Good morning. I can't begin to
tell you how thankful, how blessed I am to be here. One of the amazing
things about this conference is how quick it got here from
the last. They say time doesn't go by faster, but I know it does
when you get older. But I'm glad to be here. I consider
this a great honor. I love the pastor of this church
and his wife, Shelby, and thank God for them. Thank God for all
the members of this church and these conferences that you host
and all the labor that goes in and preparing these conferences
and during these conferences and after these conferences.
I thank God for you. Last night was just special,
wasn't it? Just special. Heard two wonderful gospel messages
that stirred my heart. And I pray that God will bless
us as we continue to worship Him throughout this conference. I was honored to be with the
saints over in Madisonville last Tuesday and Wednesday. I had
a good dinner with Pastor David Edmondson and his wife Teresa.
They said, be sure and give you their love and their greetings.
They wanted to be here, but circumstances wouldn't allow it, but their
heart is here. So I wanted to share that with you. that they
do send their love and their greetings. And many of our folks
from back in Rescue California who have been here have said,
please convey our love to the Saints and to Don and Shelby
as well. Well, one of the trademarks of Pastor Tim Bell, Tim James. I am so sorry. You all know he was a member
of our church. But anyway, that name flashed
through my mind, and for that I'm sorry. One of the trademarks of Pastor
Tim James when he approaches the pulpit is he takes his coat
off. One of my new trademarks is to put my glasses on. So I want to draw your attention
to a passage of scripture in Luke chapter 24. The Holy Spirit
is the third person of the blessed triune God, equal with God the
Father and God the Son, and many self-righteous false religionists
who claim to be Christians deny this God honoring truth. They
say the Holy Spirit is just a force. Let me take time to apologize.
I'm not contagious. Ever since my hip surgery last
March, I've had a raspy sound in my throat. I had a visit with
my primary physician about three weeks ago and was telling him
I'm concerned that it hasn't gone away. I've heard that this
is normal after surgery, but since March, he said, oh, let
me check. I prescribed a blood pressure
medicine for you. That's one of the side effects.
Well, I haven't taken that blood pressure medicine for three weeks
and it's still affecting me. So I don't know if he's right
or not, but I apologize. Anyway, those people who deny
that the Holy Spirit is not God, they're not Christians. They're
not followers of Jesus Christ. You can grieve the Holy Spirit.
You can't grieve a force. Our Lord Jesus referred to the
Holy Spirit as a person in many places. In John 16, verse 13,
our Lord said, Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come,
He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself,
but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show
you things to come. He shall glorify Me, Jesus Christ. For He shall receive of Mine
and shall show it unto you all things that the Father hath of
Mine. Therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and shall
show it unto you." The Holy Spirit is a person. But He doesn't speak
of Himself. He speaks of Jesus Christ our
Lord. That's our message. That's our
desire. to preach Jesus Christ. But it's
the Holy Spirit that takes the things of Jesus Christ and reveals
them to God's elect. That's His ministry. All things
belong to Jesus Christ. He said so. And the Holy Spirit
takes those things and enlightens the minds of God's elect to those
wonderful truths. Well, the title of my message
this morning is, Things Concerning Jesus Christ. All of Adam's posterity
have this one thing in common. We all need Christ. Amen? But
only God's enlightened children know that we have that need. The rest of the world is looking
elsewhere. We look to Christ. And here in Luke chapter 24,
two of our Lord's disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus,
and they were sad. Their countenance had fallen.
They were in a sorrowful condition. Why is that? Because they were
looking to the things of this world. That's why. Their hope,
at least part of their hope, had been shattered when Jesus
Christ was crucified. They thought He was going to
set up a political kingdom where they could lord it over the Gentiles.
Even though our Lord Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world.
They were looking for Him to sit on a literal throne there
in a temple made with hands in Jerusalem. And our God does not
dwell in temples made with hands. So, their minds were filled with
sorrow because they had set their affection on things of this world.
Well, look at Luke chapter 24. starting at verse 25 down through
verse 27. We read, Then He, that is our
Lord Jesus, said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them and all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself. And that's where I got the title
for this morning's message, The Things Concerning Jesus Christ. Our Lord preached Himself. And
that was His message. Moses wrote the first five books
of the Bible, taken from those scriptures that our Lord moved
Moses to write. And in all the other prophets,
He expounded to those two on the road to Emmaus all the things
concerning Himself. You know what happened? They
got glad. Their hearts burned within them.
