There was once a great and sovereign
king. And he ruled with great wisdom
and compassion. He was loved by the masses in
the kingdom in which he ruled. And it didn't matter whether
they were important or insignificant or rich or poor, educated or
ignorant. They respected him. They loved
him. He was fair and he was an honest
king. He ruled with fairness and integrity. And all the people in the land,
they saw his glorious attributes. They considered it a privilege
for him to be their king. And this king was also a just
man. He upheld the law of justice.
And if you broke the law, you paid the price. You paid the
penalty. And his law as king was just because he was just. And those who broke the law were
given a fair trial because he was a fair man. But if a man
was a criminal and guilty, the kingstone of justice pronounced
due penalty. The masses loved the king, yet
there were still many who didn't love him, didn't love his law. and the prisons became crowded
with criminals who broke and rebelled against the king's just
law. And one day the king determined
within his own heart he was king. He had a right to do what he
wanted to do. But he determined in his own
heart to show some mercy upon some of those that lay in the
dungeon of despair. So he became as one of them.
He put on the clothes of a prisoner and though he wasn't one, he
had himself thrown in the jail cell and he took on the appearance
of a prisoner. His plan was to talk to the individual
men there and over time he would decide who he would show mercy
to. Day after day as he talked to
those who were in prison, one by one he began to notice a pattern. None of the men he spoke to were
guilty. Every single one of them claimed
to be innocent. And one by one he discovered
that every man that was in prison and he spoke to had been wrongly
persecuted. and not guilty of the crime according
to them. And when he was about to leave
without showing any mercy to anyone, he saw a man who he noticed
never spoke to anyone and stayed to himself. And this man seemed
to always have his head down, never looking in the eyes of
anyone. And he discovered from the guards
that this man was from a far country, was not of the king's
kingdom. And he was an imprisoned man
in a foreign land, and no one knew him, and no one came to
see him, and no one befriended him. He stayed to himself. So the king still in his disguise. began to speak to the man. He
was the only one left that he hadn't spoken to. And as he began
to interview this man, he said to the man, I suppose that you're
like all the other men here. And the man wouldn't raise his
head, kept his head bowed low. And again the disguise king beckoned
further and he said, let me guess, I suppose you're innocent. You
were falsely accused, I bet. You were nowhere near the scene
of the crime that you were accused of. And the man answered not
a word. Well, man, what do you have to say for yourself, the
king said. And this weak and frail man who
had been many, many years in this place and was nothing but
skin and bones said in a broken voice of desperation, he said,
no, sir, I'm guilty as charged. I did the crime that I was accused
of. I deserve to be here, away from
all who once loved me. I deserve to die the death of
a criminal for that's what I am. I'm guilty. I'm sorry for my
crimes, he said, but I'm guilty of them nonetheless. And he said,
my execution is just around the corner. And he said, my only
hope, my only hope is that the great king of this land might
show mercy on me." The king immediately called for the guards. He said,
release this man, release him. For I desired to show mercy,
but there was none guilty to whom I could bestow my mercy
upon. All innocent, none guilty, except
for this man. He said, clean him up, give him
one of my robes. Tonight he'll sit at my table
and he'll eat with me and I'll be merciful and gracious to him
as long as he shall live. Now that's an amazing story,
isn't it? You think about that. You see,
dear friends, grace, we've said this many times, grace is God
giving us what we do not deserve. And mercy is God not giving us
what we do deserve. We deserve condemnation. We're
guilty. We're guilty before God. And God shows mercy. And grace
is God saying, let him go free. Let him go free. My only requirement
was that he first be found guilty. And we're told in the Gospel
according to Mark, chapter 2, that one day the scribes and
the Pharisees saw our Lord eating with publicans and sinners. That
didn't sit too well with them. And they said unto his disciples,
they said, how is it? You know, you're saying this
man is a Christ. How is it that he eats and drinks
with publicans and sinners, the worst of the worst? And when
Jesus heard it, he said these words, and oh, how my heart rejoices. Because you see, I am that publican. I am that sinner. I am that guilty
one before God Almighty. He said, they that are whole
have no need of a physician. All those men in prison who were
innocent, they had no need of a deliverer. He said, I came
not to call the righteous righteous in their own eyes, but I came
to call sinners to repentance. Now let me ask you, are you a
sinner? Are you a sinner? If you are, then I have good
news for you. The Apostle Paul wrote to his
young friend and son in the faith, Timothy, and he said, this is
a faithful saying. This is worthy of all acceptance. That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. Are you a sinner? And the man
that said that, Paul, said, I'm chief. I'm the biggest one of
all. And every child of God believes
that he's the chief of sinners because he lives with himself.
