If you will, turn back in your
Bibles to the book of 2 Thessalonians for a moment. Our text for consideration
is Romans 8, but I want to dwell for a moment on a very
appropriate portion of Scripture relative to the promises of God
that we have in Romans 8. Like no other time, we are living
in not only some very serious, serious times of tribulation
and trouble and difficulty, but we are living in very massively,
enormously massive times of deception, utter deception, staggering levels
of deception beyond our imagination. Sometimes naivete is good, sometimes
ignorance is a blessing. But we are living in some extremely
deceptive times. There is a growing worldwide
deception that unless you are Rip Van Winkle or one of the fictitious characters
that's sleeping through the evil times, you know things are different
today. Sleeping beauty. You might be
beautiful, but if you're asleep, you're in trouble. We are in
some very difficult times. And these are times where the
believer has to really adjust his thinking as to what season
he or she they are in. Because we are in a constant
state of flux, circumstantially. Changes are happening everywhere
in the world all the time 24 7 and this is intentional And
much of it is designed to distract people from the larger looming
objective of the wicked one which is to deceive the masses of humanity
and leave them in such darkness as to The evil that is prevailing
in our world that they would fall prey to waking up outside
of Christ under the wrath of God if they should die or Jesus
should come again. The goal of the enemy is to keep
humanity distracted from the real issues. And there's a level
of mass deception that now has manifested itself in Western
culture that belies the biblical prophecy that we have in our
text in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. The Apostle Paul warning a
beloved church, Thessalonica, of the difficult times that she
was enduring, the troubles that she was facing, and he encouraged
her to understand that these are all part of prophetic realities
that must occur. Now, we don't like to hear bad
news in our generation. Um, you will be lauded and applauded
and you will be praised if you, if you know how to give people
good news and, and joyful news and happy news. But do you understand
that truly good news is not good news until you understand the
bad news and that that bad news has to be comprehended by you
as severe as it really truly is. Otherwise you will have no
soul saving interest in the good news. until you and I understand
how bad times are. And I was repeating, reflecting
upon a statement one of my brothers made who recently came back from
a very, very bad religious experience. And he said, pastors, worse than
I thought. And I said, Spurgeon said that
250 years ago. And sometimes God has to give
you an opportunity to experience and be exposed to how far the
evangelical church has departed from biblical truth. The crazy
mess that church is doing in the name of Jesus. God has allowed
you to go into some of these venues and see how hardened the
heart is. and how callous they are over
against God to affront themselves with the kind of buffoonery and
entertainment and folly that they engage in, in the midst
of droves of people sitting there, eternity-bound souls, on their
way to hell, just as happy as can be, never hearing the truth
in religion. And it's a sad reality. It's a sad reality. And it's,
it's spread out into our culture and it's in our world today.
Aren't people massively deluded? Yes, they are. They're massively
deluded, deceived. When you listen to the conversations
of people, they don't care about their soul. When you listen to
the way people talk, they do not talk as if eternity matters
to them. When you hear religious people
talk, they see nothing wrong with the church. That's because
Paul has stated in 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 9-11 exactly what's
going on in our present church age. In 2 Thessalonians 2 I brought
you there in order to help you understand how important it is
for you to be thinking God's thoughts after Him. You don't
have one free moment in your life today to not think like
God. I'm talking to the people who
call themselves covenant children of God. You and I don't have
one free moment not to think like God today. Because there
are things happening on a political level that you will never know.
It's amazing to me how some people actually almost implicitly trust
the government when the government has been lying to us from the
beginning. And it's amazing to me how implicitly people trust
the world. When the world has failed over
and over and over again, when they reach sort of mass consensus,
and everybody's believing a certain idea, and we are trending in
a certain direction, everyone takes a basic state of comfort
because of the majority rule. And we tacitly believe that if
everyone's believing this and holding to this, it must be right.
But child of God, here's the reason why the whole world hates
the Bible. Because your Bible will tell
the world that every man to a T is wrong. I need that air conditioner
on over in the far room over there. Every man to a T is wrong.
And that grates against the consensus and mentality of the world. See,
we do polls, and we run numbers, And we vote to see how many people
believe in this or that. And once we get a consensus,
then we tell everybody that has to be the truth. We call that
relativism and basic rhetoric and argument, as you guys know.
But what the Bible tells us is every way a man in his own eyes
is right, and yet it's nothing but death. And so you and I are
living in a day of not only difficult troubles, and those troubles
are abounding. And what I mean by that is I've been talking
to Grace here for about 12 years about what's going on and what's
increasing ever since 9-11. And I told us that these things
would not happen right away, that they wouldn't happen tomorrow.
Like a lot of people who are what we would call sort of prophecy
buffs and individuals who love to talk about the calamity that's
coming on a certain date. You got people whose mindset
kind of twisted like that. They'd like to just lock it into
date. And they love to tell you that it's tomorrow. And I've
told Christians, be careful, you got a side view mirror on
your car that warns you that things are, they appear closer
than they really are. So don't listen to people that's
telling you it's gonna collapse tomorrow. But it is going to
collapse. And it is collapsing right now
in front of us. And some of you may have gone
through experiences right now that can affirm the tenor of
my message today. You know that there has been
a major shift in reasoning and rationale and thinking on the
part of people. People don't think right today.
And that's because they are under what the Bible calls a strong
delusion. So you need to mark that in your
Bible and write it in your notes. Learn something about the way
God views it. People are under a strong delusion.
Now when you're under a delusion, you are believing something that
is not true. When you're under a delusion, you are believing
something that is not true. And what you are believing is
held up in front of you persistently as the truth and you don't know
that it is. But you have acquiesced, you
have yielded to it, you have accepted it as the facts. based
on flawed premises such as the vast majority believes that it
has to be okay. And that's where we are today. Now the Christian
should have been taught from the moment that he was born again
that you are not to follow a multitude to do evil. The Christian should
have been taught long ago that he should have never bought into
the idea that as long as the vast majority of the people are
believing it, it's okay, I can take comfort in that. I must
tell you that is the way that we are deceived. And so I'm gonna
share with you some language as a foundation before we go
back to the joyful contemplation of what we call the security
of the believer in God. But second Thessalonians warns
us of this ominous period of time where the whole world will
be deceived by that wicked one called the devil As he works
through both politics and religion in verse 9. It says even him
whose coming is after the working of satan Now paul is dealing
with the apostasy of the church in second. Thessalonians chapter
2 verses 1 through 8 where we can sum up the apostasy of the
church this way a mystery of iniquity works to take men and
women's eyes off of biblical truth so that they no longer
see Jesus Christ as the central glory of God and the thing to
which they are to look to and listen for every time they go
to church. So that when men and women go
to church today, the metaphor is the temple. The temple. Every
local church is like a temple. We learned that this morning.