Because He opened unto them the Scriptures. Can you identify
with that? Boy, I can. My heart just burned
within me last night. And it does every time I hear
the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ and His finished work for His
people. So let me take the time to share some things in your
hearing concerning Christ. First of all, let me bring before
you what we heard in both messages last night. Jesus Christ is our
Creator. Now all these distinctive terms
identifying Christ end with an R, so they'll maybe be easier
to remember. First of all, Jesus Christ is
our Creator. He created everything. by the
word of His mouth. Faith believes that. We read
that in Hebrews chapter 11. And you know what? When He created
everything, He didn't ask anybody's permission. Where was I when
He did that? Where were you? I'll tell you
where we were. We were in His mind. You know,
on His heart. But He created everything as
it pleased Him. More than that, He created everything
as he purposed it. And he didn't have to change
anything. What he thought in his mind is
what came forth. As God thinks, it just comes
to pass. He thought, oh me, that just
blesses my heart. He thought, oh me, with loving
kindness. He thought, oh me, before the
world began. He loves me. He loves all of
His elect with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness, He draws us unto Himself. He not only created everything
we see in creation. He created us. It is God who
has made us and not we ourselves. We are His sheep. We are His
people and the sheep of His pasture. He didn't ask our permission,
did He? He formed me in my mother's womb just like it pleased Him
to do so. My mama thought she named me
Gene. I was God's God's purpose. She named me after Gene Autry. I don't know if she loved him
or not, but she liked him well enough to name me after him.
My daddy liked Roy Rogers, but she won out by giving me my dad's
first name. I won't tell you what it is,
but it starts with a W and ends in an R. Walter, I will tell
you. And that's a good name, but it
doesn't fit me. But God created me just as it pleased Him. Not only my physical life, but
my spiritual life. We're a brand new creation if
we're in Christ Jesus. And God is on His sovereign throne
of power, working all things after the counsel of His own
will. And He doesn't ask anybody's permission to create His children
anew. Those He not only chose in Christ,
but purchased with His own precious blood. Secondly, Jesus Christ
is the ordainer. In other words, all things were
purposed by Him before this world ever began. He ordained it all.
I'm not denying the Father or the Holy Spirit. I'm just telling
you there's only one God. And in Christ Jesus dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And He purposed us. He ordained
us. before time ever began to be
recipients of His sovereign, amazing grace. I know that's
true. We read this in the Holy Scriptures. God saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. And we read this also, as many
as were ordained to eternal life believed, God chose us in Christ. He ordained us. He purposed it. We're His chosen blood-bought
children. We have every reason to give
Him all the glory because we contributed nothing to that.
Now, Jesus Christ is also the descender. Scripture says, now
that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first
into the lower parts of the earth. Brethren, God Himself came down
from heaven and mantled Himself with a human body. bone of our
bone, flesh of our flesh. God walked on this earth in the
person of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior. There's no arguing
that with me. There's no arguing that with
any of God's children. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
We heard this last night. That is just an awesome truth
that should captivate our attention and keep us in perpetual awe
that God himself would walk on this earth in the human body.
John Gill said, consider the humility of Christ our Savior
in lying for nine months in a body He Himself created. That's too
deep for my peanut brain, but I know what he meant. That's
amazing that our God would come to this earth, become a man,
and walk amongst sinners. Why did He do that? Why did he
do that? Because he purposed to do it,
first of all. That was part of his plan. But
secondly, this was needful for us. We had to have a Savior. Let me share something with you.
I'm going to take the time to do this. Years ago, a man that stood
in our pulpit. I'm not going to give you his
name. You don't need to know his name. Don will know who I'm talking
about. But he got in touch with me, and the Bible says beware
of flattering lips. He just really tried to build
me up through email. We were, and I don't know anything
about computers, but I learned how to send out an email note.
But anyway, he did this for a few notes, exchanging. Then he said,
I know you have a good relationship with non-former, so I hesitate
to tell you this. That's what he was building up
to. He said Don Fortner does not even believe that Christ
had to go to the cross to save his people. He heard Don Fortner talk about
eternal justification and he didn't believe that. I wrote
back to him and said, the word of God tells us that Jesus Christ
is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. You know what his
reply was to that? His reply was, I believe that's
when Abel offered an offering to that little lamb, typified
Jesus. I never heard that before. He
denies the eternal justification of God. I told him, Dom Fortner
does not teach that Jesus Christ did not have to go to the cross,
but he teaches that in the purpose and mind of God, this was all
a done deal before he created anything. This was part of God's
plan, part of God's purpose. But when he told me, this man
doesn't even believe that Jesus Christ had to go to the cross,
I just sat down and highlighted four or five articles by, or
excerpts from articles by Pastor Don. He doesn't like too many
short articles, but anyways. I wrote back to him and said,
I've heard that man preach. I read anything I can get by
him. That's not true. I didn't call
him a liar. I did. But I said the same thing. I
said, that's not true. He did too. I said, that's not
true. And I sent those excerpts to
him, and he said nothing. I never heard from him since.