He knows what's in his heart and sees it on a daily basis,
minute by minute. And as I said, my text is found
here in Ephesians 2 if you are still turned there. Verse 12. If not, turn there with me. Ephesians
2. Verse 12, that at that time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,
and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and
without God in the world. Now I have two things for you
to consider this morning. Two things. The first is being
without Christ. And the second is being with
Him. Now there was a time that I lived in this world without
Christ. And at that time I was, as Paul
says here, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. When
you dig a little further into that word alien, it basically
means estranged. Estranged. It means at odds with. It means shut up from fellowship
and intimacy with. Estranged. Who are we estranged from? As
aliens of the commonwealth. God. Estranged from God. Job said, He has put my brethren
far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. The psalmist wrote, the wicked
are estranged from the wound. They go astray as soon as they're
born, speaking lies. By nature, dear friends, every
one of us are estranged from God before we're ever born. Conceived
in sin. We go astray as soon as we're
born. You know why it's then? Because the womb constrained
us before that. We're estranged from God. We
go astray as soon as we're born, speaking lies. Prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it, wrote the old
hymn writer. prone to leave God and go astray. When Adam and Eve sinned against
God, you know the story. When they sinned against God
in the garden, the first thing they did was try to hide. We
can't hide from a sovereign God. Are you trying to hide from God?
I mean, are you? We're aliens. We're estranged
from God by our disobedience and our sin. Without Christ,
we're aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. That word commonwealth
means freedom. It means as an alien, I'm estranged
from the freedom, I'm estranged from the rights of a citizen
of God's kingdom and country, which he says here is Israel,
God's chosen nation. Notice verse 12 again. I'm not
only a strange man, void of freedom and the citizenship of God's
kingdom, but I'm a stranger from God's covenant of promises. Stranger. These precious covenant
promises of God are not for those that are without Christ. That
at that time, you were That speaks to me. That speaks to you. You
were without Christ. You were aliens from the freedom
of God's kingdom and strangers from the covenants of His promises. What's the next thing that we
as strangers outside of Christ are? We're without hope. Without
hope. When we're without Christ, we're
without hope. That's what God says. To be without health, oh,
that can be a painful and sorrowful thing. To be without friends,
oh, that's a lonely, lonely place to dwell. I'd hate, I'd hate
to be without my friends. To be without freedom would be
a most difficult life. To be without food, clothing,
and shelter would be extremely uncomfortable. All the things
that we take for granted. But I'm telling you, dear beloved
of God, it would be better to be without all these things than
to be without Christ. Oh, to be without Christ. To
be without health, friends, freedom, food, clothing, shelter, would
be nothing than to be without Christ. Christ is the great physician
who heals me and keeps me well from my dreaded disease of sin.
In Him I have spiritual health. I can't be without Him. Christ
is that friend the Scripture says is closer than a brother. There's no friend like Him. Christ
is a solid rock on which by grace I stand and all else is sinking
sand. I have complete freedom in Him
alone. He is my shelter, my foundation,
and my home. Christ is divine. All else is
nothing but withered branches fit only to be burned. Christ
is the water of life. All else is unquenchable thirst.
