If you would turn with me to
1 Peter chapter 2, and when you find it, just hold your place
there for a moment. By God's grace, I've come to
Christ. It's the only reason that I've
come. It's by His saving, effectual, drawing grace. No man can come
to me except the Father which sent me to draw him. And yet
I proclaim to you this morning that I'm still coming to Him.
It's a daily thing. Some of you, by the grace of
God, have come to Christ and you're still coming. you're still
coming to Christ. I would have you look at the
first three words found in verse 4 of 1 Peter chapter 2, to whom
coming. I want to for just a little while
this morning consider those three words, to whom coming. Almost
30 years ago, God in His merciful grace gave me the faith to come
to Christ. God gave it to me. I didn't earn
it. I didn't muster it up. There
was nothing within me that developed this grace. It was a gift of
God. You're saved by grace through faith, and that's not of yourself.
It's a gift of God. not by works lest any man should
boast. And though He saved me and forgave
me all my sin and gave me His perfect righteousness, I'm still
every day coming to Him." Salvation is coming to Christ and Christ
alone. We say that all the time. I think God has given us a good
understanding of that. Salvation is not coming to church.
It's not coming down to the front of church. It's not coming to
water and baptism. It's coming to Christ. How do
we come to Christ? How do we come to Christ? Well,
we come to Christ by first God enabling us to lay aside all
works of self-righteousness and worship of will. The apostle
talks about will-worship. And that's what we have a lot
today in religion. Men exercising their will somehow,
some way, in order to be saved or to win God's favor. That's
not how it's done. God saves whom He wills, has
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and has compassion on whom He
will have compassion. It's totally His discretion,
and there's nothing that you, I, or anyone can do to merit
that. It's a gift. It's a free gift. The sooner we see that, the clearer
we'll see the beauty of the gospel. Salvation's coming to Christ.
How do we come to Christ? Well, we lay aside all these
works of so-called righteousness that we think we do, and we wholly
lean on God's beloved Son. That's what you say every week.
Thank you. Thank you. We trust alone He
who substituted Himself in our place, taking our sin, burying
all of God's wrath that was due to you and I, the offending sinner. Christ took it in our place.
The innocent was condemned, crucified, put to death, and you and I,
like old Barabbas, were set free. Barabbas was a criminal. He was
a murderer. He deserved God's wrath. He deserved
to be hung upon the cross. But they came down into that
dungeon and they said, Barabbas, I'm just sure he's thinking,
time's up. It's time to go. I'm about to die. And they said,
You're set free. The Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus
of Nazareth, they called him. They didn't know him as the Lord
of Glory. He's dying in your place. Boy, what a picture Barabbas
is of you and I. What a picture he is of you and
I. He bared all God's wrath, which you and I deserve. And
I don't know, I think so often about the children of Israel
as they were in the wilderness and they were bitten by those
fiery serpents. There they lay dying as the poison
permeated their bodies. Well, the poison of the fiery
serpent sure represents sin and how it permeates our bodies.
There I lay, death awaited, been bitten by that fiery serpent
of sin. And you know what? I heard a
voice. I heard a voice echo through the valley of this chattel of
death that cried, look and live, look and live. God enabled me
to look. And friends, if you look, God
enabled you to look. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't
move. I couldn't do anything but look. And when I did, I lived. And it's the same with you. Notice
that blessed word found in these three simple words, to whom,
coming. How I love that little pronoun,
whom. Oh my, how vital that is. How blessed is that little word,
whom. I look to Him in whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace, Ephesians 1 said. I look to Him in whom
also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated, predetermined,
ordained of God according to the purpose of Him who worketh
what? All things after the counsel
of His own will, Ephesians 111. That's who I look to. That's
to whom I look to. I look to Him in whom ye have
trusted after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, and whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 1.13. I look to Him
in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians
2.13. I look to Him whom God has set
forth to be a propitiation. That simply means a payment.
