Let's begin by turning back to
the book of Genesis. I'm not going to point you tonight
to a particular text, but rather I want you to think about and
reflect on those things that I've already said. And I want
to make some comments about the fall, and so I went ahead and
read chapter 3. I want us to think about creation
and why it was created and how it was created and for whom it
was created. We look at these natural facts
and we're fascinated. I don't know anybody in their
right mind who walks out with open eyes and just turns in this
yard on a mountaintop by the seaside and could not be fascinated
by the handiwork of God in its natural sense. If that so fascinates
us and captivates us, what if we should get a glimpse of the
real creation, of why it was created and for whom the glory
of him who created it and the glory for which it was created. As I prepared the message, for
this evening, I kept flipping back and forth from Genesis over
to the New Testament and back to Genesis and back over to the
New Testament. And I just kept going back and
forth and I was having trouble finding some of the books and
I just kept putting markers in and markers in and you can see
I just filled it up full of markers. But the thought occurred to me
as I was doing that that the Bible is a book of twos. It's
a book of twos. I want you to think about that
with me for just a minute. Just let that thought sink in.
The Bible is a book of the old creations and the new. There
is a first Adam and a second. There is a physical life and
an eternal life. There is the fall of man, the
redemption of Christ, law and grace, natural and spiritual,
darkness and light, and you go on and on and on. The Bible is
a book of two. It is a book of two. And I'm
going to sound like a broken record as we go through these
Old Testament prophecies, especially here in Genesis, pointing you
from the old to the new. But I take comfort in this. Over
in Matthew 13, the Lord said this in verse 52. Listen to this. He turned and told his disciples
that this is exactly what he was doing. Do you remember there
in Luke 24 when he told them after he had appeared to them
and he had to finish with them and so on? And he said, these
are the words that I spake to you while I was yet with you.
So I know this is what he's talking about over here in Matthew chapter
13. But in verse 52, he told his
disciples that every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom
of heaven, and I like the wording of that, is not of the kingdom,
but unto the kingdom. It's an experiential knowledge.
Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is
like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his
treasure things old and new. That's what he does. That's what
he's telling them. My preachers are going to take
my word, and they're going to start with the books of Moses,
and then the prophets, and then the Psalms, and they're going
to take from the old and show you the new. That's what they're
going to do. They're going to reach into my treasure chest
and they're going to pull out these old things and show you
the picture of the new. That's what they're going to
do. Every scribe that's instructed in this kingdom or unto this
kingdom is going to do that. And then as we've looked at creation
and its unfolding, I've labored to point out to you that creation
is the stage. to theaters, and we know what
this is talking about. There's a stage up there, and
they have something they want to put on, a play or whatever
it is, and they hire actors, and they get up there, and they
each one have their parts, and they memorize their parts, and
they get up on the stage, and they play out whatever it is
that was written. Well, our Lord's not quite like
us. He doesn't act out things, but here's what He does in this
creation. everything that he's purposed
to do in his eternal counsels before the world was. I don't even know how to describe
eternity, and if I did, you couldn't perceive it. But in eternity
past, he decreed things. He has a counsel. He has a covenant. He has things that he intends
to do. And creation is the stage upon
which these things are going to be demonstrated. The old writers
went so far as to call it an experiment. And when I first
read that, it turned me off. But then, if you understand what
an experiment is, it's proving something that is. That's what
an experiment does. It shows you, these scientists,
they know something to be so, and how are they going to show
you? How are they going to prove it to you? They're going to demonstrate
it. How are they going to demonstrate that experiment? That's what
God does in creation. God's decreed to do something.
When He decreed it, it was done in His mind. Who's going to stop
Him? Who's going to turn Him? Who's going to defeat Him? It's
done in His mind. Well, why did He go on and do
it? For you and I. And I told you last week, as
He stood, I just pondered on that last week, and I pondered
on it all week long, as He stood and looked on creation. He saw
more than just creation. He saw the end from the beginning.
He saw through the eyes of God. He saw everything that was going
to take place. He didn't just see what was there.