You guys know that. You are the temple of the living God. Most of the
time it's in what we call the plural form, which means Paul is often
talking about the church. It does have a narrow meaning
of individual temples, but that's a problem with us in our generation
because we're so autonomous that we think we can exist without
the body of Christ. But what the Bible largely says
is that the temple of the living God is the body of Christ. And
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, it's warning that the body of
Christ or the church or denominations or assemblies are deceived. When the man of sin comes in,
usurps the place of Jesus Christ and blinds the whole mass of
that religious group from the glory of God in Christ and the
truth of God in Christ, so they're going to church for some other
reason than the gospel of the glory of God. They're going to church for some
other reason. than the gospel of the glory
of God in Christ. They're going to church for some
other reason than God revealing himself to them again in the
beauties and splendors and magnificence and effulgence of Jesus Christ,
who is the outshining of God. And when you're going to church
for any other reason than the revelation of the glory of God
in Christ, you're already deceived. The devil is going to meet you
in church with a plethora of lies, a plethora of lies. He's going to meet your felt
needs, your emotional needs, your psychological needs, your
monetary needs, your sexual needs, because this is all about you.
When you go to church expecting something for you, you have missed
the purpose for going to church. The people of God from the beginning
of time have been called to the assembly of God to do one thing. Behold His glory. Behold His glory. I was talking
to our men last night about the blistering, blistering problem
of self-deception and self-righteousness that's pervasive in our nation
right now, particularly among our atheist, agnostic, trendy
culture that's seeking to redefine itself and blaming God for all
the problems in the world. Do you understand that when you
and I are blaming God for all the problems in the world? Here's
the problem. Are you ready? We are blind to God's glory. So I want to say that again so
you can mark it down. The reason why people have a battle with
God, have a fight with God, argue with God. You know how you meet
those people who always got, well, why did God do this? And
why did God do that? And why does God do this? And
why does God do that? Here's the reason why they talk
like that. Are you ready? They have never seen his glory. They've never seen the glory
of God. This is the difference between a saved person and a
lost person. A saved person has had a glimpse of the glory of
God in Christ, and it has changed their life forever. The one thing
they will never do is charge God with folly. They may not
know what's going on in the world. They may not even like the way
God acts. You know, God can put up with
you not liking the way He acts. He has a few Jonas in His ministry.
But God's servants are never going to turn around and blame
God for what's going on and make God the evil one. When you do
that, you have failed to see God's glory. Isn't God glorious?
For those of you who have met Him, isn't He perfect in His
ways? Isn't He impeccable in all of His attributes? Isn't
the God of the Bible so glorious in His revelation to us through
the gospel that the last thing we would ever think is that God
Himself is evil or wrong or sinful? The last thing we would do like
job says the lord gives the lord takes away but blessed be the
name of the lord And like and like and like abraham said I
know that the god of all the earth. He will never ever do
wrong He will always do right. Do you know why these men talk
like that? Because they've seen the glory of god in our present
church age masses of people are deceived into false man-centered
religions by this evil one who has crept up into the church
and usurped the place of Jesus Christ so that men and women
are hoodwinked and deceived. I want you to see it now. This
is 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9 through 11. Him who's coming is after
the working of Satan. Most theologians call this the
false prophet, the false, the Antichrist coming up into the
church. They think that this is a person. We know that this
is a system. whose energy is given to him
after the working of Satan with all power and signs and what
kind of wonders? Lying wonders. That's the word
I want you to lift up and mark up. Because we've got two kind
of people in the world today. We've got people who are about
the truth and we've got people who are about lies. There's only
two realities in the world today, the truth and the lie. And what
the Bible does is it keeps it simple for you and me. The Bible
tells us that Christ is the truth. But the Bible also tells us that
people believe in another Christ who pretends to be the true.
Now, in order for you to know the Christ who is the true Christ,
you've got to know the word of God because the word of God is
true. Are you hearing what I'm saying? It's very important for
you and I to be people of the word so that our whole premise
for existence is biblically based, soundly biblically based. It will do you no good in the
judgment. to have adopted a false Christ. We learned that last
week, didn't we? I never knew you. Not that I
don't know you. I never knew you. You never came
to the true Christ. You came to a false Christ who
could meet your needs. And this is where we are in our
present generation, particularly the church. The apostle says
this in verse 10, and with all deceivableness, this construction
means every method of deception. You guys know what it means to
be deceived, right? He uses every method of deception rooted in
a state of unrighteousness and he works through them that are
perishing. If you look at verses nine and
10, what you have is the head of a body that Daniel calls in
chapter seven, the beast. Satan is the head, his false
church is the beast. Them in the plural are those
that are perishing. When Paul uses the phrase those
that are perishing, it's those who don't believe the gospel.
Those that are perishing. That little part, those that
are perishing. You'll see that again when we go to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. Those who believe the gospel are those who are
being saved. Those who do not believe the
gospel are those that are what? Perishing. Precisely right. and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish. And here's the reason
why I want you to mark this. The judgment of blindness and
deception is on the masses of the world, not because God is
arbitrarily exercising judgment. God always does that which is
right. And remember, ladies and gentlemen,
we've learned in theology, God doesn't react. God responds. God's not blind to your ideas
and your plans and schemes. He sees what men are going to
do way before they do them. And God already has a check made
for every evil that man does. God always responds, He never
reacts. God's never catching up with
man. The moment there's a creature in the universe that God has
to react to, it's God and not God. Are you hearing me? The Bible is clear. This is why
it gives us major portions of prophetic truth in the scripture
that are stinging to our ears, because God lets us know that
He puts up with evil so long that He acts. And what's happening
in America and in the Western countries right now is a hellish
darkness has been unleashed. A hellish darkness has been unleashed
and it has now been expanded by the recent opinions and efforts
of our Supreme Court. A hellish darkness which is going
to show up in your lives over the next seven or eight or ten
years on a bunch of levels. You're going to be answering
crazy questions that your grandmama didn't even think about. You're
going to be addressing crazy issues that your great-grandparents
could have never conceived of. But this is because the devil
works, and presently he works, through massive methods of technology
and science and all of the resources that God has allowed us to plunder
and discover for our own good. He's taking them and he's going
to use them for the destruction of humanity. And where many women
are superficial, they will be deceived. The enemy is looking
for every superficial human being he can so that he can deceive
them through the eye gate, deceive them through the ear gate. deceive
them through the physical senses. Because carnal people who believe
that reality is based on what they see or what they hear will
be duped. This is where we are today. This
is why he works through lying signs and wonders. Signs and
wonders are people who are looking for something. See, now the people
who know something don't have to look. It goes on, because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. You see
that last line? Let me help you with that. In God's providence
and economy, he sends the gospel into all the world. He sends
the gospel through his faithful ministers. Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel. Every believer should be part
of, if not immediately involved in, evangelism. Because God is
hunting down sinners. Not that he doesn't know them,
he does. He's looking for his sheep. And he calls his sheep,
as you're going to learn today, through the gospel. But in the
midst of preaching the gospel to every creature in heaven,
God is contending with, intentionally, a dark force called the devil.
