In chapter two, I'm sure you
noticed while we were reading, three times the word precious is used. Three sentences making up four
verses. Precious, precious, precious.
And every time, not surprising at all, every time it refers
to Jesus Christ. Verse 4, but chosen of God and
precious. Verse 6, I lay in Zion a cheap
cornerstone and he that, I'm sorry, cheap cornerstone elect
precious. Verse 7, unto you that believe
he is precious. There in verse 7, it could have
just as well been translated, and perhaps in the other two
verses as well, but it could have been translated, the preciousness. The preciousness. Unto you that
believe, not only precious, but preciousness itself. Verse 4,
precious to God. Verse 6, precious in himself. Verse 7, precious unto you that
believe. It seems to be all about him. Yes, it does. And I hope you
can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be. It's all about
him. I've told you, I think, a time
or two before I feel settled on what God has directed me to
preach when I'm preparing to preach to you. That after that,
I'll email Bobbie and tell her my text, and if she's able to
sing, and she sure was this morning, then she'll try to find a song
to go with the message. sometimes we'll exchange, well
not sometimes, most of the time, emails back and forth. And she
said, well Larry, I just, I've thought about this all day, all
night, I just can't really settle on anything, what about this?
And then I emailed her back and said, well, and I remember the
certain lines of that, and I said, is that, these lines in the song
Christ is All? And a little while later she
emailed me back and said, Why don't you decide?" And I emailed
her back, Christ is all. And then I got from her this.
Oh, isn't he though? All in all, I love to sing that
and no matter how often it is, it's not too much. That's what
we read here is Christ is precious, precious, precious. It's not
too much. We need him, don't we? We need
him more than we need anything else in this world. We need him
in this life and that which is to come. He didn't need us. He didn't need us. Years ago,
in one of the conferences, I'm pretty sure it was in one of
the conferences in Danville, Brother Tim James was preaching.
And he mentioned that sign that you used to see, and perhaps
you still do at various churches, out on their marquee. We can't
spell church without you. Seen that? Tim said, hmm, can't
spell church without you. And he said, you know what? You
can't spell dumb without you. Or you can't spell stupid without
you. And I thought, boy, he got that
right. And yet, I said, we need him. He didn't need us. And yet, we
read. In God's word, in various places,
I'll share a few with you, these. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. And
I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Another one. Okay, I found it. He that toucheth you toucheth
the apple of my eye. Christ speaking of his church. Another. Thou should also be a crown. This is Christ speaking of his
church. Thou shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord,
a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." Really? Me? You? Every believer? One more. Since thou wast precious, I know he's precious, but he
says we're precious to him. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou has been honorable and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee and people for thy life. As John taught this morning,
probably the best thing to do with Such a marvel as that is
just to sit at his feet and ponder it and just adore him and thank
him for such marvelous grace. Look here if you will again in
chapter 2 of 1st Timothy verse 4. This is our text. the first time that the word
precious is used here in chapter 2. Let's start where God starts.
Precious to God, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, verse 3, the
Lord, that's Christ, and referring to him to whom coming as unto
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and
precious. If we don't start where God starts,
we're bound to go wrong. Bound to go wrong. I remember
hearing Brother Scott Richardson preach one time and he said,
if you don't understand what happened in the garden, you won't
understand what happened at Calvary. Got to start where God starts.
