If you would turn with me to
the Gospel of Luke chapter 19. I've chosen verse 10 as my text. And while you're turning, let
me again say to you that this morning my desire and my intended purpose if God grant
me the grace is the same as it is every time that I stand to
preach. I intend God willing and by the
grace of God to tell you the truth about God and about the
Lord Jesus Christ and about yourself. We call it the gospel. It's the
gospel because it's good news. I hear enough bad news throughout
the week. I need to hear good news. And
like the Apostle Paul, I know in my heart, woe unto me if I
don't preach the Gospel to you. I have nothing in myself to glory
in, but necessity, necessity is laid upon me. And I tell you,
friends, God Almighty laid it there. This morning I have a
message for sinners. I'm looking for sinners to give
good news to. So are you a sinner? Has God
shown you that? Has God shown you that you're
a sinner? If he has, then you're going to hear the best news you've
ever heard. The good news that I have, Paul
told Timothy in his first letter to him in chapter 1 verse 15,
his first and foremost a faithful saying. And it's worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy of being believed. That's what that means. It's
worthy of being given our utmost attention. It's worthy of being
received and accepted. because this good news comes
from God Himself. It comes from the one and only
Potentate, the one and only King, the God of the universe, the
God of heaven and earth, in whom we have to do. Now, what do you
mean when you say, in whom we have to do, Brother David? I
mean that one day, every single one of us of you here, me included,
are going to stand before Him alone in the great day of judgment
and give an account to Him and Him alone on whether we believed
Him according to His Word or not. To those who willfully reject
His Word, there will be no turning back. Not then. It'll be too late. And I proclaim
to you with all seriousness and urgency that I can muster up
in this sinful frame of mind that unless you see yourself
as God declares you to be, you'll perish forever in your sin. Now
how does God declare you to be? Well, the faithful word in which
Paul says is worthy of every man and woman's believing is
simply this, that Christ came into the world to save sinners. Are you a sinner? If you're not
a sinner, then I'm afraid that Christ did not come to save you. It's just that simple. If He
came into the world to save sinners, then sinners is who He's going
to save. If you're not a sinner, then Christ didn't come to save
you. And if God does not show you that you're a sinner, then
Christ did not come to save you. Because you'll only see that
you're a desperate, needy, wretched, helpless sinner by divine revelation
and God showing you that you are. Oh, I know that most people
will tell you, well, you know, I'm not perfect. I have my faults. But that's not what I'm talking
about. Has God shown you? Shown you that you're depraved,
that you're wretched, that you will not come to Him, that you
love darkness rather than light? Our Lord calls His people in
mercy today the same way that He's always called His people
by mercy. And I know you remember the story
of Zacchaeus. We have been taught that story
since we were young children. And I bet each of you could still
sing that little song, Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee
little man was he. The issue is that the Lord Jesus
Christ stopped under the tree in which He climbed in and He
said, Zacchaeus, you make haste and you come down. And that's
God's Word to every chosen sinner. Everyone that He has purposed
to redeem before the foundation of the world. You better come
down from your high opinion of yourself. You better come down
from your self-righteousness. You better come down from your
lofty so-called free will. Look at verse 9 of Luke 19. Jesus said unto him, This day
is salvation come to this house forasmuch as he also is a son
of Abraham. For the Son of Man, now here's
my text, the Son of Man has come Why has He come? He's come to
seek and to save that which was lost. Are you lost? If you are, I've got some good
news for you. Christ came to seek and to save
that which was lost. And the religious world murmured
then, and friends, they're going to murmur now. And they're going
to say, well, that man is a sinner. Why would God be merciful to
him? And here this day in Luke 19,
they looked at one another when Christ called that wicked tax
collector who had stolen and cheated with disgust and indignation
in their voices. And I'm paraphrasing. They're
going, what business does he have getting cozy with this crook? Friends, Zacchaeus is a picture
of each and every one of us by nature. wretched, thieves, crooks,
good for nothing. And the Lord confirmed to them
in our text, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save those
who are lost. Oh, can you rejoice in that with
me? You can if you're a sinner. He's come to seek and to save
lost sinners. I heard a preacher once say,
a man that I respect greatly, he said that we as preachers
often take for granted that our hearers are well acquainted with
the truth of the Bible. when in reality the majority
or many of the folks are unlearned concerning the cause and the
means of grace and the way to redemption. And he went on to
say, it's better to suppose too little knowledge from our hearers
and explain to them the way of life than to suppose too much
knowledge and let them perish. Unfortunately, what most people
suppose to know is not true. For years, I supposed to know
some things, only to find out that when a man finally stood
and told me the truth about God, that I didn't know anything.