He saw why it was there. He didn't just see a man. He saw a man that he set there
on a ground, and this man was going to fall, and he was going
to redeem this man. He saw way past what we see,
because he looked through his eyes. And as I told the congregation
last week, why did he look? Why did God look? Did he think
he left something out? Why did he look? So we could
look. That's why he looked. That's
why he looked down from heaven to see if there was any righteous.
You reckon God didn't know there was none righteous? Sure he did.
Sure he did. Why did he look then? So we could
look. So we can look. And every time
you look in the Bible and it talks about the Lord looking,
the Lord seeing, the Lord turning, that's so you can see. Henry
said one time, he said, why did the Lord hanging on that cross
say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew all
things. Why did he ask that question? He asked it for us. He hadn't
asked it, we never would. We never would. His ears and
His eyes and all these things that the Scriptures talk about,
they talk about so we can see, so we can hear. And these things
go past human logic and understanding. Talking about the glory of His
person and talking about the majesty of His offices. Paul
spoke of our great high priest over in Hebrews chapter 7. Listen
to what he said. He said he's higher than the
heavens. My soul. Higher than the heavens. I can't fathom heaven. I get goosebumps talking about
angels. I get goosebumps. Higher than the heavens. Higher
than the heavens. In Psalm 139, David said, Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's high and I cannot attain
unto it. Oh, he could just stand back
and marvel at it. Sit out there with those sheep on that dark
night and think about these things of God and just sit out there
and marvel in his heart and worship God. They are high. Over in the book of Job, chapter
11, the question was asked, Canst thou by searching find out God? Can you by searching find out
God? Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? It is high as the heaven. What
canst thou do? Deeper than hell. What can you
know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader
than the sea. And Paul said, O depth, O the
depth of the riches both of wisdom and knowledge, how unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out when he thought
about Israel. Just the wisdom of God involved
in Israel. Think about it for just a minute.
A nation chosen and set aside, but destined to turn their back
on it so that the Gentiles might learn the gospel and receive
the gospel. And the Gentiles having received that gospel,
to turn again and preach it to the fallen Jews and God to redeem
some out of them. And thinking about it, this old
Jew just couldn't stand it anymore. He said, oh, the depth of the
riches, both of wisdom and knowledge of God. And it's not my intention
as we go through these things and view these things to give
any sort of exhaustive commentary on them. But I just want our
hearts to be stirred up. That's what gospel preaching
is for. That's what it is to feed the
sheep. It's to stir their hearts up into worship and to make them
see those things which God has given to us and to see Him and
to be persuaded of His power and His glory and His grace and
His mercy. to feed on His flesh and drink
His blood, that it be necessary meat to us. We come down here
and I want us to come down here hungry to eat. I want to eat
these things. I don't want to just rehearse
them. I'd stay home and rehearse them. I'd stay home and listen
to a tape and do that. But we come down here to worship.
We come down here to eat and to sit and to fill ourselves
with Christ. So let's reflect just a little
bit tonight on this blessed experiment of grace, the old-timers called
it, and see how these things apply to this new creation. Now,
as I said a little earlier, the Bible is a book of clues, and
something very few people know about in our generation is the
fact that God deals primarily with only two men. Oh, that makes
folks so mad, don't it? When you take them out of the
picture, I just tell them, just get out of the picture altogether.
God deals with Adam, and he deals with Christ. He took a perfect
man, put him in a perfect environment, surrounded him by perfection,
gave him everything his soul could desire, and the man fell.
He fell. Is there any sense in taking
a man totally biased for sin, fallen and corrupt, already ruined
before God? A child of wrath even as others?
Is there any point in playing the thing out over and over and
over down through history? If a perfect man in a perfect
environment with perfect surroundings who walked with God, who was
biased altogether for good, if he fell, what's the point? What's
the point in examining each individual down through time looking for
somebody who is going to keep the law of God? Nobody is going
to keep it. If Adam can't keep it, it can't be kept. It can't
be kept. God deals with two men. He deals
with Adam and he deals with Christ. He deals with these two. And
he calls them the first Adam and the second Adam. He calls
them both Adams. He calls them both man. Listen to this in 1
Corinthians chapter 15. In verse 45 he says, ìThe first
man Adam was made a living soul, and the last Adam was made a
quickening spirit.î The first man is of the earth earthy, the
second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy. As is the heavenly, such are
they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image
of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."