In the beginning, God. With Jesus Christ, God begins
and ends with Him. Of Him, Jesus Christ. And through Him. And back to
Him. From eternity past. I don't know
how else to express it. And eternity to come. and everything
in between. It's all about Him. Our message,
the title of it rather, is this. Those first three words, to whom
coming. To whom coming. May God enable
us to do that today. To once again come to Him in
true worship and heartfelt gratitude. Oh, I would love, I would love If God would enable us today to be like Mary, let Martha rattle the pans, set at his feet. John just set
at his feet and soak it up. Soak it up. And when we leave here, when
we say amen, dismissed, Not be thinking, well, the pastor did a pretty
good job today. No. Leave here thinking, my soul,
what a savior. What a savior. To whom coming, speaking to save sinners and lost sinners. Notice it's
in the present tense. The present tense. To whom coming. Well Larry, we shall come to
him. Oh yes, Christ said all that
the Father gives me shall come to me. We have come to him. And we will continue to come
to him. Until we come to be where he is. in his very presence,
continually coming to Christ. When I was preparing the message,
I thought of an old hymn by Joseph Hart. There's various versions
of it, pretty close together. But what I'm going to quote to
you is sort of a mixture of three. But he wrote Come ye needy, come
and welcome. God's free bounty glorify. True
belief and true repentance, every grace that brings you nigh. Come
ye weary, heavy laden. Does that describe you? Come
ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and mangled by the fall. If you
tarry till you're better, you'll never come at all. There's a seventh verse, seven
verses of that one. The seventh says, saints and
angels joined in concert sing the praises of the Lamb, while
the blissful seats of heaven sweetly echo with his name. Hallelujah! Sinners here can sing the same,
can sing the same. I will arise and go to Jesus. I will arise and go to Jesus.
He will embrace me in his arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. To whom coming? Disallowed, it
says. Disallowed indeed of men. Really? Disallowed of men? Rejected? He came unto his own and his
own received him not. Came into the world that he created
and the world knew him not. Disallowed. Remember when Pilate
sent him to Herod. Herod was happy about that. He was hoping he'd see the Lord
perform some miracle for his entertainment. The Lord wouldn't
even speak to him. Remember what we read? Herod
and his men of war set him at naught, mocked him, despised him, held
him in contempt. He's not worthy of our notice.
He's not even worthy of consideration. Disallowed. And the leaders,
the religious leaders, the teachers, they said, he's a deceiver. Why
do you listen to him? He's beside himself. He's insane. He's insane. Son of God? They said this to his face. You
claim to be the son of God? You're a liar. We know your mother. Mary, we know your brothers and
your sisters. Remember what they said? We're
not born of fornication. And I believe they were implying
like you are. Like you, you don't know who
your daddy is. You're possessed with the devil. Disallowed indeed of men. What
a sorry testimony of man. Not Christ. Not Christ. He's the same. What man said,
what man thought, or what man did didn't change anything. not concerning the Son of God. And what men say today about
the Lord Jesus Christ, and most of them standing where I am now,
that he's not the Son of God, he was a good fellow, he was
a moral teacher. What men think about him today
doesn't change a thing. You've all experienced this.
You're trying to witness to someone They say, well, this is what
I think. Done? Does that make a lick of
difference? No. No, that's the problem. Doesn't
matter what you think. Oh, but what a glaring proof
of man's depravity. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. Ye will not come to me. Ye will
not come to me that ye might have like If there wasn't another
verse in the Word of God as an evidence of man's total
depravity, that would be sufficient to prove it, would it not? There's
something desperately wrong with fallen man. He will not come
to Christ. They talk about man's free will. You will not. I've had folks
tell me, in support of free will, use that verse to try to prove
it. That proves the very opposite.