So wherever there's a white horse called the gospel, there's a
red horse that the devil rides. A black horse that the devil
rides. A speckled horse that the devil rides. Because wherever
truth is, here comes darkness. Are you guys hearing me? And
God has allowed this as part of his economy. to show his sovereign
glory over against that which is true versus that which is
false. So in your Bible you hear things like the saved and the
unsaved, the godly and the ungodly, the lost and the saved. You hear
about the wicked and the righteous. You hear about the elect and
the non-elect. You hear these dichotomies all
through the scripture because this is how God works. You hear
about light and darkness, heaven and hell, these dichotomies are
there. God sets this up. He set it up in the beginning.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and
the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. There you go, chaos right there. God ordained
chaos so that out of chaos he would bring order. And one of
the evidences of the Holy Ghost is that he takes your chaos and
brings order out of it. But you and I are never to celebrate
chaos because chaos is the work of the Babylonian system. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? So you see chaos going on around
us and yet God is creating an orderly body of believers all
around the world who are part of that Magnanimous entity called
the church of the Living God based upon the truth of the gospel.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? Men and women are being saved
out of this crazy mess But when once God opens your eyes illuminates
you to the truth of the gospel you wake up to a warfare, don't
you? You thought when once you were saved, you get brought into
the church, everything is roses and a nice life. No, you wake
up to a warfare. He has called you to a warfare.
Now you have to be circumspect. Now you have to be careful. Now
you have to think things through. Now you got to think. This last
line is awesome to me. It's been awesome to me since
I was 18 years old. Because they did not receive
the love of the truth that they might be saved. I want you to
mark. It did not say that because they did not receive the truth.
It was the love of the truth they did not receive. See, when
the truth comes to you and me, it demands total allegiance.
Follow the logic now. Because what's before you is
heaven and hell, righteousness and unrighteousness, a judgment
day by which you will have to stand before God and give an
answer. or a judgment day at the cross of Jesus Christ by
which God can answer for you. And what God is doing is preparing
a people for himself who actually love the truth and love the truth
enough to stand for the truth, suffer for the truth, and die
for the truth. Before he sent his disciples
out, you know what he asked him? Do you love me? Now notice what
it says. and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish because they receive not
the love of the truth in order that they might be saved. Verse
11, and for this cause God did what? Sent them a strong delusion. Look at verse 11. The Greek is
simple. You know what it says in the
Greek? God shall send them a strong delusion. You'll get it in a
second. So one of the other things we
have to do in theology is demolish the false presuppositions and
false assumptions of people about God. Isn't it amazing how people
study their Bible for five minutes and then they want to talk about
how much they know about God? And they come in with these pagan
notions about God. And then when we begin to share
with them the truth about the nature of a sovereign, omnipotent
God who works all things after the power of His own will, they
are offended and miffed because we would dare say that God actually
deceives people. Read it for yourself. God shall
send them a strong delusion that they should believe a lot. You
know what we call this? Consequences. We call it consequences. Does God bring consequences?
Yes, he does. He brings consequences because
when men are given a knowledge of the truth over a probationary
period of time and they continue to reject that truth, God then
gives them over to a strong delusion. And that's where we are in our
present culture. So America has been under trial with the gospel
for about 400 years. It has failed. God has allowed
our leader's hearts to harden. Read it for yourself, Isaiah
chapter 3. We call it the takeaway principle. Verses 1 through 11
of Isaiah chapter 3. God will take away the wise man.
He will take away the prophet. He will take away the honorable
man. He will take away the eloquent man. He'll take away the senator.
He'll take away the true preacher. And he'll leave you with children
and women to run your nation and your world and your churches.
And that's what's going on today. Women and children run the church
in the world. I told you if your church looks like the world It's
not the Church of Christ if the same ethics and norms and rules
that operate and govern your church Are the same ethics and
norms and rules that govern the world. It's not the Church of
Christ Are you guys hearing me? It's very important for you to
understand that if you are using the world as a litmus test of
determining right and wrong You're already deceived You're already
deceived And for this cause, God shall send them a strong
delusion that they should believe a lie, verse 12, watch it, that
they all might be damned. Stop right there. See it? This
is where in liberal progressive ideology and theology, they love
to parse between the men of the scriptures and make some men
good and some men bad. They love to talk about the lovely
Jesus in liberal progressive theology. I love Jesus, but I
don't like Paul. Wrong. I like, I like, I like,
I like James, but I don't like Peter. Wrong. I don't want to
have nothing to do with the Old Testament scriptures, the New
Testament about love, Old Testament about hate. Wrong again. Those
of us who believe in the unity of biblical truth and the coherence
of biblical truth and revelation, we know that all of the people
who spoke in the Bible had one shepherd and that one shepherd
is Jesus, who through the Holy Ghost gave us one word and God
never contradicts himself. So when Peter speaks, and James
speak, and Paul speak, and the prophets speak, and Jesus speaks,
it's all one revelatory truth that never contradicts itself.
So if I'm going to receive Paul, I've got to receive Peter. Because
they came under the authority and power of Jesus, our Lord
and Savior. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? See, so we're not going to mess up our hermeneutical
process by which we can rearrange Scripture to justify our sinfulness.
We're going to let the Scriptures say what they say. And the scripture
sent me to hell, hell to hell I go. Let God be true and every
other man a liar. Are you guys hearing me? This
is very important for you and me. Now, I'll say this for those
of you who are on the edge and precipice of fear right now. If you tell the truth, God will
save you. Listen to me carefully now. Honest people are not going
to hell. It's only self-righteous deceived
people that are going to hell. An honest man or woman will end
up in heaven. Because an honest man or woman
is the work of grace. He'll make you honest. He'll
show you that you're a liar through and through. And when you say,
yes, Lord, I'm a liar, that's an honest man, he gets the righteousness
of God in Christ. That they all might be damned
who believed not the truth, but had what? That's the problem.