Now, listen to what he says. This I say, brethren, this is
an apostle, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. No son
of Adam is going to climb up the steps into heaven. It ain't
going to happen. No son of Adam is going to work
his way into glory. No son of Adam is going to reform
himself to the place of righteousness before the Holy God. He can't
inherit that. He inherited a world and gave
it up. an inheritance of authority and
glory and power and wisdom and the image of God. And he spit
on it. He threw it down. And he's not going to get it
back. And his sons aren't going to get it back. And his sons'
sons aren't going to get it back. He can't get it back. He lost
it. And what he lost, he lost forever.
These words I just read to you were based on Paul's Gospel,
which he states in the first opening verses of this chapter.
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
Now, that means several things. Number one, it talks about his
death, how that he died. But number two, it talks about
our sins. And our sins are not what we
think they are, it's what the scriptures testify they are.
And until we understand what our sins are, we can't possibly
understand how and what he died for. You can't perceive it. And the perception of one is
the perception of the other. He declares what he called the
gospel to be a person, a promised person. He calls him the Christ. Christ died. Who is the Christ? That is that seed of woman I
read to you about a while ago. That is the first promise. You
can just follow it. You can trace it all the way
down through history. It is what the Jews come to call the Christ,
the Messiah, the promised one. the seed of Abraham, the promised
person. He's a substitutionary person.
He died for our sins. He's a representative person.
He rises again for our justification. He's a valid, living person,
recognized before and after his death by multitude, above 500
brethren, Paul said it one time. He's validated. The Learning
Channel has these things on anymore, and I don't know why they keep
putting them on, but they keep putting them on, They're trying
to destroy who he was. They're trying to take away from
him that image of God in him. They're trying to take away that
from Christ, and they come up with all this jargon. It's validated. These men knew
him before he died, and they saw him after his death. He walked
up to Thomas, and he said, Here, Thomas, stick your hand in my
side. Put your fingers in the holes
in my hands." He took fish and ate it. He wasn't
a spirit. He was a man raised from the
dead, and he was validated. He was a glorified person ascending
up into the heavens, an influential person making intercession on
our behalf. The gospel is a person. It's
a person. Just as Adam was a person. What
I'm trying to get you to see is this. Through a person, we
lost everything. We lost the glory. We lost the
authority. We lost the purpose of our being.
We lost it all in Adam. We lost it in a person. The only
way to get it back is in another one. The only way. You're not
going to get it back in a system. I don't care how complicated
it is. I don't care how right it is. I don't care how correct
and in order it is. It doesn't make any difference.
You ain't going to get it back in a system. It takes a person. It takes a
person. And then I want you to see that
the results of this fall were natural. They were natural. Nobody
has to teach you how to sin. Huh? Do they? Do they have to
teach you how to sin? Gather up a bunch of little kids.
We've got some here tonight. I guarantee you, take them back
here in the back room. Get a little pole over here where
you can watch them. Fill that room full of toys. Y'all can
have anything you want in here, but don't go in that closet.
Okay, okay. Walk out of the room. See where
they go first. Huh? You don't have to teach
us how to sin. It's natural. It's natural. By one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men. How do you know that? All sinned.
Ain't that what he said? We wouldn't sin if we weren't
sinners. Adam didn't sin until he become a sinner. Sinner's sin, just like beagle's
hunt. Birds fly. Sinner's sin. That's
what they do. It's our nature. It's our nature. He died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. And both his death and why he
died are the testimony of Scripture. I know what men tell me all the
time. You know that Russell and I were
talking today. I just don't seem right. Somebody
said, I just don't seem right. What in the world they got to
do with that? I don't feel right. That don't make sense. That ain't fair. I've had people
tell me that. That ain't fair. Who's the judge? You going to sit in God's church
and say what's fair and what's not? Are you that righteous?