Their will's not free. It's bound to their nature. That's
why they need a new heart. They treat the wheel like it's
some kind of little man outside the man. When Adam failed, everything
was affected except his wheel. His wheel wasn't touched. Oh
yes, it was. Yes, it was. You see how he acts
when he hears the voice of God? Well, at one time that was his
greatest delight, to walk with God. The old hymn says, he walks with
me. and he talks with me, oh my soul, and he tells me I am
his own. What about that? Adam? Where art thou? He's hiding. I can't spell stupid
without you. Adam had fallen and became so
ignorant he actually thought he could hide from God Almighty. Before whom we're naked and open. Free will indeed. You remember
again when Pilate, we read this in
Luke 23, Pilate brought Christ out to them in the third
time. What do you want me to do with
him? I find no fault in him. Crucify him. Kill him. No place for him in our life,
in our world, in our religion. Away with him. We don't want
any king but Caesar. That was a lie. But they take
Caesar over the Son of God. In Pilate, we read delivered
Jesus to their will. That's Luke 23, verse 25. Pilate
delivered Jesus to their will. And you know what their will
was. You know what they did. I'll
tell you what. I am so thankful that god almighty
didn't leave me to my so-called free will i don't like to use
the word is no such critter I'm so glad he didn't leave me to
my fallen, depraved will, because just like Christ said, and that
includes every fallen son of Adam, ye will not come to me. You'll search the scriptures,
but you won't come to me. You'll go to church, but you
won't come to me. You'll pretend to be a believer,
tuck a Bible under your arm, memorize scriptures, get baptized,
do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you won't come to me. And
if you don't come to me, you don't have life. Sinners lost. Like my three brothers. Four. Three coming today, the Lord
willing. Lost. God forbid, they might not get
here. If they should go out, this day and stand before God,
they'll be lost forever. They'll be in hell forever. Maybe
in the next moment. And yet, they will not come to
Christ. Disallowed indeed of man. But. But. Oh, I'm anxious to get to
this. But. Chosen of God. Precious. Precious. Yes, disallowed indeed of man. And man's responsible for that.
He'll answer for that. It's his own fault. But nevertheless,
chosen of God. God says concerning his son,
he says to man, to those that said him it not, your thoughts
are not my thoughts. Your ways are not my ways, especially
in this manner of my son. He's precious. Who had the final
word? I came down from heaven. God's my father. And they said,
well, you're a liar. That's what man said. This is
what man said. Why do the heathen rage and the
people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers took counsel together against the Lord and against
His anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder and
cast away their cords from us. That's not in the Gospels. That's
in the Psalms. prophesied what man would do.
Let's get rid of him. That's what man said, just like
God said they would. Hundreds and hundreds of years
before. But what does God say? Reading
from the same psalm. What does God say about his son?
He that saideth in the heaven shall laugh. The Lord shall have
them in derision. He shall speak unto them in his
wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet Yet have I set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion. This is God speaking of Christ.
I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, thou
art my son. This day have I begotten thee,
son. Ask of me, and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a
rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel. Be wise, therefore. O ye kings,
be instructed. Ye judges of the earth, serve
the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry. And ye perish from the way when
his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they. Blessed
are all they that put their trust in him. Precious. Rare. I would imagine if you
looked it up in the dictionary it would include this. Rare. Indispensable. One of a kind. How's that? One of a kind. Nobody else like him. The only
way to God The only way to God. The only mediator. No preacher, including this one,
especially this one, is a mediator between you and God. No priest. No Pope. Not even His holiness,
His unholiness, the Pope. No. No, He's not a mediator.
Neither is Mary or any saint. I was watching the news the other
evening. And they had the fellow say, when we come back from commercial,
the Pope performed a miracle. We'll have that next. Oh, I thought
I can't wait to see that. Excuse me. The Pope performs
a miracle. You probably saw it. He's in
his Popemobile going through a crowd somewhere, multitudes. Here's the miracle. Some priest hands him a bottle,
a jar or something, with the blood of a saint in it. Don't
ask me how that happened. Supposedly the blood of a saint.
It's all dried up. Did you see this? National News. The Pope takes it in his hand,
and he may have kissed it. I was laughing so hard. He may have kissed it, but either
just touching or kissing or something, They said the miracle was half
the blood wasn't dry anymore, began to flow, liquid. Just half. I guess it was a 50% miracle. What for? If it was actually
true, which it wasn't, what purpose did it serve? And then somebody handed him
a pizza. I'm not making this up. Somebody after that handed him
a pizza. Cause I think he likes pizza.
Well ain't that special. There he goes. There he goes. A bottle of 50% blood in one hand and a pizza
in the other hand. There he goes in his Popemobile
and they say he's the head of the church. He's God's voice
on earth. Oh no, no, no. Christ is the
only Savior, the only Potentate, the only High Priest, the only
Substitute, the only Redeemer. He's precious. And that's why
you have this vital, vital necessity of coming. To whom coming? He that hath the Son hath life. Oh, I like that, John. I like
that. Not he that has the degree. Not
he that learns all mysteries. Not he that knows all the points.