Stop right there. This here is what we call the
modern man. This is your millennial man. This is your Baby boomer
man. This is your genetics man. These
are all the same people. They are driven by pleasure and
not principle They're driven by pleasure and not principle
and because they're driven by pleasure they cannot stand the
truth They cannot stand the truth They hate truth. This is 2nd
Timothy chapter 4 verses 1-4 where Paul has told Timothy to
be instant, in season, out of season, proclaiming the Word
of God, admonishing, rebuking with all longsuffering and doctrine
because the time is coming when they will not endure sound doctrine. They'll heap to themselves teachers
to scratch their little selfish ears and make them feel good.
And that's where we are today. You want to see churches that
are bulging, bulging with self-centered people? Go to the church where
the preacher spends all of his time catering to their flesh,
giving them promise after promise after promise after promise.
And Christ is never exalted. Christ is never preached. Christ
is never glorified. The sinner is never warned and
never called to repentance. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
This is the delusion that you are in right now. This is the
world that we're in right now. And God expects only one place
to be where truth is to have free course. And that's in a
gospel church. He does not expect truth to have
a free course anywhere else. God's not surprised at all of
the false systems that you and I know about. It's only one place
that God has called for his truth to have absolutely free course.
And that's in a gospel church where Christ is all. This is a work of His grace as
we're about to see. He shall send them a strong delusion that
they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned. See
again, people don't talk about this God today, do they? A God
that damns? Who believe not the truth but
have pleasure in what? Unrighteousness. They have pleasure
in unrighteousness. We're legislating unrighteousness
right now. We're legislating, we're teaching
unrighteousness right now. We're teaching ungodliness right
now in our generation. Are we not? I told you, your
grandmama, your great-grandmama, she wouldn't even know what to
do with this world. If your great-great-grandmama
came back and saw the world you and I live in, she'd want to
go back to where she came from right away. Because of the way
people are thinking and acting and because of the very things
that the prophets have warned over and over again These things
are coming If you continue to push the envelope if you continue
to break the hedge if you continue to push your views, it's coming
It's here It's absolutely here. And the question you and I have
to ask is how does it affect us? How does it impact your walk
with Christ? How does it soften? are, as it
were, shape your convictions. Are you prepared for the battle
of this present generation when it comes to standing for God's
truth? Are you on the brink of collapsing under this system
too? That's the real battle that we're
dealing with. It's an evil system. And notice
what he says again in verse 11, because I want to just deal with
this one concept so it doesn't evade you. And for this cause,
God shall send them what? Strong delusion. I've taught
us this for years. It is a Greek term, two words,
strong there means energetic. He will send them a working or
an energy. Energeo is the Greek term, an
energy of error. The delusion is the word error.
Planates is the Greek term to be an error, to be an error.
He shall send them a working of error. You know what that
means? When men and women refuse the truth, God assists them in
believing lies. He energizes them into believing
lies. 1 John chapter 4 verse 6. Listen
to this. This is another axiom. I'm going
to give you about four verses, five verses before I go into
my text. God will assist men and women in their deception
when they refuse the truth. Rejecting it, not having their
love for it. He works energetically to assist them to perpetually
continue down a path of error. 1st John chapter 4 6. Here's
what John says. John is one of the Apostles He's
the last one that lived as a witness of Christ anywhere between 80
80 and 80 100 the last of the Apostles the youngest of them
as well He says we are of God contextually. He's talking about
the Apostles Don't just wrap it up in the general sense of
all of us because I want to teach you something We are of God he
says and he that knoweth God hears us This is why I say if
you are a liberal progressive Thinker and you reject Paul then
you reject John and if you reject John you reject Christ Because
John and Paul were sent by Christ and Christ said if they don't
hear you they haven't heard me Are you guys hearing me? Watch
me now? We're of God. He that knoweth God hears us.
He that is not of God does not what? so when Paul says I suffer
not a woman to teach are you certain authority in the church
and I'm a Bible believing Christian.
No, you're not Well, I don't accept that I believe
that was cultural and I believe Paul was talking about something
unique a working of error The energy to deceive them because
they hate the God of the Bible and the model that God set up
from the beginning That he has designed for the welfare of the
family and of the children and the whole society which has utterly
broken down today. I Utterly broken down you and
I are fragments of a broken post biblical Mary culture And we
come into the church with that same brokenness and want to perpetuate
it. Am I making sense? Want to perpetuate
it? Well, I don't like that. I don't
believe that you're going to hell because you have not a love for
the truth that you might be saved. When God saves people, he puts
them back on the right track. That's called repentance. And
what he does is restores them to a state of righteousness that's
called orthodoxy. And then he changes their mind
so that they think like God thinks. That's called godliness. You don't get to come up in God's
church and bring all of that error up in there and establish
a whole trend and doctrine and creed and system of error in
order to cater to the world. The gospel does not accommodate
the world. It doesn't affirm the world.
It confronts the world. We are of God and he that knoweth
God hears us. He that is not of God does not hear us. So when
me and my men are challenging other men and we're talking to
other men because we're very evangelical, we love to talk
to people, we can tell whether or not a person is God's sheep
and not. My sheep hear my voice. You're going to see it in a moment.
I can tell. You can call yourself in Jesus'
name all you want to, but as soon as we get to the hard doctrines
and you start waffling around the hard doctrines, we know that
you haven't heard his voice. See, the disciples made it plain
in John 6, 63 through 66 when Jesus had ran the whole church
out of the building. He woke up that day to preach
a message to run everybody out of the church. He intensely drove
everybody out of the church. John chapter 6, one of the most
hated chapters in all of the Bible. No one can come unto me
except for my Father which sent me, draw him. And everybody wanted to get up
and leave at that point. Jesus turned around to his disciples
and said, y'all going? This is what I meant by love
of the truth. So when they looked around and saw the whole building
cleared out, you know what they said to Jesus? Where shall we
go? You have the words of life. You got that? That was an evidence
of their election. That was an evidence of their
election. They were not swayed because they were part of a mass
movement that only lasted about two years. After about two years
of Jesus' ministry, everything broke out against him. After
about two years of popularity, as he continued preaching the
hard truths, the people started now buying into rumors and lies
about Jesus. And the error started working.
The strong delusion started working. Are you hearing me? Watch this.
He's born of fornication. He has the spirit of Beelzebub
in him. He's a Samaritan. He's a glutton. He's a drunkard. You see what's going on? Jesus
had brought all of the impeccable credentials of his Messiahship
with him. He preached the truth. Nobody could refute what he said.
He loved on people. Nobody could question his ethic.