Christ is the bread of life. All else is eternal hunger. Christ
is my righteousness, and I'm clothed forever by His glory
and holiness. So much so that now when God
sees this wretch of a man, He sees His well-beloved Son, and
He says, I'm well pleased. Oh, what grace. Oh, what grace. Christ is the only door and the
only entrance into eternal life. No man cometh to the Father but
by me. Sounds like one door. Sounds
like one entrance to me. Christ is my city of refuge. And in Him, I have true shelter. Oh, dear sinner, to be without
Christ would be the most terrible, terrible thing to ever experience. So what does it mean to be without
Christ? Well, we've already seen it means
to be estranged from God. It means to be imprisoned in
sin. It is to be without His precious covenant promises of
hope. Without hope! You see, to be
without Christ is to be without God. And without God, you're
without hope in this world. And that's where we all were,
and some of you still are. Are you without Christ? If you
are, then you're a prisoner shut out from the one thing needful. Some might say, well, I thought,
whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's stop right there. It has
nothing to do with what you think. Men got a lot of thoughts about
this thing. It don't have a thing to do with
what you think. It has everything to do with what God says. People
need to take this book, dust it off from their coffee table
and start reading it. This is God's Word to man. God says if you're without Christ,
you're without God and you're without hope. And you can think
what you want and you can excuse what you will. But if you're
without Him, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. You're without
everything you need to be a citizen of the King's kingdom. And that's
what God says about my thoughts and your thoughts. He says, my
thoughts are not your thoughts. And neither are your ways my
ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts higher than yours. Men and women will never know
God until they quit doing the thinking. and started doing the
begging. Where do we come to cry? We come
to Him at His feet. Oh, no higher place to be than
at His feet. To be without Christ is to be
without His love, to be without His grace, without His mercy,
without His forgiveness, without His righteousness, without His
presence. It's to be without hope. Without Christ, you're under
the wrath of God. And the wages of your sin and
my sin is death, eternal damnation. Without Christ, you'll be in
prison forever in outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing
of teeth. And men say, you won't be popular
if you preach that. You won't be popular if that's
the message you preach. God's servants, God's people
are not interested in being popular. It's not interested in it. True
God called preachers, true God called sinners, those who have
come to Christ and know that it's by His grace and His grace
alone. They don't care about being popular.
No sirree, their desire is to tell you the truth about God.
The truth about themselves. I'm trying to tell you the truth
this morning. I'm a wretch. I deserve to be locked up and
the king thrown away. But the king has shown mercy
unto me. That's what the Scriptures teach.
That's what the Bible says. Our Lord said, He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Is God's wrath abiding on you this morning? Come to Christ. Don't be without Him a moment
longer. Most of my life, until God saved me, all I heard about
was how much God loved me. And I thought to myself then,
how could He love me? And they say God loves everybody. And I'm not going to harp on
this, I promise, but I've got friends and family in hell because
they believe this lie. It's a serious issue to me. God
loves everybody. Does He? Does He really? Well,
He doesn't love you if you don't believe on His Son. Those that
believe not on the Son, it says here that His wrath abides on
them. If God claims to love you and
then sends you to hell in the fury of His wrath, I ask you,
what kind of love is that? Without Christ, you'll not see
life, you'll not see love. I can assure you the wrath of
God abides on you. And these men that put up these
billboard signs that say, smile, God loves you, try Jesus, give
God a chance, let go and let God. They don't know the Bible.
They don't know God. They're without Christ. I'm telling
you they are. God's love is found only in His
Son. What do you think of Christ,
whose Son is He? The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into His hand." Shakespeare wrote those
famous words, to be or not to be. That's the question. God
wrote, to be or not to be without Christ. That's the question.
Now that's the question this morning. Are you without Christ? Are you without Christ? Who is
he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not, God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son. What are you going to do with
that? When men say God loves you, God loves everybody, all
they're trying to do now, I know this is it, all they're trying
to do is get you to be ashamed that you don't love Him back,
and they want you to have pity on God. False preachers endeavor
to make God a pathetic and frustrated God because He loves everybody
and nobody loves Him back. It's ridiculous. It's nonsense.
They want you to feel sorry for God and give Him something. Their opinion of God is all wrong,
and a man that preaches a needy God preaches a false God. If
you believe in a God that needs you in any way, then you believe
in a false God. You know why I say that? It's
what this book teaches. Is anything too hard for the
Lord? Genesis 18, 14. Job answered the Lord and said,
I know that you can do everything. You can do everything and no
thought, not one thought can be withheld from you. Does that
sound like a wanting to God to you? Our God's in the heavens. He's done whatsoever he has pleased. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he in heaven and earth and the seas and all deep places.