Propitiation is a payment of sin through faith in His blood
to declare His righteousness, friends. It's His righteousness
we declare, not our own we have none for the remission of sins
that are passed through the forbearance of God Romans 3 25 and it was
Christ to whom I looked for the scriptures clearly proclaimed
and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness that day as
those people were dying bitten by those fiery serpents you know
the story Moses made a serpent of brass and he held it upon
the pole and he said look and live and And the Scriptures say,
even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must,
must the Son of Man be lifted up. Just as that serpent of brass
was lifted up in the wilderness, my Lord and Savior was also lifted
up on a pole, the cross. And I looked and I saw Him dying
there in my place. Now if you would, you can hold
your place here in Peter. We'll come back to it a little
later. But turn with me to the Gospel
of John chapter 12. I want you to see what the verse
here is. Very important. John 12 verse 32. Our Lord here
is speaking about being lifted up. And in verse 32 he says,
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me. Now notice again that word men
is italicized. That means that it was not in
the original language as we've discussed many times. It was
added to make the passage read, I don't know if better is the
right word, but easier. It wasn't in the original translation. So really that should be read,
if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all unto me. Now, does
Christ draw all the world unto himself? Absolutely not. And in this, men, I often make
the accusation against God, well, He's not fair. That's not right.
That's profiling. That's distinguishing. That's
making a difference. That's what God does. and only
He has the right and prerogative to do that. If Christ died for
all, let me tell you, all are going to be saved. And if that's
the case, there's no need for a hell. You might as well just
fill it up with concrete if you can. There's no need for hell
if all are going to be saved. To believe that Christ died for
all men is absolutely contrary to Scripture. For if Christ died
for all and some are lost because they rejected or refused to exercise
their will to believe, then man is in control. Instead of God
our Lord said in John 6 37 all all that the father giveth me
Shall come to me. I don't want to be lost if God
chose Elected and called you you'll come you'll come to Christ
and you'll have life and none can be lost unless for whom the
Father gave to Christ. None can resist His effectual
call or His will. Absolutely not. If you can reject
and refuse His effectual call, then you're more powerful than
He is. So we deduct from that that not all are called. Now,
if you're in John 12 still, turn back a few pages to John 10.
Again, the words of our Lord in verse 28. He says, And I give
unto them eternal life. Who's the them there? Those that
He called. Those that He chose. Those that
He elected. Those that are His. All those
that the Father gave to Christ. That's who He's talking about.
I thought God so loved the world. Then why did our Lord say, I
pray not for the world, but for those that thou hast given Me. Notice these words, And I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, here's our comfort,
here's our confidence. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. He's greater than all. And no
man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. You pluck
something out of God's hand, you're God. You're the one we
need to worship. But you can't do it. No man,
no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. Now
listen, when it comes to salvation, the question is not what saved
us. The question is who saved us. To whom coming, Peter says. To whom coming. Some may ask,
well, what's the best way for me to get this precious faith
that I hear so much about? Mr. Spurgeon once gave an illustration
that I think very well answers that question. He said, imagine
that there's a man who's hungry, hasn't eaten in quite a while,
and he's standing at a table before him that's well spread
with delicious food. I mean, we're talking, we call
that a spread in the South, don't we? I mean, just from one end
of the table to the next. Food, much like we have on our
fellowship lunches. Some people say, get in line,
Bud. I say, no, I'm just looking. It's up and down that table,
man. What am I gonna pick? Well, I want all of it. Spread,
it's a spread. And there's a man who's standing
at the table, which is well spread with delicious food. He looks
at all the food, and then he asks someone who stands at the
table, he goes, tell me, what is the best way to eat? Well,
that's ridiculous, isn't it? What's the philosophy of eating?
What must I do to eat? You see where I'm going with
this? What must I do to be saved? What's the philosophy of faith?
What's the philosophy of believing? Tell me what is the best way
to eat? What's the best way to be saved?
Well, the best answer to any of those questions, and the only
one that this uneducated man could give, would be simply,
eat. Eat. Sit down, fill up your plate,
and eat. When people say, what is the
best way to get faith? The best and only answer is believe. Believe. But what's the best
way to believe? There's no other way. Believe.
No other answer can be given. Now, I'm going to say more about
that in a moment. Oh, I think back maybe at Christmas
now when my granddaughter started eating solid food. Most of you
that have had young children know this. Her mother did not
endeavor to teach her how to eat. She was less than a year
old. She couldn't talk. She couldn't communicate. She
didn't understand any kind of words of instruction except maybe
no. And that's maybe because she
got her hands slapped and associated no with that. My daughter simply
put the food on her little spoon and held it out to her and she
opened her mouth and ate it. There wasn't any instructions.