He healed everyone that came to him No one could charge him
with the false claim of being Messiah because no one did miracles
like he did But because they did not have a love for the truth
because he still warned them you could see a miracle You could
hear the truth But if you don't have a love for the truth, you're
still going to hell and when he told men and women except
you believe on me You'll die in your sins. That's when they
started backing away from mom. We're not gonna be committed to you
like that. I Dude, we want you to, we conjured you up in order
for you to meet our needs. Are you guys hearing me? So people
go to churches to get their needs met by Jesus who is like a genie
in a bottle. And this is what we call the
spirit of error. Listen to what he says. Hereby know we the spirit
of what? That's right. The spirit of truth
and the spirit of what? There's only two spirits in the
world. Two dominating spirits. The spirit that leads men and
women into the truth. It leads men and women into the
truth. We call him the spirit of truth.
The spirit of truth whom Jesus sent and the Father sent who
will guide you into the truth. Infallibly guide you into the
truth as it is in Jesus. The spirit of truth does not
guide you into error. The spirit of truth does not
lead you away from the truth. The spirit of error will never
lead you to the truth. Are you guys hearing me? And
there's a stark difference between the two spirits. The one is filled
with emotionalism and folly and games and tricks and machinations
and all of the smoke and mirrors of attraction and rhetoric. The
other one is serious about the things of God. Serious about
the things of God. That's where you and I are today.
And the whole world is deceived. This word planos is a powerful
word. It means to err. It's translated to wonder. It's
a term that's translated to be deceived, to go out of the way,
to go astray. And Jesus said in Matthew 24
around verse 5 or 6, he says, be not deceived because many
false prophets are in the world and many are being deceived by
them. He said in the latter part of chapter 24 of Matthew, false
Christ and false prophets shall come and deceive many. And the
deceptions will be so powerful, so powerful that if it were possible,
even the very elect would be deceived. And sometimes God's
elect are also deceived because we'll operate out of carnality
and we'll be susceptible to the lies. But in God's mercy, because
he has chosen his people, he will come get them and bring
them out of those lies. Because the only way we're coming
out is if he comes in. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
I thank him too. I thank him too. You and I are
dealing with some very difficult times, but there's a humble and
confident, rejoicing group of people we call the people of
God, because this deception, it will not overtake them. And
it's because they have believed the gospel. We're in 2 Thessalonians
2, look at verse 13. Here it is again. This is following
up the deception, but we are bound to give thanks always to
God for you brother and beloved of the Lord Because God hath
what from the beginning what chosen you to what salvation? Through sanctification of the
spirit that is the powerful work of the Spirit of God setting
you apart Unto believing of the truth. Do you see it? which is
getting ready to bring us into our message. Verse 14, where
unto he called you by our gospel. How does a man or a woman come
out of darkness? It's a call. It's a call. It's a call which brings me to
my message. The title of our message today
is called, justified, and glorified. Go with me in your Bibles to
Romans chapter 8. Let's deal with this. How do men and women
come out of this massively, enormous, tremendous, demonic deception? You've got to be called out.
God has to call you. You're not coming if he doesn't
call you. It's his mercy to call you. Now, there are three calls.
that mankind experiences. I've been teaching this for the
longest. I'm going to lay this down. I'm going to deal with our first
point today significantly and just touch on our last two points,
build them next week. There are three calls. Every
human being is called into the world. You are never an accident. Do you hear me? God doesn't look
up and see 8 billion people and wonder how they got here. You know what the Bible says
in Ezekiel 18? All the souls are mine. Ezekiel 18. You know what the Bible says
in Psalm 128? All the fruit of the womb is mine. Do you understand
that? Every soul that's conceived,
God has conceived it. Every soul. Jeremiah chapter
1 5. Jeremiah wondering about the qualifications of the priest
of the gospel. You know what God said to Jeremiah? Before I created
you in the womb, I knew you. Before I formed you in the belly,
I knew you. There's our new word again, isn't it? Now God knows
everyone in the belly. But he only knows his elect,
especially in the belly. Am I telling the truth? Now,
God knows everybody. Everything is the byproduct of
God's creative hand. We all live. We all move. We all have our being in God.
That does not mean we're saved. It just means that God upholds
all things by the word of his power and nothing has life apart
from God. Y'all got that? But when God
says, I knew you before I created you, it means that God loved
you before the foundation of the world. And he had a plan
for you. And he established a purpose
for you. Specifically, this is what he's letting Jeremiah know.
And don't you and I need to know that sometime? Because Jeremiah
is about to go into a hell hole. Jeremiah is about 16, 18, 19,
20 years old. And God has called him to preach.
And in chapter three, God said, now you go into a bunch of religious
folk that are stiff-necked, hard-hearted, they have an adamant forehead,
they're like harlots without shame and guile, and they will
chew you up and spit you out if they get a chance. Can you
imagine that's the first assignment you get to preach? You gotta
preach to people like that. You know what God told Jeremiah?
I'm gonna be with you. And I'm gonna make you a demolition
army. You're going to break up all
of the follow ground of the hearts of those people. You're going
to be a sledgehammer. Your preaching is going to break
through. Oh yeah, they're going to be angry at you, but you're
going to break up the follow ground of their hard heart through
the preaching of your word, because the elect must be brought out
of that mess. Are you hearing what I'm saying? See, God has
to break the follow heart before he can plant the good seed. He
has to break it up, and that's what he's doing here. Before
I ordained thee, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee,
and before you came forth out of the womb, I set you apart.
I ordained you as a prophet unto the nations. Do you see that?
So that's the first call. All of us are called. We're not
always necessarily called in the blessings, but we're called
out of the womb. Paul said it in the book of Galatians as well.
God called me from my mother's womb according to his grace.
Every human being is called. There's a second call that's
going to move into our set of promises and securities principles
in Romans chapter 8. That second call, we call it
the gospel call. You see that in your outline? The gospel call.
That's the call that we're going to be dealing with largely today.
The second call is the gospel call. Not everyone hears the
gospel. This again is the fallacy that goes on in religion. You
hear religious folks say that God is trying to reach every
soul in the world. Before the world ends, every
human being has to hear the gospel. Do you believe that for five
seconds? Do you? because it's not possible,
nor was it God's plan. All you got to do is read your
Bible. Did God bring the gospel to Tyre
and Sidon? Did he bring the gospel to Sodom
and Gomorrah? Christ spoke in Matthew chapter
11, if the things that were done here among you were done in Sodom
and Gomorrah, don't you know they would have repented? If
the things that are done here would have been done in some
of the other nations and people live and die quickly in life,
two years old, five years old, 10 years old, 20 years old. And
see, this becomes a conundrum in the minds of men. How do people
live and die and never hear the gospel? Do they have a chance
for heaven? Do you understand that? They argue it. Now, if
you know that God is sovereign, you know that's not a problem
for God, right? This is where many people have to learn how
to trust the sovereign God. But in terms of you and me, you
and I can't go around talking about God is trying to save every
individual human being on planet Earth. There's no logical reason
behind that supposition. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
In fact, when Jesus went preaching, He didn't go to everybody in
Israel. Are you hearing me? He only went to the lost sheep.