That you could sit on the throne of God and dictate right and
wrong? Two things Satan didn't tell
the woman. He told her, he said, you take
that and the day you eat, he said, God knows this, and the
day you eat, you're going to know good and evil. He was right. He told her the truth. What he
didn't tell her was this. Knowing the good, you won't have
the ability to do it. And knowing the evil, you won't
have the power to resist it. That's Satan's song. He's full
of half-truths. Full of half-truths. And he likes
to do this type of thing. It's not what we think. It's
not what we feel. It's not what we reason or what
we heard or our vain traditions, Paul calls them. But what God
says concerning his death and our sins. Now, listen to this.
Let me give you some Scripture. Over here in 1 Peter 3. Look
at that with me for just a second. 1 Peter 3. His subject is suffering, wrongful suffering, suffering
for things he didn't do, suffering for things he didn't say. Folks
say we make God out to be a monster. We don't do that. Folks say we preach salvation
by grace so you can live any way you want to. We don't preach
that. He is talking about wrongful suffering here. Now listen to
this, 1 Peter 3, verse 18, Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being
put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. He was
made to be sin for us, Paul said over in 1 Corinthians 5, verse
21, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ. We're talking about He died according
to the Scriptures. Paul said, I was crucified with
Him. Now, the only way you can be
crucified with Him is to be in union with Him. How do you get
to be in union with Him? God puts you in Him. And if God
puts you in Him, whatever He did to Christ, He did to you.
Whatever he rewards Christ, he rewards you. However how he honors
Christ, he honors you. Hard to believe, isn't it? Same as he did with Adam. Same thing. Representative. God deals with these two men.
There's no point in going down through time and naming my name
and your name and our sons and our daughters and their daughters.
There's no point to it. There's no point to it. He just
deals with the two. I can identify with everything
Adam did, can't you? Everything he did, his rebellion,
everything he did, I can identify with. At the same time, I can
identify with everything Christ did. By representation. By representation. I was talking
to him the other night from 1 Corinthians 5, and that verse is I know it has some meaning about
the new birth and the new creation within. I know it has that to
it. But the real body meat of that verse of Scripture has to
do with how you see yourself. He said, if you can see yourself
in Adam, what do you see? Do you find any hope there? You find any place anywhere in
Adam for a change. You find any hope there. You
find any love there. Everything I see there. I see
shame. I see a fallen man. I see a cursed man. I don't find
any hope. I read that whole chapter to
you. The only hope in that chapter was that sword that kept the
way. And Henry made this comment years ago. He's not keeping the
way closed. He's keeping the way open. That's
what that flaming sword said to her. to keep the way open.
God could have closed the way altogether and that would have
been the end of it. It would have been like the angels. But He didn't do
that. He put that sword there and kept the way open. Because
He had redemption. Redemption in mind. Oh, you could go on and on. In
Ephesians 1.7 it says, In whom we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins. And the Scriptures tell us that
a man born of a virgin, foretold of the prophets, confirmed by
the miracles that God did, confirmed even by miracles and wonders
and signs which he did by him in our midst, he was going to
come. He was going to come in this
last day, and he was going to accomplish redemption. That's
what the Scripture says. Somebody's coming. All through
the Old Testament it says somebody's coming, somebody's coming, somebody's
coming. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John says somebody came. And then throughout the rest
of the Bible it says somebody is coming back. Now that is what
it is talking about. And this somebody was Christ.
It was Christ. The Scriptures tell us that a
man born of a virgin, all these things, it has to be. And one
time, Paul said, in the end of the world hath he appeared to
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And no honest man
can read the Bible. I know what they say. Oh, I read
the Bible. They haven't read the Bible.
You quote scripture to them, where's that at? I thought you
read the Bible. I'm telling you, a guy called
my bluff one time. I tried to get him to come to a revival.
I was all hopped up, boy. I was on fire for Jesus or whatever
they say back then. And I was trying to get folks
to come down to the church. And I tried to get this guy to
come. And he said, how come? I said, well, I didn't know what
to say. Nobody ever asked me that. I said, I want you to hear
the gospel. He said, the gospel? He said,
you wouldn't know the gospel if you met it in the middle of
the road. I said, what do you mean? Well, he says, if you know
the gospel, what is it? I didn't have nothing to say. He shut my mouth right there.
