another.
This finger can be severed from this body and the body go off.
It's more real than that. This is the kind of union, exactly
the kind of union, that God the Son has with God the Father. We're one with Christ. Look here,
John 17, 20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also
which shall believe on me through their word. Those who are going
to later on believe the gospel that they may be one and watch
what it says as thou father art in me and I in thee that they
also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me he said father make my people my redeemed my elect make
them one one another, one with me, one
with you in such a manifest way that everybody in the world at
last knows I am the Christ. And Paul says in Philippians
2 verses 8-11 that's exactly what God's going to do. Read
on. Read on. Verse 23, I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that
thou hast sent me. Lord God, he said, my father,
take my people, gather them all to me. Make them so manifestly
one in me that the world, when you get done with this thing,
when I have finished all things and all things are done, the
whole world confesses that I am the Christ, even as they go to
hell. And they say amen to this fact.
And make them to know one other thing. Make the whole world know
you've loved them just exactly like you loved me. The whole
world will soon know that God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost loves
us as one with Christ, exactly as He loves His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, from everlasting to everlasting. All right, here's
the second thing. Man, by reason of his sin, has
a greater, fuller knowledge of God, His glory, grace, His justice,
His holiness, His truth, and His love than He could ever have
possessed had there never been a fall. We see the glory of God in lots
of things, lots of things. Brother Mark Daniel today is
preaching at Buck Mountain. A few of you have been there.
You stand on the front porch of that church building and you
You just, ah, ah. What's sacred? The glory
of God manifest in His creation, but just a little, just a little. You read God's holy law, and
you read about God's holiness, justice, righteousness, and truth,
and you see the glory of God, but just a little. It's administration of death.
You see God's glory in the shining sun and the falling snow. You
see God's glory in His creation, in His wisdom and His power as
God, but just a little. But we see the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ, our crucified Redeemer. And here
we see all that God is. in all his attributes fully manifest,
all his holiness, all his infinite righteousness, all his infinite
justice, all his infinite truth. This God who said, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will by no means clear
the guilty for giving the iniquities of fathers generation after generation
after generation. Well, how can God do that? in
the crucified Redeemer. Here we see the glory of God.
And in His death we have the love of God commended to us by
the revelation of it in the sacrifice of His Son. God commendeth His
love to us. God commendeth His love to us. And that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. If you would know the love of
God, you must believe His Son. Christ must be revealed in you.
You can talk about God's love and you can sing, Jesus loves
me, this I know, from the time you can talk to the day you die
and never know the love of God. There's no possibility of knowing
the love of God apart from the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Herein
is love. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down
His life for us. This will be the theme of our
heavenly praise forever. As the angels of God, listen
oh, thou hast loved us and redeemed us out of every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue and made us kings and priests unto God forever. Here's the third thing. Our redemption from sin and death
by Christ Jesus causes us I didn't say should cause, I
said causes us. If we know Him, if we know Him.
Causes us to have a love for God, our Savior, that we could
not otherwise have. One day, the love will be brought
to perfection. For now, I'm hesitant to even talk about
loving God because I know my love for Him is not fit to be
talked about. Not my love for Him. But even
now, the love of Christ that constrains us is something that
Adam, in innocence, had no knowledge of, and the angels of heaven
have no understanding of. Great forgiveness produces great
love. Great forgiveness produces great
love. Don, I have no question that
Adam loved God in the garden. I don't have any question about
that. He was created upright, righteous in the image of God.
As he walked with God in the cool of the day, I have no question
he loved God. But not like we do. Not like we do. It's a different
love. It's a different love. I have
no question that the angels of heaven love God. Love Him they
do. No question at all. No question
at all. but not like we do. Do you remember the story I read
to you in the opening of the service in Luke chapter 7? And
I told you, I promise you you'll read it different from now on.
This Pharisee, Simon, asked the Lord Jesus to come with his disciples
and have supper with him. And while the master was sitting
at the table of the Pharisee, a woman walked into the crowd.
I can almost picture her walking in. As she walked in, the other
lady started to kind of scoot to one side. Let's not get too
close to her, because everybody knew this woman had made her
living on the streets all her life. She was a prostitute, a prostitute
who had been saved by God's free grace. And she brought her life
savings and alabaster box of ointment and broke it. and anointed the savior for his
burial. And she knelt at his feet and
washed his feet with her tears and took down her hair and dried
his feet with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet. And that Pharisee standing back
like this, I knew it. He's not a prophet. Nah. If he'd been a prophet, he would
have known what kind of woman this was. Everybody in town knows
who she is. Everybody in town knows how she
got her alabaster box worth a year's wages. Everybody in town knows
how she made her living. And the master said to Simon,
Simon, I got something to say to you. And he said, well, say
oh master. And the Lord said, there's a
man who has two debtors. One owes five cents and the other
owes 50 million dollars. And he frankly forgave them both.