This is bringing up a point. While we are to go into the world
and preach the gospel to every creature, what that means is
every ethnos, all the nations of the world. And we are to do
it till Jesus comes. But here's what God fully knows.
Multitudes of people will live and die without hearing the gospel.
That becomes a whole nother consideration as to what will they do in the
day of judgment when they stand before God. How will they appeal
to God on that day? Well, the Bible is very clear.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's
none righteous, no not one. Is that true? But now when the
elect stand before God on the last day, here's what they will
say. If it wasn't for your mercy, hunting me down by the gospel
and causing me to hear your voice in the preaching of the gospel
I'd still be on my way to hell are you hearing me say with me
now this is important this is important and the elect will
not stand in front of God on that let's say by the way God
how come you let whole villages die never hearing the gospel
you will never hear the elect say that you will never hear
the elect trying to argue with God in terms of God's righteousness
are you following me Peter did that one time and Jesus said
to Peter shut up that's not your business You guys remember that?
What about him? Shut up, that's not your business.
Remember that? What about John? Don't worry
about John. You worry about you. Make sure you enter in the straight
gate. See, your own mental cognition
can cause you to be distracted, failing to understand that God's
not going to let one person perish. Not one person is going to perish
for whom Christ died. All that the Father giveth me
will come to me. Every one of them. He will have
a hundred sheep when it's all over with. Are you guys hearing
me? Not one for whom Christ died
will perish under the wrath of God. Not one. Heaven will be
rejoicing. There will be no tears in heaven.
The saints in heaven will be saying, they won't be saying,
Lord, it's great that we got so many people believe in the
gospel. But what about all those people we tried and we couldn't
get to before they died? And heaven said, well, you know,
we try. That's not the God of the Bible.
Do you hear me? And then Bible sense says, God
knows those that are his. And those that are not will face
God in the last day and answer for their sins. This is why I
was teaching you last week. Predestination is not God assigning
people to hell. Predestination is God seeing
to and securing some people to conforming to Jesus Christ. People
will go to hell for their sin. Am I making some sense? And you
only go to heaven because of his grace. Am I making some sense? So you don't take predestination
and make it a destiny, an abstract destiny. where God says some
are going to heaven, some are going to hell. You completely
missed the righteousness of God in the judgment. All of us must
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Isn't that what the
Bible says? What will the righteous plea? The mercy of God in Christ. What will the unrighteous plea?
Their own good works. To hell they will go. You guys
got that? I'm trying to keep it simple
for you right now. But you and I are in a state where there
are three calls the call to life the call to the gospel That's
john chapter 5 verse 25. You remember what jesus said
in john 5 25 the hour is coming And now is when the dead shall
hear the voice of the son of god and they that hear shall
live Do you understand that's a call? Ladies and gentlemen,
have you ever heard that call? I heard that call 37 years ago
when the gospel was preached powerfully to my soul. I was
dead in trespasses and sins and the voice of Christ spoke clearly
to my soul through the gospel. Jesse, repent. Believe the gospel. Trust the Son of the living God.
Come to Christ. He is your only hope. And God
began to draw me to himself. Gave me a hunger and thirst for
his word. Opened my heart and mind to my
wretched sinfulness. I fell down on my face and begged
him for mercy because I knew I deserved hell. And God had
mercy on a brother. This is what we mean by the gospel
call. This is what we mean by the gospel call. I didn't get
it in church. I didn't play church. I didn't
come up to an altar. I didn't hear just as I am. The
piano wasn't playing. Wasn't a bunch of sisters singing.
This was not emotionalism. This was about hell. This was
about hell. This was about a man going to
hell. And God had revealed himself
graciously to me through Christ. And I saw him in his glory as
my only hope for salvation. This is not about church. This
is about salvation. I didn't even do church for a
couple of years after that. Didn't do church, it's the gospel.
And John 5, 28 says, the hour is coming when all that are in
the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that
hear will come forth, some to the judgment of damnation, some
to the resurrection of righteousness. Do you hear me? That's the last
call. It's the last trump for uh, first corinthians 15 around
verse 52. Don't go there The last trump
will sound I show you a mystery a great mystery We shall not
all sleep But we will all be changed in a moment in the twinkling
of an eye at the last trump the trump shall sound And god's gonna
bring this whole thing to an end that next call Everyone's
gonna hear All that are in the graves are coming out. Do you
hear me? They're coming out The issue is have you and I heard
the call that we're dealing with now? I'm back in Romans chapter
8. I've got a few minutes to work with you on this so that
we can contemplate it. In Romans chapter 8 verse 29
and 30, here's what the text says. And we know that all things
work together for good This is verse 28. To them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose, for whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also what? All right,
stop right there. We've got our five points of
what we call the security of the believer by the work that
God did. In verse 29 and 30, ladies and gentlemen, in verse
29 and 30, God is the one working alone. He's doing the predestinating,
He's doing the foreknowledge, He's doing the calling, He's
doing the justifying, and He's doing the glorifying. You aren't
doing anything. God predestined you. God foreknew you. And God called you. In verse
29, we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His
Son. That means God has purposed to bring you into a relationship
with Himself by which He shapes and forms you. You see that word
conformed? That's our Greek term, summorpho,
from which we get the literal English word, to morph, or to
make, or to mold. He molds us when He calls us
by His grace, doesn't He? We talked about that last week.
The whittling work of God. He sheaths us. He purges us. He presses us into His mold.
And that mold is His Son. Summed up as a whole, His Son.
And what that means? When God starts dealing with
you by His grace, you start learning something experientially about
what it means to be a son of God. Are you hearing me? All
whom the Lord loves, He what? This is one of the first principles
that you learn when you're truly a child of God. That He starts
dealing with you as a son. All whom the Lord loves, He chastens.