I didn't know the gospel. I didn't know. And I tell you this, to know
and understand this gospel requires two things. You've got to know
what happened in the garden. And you can forget about knowing
anything else until you find out what happened in the garden.
And then you've got to find out what happened on the cross. Then
you'll understand the gospel. What happened in the garden?
God deals with these two men. In Adam, all die. In Christ,
all are made alive. In Adam, all come under the curse.
In Christ, all the benefits of the gospel, every blessing, every
covenant blessing that God had, he put in Christ and chose us
and put us in him. You want to be a beneficiary
of that, you have to be in Christ. That's the only way you can get
it. Same way you got to sin in Adam. I must come to see what
took place in the first creation in order to understand anything
at all about the second. When sin entered into the world,
it came by way of the first Adam. And death passed upon all men,
spiritual death, immediate, immediate. This wise man, you think about
that, this wise man that was walking with God the night before.
in the cool of the day. And the Lord bringing him all
that. Think about the animals. I mean, all right, so there's
some subspecies or whatever men talk about. Let's give them the
benefit of the doubt and say that's so. Let's just take the
general species. That's quite a few animals. And
He'd bring them to Adam. He'd say, what are you going
to call this? I'm going to call that a cow. Okay. That's what it's going
to be. He named the animals. God gave
him authority over the earth to subvert Rule over it. This was no idiot. This was a
man standing there in the image of God. He was a wise man. He was no fool. And then see
what sin did to him immediately. This wise man is taking fig leaves,
trying to hide his nakedness, sewing them together, trying
to make fig leaf aprons. This wise man who walked with
God is trying to hide behind a tree so God can't see him. We laugh at that, don't we? What
we hide behind? What kind of tree we hide behind?
We want to hide behind professions and hide ourselves in decisions
and hide ourselves and feelings and emotions and experiences
and all that, and tongues. We want to hide ourselves. We're
going to hide ourselves in religion. We want to hide. You can't hide
from God. There's nothing God don't see. He sees everything. How are you
going to hide from God? That's what Adam lost in the
garden. He lost all wisdom of God, all
knowledge of God. It's gone. It's gone. Immediately. Just like that. You know how
you get it back? Just like that. Isn't that so? Or it was to me. One minute I
didn't know, the next minute I did. Still trying to figure
it out. How is that? How is that? It's the creation of God. It's the power of God. It's the
wisdom of God. Oh, everything that defined a
man, created in the image of God, was gone. Wisdom, understanding,
joy, communion, holiness, innocence, purity, it's all gone. All gone. His authority, taken away from
him, his power, misused. Asked him what happened to him,
he blamed it on the woman. Asked her what happened, he blamed
it on Satan. What man does, those are blamed somewhere else. It's
all gone. All gone. And this death is passed
upon all men. They are all the same. All the
same. And I tell you this, when Adam
put forth his hand to take that fruit, whatever it was, I don't
know if that was a spiritual fruit or an actual fruit. I don't
know. I've never read anybody that knows. But I tell you this,
the day he put forth his hand to take that fruit, he might
as well grab the scepter. that God has in His hand. Now,
that's what he did. That's what he did. He grabbed
the scepter and he said, I'll do what I want, when I want,
how I want, the way I want. Now, that's what he said. And
they've got this whole thing of the garden defied down to
taking a bite out of an apple. I tell you, man was faced with
his temptation of evil And it turned out to be a dissatisfaction
with God. He questioned his authority,
and he questioned his wisdom, and he questioned his love, and
he questioned all these things. He questioned God's intentions. What keeps man from believing
in Christ? What prevents man from laying
hold of the gospel? Why is there none that seeketh
after God? Same reason. Same reason. Think about it. He questions
his authority, his wisdom, his love, and his intentions. Same
thing Adam did. It just passed. That death passed.