He that hath the Son hath life. He that believeth on the Son
hath life, and that life will never end. Never end. And he that believeth not the
Son, well, he'll be okay. Doesn't really matter. He's a
good man. He's a moral man. No, he that hath not the Son,
even though all those things may be true, he's a Baptist. He that hath not the Son shall
not see life, But the wrath of God abideth on him. Again, I say, the most important
thing is to whom coming the word, whom. Peter, the writer of this
epistle, saw this firsthand, didn't he? We'll not turn there.
You're very familiar with it. But in John chapter 6, that multitude
that experienced, that saw, that ate the bread and the fish that
he multiplied. They saw that they were, they
experienced that miracle. He left them. They got hungry
again so they followed him. They find him on the other side
of the sea and he said, you've not really come to me. You can't
come to me unless the Father would send me. I'm the real bread
that came down from heaven. Eat this. Come to me. You'll never die. And they said,
we'll not have this. And that whole multitude turned
and walked away. Can you see them? Can you see
them? Can you picture that? Men and women turning their back
on the Son of God. The only Savior. God in flesh. They turned their back on Him.
And as they're walking off, he looks at the apostles and says,
do you want to join them? Do you also want to go away?
And Peter, oh, Peter said, Lord, where shall we go? Where shall we go? You're the only one that has
the words of eternal life. We're convinced, we're sure that
you're the Messiah. Where else are we going to go?
No wonder our Lord said to him in another place, you're a blessed
man, Peter, my father's done something for you. Where shall
we go? Isn't it sad that sinners are
told in answer to that question, where shall we go? Go to church?
Doesn't matter where you go, just a church. You need to be
in church. They might be telling lies on
God, but that's OK. Go somewhere. Go to church. Go to the preacher. Then go to
the altar. And then go get baptized. To whom? Whom coming? Whom coming? Not what whom? Wednesday. A lady called me from
Indiana. I don't know that I've ever spoken
to a more distraught soul in my life. Told me who she was, said, I've
been listening to your messages on Free Grace and a lot of others. She says, I listen from the time
I wake up to the time I go to bed. She said, I'm dying. I'm
dying. Weeping the whole time. She said,
I'm 66 years old and I'm dying. Over the course of my life, three
times I made a profession of faith. Three times I was baptized. And I've read the scripture,
and I went to the last church where I was baptized, and I told
my pastor, I don't think I know Christ. I don't think I'm saved. I don't think I've really ever
exercised true faith." And he said, oh yeah, you have. You're okay. And she said, now Larry, I'm
dying and I think, I'm afraid I'm going to hell. She was told all of her life,
go, go, go, go here, go there, go here. And I told her, stop going, stop
going, stop doing, and come. The Lord doesn't say, go. He
says, come. Come unto me. Come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's
what our text says. To whom? Coming. Coming. Weary, working, plotting one,
an old hymn expressed it. Why toil you so? Cease your doing. All was done long, long ago.