And He starts teaching and educating. Podion is the Greek term. It
means to educate you. God has to educate his people
radically, doesn't he? He has to take old data out, put in
good data. He has to teach you how he works, doesn't he? He
has to show you how he is in his providence and in his sovereignty
and in his grace. And he has to teach you how to
embrace suffering, doesn't he? And that's exactly what he did
with his son. So he's teaching you and me that too. He's teaching
us how to think biblically, is he not? He's teaching us how
to embrace suffering because we're supposed to be cross-centered
people. Listen to it. For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his son. See the word image
there? I love it. It's the word icon. There are
a number of Greek terms for image in the New Testament, but this
one is the word icon. And you can take this and enjoy
it. Because what the Bible tells us in Exodus 20 is, when God
came to Israel, he told Israel, you shall not have any other
God before me. You shall not make any graven
image or any like this in heaven above or in the earth beneath
or in the water under the earth. Why? Because God is spirit. in
his ontological and essential nature, you cannot define God
or you cannot put God in some type of three-dimensional image
and say, ah, that's our God, right? But God has revealed himself
in the person of his son Jesus. Is Jesus the icon of God? Is
Jesus the image of the invisible God? Is Jesus the outshining
of the blistering glory and nature and character of God so that
when we see Jesus, we see the Father? Is that true? Absolutely! So that when the word icon is
used here in Romans chapter 8, 29, it's really a privilege for
you and me. Because that's the same word
used in Colossians 1, 14 and 15 concerning Jesus. Jesus is
the image of the invisible God. You know what that means? If
you and I are called to be icons, there's only one icon that the
Holy Ghost is going to shape us into. And that's the icon
of God's Son. That has huge implications. But pastor, how does He do it?
How does God predestinate us to the image of His Son? He calls
us to it. That's what verse 30 says. Look
at verse 30. Verse 30 says in Romans chapter 8, moreover whom
He did predestinate, then He also what? All right, let's go
to work just a little bit on our first point. How are we to
be conformed to the image of Christ? He must call us. Point
number one, then, under your outline, because I've already
given you the kaleo, the call. The voice of God has to be heard
in the soul of man in order for that man to be brought into a
process of conformity to Jesus. Point number one, therefore,
called effectually and what? Powerfully to the saving of the
what? That's right, called effectually
and powerfully to the saving of the soul. I can really work
here for the day. This is so very important. Many
are called, but few are what? Y'all know your Bibles. You're
not going to get bumps on the back of your head when you use
the word chosen or the word election. Those are good terms, okay? The
distinction between called and chosen is that there's a gospel
call that goes out to masses of the people, but only the chosen
will hear the voice of God in it. Do you hear what I just said? There's a general call, we call
it the general call of the gospel, where we call the masses. Like
Jesus called many people to him, only a handful of people believed
the gospel at the end of three and a half years. He has spoken
to tens of thousands of people over a three and a half year
period. Very popular. By the end of his ministry of three
and a half years, only a handful of people were in the upper room.
You got that? That's the difference between the external call and
those who were chosen hearing the internal call. I want you
to see how this works. Go with me in your Bible to John
chapter 10 so that we can work this through. What do we mean
by the gospel call? In the gospel of John chapter
10, I want to read a few verses to underscore this. Then I want
to build my three points under the called and we will close
for today. I think that we are making our
point. What do we mean by called effectually, called powerfully
to the saving of our soul? We mean, as our Lord uses the
analogy of the sheep and the shepherd, that he is the good
shepherd that seeks his sheep out. And when he seeks them out,
he calls for them and they hear his voice. Verily, verily, I
say unto you, he that enters not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
But he that enters in by the door is the what? Shepherd of
the sheep. To him the porter opens and the
sheep do what? I want you to hear it now. This
is describing the intimacy of the relationship between the
shepherd and his sheep. The sheep here are described
as being in a sheep pen, a fold. A fold. And there is a porter
who watches over all of the sheep. Now, ostensibly, this fold may
have all sorts of sheep that are owned by all sorts of shepherds. But when the shepherd comes to
call his sheep, only his sheep will come to him. Are you hearing
me? So when he comes to this sheep
fold or sheep pen, the porter opens the door, he comes in and
he calls each sheep by what? Name. This is how intimate and
powerful the analogy of effectual calling is. Because the shepherd
is the Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall see. And the sheep are
all of God's elect, each and every one of them that were chosen
in Christ. Are you hearing me? And they were in the sheepfold.
Now let me help you with the sheepfold. Because the sheepfold
really has to do with God's predestinating purpose. See, God had to determine
to call you to himself by placing you in situations where the gospel
could reach you. I love this. So what is the sheepfold? The sheepfold is that place in
time, that birth and circumstance, that situation where you were
born in and raised in, the culture of the folks you lived among.
See, before you were saved, you were lost, but you were only
lost to yourself. You wasn't lost to God. God has
never ever lost a thing. and you lived in a mess, a mess
that made no sense. Some of us used to complain about
where we were born, and where we were raised, and where we
lived, and we didn't like our mama, and we didn't like our
daddy, and we didn't like the situation we were in. But all
of that was ordained by God. He actually placed you in the
sheepfold of your difficulty so that he could come to you
at the right time in the right season and call you to himself.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? So the good shepherd
knows how to hunt down his sheep because there's not a crevice
in the world that he doesn't know where they are. Because
he made the crevice. He made the caves. He made the
pits. He made the valleys. He made
the holes that they were in. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So you and I like to complain about how it used to be B.C.
But don't complain about how it used to be B.C. because with
God there is no B.C. He's eternal in nature. He's
eternal in nature. He's eternal in nature. And God
calls His sheep by name. Do you remember the day it came
in power? Before it didn't. It was all
Greek and Hebrew. and you were still doing foolishness.
But the day the gospel came in power, it changed your life. It changed your life. This is
what we mean by the gospel call. Listen to the language. It's
very explicit in the book of John. He says here in John chapter
10, starting with me now at verse 7. Here it is. Then said Jesus
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the
sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But
the sheep did not hear them. Isn't that good? See, now you
know what God did while you were in your ignorance? He kept you
so ignorant and so dumb and so stupid that while you heard the
voice of the false prophet, it never committed your soul to
hell. I love it! I love it! Because there's a
bunch of people going to hell by the teaching of false prophets
and false doctrine. But you, it's not that you were
smart, it's just that God kept his hand on you. And he didn't
let you commit. He gave you a little bit of sense
to understand that that doesn't quite square. It don't make sense.
Why is that dude having horns coming out of his forehead? Why
do I see a tail coming out from between her legs? I'm starting
to hear things that don't make any sense. It doesn't jive. They're
contradicting themselves over here. Their character is contrary
to this over there. This is not quite right. I'm
not sold. How come? Because your God's
elect. That's how come. Because your God's elect. Because
God has kept you back. Even in your mess. You know how
you was doing your mess? You was doing your mess and then
you would run to church because you want the preacher to pray for you
and bless you. But something wouldn't let you
cross that line and sell your soul to hell like the masses
of the rest. Will you hear me? It's because
God loved you in Christ and kept his hand on you until the gospel
came in power and quickens your soul. You know what? And when
you first heard the gospel, you remember the first time you heard
the gospel? It was unbelievable to you. It was unbelievable,
but it made all the sense in the world to your soul, didn't
it? It's like, I can't believe this, but I gotta believe it
because it makes all kind of sense in the world to me. This
is the first time somebody ever told me the God honest truth
about who God is. Am I telling the truth? The first
time I'm hearing something that sounds like the God of the Bible,
and only the elect respond this way. Doesn't mean our problems
have gone away. But we've had one problem solved. God has finally started talking
to me in the true. This makes all the sense in the
world. I still got my issues, but not that one. And see, from
the point where the gospel penetrates your heart, I'm gonna help some
of you now who've already had the handcuffs of grace put on
you. This is why God sends us into the world to preach His
unique, His glorious, His singular, His omnipotent gospel. is to
put the handcuffs of grace on some of you who have never heard
the gospel before. What is the remedy to error?