Man to man to man to man, all down through time. He's the same. It's just like we've got a coffee
machine at the house, and whatever you put in there, it just throws
them out. It'll just keep putting them out. Just keep putting them. You hit the button, it gets it
out the other side. All down through time. That's what happened. Listen to this. I believe this
is over in Jeremiah. I just quoted it and wrote it
down. He said, can the Ethiopian change his skin? How about a
leopard? Can he change his spots? Then
can you that are accustomed to do evil, can you do good? You
can't change, can you? That's the horror of the curse
of the fall. And when that gets hold of a
man, he's lost. When that finally dawns on him,
when God takes that truth and presses that truth, Russell,
on his heart, he can't. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I can't. I can't. I can't. Oh, that's what he needs
to see. I tell you, we live. We live in the lust of our flesh,
Paul said, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and are by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Listen to this. What is man?
This is a question brought up over Job. He said, What's man?
What is man that he should be clean? That he should be clean. And
he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous.
Job 15, 15, Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints. He don't
even trust his saints. Oh, I'm glad he don't. He putteth no trust in his saints.
Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable
and filthy is man that drinks iniquity like water? And that's
what we do. That's exactly what we do. Go in and sit down and study
and open that Bible up, get my notepad out and sit there and
think every kind of horrible thought under the sun while I'm
trying to write out a message. Come in here like Sunday and
the Lord give you a message and lift your heart up and you get
some assurance and you get some joy and you get some peace and
you walk out of the place and your eyes filled with tears and
two hours later you're sitting at the house wondering if you
even know God. We drink iniquity like water. Our condition. Now listen to
me. I'm talking about the fall. What happened in the fall? What
happened in the garden? What happened to this paradise?
What happened to this glory that God put and entrusted into the
hands of this man? What happened to it? What happened?
Oh, he fell. And I'll tell you this. Our condition
is irreversible, it's permanent, it's unchangeable, and it's total. Now, I'm telling you, when God
teaches you that, then you'll know something about horror then.
You'll know something about prayer then. And I tell you this, if
God don't intervene, we'll die in our sins. That's how it is.
We'll die in our sins. What will he do? I go to church.
Sure you do. And God is giving you over to
a reprobate mind to believe those lies and be damned. He gives
you over at ease and a satisfaction in that place and a satisfaction
in those old professions of faith and those old experiences that
you had. Whatever it was that moved you, whatever it was that
drove you, whatever it was, you get in that. And God gives you
over to that satisfaction, and that's where you stay until you
die. I've seen it. I don't have to wonder about
it. I've seen it. We've seen it in this own church. People
used to go here. I've seen it. I've seen it by
my own relatives. I've watched them lay there with
their mouth open, dying, not knowing anything, just laying
there going out to meet a holy God. I tell you this, I understand
what this fall is all about, and I preach as a dying man to
dying men. We're dying. We're dying. We're in the hands, the one writer
said, of an angry God. What are you going to do? If
God doesn't intervene, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're
going to die in our sins. That's exactly what's going to
happen. And I set before you one hope, one way, one source
of light, one foundation to stand on, the second Adam. As in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Just as surely
as all his seed fell and were cursed and are cursed unto this
day, even so that seed of Christ is going to be made alive. Just
as surely. Just as surely. Listen to this. Romans 5.16,
the judgment was by one to condemnation. The free gift is of many offenses
under justification. By one man's offense, death reigned. Much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one Jesus Christ. As by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Sound to me like he's dealing
with two men, don't you? And in those two men, he deals
with all men. I said, before you want hope
of righteousness, that is the obedience of Christ as our representative. He's the end of the law for righteousness. I'm so tired of arguing that
point with people. It's to everyone that believes. If he's not the
end of the law for righteousness to you, you're not a believer.
Now, that's according to the Word of God. I said, before you
want hope for pardon, At one time in the end of the world,
Christ appeared and put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,
redeemed us unto God, paid the sin debt in full. And I set before
you one hope of understanding, that he will, by his good pleasure,
make known unto us the mystery of his will." Now, I can sit
up here and jump up and down and tell stories and illustrations.
And Till said stories about a dog all night long, and it'll bounce
off of you like water off a duck's back, unless God opens that heart. Just like that big door Jonah
went through at Nineveh. He came out there, and I told
the folks I read some natural history on Nineveh and how high
those walls were. Four chariots could run sideways
across the top of that wall, and that wall was 107 feet tall.