And if I ever do, it'll be too soon. Fourthly, Jesus Christ is the
Fulfiller. He's not only the Descender,
He's a Fulfiller. He fulfilled everything that
was purposed by Him before time began. He fulfilled all the writings
of the Old Testament prophets. He fulfilled the whole law of
Moses, honoring it perfectly. Nothing was left undone, brethren. I was telling my wife on the
way to church this morning, there was a voice that came from heaven
saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear
ye Him. I said, this is my wife, just this morning, one of the
reasons that Jesus Christ pleased God the Father is God always
does that which pleases Him. That's true. But He pleased our
Heavenly Father in every step He took, every thought He had,
every word He spoke, every deed He performed, and the motive
for all of these things. It pleased God the Father that
our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all of that which He sent Him
to do. He came to do His Father's will.
And God cannot fail. And He fulfilled all of that
which our Heavenly Father sent Him to do. He fulfilled all righteousness,
establishing a perfect righteousness for all of His people. Aren't
you thankful? Why should we look anywhere else? We have it all
in Christ. If we have Him, we have it all.
We have a righteousness that makes us as holy as God Himself. That boggles my mind too. I know
that's not my state, that's my standing. God does not see any
sin. in His chosen people, because
Jesus Christ is the Savior of His people. He is their Redeemer,
their Propitiator, their Sacrifier, and their Perfector. And I put
all of those descriptive terms into one category, because they
all belong in one category. Jesus Christ did not try to save
His people. He saved us. Amen? He saved us. These free will Armenian idiots,
they don't believe that. I use that term loosely. I was
right there with them. I know. But they don't believe
Jesus Christ saved them. They believe they saved themselves.
He did all He could. The rest is up to you. What kind
of blasphemy is that? That is nothing but gross blasphemy. He saved His people. Jesus Christ
didn't try to redeem His people. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. Obtained His past tense. We read
that in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 12. He obtained eternal
redemption for His people. All our iniquities were laid
on Him. All of them. As we heard last night, and it
just blessed me to tears again. Our wonderful God who became
a man was made sin for me. Made sin for us. That we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. When He hung there
on that cross, my sins were laid upon Him. And God poured out
His wrath on His own darling Son because He was made sin. God has to punish sin. Either
in our substitute or in ourselves. I'm thankful I have a substitute.
I'm thankful that my sins were laid on Him. And this is wonderful
every time I hear it. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely
give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that has justified
his people. Through the finished work of
Jesus Christ, nothing can be laid to our charge. God does
not see any sin in His people because Jesus Christ did not
try to propitiate our sins. He expiated them. He got rid
of them. He by Himself purged our sins
from God's sight forever. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. That's a big word. Propitiation
means sin atoning sacrifice. God's holy justice was satisfied
when He poured out His wrath on His Son. When our Lord Jesus
uttered, It is finished. The work of redemption was done. Done. Completed. Finished. And our Savior gets all the glory
because He did it all. Jesus Christ did not try to sanctify
His chosen people. We read in Hebrews chapter 10,
where He came to do His Father's will, by which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for
all. He didn't try to perfect us, He perfected us. Down in
verse 14 of that same chapter, by that same offering, He perfected
us forever. That's good news for a sinner.
Now, Jesus Christ is also the ascender. The grave couldn't
hold Him. The one who suffered and bled
and died for his chosen people has come out of the grave. He
has ascended to glory. There, there to represent us. He went into heaven itself there
to appear in the presence of God for us. The scriptures tell
us, wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high he led captivity
captive and gave gifts unto men now that he ascended what is
it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of
the earth he that descended is the same also that ascended up
far above all heavens that he might fill or that is he might
fulfill all things that's in Ephesians chapter 4 Jesus Christ
has entered there in to glory, the God-man. He's there right
now, been there ever since He ascended to glory. And I heard
something last night that blesses me every time I hear it. He's
on His throne. He's on His throne. He not only
ascended to glory as our representative, as our federal head, as our great
high priest, He ascended to glory as Lord of all. He's on His throne. Which brings me to this next
descriptive term. He's the controller. The supreme
controller. The Greek word for Lord is Kyrios.
It means supreme controller. It means master. It means God,
Jesus Christ, the God-man. Is God over all. He's the sovereign
monarch ruling and reigning over this whole universe and everything
in it. He controls everything. Your
free willers say, well, he's trying. God never tried to do anything.