What I knew was wrong. It was error. It was false. And
most men and women know some truths, plural, but they don't
know the truth, which is a person. Our Lord said, I am the way. I am the truth. And I am the
life. And to be saved, you've got to
come to God by Him, dear friends. We know some truths, but do we
know the truth? Now, look back, if you would,
to chapter 2 of the Gospel of Luke. In verse 40, I have another
very familiar story here. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it said, And the child grew, and he waxed strong in spirit,
and he was filled with wisdom. And the grace of God was upon
him. He was God. And now his parents
went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years
old, they went to Jerusalem after the custom of the Feast. And
when they had fulfilled the days, in other words, when the Passover
was over, they returned. And the child Jesus tarried behind
in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. And look at verse 44. But they
supposing They, supposing him to have been in their company,
went a day's journey, and they saw him among their kinsfolk
and acquaintance, and when they found him not." Now we're told
in this passage, as it's very clearly read, that Mary and Joseph
had gone to Jerusalem as their custom was to enjoy the Passover. And when the Passover was over,
they headed home. And when they had traveled a
day's journey, A full day's journey. Supposing, assuming, taking for
granted that their 12-year-old son had been with them, they
finally discover that he hadn't been with them at all. Now friends,
there's a lesson to be learned here. Life in the Scriptures
can be compared to a day's journey. Peter tells us in 2 Peter that
one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years is
one day. How many folks go through this
life, a day's journey, supposing that Christ is with them. To only find out that He's not
with them at all. That's the difference in knowing
truths and knowing the truth. How tragic it is to go to the
end of the day's journey and find out that all along you've
been without Christ and are numbered with those that the Lord never
knew. How tragic that is. And yet it happens every day. People go out to meet God, confident
in their baptism, in their decision, in their profession of faith,
and the Lord Jesus Christ says, I never knew you. Our praying,
our preaching, our giving, our attending, it doesn't have anything
to do with our salvation. That's what the wicked in Matthew
7 said, isn't it? Our Lord said, many are going
to say to me in that day when they stand before God, oh my
Lord, hadn't we prophesied in your name? Hadn't we preached
in your name? And in your name, hadn't we cast
out devils and in your name? Why, we've done many wonderful
works. And the Lord says, I'll profess
unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of
what iniquity My friend Don Fortner wrote in a book called Bible
Doctrine, these words, and they well describe what I'm endeavoring
to say. And I want to read them to you
word for word. He said, truth is in some ways
like a jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle is made up of
many parts, each one important. The puzzle could not be complete
if any individual part of the puzzle were missing. Yet we all
realize that the value of such a puzzle does not lie in the
individual pieces, but in the image that is made when all these
pieces are joined together in their proper relationship. And even though an unassembled
jigsaw puzzle contains the very same materials and pieces as
an assembled one, there is a great difference between the two. The
assembled puzzle gives us an image, a picture to enjoy. An unassembled puzzle is just
a box of cardboard pieces. The Word of God is similar, dear
friends. It's made of many parts, each
one important. Yet the value of these parts
lies not in themselves, but in the image that they create when
they're assembled through the preaching of the Gospel. All
the doctrines of the Scriptures are pieces of a divine puzzle
which, when assembled, provide us with an image of the Lord
Jesus Christ. One may emphasize the various
individual pieces of the puzzle. Another may be quite an expert
in them and yet never see, never ever see the image which they
were designed to create. That image is Christ. And I say again to you this morning
what I say in every single message. Salvation is in the person and
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look any further than
that, dear friends, you've missed it. And I'm going to tell you,
the same words that comfort the saved, the mature believer, are
the same words that gives hope unto the lost. We don't have
one message for saved folks and another message for lost folks.