All the way around that city, you can imagine what the main
gate to that place looked like. Fortified armies, capital of
the land, there they were. This little tiny prophet had
to go in there and tell those folks what happened in the garden.
That's what he had to tell them. He had to tell them who sat on
the throne and what was fixing to happen to that place. And
when he got there, God opened the door. That's what has to
happen. God has to open the door. That
is what has to happen. He redeemed us unto God, paid
our sin debt, and then according to his good
pleasure make known unto us the mystery of his will. He arranges
his providence, creates needs in the heart, drives us to Christ. I just love the story of Naomi
and Ruth. And you need to know this. You
need to know that there are three things that God does. Number
one, He drives us in His providence. He drives us just like a herd
of cattle where He wants us to go. He drives us. He took Naomi
out of that place, put her over here in this land with nothing
over there but death to her. Her sons died. Now she's not
only in poverty, but she has two daughter-in-laws and children
to try to take care of. But God blessed this place she
left. And she heard about it. Whoever it was that God blessed,
he couldn't keep his mouth shut. And he started telling everybody
how the Lord blessed him. And do you know what happens
when one man hears the gospel? And the word reached over to where
Naomi was. And she heard there was bread
over there. And she said, let's go back. You see how God in His
property drove her back. Then when she got there, here's
Ruth tagging along behind. Where does God drive you? He
drives you into the field of the Redeemer. That's what He
does. He drives you into His field. And then He calls you.
When He gets you near, He calls you. And He calls you by name. And He says, leave some handfuls
of purpose there for her. Leave some handfuls of purpose. God has a people, and everything
that goes on in this world is driving us to the Redeemer's
field. He drives us in His providence.
And He calls us by His grace. But how do we know, preacher?
How do we know we're God's elect? More folks wrestle over that,
don't they? How do you know? Well, you say,
I know you believe in election, but how do you know you're one
of God's elect? How do I know I'm one for whom
Christ died? How do I know I'm one in that
day when He opens that book of life and He's going to say, My
name. Come on. How do I know that? I believe it. I believe all for
whom Christ died are saved, but how do I know who's in Christ? I believe God put a people in
Christ, but how do I know if I'm one? Same way Ruth found
out. She looked down and found handfuls
of purpose and picked them up. Why'd she pick them up? Because
she had a need. That's why. God made her hungry, and she
went out in that field. She didn't go out there to reap. She went
out there to pick up the scraps. Man's proud. He wants to say,
I want a big church. I want to part. I want to be
a teacher. I want to be a singer. I want to be something in a big
church. Why in the world would you go down there? Because I've
got a need and I'm hungry. And he leaves handfuls of purpose. And you pick them up. And you keep picking them up.
And after a while, Boaz calls. Boaz calls. the kinsman-redeemer. God drives us to his field. He
leaves us handfuls of purpose along the way to help supply
that need that we had. And then when we get close, he
calls us. He calls us. Boaz looked on Ruth with eyes
of favor. His providential purpose. His
spiritual purpose. His eternal purpose. God works all things after the
counsel of His own will. God's preachers are sent. They're
sent. But God's people are gone. You
know, Christ taught both things. He was teaching those Jews and
those Pharisees were questioning who He was and how can this man
say that he's the bread that came down from heaven and they're
just upset. And He said, don't murmur. He
said, don't murmur. There's no need to murmur. What
is that? John 6.44, I think, is where
he said it. He said, Don't murmur. No man can come unto me except my
Father draw him. That's how folks come to Christ.
God the Father orders providence, and He draws them to Him. He draws them to Him. And when
He gets them there, He calls them. He calls them. He drew that woman. with an issue
of blood. He dragged Bartimaeus with his
blindness and the leper with his disease. He dragged the demoniac with
demons. The devil is God's devil, don't
ever forget it. He used demons to draw the demoniac
to Christ. He sure did. How can I have hope
that I'm his? He arranged for me to hear. How
many in this country have never heard? How many are going to
go to hell and never hear? How come you could hear? Huh? He arranged it, didn't he? He
arranged it. Oh. He arranged for us to hear. He
sent us a preacher. How come the gospel affected
my heart? There was others there the same
day. Didn't affect them. They went away laughing, chewing
bubble gum. I went away in tears. I come. I come. Paul looked at those Thessalonians.