Cast your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in
Him, in Him alone. Gloriously complete. Gloriously complete. Lacking nothing. standing before
God Almighty, perfect, unto whom coming. Don't go. Folks say go learn
doctrine. You ever feel, I have, you ever
feel when reading certain doctors of divinity or listening to them,
that you needed to go get a dictionary to understand half of what they
were saying? I have. Man, that's disturbing. That's
disturbing. I mean, you feel like if what
this guy is saying is so, I'm too dumb to be saved. I'm going
to have to go to college before I can be saved. No, because I
don't understand. I don't even know half the words
that guy's using. Feel like that little hamster
my daughter had when she was young. Getting that little wheel
and just... and never go anywhere. Just wear his self out, round
and round, and never go anywhere. That's what religion does to
poor sinners. Donnie Bell said this concerning
being in Christ and Christ being all. He said, Christ said, come
unto me. And in coming to Him, you'll
have all that is in Him, and you'll spend the rest of your
life learning about all you have in Him. That's right. That's right. I
have never come to the place Like a lot of these fellas have
that say, I have arrived. I know it all. I've learned it
all. I understand it all. No, no, no. It's still a marvel. It's still a wonder. A wonder,
and God helped me never to get over that. I love how our Redeemer
preached to sinners. The greatest preacher in the
world. Really, the only preacher in the world. He's the only one
that can make what I say effectual. But he didn't talk to sinners
the way preachers do, the way many of them do. He said, is anybody thirsty? He stood and spread his arms
out wide and said, is anybody thirsty? He'd watch them for
days go through their religious tradition and he said, is anybody
thirsty? I'm the water of life. Don't
need a dictionary to understand that. I'm the water of life. Come and drink. Take the water
of life freely. Is anybody hungry? Is anybody
hungry? I'm the bread that came down
from heaven. Does anybody really want to know
God? I'm the way. I'm the way to God. You can't come to the Father
but by me. Hebrews chapter 4 we read, are exhorted to stop laboring except to enter into his rest. You won't find rest laboring
in religion. Oh, but to enter into his rest,
the sweet rest that he gives, the rest that the hymn writer
wrote about. It's so sweet, isn't it? Louie,
isn't it? When you lie down tonight, Isn't
it sweet, before you doze off, to be humming something to yourself
like this? It is so sweet to trust in Jesus. Just to take Him at His word,
oh, it's so sweet! Just to rest upon the promise,
just to know, thus saith the Lord. Sometimes, when I'm traveling,
when I'm driving a long distance, And you know, the interstate,
you've seen one, you've seen them all, Don. They all look
alike. Boring, boring. And that car
seat begins to feel like I'm sitting on two or three cinder
blocks. I think, man, I need, and I'm
bad about, well, I need to get to where I'm going, I'm not going
to stop. No, man, I've got to stop. Gotta
get out of this car first, and then finally there's a sign.
Rest stop! Rest stop! Yeah, I turn on my
signal light, I'm going there. Listen, listen. The Son of God,
sinners, brothers and sisters in Christ, listen, the Son of
God says, rest stop! Rest stop! Stop your doing. Stop your running. Stop all that.
Come to me. I'm your rest stop. Come to me
and I'll give you rest and you can stop all that other stuff.
Rest in me. To whom? Coming. Let me wrap
this up. And I trust and I'm sure you,
I hope that you know, you know, that this coming is not something
done with your feet. That hymn we sang? Just as I
am. Did you think of that? People
moving their feet. That's how it's abused most of
the time. If I'm not mistaken, the lady who wrote that song,
Charlotte, somebody or other. But if I'm not mistaken, I remember
reading years ago that she wrote that song for folks she knew
that were hospitalized with various things. Most of them couldn't
walk anyway. didn't need to. It is the Spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, profiteth nothing. Sinners are saved by coming to
Him. To whom? Like the thief on the
cross, God saves most of His elect much earlier in life than
He did the thief, but still they're saved the same way as He was. Christ reveals their need of
Him and then reveals that Christ is all they need. Is that not
so? May we now, may we now come to
Him again. May He enable us by His grace
to come to Him again remembering Him as we observe the Lord's
Supper. Let me read two verses and I'll
be done. You're not redeemed with silver
and gold, verse 18 of chapter 1, but with the precious blood
of Christ, verse 19, as of a land without blemish and without spot. That's the only thing that's
made me the devil. That's the only reason. That's the only reason that I'm
not going to hell. We're already there. He laid
down his life for this sinner. Another old hymn, and I'll close
with this. I need thee, precious Jesus,
for I am full of sin. My soul is dark and gloomy, my
heart is dead within. I need the cleansing fountain
where I can always flee. To whom coming? The blood of
Christ most precious, the sinner's perfect plea. God bless you. God bless Egypt.