This is the God with whom you have to do. Are you without his
Son? The Lord of hosts hath sworn,
saying, Surely as I thought, so shall he come to pass, and
as I have purposed, so shall it stand. The Lord of hosts hath
purposed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched
out, and who shall turn it back? Scripture after Scripture, from
the beginning to the end, declares God to be God. Not in need of anything. Oh,
God help us. Be without Christ is eternal
death and condemnation. No hope without Him. So if there's
no hope without Him, doesn't it stand to reason that there
is hope with Him? To whom God would make known.
Our salvation is God making known to us. What is the riches of
the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ
in you?" What? The hope. The hope of glory.
That's your hope. That's your hope. That's my hope.
Christ. Christ. My second point, and
I'm almost done, is to be with Christ. We've seen what it is
to be without Him. What is it to be with Christ?
Well, in Christ is found the forgiveness of sin and much,
much more. Look at verse 13. In Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. But now,
all those two precious little words, the gospel is being now
in Christ Jesus. That's where the Gospel is. Salvation
is not in doing. It's not in walking. It's not
in willing. It's not in running. It's in
Christ. He is salvation. Christ in you,
the hope of glory. I was once far away from the
Savior, but now I may not. Remember the parable of Christ
concerning the lost sheep? We discussed this a couple weeks
ago in Sunday school. It doesn't say that a certain
man who was a shepherd had a hundred sheep and one of them went astray
and the shepherd sat at home and waited for him to come back.
Not what it says. He went after the sheep. That's
what he did. And the sheep were never stopped.
It would have just kept right on wondering farther and farther
away. And that's me and you. And this shepherd, the one that
the Lord tells us in this story, went after it all over the hills
of difficulty, into the valleys of death. And he laid hold of
it when he found it. And he put it on his shoulders
and carried it all the way home. And as I said then, he didn't
herd it home like a cattle, throwing a whip. He didn't, you know,
walk in front of it like a dog saying, come on now, come on
now. No, he picked him up, he put him on his shoulders and
he carried him home. That's what God does for sinners.
Now that's good news, isn't it? It is if you're a sinner. It
is if you're without Christ. I can assure you of that. When
He brought you home, He didn't say, well, the sheep come back.
No, He said in wonder and amazement to the angelic host, He said,
I found that sheep which was lost. I found it. I fetched it. There's only one way, dear friends,
but now in Christ Jesus. Ye who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. The blood of God was
shed. You want to know how bad your
sin was? God's blood was shed. and His blood covers and cleanses
me from all sin." That's what John wrote in 1 John. He said,
"...and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin." In Hebrews, the apostle wrote, "...and almost all things
are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood
is no remission." of sins, no forgiveness, no deliverance.
How did God cover Adam and Eve when they sinned and fell in
the garden? Well, they covered themselves with fig leaves. And
you know, as soon as those leaves are taken from the vine, they
wither and start to just fade away, just rot. If you ever cut
a plant or something off, you watch it a day or so later. It
turns brown and withers up. and it's good for nothing to
be burned. But God clothed them with the skin of animals. You
know what that means? Blood was shed. By blood is the
remission of sin. All those Old Testament sacrifices,
the blood of bulls and goats, offered to God year after year
after year were by the shedding of blood. And you read Hebrews
9 and it says, For the blood of bulls and goats, ashes of
a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of
the flesh. And then it says, How much more? Shelled the blood of Christ.
Are you without Christ? Well, there's life at a look
at the Savior. Can you see Him hanging and bleeding
and dying on that cursed tree? If you can, it's because God
gave you eyes to see. That's what will bring you nigh.
You were once far off. Now you're made nigh by the blood
of Christ. Can you hear the King say to
the guards of God's holy law and just Let Him go. Let Him go. Let Him go. I'll have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. And I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. And that's God. That's the God
of this Bible. Don't let anybody tell you any
different. And you know what? He delights to show mercy. All ye that labor and heavy laden,
come to me. Come to me, I'll give you rest.
And you can come to Him without moving a muscle.