He said, I know your election of God, because my gospel came
not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, and I'll wind this up. Something occurred to me
when I was writing this message out. Back in the 1950s, not long
after the war, things began to prosper a little bit. Houses
began to get a little electric in them. We lived way out in
the middle of nowhere. It looked like a place about
the size of Bussey. It was called Tyro, up in Ohio, right in the
middle of these big fields. And we had an old farmhouse.
Had a light, if I remember right, in all the main rooms, and had
a plug in the kitchen for a refrigerator, and had a plug for a stove, and
that was it. That was all electric there was. This had to be about
1955, because I was about five or six years old. But what I
remember is this guy came to the door. We lived way out in
the middle of nowhere, and this guy came to the door, and man,
he was dressed in a suit. And he had packages and stuff.
Now, I was old enough to know something about Christmas, you
know. I got excited. This guy's got something, you
know. And he's knocking on the door. And Mom let him in. And
this guy was just going 90 miles a minute. He was a vacuum cleaner
salesman. That's what he was. And he came
in. He sold Kirby vacuum cleaners.
And he came in the house. And we had this big area rug.
And this guy was just... I mean, he was just like this. He was going. And he was talking
this and unfolding that and throwing things out. Man, I was just...
That thing might as well have been a spaceship for me at five
years old. I was looking, I'd never seen
it. All we had was a broom and a dustpan. We didn't have anything
else. And here sits this big old vacuum
cleaner about this high and all these attachments and carpet
cleaners and all this stuff that went with it. And he's got them
all spread out there on the floor. And mom's trying to tell him
something, but he ain't listening. He's just jabbering and selling
and And he gets out this little satchel, and he gets in there,
and there's about five or six bottles full of stuff, and he
starts dumping stuff out on the rug, pet hair and dust. And he
went through, you know, telling each one what it was, and he's
dumping it out. And he got all done and got that
cord and unwound it, and he started looking around the room, and
there was no plug. There was no plug in the room.
And what was supposed to be his closing argument, What was going
to seal the deal, what was going to nail this thing down, he'd
been talking about for thirty minutes. He was going to take
that vacuum cleaner and suck that stuff up in about five seconds. And it was going to be done.
But what was meant to be the closing argument was just an embarrassment. You know why? There wasn't any power. Now,
I want you to listen to this over here in 1 Corinthians 2.
In verse 1, he said, And I, brethren, when I came unto you, I came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring the testimony
of God. For I determined not to know
anything, anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom." Now listen, but
in demonstration of spirit and of power. Paul preached a gospel
that didn't depend on his human logic and didn't depend on men's
reasoning. It depended on the power of God. Demonstrating that grace in them. Taking that blood and applying
it to their conscience. Removing that guilt. You didn't
have to convince that man of anything. The Spirit of God convinced
him. And all the lawyers and philosophers
of the ages couldn't take it away from him. God convinced
him. That's the kind of gospel Paul
preached. And that's the kind I want to preach. I want to stand
before men in simplicity. Maybe I sound like a fool to
some folks, but I want to deliver that gospel in simple, plain
language and illustration, and then watch. Watch. I want to
see God work. I want to see God in the heart,
pressing His truth, and in the mind, and on that conscience,
and see that guilt gone. Gone. I live for it. I live for
it. It's like candy to me. I love
it. I love it. Oh, when the gospel
comes to men, it comes in power, demonstrating the exceeding sinfulness
of sin, the utter inability of the flesh, the utter ruin of
a man. It lays him bare. It makes him
to see his righteousness as filthy rags. And when it does, when
it does, when it gets him down, when it strips him, when it gets
him down to where he's got no hope, no hope, crying out to
God for mercy. Then God unveils the glory of
God in Christ. And he just embraces, takes it
to Him. You don't have to beg Him down
an aisle. I don't have to sing 59 verses of Just As I Am to
get Him down an aisle. Just wait on God to strip Him
down and make Him bare. Show Him His guilt. Then show
Him Christ. Just like that. He'll lay hold.
He'll grab it.