And those who claim that He's trying to get your attention,
they don't know the truth. He's going to get your attention
when it pleases Him to do so. Because He controls all things.
He's not standing here hoping you'll make a decision for Him.
Hoping you'll exercise your free will. He controls everything. So much so, that when we were
running from Him, when we hated Him, when we would shake our
fist in His face and say, I will not have this man to reign over
me. He was working all things for the eternal good of His people
and His eternal glory. And it's Jesus Christ. Folks,
listen. I'm not making this up. This
is the Bible. This is what the Word of God
says. He controlled our every move. So much so, that when it
pleased Him, He brought us under the preaching of His gospel.
His providential hand determined beforehand what was going to
be done, of course, but His providential hand brought us, using anything
that He wanted to use, under the preaching of His gospel.
And then, at His appointed time of love for all of His chosen
people, He speaks to each one of us personally. He called me
by my name. I didn't know that when I was
in that helpless, hopeless, ungodly condition that I was in. I love
that song we just heard. He set our feet on a solid rock,
put a new song in our heart. He even prays unto His name.
At His appointed time of love after bringing us into the preaching
of the gospel, He gave us a brand new heart and faith to believe
on Him, to embrace Him as our Lord, the supreme controller
of all things. I was sharing with the folks
over at Madisonville Wednesday night that not only is He in
control of everything in heaven, not only is He in control of
everything on this earth, but He's in control of everything
under this earth. Even the worms. There's worms, snakes, gophers,
groundhogs, there's a lot of things. Even hell might be in
the heart. I don't know where that is, but it seems like it
might be in the heart, way down in the middle of this, I don't
know. But he's in control of everything under this earth,
and that little worm that's wiggling its way through the dirt, It's
path was ordained by our Lord Jesus Christ as well as the path
that the planets are on orbiting around. Is that a word? Yes. Around the sun. He, Jesus Christ,
controls everywhere. He can control this worm. Aren't
you thankful? It's wonderful to know He's in
control of everything. And Jesus Christ is not only
the controller, He's the mediator. There's only one mediator between
God and men, and that's important that we read the scripture and
pay attention to every word and every letter. It does not say
that He's the mediator between God and man. Men, M-E-N, that
limits the number. He's the only mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Not Mary, we heard this last
night. Not Saint Jude, not Saint Thomas. It's our risen, exalted
Christ of God. who mediates between God and
men, His elect. Jesus Christ is the intercessor.
He's our great high priest, our heavenly advocate, our heavenly
lawyer, and He pleads our cause. He pleads our cause, and He's
the only one who can. And what a God we have presents
us before God Almighty in such a way that absolutely nothing
can relate to our charge, which brings us to this thought on
the subject of things concerning Jesus Christ. He's our guarantor,
our surety in other words, the surety of his people. Hebrews
7 verses 22 through 25 says, By so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament, a better covenant, and they truly were
many priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason
of death. But this man, Jesus Christ the
God-man, because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable priesthood,
wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them." Jesus Christ, and we heard this last night also,
back in old eternity, in the eternal covenant of grace, struck
hands with God the Father, God the Holy Spirit agreed to be
our surety. Can you imagine the hideous laugh
that would come from Satan and all the evil forces of darkness
if our Lord lost just one of those for whom he suffered and
bled and died for? It cannot happen. He's on the throne. He won't
allow it to happen. And He tells us in His Word it
won't happen. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
no wise cast out. We're not going to perish. We're
as sure of heaven as if we're already there. That's a term
I borrowed from Pastor Henry Mayhem. And we are there. We're seated in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Now consider this. Contrary to
popular belief, Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the Terminator. Jesus
Christ is the terminator. He sets up kings and when he's
through with them, he'll terminate them as it pleases him. That
goes also toward our president. I'm just praying that he'll hurry
up and do that. But anyway, he'll terminate them
when he's through with them. He allows men and women to build
up dynasties. He'll terminate them when he's
pleased to do so. Our God does what pleases our
God. He gives life to all flesh and
He terminates that life at His own appointed time. And by the
way, the Word of God even teaches that the instruments of death
are ordained by God Himself. And there's coming a day when
our Sovereign Lord will terminate all things, including time. What a glorious, wonderful, endless
day that's going to be for God's children, blood-bought children.
But that day will not come. No, that day cannot come until
that last sheep for whom Jesus Christ purchased with His own
precious blood is called out of darkness into His marvelous
light. And He's the one who does that. We don't know when that
day is going to come. It might come during this conference.