She simply ain't. Now here's what I was going to
say a moment ago. I understand that no man, no woman can truly
believe or have faith in Christ until God does a work of grace
in the heart. To tell a dead man to believe
is like telling a dead man to run a marathon. He can't do it
unless God gives him life. So, you would not desire faith
if God's work had not already been wrought in you. We're talking
about a work of grace that's already been done. If a man or
a woman desires Christ, desires to know Him, desires to be saved,
then I can assure you this, that God's already done a work. None
would desire faith if God's work had not already been done. And
if you desire to come to Christ, then believe on Him. Trust in
Him. Trust in Him alone to put away
your sin by the sacrifice of Himself. What did our Lord say
at the Lord's table? He said, take Eat. This is my
body which was broken for you. Take. Eat. Don't make it harder
than it is. Believe. I remember a particular
man had such good intentions. He used to tell me before I was
converted, because I was one of those types that just, I didn't
make any bones about it. No, I don't believe that. I don't
really want to hear nothing about it. You know, people come up
and try to witness to you. Not interested. But he'd always
say, well, pray for faith. You know what I've come to learn?
How can you truly pray without faith? You've got to have faith
to truly pray, don't you? Our Master, when He returned
to glory, He instructed all that were there that day to go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. What
was that gospel? What was that gospel? Well, His
own words were, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
And we cannot say anything clearer than that. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Profess Him publicly in baptism,
you shall be saved. Now, to elaborate on that, because
first of all, I don't want you to put any trust whatsoever in
baptism and salvation. I'd like to read you the words
from an article written by our friend Paul Mahan. Actually,
it's in his bulletin today. I get it by email. I got it yesterday,
but it went right along with this just perfectly. And I really
thank the Lord for sending it, because he answered this much
better than I could. But he wrote this. He said, Christ
meant what He said, and He said what He meant. Did your mother
ever tell you that? Well, mine did. I say what I
mean, and I mean what I say. In other words, you better straight
up, boy, and fly right. But Christ meant what He said,
and He said what He meant. That's the way God does things.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. I am so thankful
that the Lord said that. He didn't say, He that doeth,
or He that feeleth. He said, He that believeth. Now listen, do you believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe who He is? Do
you believe what He said? Do you believe what He did? He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Now, here's the thing about baptism. If you can be baptized and will
not, you cannot be saved. What? What about the thief on
the cross? He couldn't be. Let me tell you something. That
eunuch that was traveling along the road and the disciple jumped
up and he said, what are you reading? Well, I'm reading this,
but I don't understand unless I have some man to show me."
And he showed him Christ and the Scriptures. And he said,
what? Prohibit me from being baptized? Let's start looking
for water right now. He could and he was. Now what
is so relevant about this? is that we're not trying to make
salvation to depend on baptism. But I'm simply telling you what
the Lord said. If you can be baptized and you
will not, you must not believe Him. Because He said, He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. You must not love Him
if you're not willing to be obedient to His Word. You must not love
his gospel. You must be ashamed of him. And
the gospel or else you would publicly confess him. And that's
why I've been so encouraged lately by those that have come forward.
Several have made professions of faith and already been baptized.
But they were baptized under a false gospel. They heard the
truth and they said, I won't be baptized. I've heard the truth. I know what it means now. I was
pressured last time. You know, the man just pressured
and pressured and pressured and sung and sung and sung and begged
and begged and begged until I came down and said, okay, I sacrificed
myself. Put me in the water and let's
get on with that. But let me tell you something,
if you see Christ and His beauty and you fall in love with Him,
you're going to want to be obedient to His Word. And He said, believe
and be baptized. You'll want to publicly profess
Him. In front of everybody. Well, you're not ashamed of him? No, no. If you believe the Lord,
you must do what he said. And not out of duty, but out
of love. Okay, so enough said about that.
I say amen to those words. If you love Christ, you'll come
and you'll keep coming every day of your life until the end.
Those that endure until the end shall be saved. How many of you
know someone who gave good evidence that they loved and believed
the gospel that no longer follows? I know several. I know several.