Which one would love most? And Simon said, well, I suppose
he who was forgiven most. And the master said, that's exactly
right. And he looked at that woman and he said, thy faith
hath saved thee. Go in peace. Do you suppose that our Lord
Jesus was saying to Simon and that crowd, some of my disciples
because they have been forgiven of greater outward evil will
love me more than other disciples who didn't live in such a way. I don't hardly think so. In fact,
I know by experience that's not so. I know by experience that's
not so. My wife, like many of you, was
raised in a strict society. A very virtuous young lady. And
if she ever did anything wrong, I don't know about it. Growing
up, she was her daddy's baby. She worked in the fields, worked
in the house. I've got an older sister like
that. My older sister, Jean, bless her heart. She never did
anything wrong growing up. Now, the rest of us, we got beat
every time we woke up. Not Jean. She never did anything
wrong. And this lady had been born of God, forgiven of sin. Me, on the other hand, you don't need to know what I've
been, what I've been done, what I've done. And I've been born of God. But
I wouldn't dare to think to presume I love God like she does. Can't possibly be what that parable
or that story is all about. Can't possibly be. But the angels
of God who were preserved in their first estate, when Satan
led his revolt in heaven, they love him. But they've never been
forgiven. We've been forgiven. Skip, that
makes a different kind of love. That makes for a different kind
of love. Great forgiveness is the greatest possible motivation
for love, adoration, devotion, consecration, and praise. There's
nothing like it. The Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians
5, when Christ died for all his elect, he died for all of us. that they which live should not
henceforth live unto themselves but unto Christ who died for
them and rose again. And he then says the love of
Christ constrains us. Because we understand that. The
love of Christ constrains us. Believers are men and women whose
lives are constrained. with effectual, omnipotent grace
to Christ by His love for us. Not by threats of punishment,
not by promises of reward, not by legal commands, but by the
love of Christ shown forth in His death as our Redeemer. You're not your own. You've been
bought with a price. So I call on you and I call on
me. Give yourselves to the Redeemer. Glorify God in your body and
in your spirits, which are God's. All right, here's the next thing.
A fallen man saved by grace has a greater, more sensible dependence
upon God than he could otherwise have. And oh, how our Savior
is glorified by His people's dependence on Him. Turn back
to Genesis, Chapter 2. I'll wrap this up. Genesis, Chapter
2. God put Adam in the garden. And He gave him a wife. And then
He gave him everything. He said, Adam, this is all yours.
I've made this whole thing for you. And he brought all the creatures
to him. What do you call that? I'll call
that a mountain lion. What do you call that little
one down there? I'll call that a house cat. He gave names to all his creatures.
And then God gave a command to Adam. Look at verse 17. He said, Adam, there's one thing
in this garden that I demand you respect. as the token of
my right to be God. Of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. That's his command. And this is his word, a prophetic word. For in the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. God's the one who planted the
tree there. And God ordained the fall of our father Adam through
eating the forbidden fruit. Ordained that he should taste
the evil of sin. Because he had graciously determined
that he should know. the glory of God in redemption,
that he should know both good and evil. Isn't it remarkable how God does
things? Who was it read 1 Samuel 2 to
us here in the auditorium the other night? I believe it was
Mark. Hannah said, the Lord killeth
and the Lord maketh alive. What? Looks to me like that ought
to say the Lord makes alive and the Lord kills. That's not what
God does. The Lord brings down and the
Lord lifteth up. Well, that's not the way I do
things. The Lord humbles and the Lord exalts. The Lord abases
and the Lord lifts up. The Lord makes you to taste good
and evil. The Lord causes you to know good
and evil. And you will never know evil
until you know good. You will never know the evil
of sin until you know the goodness of God in redemption and grace. It'll never happen. It'll never
happen. You'll never know the evil of
sin until you know the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. It'll never happen. But when
Christ is revealed in you, you cry, oh wretched man that
I am. And you're convinced of sin,
of righteousness and judgment. And the more you know Christ
and the goodness of God in Christ, the more you know the evil of
your sin. Oh, I knew stealing was wrong,
and I knew lying was wrong, and I knew skipping school was wrong,
and I knew Getting drunk was wrong and I knew adultery was
wrong and fornication was wrong. I knew all that stuff was wrong
But I didn't know anything at all about evil Until what God
made me know the evil of my heart in the revelation of his son
This is the purpose of our God I Now, look at that text one more
time. You have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. You believe the gospel of our
Savior. You trust the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, the apostle says
to you and me, But God be thanked that you were
the servants of sin. God, I thank you for all your
wisdom, goodness, and grace. Let me never forget it. But ye have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine. which was delivered you. And
God, I thank you. Oh, God, I thank you for the
gift of faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Will
you give it to sinners today? And will you give it to us, your
saints, that we may know both the good of our God and
the evil of our hearts. Amen.