It might come during one of our worship services. When that last
sheep is called out, everything is going to burst into His marvelous
light. The heavens are going to be on
fire. Those things we see with the physical eye and those things
that we can't see, they're going to be on fire. They're going
to melt with the fervent heat. He's going to destroy the wicked
with the brightness of His God. He's terminating all things.
And when that last one for whom Christ died is called out of
darkness, He's coming back. All of us are preserved in Jesus
Christ. God Himself has preserved us.
This was Paul's prayer for the saints at Thessalonica. He said,
I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he
said this, Faithful is he that calls you who will also do it. And that's our God. Now let me
bring this to a close by saying this, and this certainly is not
an exhaustive list, of these things concerning Christ. There's
not enough paper. There's not enough pen. There's
not enough time. There's not enough space in this
whole world to write all the things concerning Jesus Christ.
The world couldn't contain it. But we have the privilege and
honor of not only preaching some of the things concerning Christ,
but also the privilege and honor of listening to those things
concerning Jesus Christ. This is our message. So let me
bring this to a close by leaving you with these thoughts. I ask
you this question, pointing to myself, where do I, where do
we fit into this equation of things concerning Jesus Christ? Well, God's children are receivers
and believers. These all end with an R too,
and I'll be brief. Those two descriptive terms go
together. You can't have one without the
other. If we believe on Christ, it's because we've received Christ.
If we've received Christ, we'll believe Christ. And a man can
receive nothing except it be given to him from above. As many
as received Him, to them He gave the power, the authority, the
right to become the sons of God, who were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. He has freely given us all things
pertaining to Jesus Christ. Like I said a while ago, if we
have Him, we have it all. We've received Him. We believe
Him. as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. This is all God's doings. God's
enlightened children are followers. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, they follow me. We want
to follow Him. I don't follow Him like I should.
I know that. It bothers me. It didn't before,
but it does now. God's preachers don't have to
coerce God's enlightened children to follow Jesus. They want to
follow Him. We just witnessed the baptism.
One of His enlightened saints obeyed the clear command of Jesus
Christ because he wanted to. We're followers. We want to assemble
with God's children. We want to be where the gospel
is preached. We're worshipers. We worship God in spirit and
in truth. We have folks come to our little church and rescue
from miles and miles and miles and miles away. Some drive for
over an hour to get to our place. And people ask them, well you
have plenty of churches between here and there, why do you go
way up there? One of their responses is those
sheep will go a long way to get a little clover. And there's
no churches that preach the truth between us and them. They want
to be where the gospel is preached. We're followers. We want to assemble
together on a regular basis. We want to come to the Lord's
table in remembrance of Him. We're followers. We follow Jesus
Christ and we give Him the glory for giving us a heart to want
to follow Him. God's enlightened children are perseverers. And
I'm not sure if that's a word or not, but if it isn't, it should
be. We persevere to the end by God's grace and His Spirit working
within us. We will not. We will not go back. Oh, we stumble. We get led astray. We're human. But God won't let
us stay in that situation of going astray. He's working on
us, both the will and to do of His good pleasure. And we persevere because of His
grace and His Spirit working in us. God's enlightened children
are sojourners, travelers. This world is not our home. We're
just passing through. We're on our way to glory. What
a day to look forward to. We're on our way to see our Maker,
our great High Priest, our Savior, our Sovereign Lord. We'll see
Him face to face in all of His glory. We have a member of our church
who's down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Her mother is dying.
Her mother's been to our church many, many times, visiting her
daughter. And she, Ella, told me personally, if I had a plane,
if I could fly, I'd be here every weekend. I said, if I had a plane,
if I could fly, I'd come and get you every weekend. I think
she heard something. But Judy and I went down to visit
Donna, a member of our church, and her mother, and Donna's sister,
had the privilege of talking with them, and praying with them. She died today after we left.
No, she didn't. Not that she's one of God's children.
Our Lord Jesus said, He that believeth on me shall never die.
Believest thou this? Those who go on before us, who
enter into glory at their appointed time of death, See our Savior
face to face in all of His glory. What a day to look forward to. That day when all the pain and
sorrow and the heartaches, all the troubles, all the things
that beset us, that old nature that we're still a part of is
done away with forever. We'll never have any more thoughts
that offend our God. No more sin in our life. Just perpetual, eternal bliss
in the presence of the One who loved us and gave Himself for
us. Now, I've brought before you
some things concerning Jesus Christ. I pray that our Lord
Jesus will take those things and apply them to your hearts
as only He can, giving us not only a desire to give Him all
the glory, but a desire to be patient and wait on that appointed
time of our death for the imminent return of our great God, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen.
Thank you. Thank you, Pastor.