Would have swore that they knew the Lord, and where are they
now? No interest whatsoever. To whom coming? To whom coming? We must come to a person. That
person is the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And these words
definitely imply that as believers, we're always coming. We're continually
coming to Christ. We can't put our trust and faith
of times past. We come today. We come tomorrow. We come for the rest of our earthly
lives. We come to Him daily. Christ
is like a refreshing, cool well near a cottager's house. The
man goes to the well, he lets down the bucket, and he draws
up a cool, refreshing drink. But he must go again tomorrow
and draw that water. Maybe even yet tonight. And he'll
always go to the same place. He'll go to where that cool,
refreshing water is. Is that not Christ? It is to
the believer. Christ is that river that flows
from God above. Christ is the fountain that's
filled with His great love. Come to this water. There is
a vast supply for Christ is a river that never shall run dry. This is the daily, the hourly
life of the child of God. But each time we come, we come
hopefully with a little more boldness. At first we came as
slaves. Now we come as free men and women.
First we came as strangers, now we come as brethren, brothers
and sisters with Him. We still come to the cross, but
it's not so much now to find pardon for past sins, for they're
forgiven. We come now and find fresh comfort
from looking up to Him who worked out perfect righteousness for
us. We come also to Christ more closely than we used to. The
more that we know of Him, the more that we're acquainted with
Him, the more intimately we become with Him, the closer we are to
Him. And I hope, brothers and sisters,
that you can say that you're not as far from Christ now as
you once were. I know spiritually speaking you
can't get any closer because you are in Him and He's in you. But I'm talking about that daily
walk. I pray that you are closer now than you once were. We ought
to be getting ever nearer and closer to Him. That's why I love
that old hymn, Draw Me Nearer, Bless the Lord. Draw me nearer,
nearer, nearer to Thee. We ought to always be getting
nearer, closer to Him each time we come. And our coming is sweeter,
and there's more love for Him. He's proved Himself to us time
and time again. Has He not? Well, we come and
we keep coming to the same one, but we always come the same way.
We come humbly as poor and needy sinners. We come with our heads
bowed, beating upon our chest, crying, Lord, be merciful to
me, a sinner. Just like that publican that
went up to the temple to pray. Yeah, we come to our blessed
Savior and we keep coming and we never change in the way we
come. God will not allow, now listen, God will not allow His
people to wear filthy rags, which they've sewed together. In our
study in Genesis on Wednesday night, Adam and Eve, when they
sinned, their eyes were open, they saw they were naked, and
what did they do? They sewed some fig leaves together to cover
themselves. That won't get it done. Blood
had to be shed. And God clothed them with the
skins of animals. What a picture that is of Christ.
We have His perfect righteousness because His blood was shed for
us. Aren't you glad? Oh, we declare
His righteousness. There's no righteousness by any
other that we are to speak of. When I come to Christ day in
and day out, I thank Him for His perfect righteousness that
He freely gave to me. Oh, the unbelieving, they cover
themselves with pride, hopeless morality, false integrity, works
of righteousness, big leaves. It's all these big leaves. But
they don't see the large tears and the big holes in their covering
which expose their putrefying sores which have not been bound
up. We've come to Christ and keep
coming for we're in constant need of His care. We're in constant
need of His direction. We're in constant need of His
instruction. And when coming to Him over and
over again, we wrap ourselves up again and again in His righteousness. And there's no angel, no angel
that is arrayed as royally as the believing sinner. The end
of this physical life is coming fast. We shall soon, much sooner
than some of you young folks understand, will leave this mortal
frame called the body. I hope you've learned to think
of that without any kind of fear. Paul said, die is gain. It's
gain. It's a promotion. And I know how we all are by
nature. None of us can honestly admit
we look forward to dying. We don't. But to die is gain. It's a promotion. It's to be
with Him. When we shall see Him, we shall
be like Him. Glorified. No more sin, outward
sin. We'll have no sin now before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ, but then no sin. Everything I
do is mixed with sin. Okay, the final hour of death
will be to His people a coming to Christ beyond our imagination. I want you to turn with me in
closing to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. I read this and I just was amazed. Look at verse 21. Revelation 3.21 says, To him
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.
Even as I have overcame and sat down with my Father in His throne,
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto
the churches, unto God's people. Would be happy sitting at His
feet. But He says here that if I overcome,
and you know how we overcome? We come to Christ, we come to
Christ, we come to Christ. Day in and day out, we come to
Christ. That's how we overcome. We endure to the end by coming
to Christ. And to him that overcometh, I'll
grant to sit with me in my throne. Man, I remember when I was young,
I used to love it when I could sit up in my dad's big easy chair
with him. Can you imagine what it'd be
like to sit in the Lord Jesus Christ's throne with him? To
whom coming? To whom coming?