Christ is the message. He's the comfort to believers
and He's the hope for unbelievers. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. Every single one of us are sinners.
That brings hope to the believer and hope to the unbeliever. Christ
came to seek and to save that which was lost. Now our Lord
said to the Pharisees one day, I believe in John chapter 5,
He said, search the Scriptures. And they did. Man, they were
students of the Scriptures. They were the educated ones of
the Law and of the Scriptures and of the Old Testament. But
He said, in them, you think that you've got eternal life. But you don't. Because they are
they which testify of Me. We call this the Old Testament,
the New Testament. What's it testifying of? One
thing. Both of them. One thing. Christ. Christ. I had a man ask me one
time if I went to a full gospel church. Now what he meant was,
did I go to a church that believed in speaking in tongues and prophesying
and laying on of hands to heal the sick? That's a full gospel
alright. F-O-O-L. That's a fool's gospel. My gospel
gets no fuller than this. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. Christ came to seek and to save
his lost sheep. It don't get any fuller, wider,
deeper than that. God became a man. Oh, you want
to talk about the fullness. The Son of Man has come to seek
and save them which are lost. And our Lord said, How think
ye if a man had a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray?
Doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the
mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And when our Lord in John chapter
5 found that impotent man laying at the pool of Bethesda. You
know that story. John 5, 1. He went there to that
pool of Bethesda, a place having five porches, and there lay all
sorts of sick people. Lame and blind and halt and diseased. But there was a certain man.
He's described as a certain man that lay there and he couldn't
walk. He lay on that beggar's bed of
his. They thought that an angel came
and started the water and the first one that got into the water
would be healed. And the Lord says, do you desire
to be healed and saved? He said, I don't have any man
to put me in the water. That's the problem. He didn't
have a man. Men can't do this for you. Only the God-man can."
And Jesus said unto him, He said, You rise and you take up your
bed and you walk. And immediately the man was made
whole and took up his bed and walked. That day he had come
to seek and to save that which was lost. When our Lord crossed
the sea in a ship, we're told in Matthew chapter 8 that there
arose a great storm. Oh, the wind began to blow. The
waves were crashing against the sides of the boat and into the
boat. In so much, the Scriptures say that the ship was covered
with the waves. But Christ is in the back of
the ship asleep. And they said, Lord, do you care
not that we perish? And He said, oh, you weak and
faithless people. And then He spoke to the winds
and the sea and there was a great calm, the Scripture said. Has
He spoken to your heart which is tossed to and fro by every
wind of doctrine? If He has, there's calm, friends. There's peace and calm. And when
they crossed over safely as all who are in Christ's will, they
came upon a man possessed by a legion of devils. And this
was no mere coincidence or accident. I'll tell you that. No, this
just wasn't a lucky day for this possessed man. That's what many
would have you believe. Ah, wasn't he lucky. That day
that the Lord came by luck didn't have nothing to do with it. It
wasn't mere coincidence and it sure wasn't no accident. Quite
the contrary, our Lord had come to seek and to save that which
was locked. And all of a sudden we see in
the Scriptures one who had cut himself with rocks and lived
among the tombs and ran around naked, breaking the chains that
bound him. scaring everyone to death with
howling cries in the night. Now he sits clean, washed, clothed,
his hair combed, and in his right mind sitting at the feet of Christ. He's come to seek and to save
that was lost. Another day, an appointed day,
our Lord told His disciples, He said, I must need to go through
Samaria. Why must He go through that wicked
place in which the Jews hated? I must need to go through Samaria
because at midday, in the heat of the day, a wicked, lost, and
helpless sinner would be coming to Jacob's well to draw water. Now, did our Lord go there because
He was merely thirsty from His days' travel? His long journey? No, no, no, no. He had come to
give an unchosen elect sinner that water in which would cause
her to never thirst again. For you see, friends, Christ
came to seek and to save that which was lost. Are you lost? Are you lost? Outside of knowing Christ and
what He's done in the room instead of sinners' friends, you're lost.