The gospel. What is the remedy to false doctrine?
The gospel. And when it gets a hold of you,
you turn around and continue doing what you're doing. But
things are not quite the same because God starts putting a
drag on it. Then he starts putting a drag on it. Doesn't he start
putting the drag on it? Doesn't he start, God know how
to put the drag on it? So whereas you was free before,
you was doing your own thing, now it's a little bit difficult.
It's a little, it's a little bit difficult. It's a little
bit difficult. And you're wondering what that
drag is. That drag is the grace of God, towing your tail back
in, bringing you back to himself. That's the drag. It's called
the drag of grace. Now your mind is fried because
you're struggling with what you're thinking, but God is already
sovereign now. Why am I still coming to hear
this man? I don't like what he said. And because you hear promises,
you hear promises that are absolutely tremendous. Verse 11. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd gives his life for the sheep. See, when you start hearing
gospel promises, it's not about what God is going to do for you
in the temporal realm of earthly carnal blessings. You come to
discover what He has already done for you in the person of
Christ, in the laying down of His life, in the redeeming your
soul from hell. And that becomes enormous to
you. What you are now experiencing is what we call the glory of
God. You don't know it. This is the glory of God. This is
the redeeming glory of God right now. What you are hearing is
the glory of God. You are hearing the glory of
God. If Christ is the glory of God, that's what you're hearing.
And you're hearing, could it be, could it be, could it be that God has
done this for me? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Could it be that God has done this for me? This is what you
think when you're under the preaching of the gospel. Now listen to
it. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his
life for sheep. But the hireling, but he that is hireling is not
the shepherd whose own sheep are not. He sees the wolf coming
and he leaves the sheep, please. And the wolf, the wolf captured
them and scattered them. That's what's going on in our
churches right now. Wolves are in the pulpit. Devouring the
masses of the people. Are you hearing me devouring
the masses? What do you mean a wolf pastor? I mean When you
are not a faithful shepherd You are not willing to lay down your
life for the sheep When under shepherds are not the shepherds
of Christ their doctrines change with the wind their allegiance
change with the cultural trends and They start modifying their
teachings to meet all of the cultural trends. Because they're
into it for numbers and growth and accolades and wealth and
prominence and not for the truth and the glory of God. Faithful
shepherds are in it for the truth and the glory of God. Because
God has planted in the heart of faithful shepherds a love
for the souls of men. Now I want you to mark this now
as I wrap this up. My time is almost up. I'm just going to
touch on the last two points. I want you to mark this now. Why faithful
shepherds preach the gospel? It's because God has placed a
love in our hearts that comes from Him for God's elect. Will you hear me now? I want
you to hear this now. This is important. We don't wake
up every day wondering how many people we can get in this building.
We don't set up schemes and methods and plans. My elders tell you
we only meet about once or twice a year. That's a rule I have
because you meet more than that, you're going to argue and fight. As long as my elders are preaching
the gospel, we don't need to meet. Do I need to meet if my
men are preaching the gospel? We slap each other, high five
and all that, keep rolling. Because our job is to preach
Christ. Can I tell you why? Because the
shepherd is in the mist. Speaking through teaching, hunting
people down, confirming them in their salvation, and drawing
them to himself. Are you hearing me? Now watch
this now. This is how confident we are in the preaching and teaching
of the gospel. Those who are not God's elect
will not stay. And we are fine with that. It
breaks our heart. But we cannot make you believe
the gospel. Only Christ can make you believe
the gospel. And this is why we go around
the world. We leave these four walls and we go around the world.
We go around the world preaching the gospel. As Jesus plainly
said, my sheep will hear my voice. You know what that means? Evangelism
is guaranteed success when you preach the truth of the gospel.
Because only his elect will hear it. The rest will reject the
gospel. Have you heard the gospel call?
Has the Lord Jesus Christ met you in the effectual calling
of grace? Has it changed your life? Has
it brought you to himself? Has it caused you to bow the
knee to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? That's the gospel
call. That's point number one. Point
number two, sub-point number two, under point number one,
I just want to call your attention to it. When you and I are called
by the gospel, we're called to be what? Do you see point number
two? That's not a verb. That's an
adjective. I'm going to show you that, and
I'm going to close, because it's 1 o'clock. I'm going to turn into a pumpkin
at 1 o'clock. I'll come back next week, show
you something. When the gospel is preached in power, it's the
Spirit of God that works through it, hunting people down, opening
their ears, raising them from the dead. He raises them from
the dead. And he gives them an understanding. They believe it.
Remember that day? And when he calls you, that's
a verb, that's an act, then you are then called the called. You got that? When you hear the
gospel and you say, yay, Lord, you are the called. That's an
adjective. It's beautiful. I'm getting ready
to show it to you. Romans chapter eight, verse 28.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God to them who are the called. You got it? Stay right there. Stay right
there. How do I know I'm the call? Because I heard the call.
Do you hear me? I heard the call. And because
I heard the call, God has set me apart as the called of the
Lord. And you and I are called saints.
Most of your new translations have this, this, what, what is
called, um, little phrase, a little sort of a phrase that says to
be in italicis called to be saints. You guys see that scratch it
out in your own time. I got one minute before I turn
into a pumpkin. It's not called to be saints. When God calls
you and you hear his voice, you are a saint. You don't look like
one. You don't act like one. You don't
think like one, but you are one. Are you hearing me? Because the
gospel sets you apart to Jesus Christ. Will you hear me? It
sets you apart. So like those folk that pray
to saints, those are ain'ts they praying to. And the saints that
have to wait to get endorsed to be saints, those are still
ain'ts. They're just dead ain'ts. Every
true believer is a saint. Not because of your righteousness,
but because of his righteousness. Every true believer is a saint,
not because of what you did, but because of what he did. Every
true believer is a saint, not because of your action, but because
God sets you apart now. That's what it means to be holy.
He sets you apart to hear the gospel, believe the gospel, trust
Christ, and follow Christ. Those are God's saints. You guys
believe that? Amen and amen. We're going to have the offering
at this time. We're closing the word of prayer. We'll come back and
pick this up next week.