If you don't know Him, the power of His sufferings, if you don't
see Him as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,
if you don't see Him as the one mediator between God and man,
you're lost! So is it possible that I can
claim to walk with Him and find that He's never walked with me?
There are men and women in religion today that assume, suppose, that
they are with Christ and Christ is walking with them. Is it possible
for a man to think that he's walking with God and God's not
walking with him? In religion, I can tell you from
experience, it's not only possible, but it's probable. What is it to be lost? Just give
me a few more minutes and I will endeavor to tell you what it
is to be lost. When God created Adam in the
garden, he's perfect. He didn't need a savior. You
know why? He wasn't lost. Adam didn't need
salvation. Adam wasn't a sinner. God made
man upright. That's what Ecclesiastes 7 says.
It says, Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright. But they've sought out many inventions. God created Adam perfect in His
own image. He was created holy, clean, perfect,
righteous, and pure. He walked with God in communion
and fellowship. He needed no savior. He needed
no mediator. He needed no redeemer. He didn't
need a substitute. He needed no blood sacrifice. He had no sin. But something
happened. What happened in the garden?
Adam sinned against God. The one and only thing that God
forbid him to do, he did. Now he needs what he once did
not need. Due to his willful disobedience,
now he is lost. Genesis 2 17 tells us but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thou thereof thou
shalt surely die and when Adam ate of that fruit he spiritually
died he didn't physically die he spiritually died now he wasn't
wounded that's what some men say well he was wounded No, he wasn't wounded, he died.
He didn't just lose sight in one eye, friends. He lost sight
in both eyes and he was spiritually blind. He didn't just become
crippled in one leg and hopped along the best that he could.
No, he was crippled in both legs, totally lame. And like that man
on that bed, couldn't move, couldn't do anything. He spiritually did. Now how does that affect you
and I? That's a fair question. How does
that affect you and I? Well, God never created but one
man. And that was Adam. Every one
of us came from Adam. And he was our federal head.
Now I don't know if that's a term you're familiar with. Don't make
it any harder than what it is. He was federal head of the whole
human race. The name Adam means man. Eve came from Adam and so did
you and I. Every man and woman ever born
came from the loins of Adam. When Adam stood, we stood. When
Adam obeyed, we obeyed. When Adam fell, we fell. And
when He rebelled, we rebelled. And when He died, friends, we
died. And when He was placed under the condemnation of God's
law, so were we. He's our federal head. All mankind
was represented in Him. Now, I want you to turn over
to Romans chapter 5 with me. And I want you to see this. And
this is no new Scripture to those of you who have been students
of the Scriptures for some time, but look at Romans 5 verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. Adam's state of condemnation
fell upon all men, for all have sinned." What's that? That's what we call imputation. Imputation. Don't make that harder
than what it is. All it means was that Adam's
sin was charged to our account as if we had done it ourselves. When Adam fell, the whole human
race fell in him. Look down at verse 17 of Romans
5. For if by one man's offense..."
That's the bad news. "...for if by one man's offense
death reigned by one..." Here's the good news. "...much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Look down at verse 19. The bad news is, for as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, the good news is,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. We're
not only made sinners by imputation, but also by, here's another word,
don't let it throw you, impartation. When Adam and Eve had their first
son, that seed of Adam that was placed in Eve was a fallen seed. And we were imparted, as that
son was, an evil and corrupt nature. Scripture is plain, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. Psalm 51.5, David said,
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. And in the first Adam, we fell. Every child born from Adam's
first child on down has been shapen in iniquity and conceived
in sin. And in the first Adam, we died.
But the good news is in the second Adam, we live. And I've heard
men say things like, well, I refuse to accept this imputed guilt
of Adam. I'm going to tell you, if you
refuse to accept the imputed guilt of Adam, then you must
refuse to accept the imputed righteousness of Christ. Another might say, well, I refuse
to acknowledge that I had anything to do with Adam's fall. How is
that fair to me? Well, if you're going to do that,
then you must refuse that you were redeemed by Christ's death. This is how man became lost.
When Adam fell, we fell. When Adam died, we died. And
another might say, well, I wasn't born when Adam 6,000 years ago
sinned against God. Now let me tell you something
else. You weren't born when Christ died 2,000 years ago either. By representation, conception
of birth, death, judgment, condemnation passed upon all men and women. That's why you're lost by nature? Born in sin, conceived in sin,
came forth from the womb speaking lies. Oh, friends, that's why
you're lost? You can't get, I heard Brother
Mann say one time, you can't get good clean water out of a
polluted fountain. And you can't get a holy child
from an evil fallen father. Those of you that are parents
know this and you know it well. You don't have to teach babies
how to be selfish. You don't have to teach them
how to cheat, steal. Lie and hate, they're born that
way. Through their first father, Adam. One of the first words any of
my kids learned was, mine. It's mine. You'd get them all
nice gifts for Christmas and they'd fight over the box that
they come in. Mine. That's what puts us in
the mess we're in by nature. If you don't understand what
happened in the garden, you're never going to understand what
happened at the cross. If we don't understand death
by imputation and representation in Adam, we're not going to understand
life. life eternal by imputation in
Christ. If we don't understand sin by
imputation and representation through Adam, then we're not
going to understand righteousness by imputation in Christ. In Adam,
we died. Every single one of us. In our
flesh dwelleth no good thing. Is that not what the Scripture
says? In your flesh dwelleth no good thing. The only child
a mother can bring forth into this world is a lost child. We are children of wrath even
as others. He that believeth not is condemned
already. Born condemned. Children of wrath
even as others. What does it mean to be lost?
Well, I think Paul said it best in Ephesians 2. Would you turn
there with me in closing? Ephesians chapter 2 verse 12
What does it mean to be lost? Well, I know this it means to
be without hope and without God in this world That's what it
means to be lost without hope Without God Right now in this
world It's time to tell men and women the truth about themselves.
It's time to tell men and women the truth about God. It's time
to tell men and women that by works of righteousness that they
do won't get the job done. We see those silly bumper stickers
that says stupid things like, smile, God loves you. Does He? If you're not in Christ, you
know. He loves sinners only in Christ. Can you see that bumper
sticker on the back of the ark? Smile, God loves you. As people
drown and go out into eternity facing God. Smile, God loves
you. The wrath of God is upon you
if you don't know Christ. It's abiding on you. A sinner
without Christ has the wrath of God abiding on him. There's
mercy in Christ alone. Outside of Him, there's no love.
No love of God and mercy and grace. But of Him are you in
Christ Jesus who has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption. Now you think about this. If
Christ has made unto us wisdom, then we must be ignorant without
Him. If we in Him have wisdom, then
we're ignorant without Him. If Christ has made unto us righteousness,
then without Him we must be nothing but sin, if that's what He's
made unto us. If Christ is our sanctification
and redemption, then I must inform you that outside of Him, we're
unclean and lost. That's why He was made these
things unto you, Tyler. Wisdom, because you're ignorant.
Righteousness, because you're sin. Sanctification because you're
unclean. You're lost. And redemption because
you're unsaved. And I'd like to know where the
bumper sticker is that says, without Christ, you're cursed.
Now that's a bumper sticker we may ought to put on our car.
If you're without Christ, you're without hope, you're without
God, and you're accursed. But I've got good news. Christ
came into the world to seek and to save those that are lost. Just maybe He's seeking you.
Do you hear His call? You hear His call by the preaching
of this Gospel. When you hear this Gospel and
you say, He's talking about me. That's what I am. I'm a lost,
desperate, helpless sinner. That's a good sign. My encouragement
would be for you then to bow to Him and believe on Him. As
He came to save sinners, He came to seek and save those that are
lost. Thank God for Christ.