We have here in this place, this
place where we're gathered this morning, what some of the old riders called
a free pulpit. Now here's what that means. It
means we have no organizational committees. We have no association
to approve or disapprove or men dictating what we preach and
what we don't preach. We have no councils seated somewhere
in a state capitol that's going to come down here and exercise
a rule in this church. That's what that means. We have
a free pulpit. We have no rule except that of
Christ. and such as he is revealed in
the Word and established by his providence. We're not free. That doesn't mean we're free
to do whatever we want to do or act however we want to act.
It doesn't mean we're free for each one to reason things out
in his mind and then take action that way in here. But it means that we're free
to preach the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ. That's
what it means, without hesitation, without apology, without having
to answer to anybody except God what we preach. Paul said he
had one thing that constrained him, the love of Christ, the
only bonds he had. Like the old bond servant, he
stood against the frame of the door and his ear was bored through
and that earring put in there. He was a bond slave. In the book
of Romans, when he talks about him being a servant, that's what
he's talking about. That's the same word used to
describe the bond slave. The bond slave. And we're criticized
for it. I know that. We're criticized
for it. We're mocked in the community.
We're made light of. I've met I don't know how many
people here and in Spring Hill and different places. This church
has been here a long time. And they've stood here for the
gospel of God's sovereign grace under their pastor. And the community
knows what you preach. Now, they take it to mean this
and take it to mean that. They don't really enter into
any understanding of what it is you preach. But you're mocked
and criticized for what you believe and for what you preach. And
it's always been that way. If you read this Bible from beginning
to end, I quoted one of them to you this morning. Cain and
Abel came to worship God. They came to worship God. They
were both instructed by the same Father. There wasn't anybody
else around to instruct them. And Adam instructed his two sons
according to the Word of God, according to the pattern that
was shown to him in the garden. God slew an animal, shed its
blood as a substitute, and took that skin off that representative
and put it around them and clothed their nakedness. And He explained
that. He explained the faith that that
entailed and what was talked about, that seed of the woman
that was to come. This was part of that work that
He would do. You see, we think these old timers
didn't have any kind of knowledge. You need to read your Bibles.
Read through the books of Peter. Read through there concerning
these men. Read through the book of Hebrews
concerning these men. These men knew what they believed.
Job, the oldest book in the Bible, Job said that, I know I'll stand
on this earth and I'll see Him in that day. He knew about the
resurrection. There isn't anybody in any book
in the Bible that even refers to the book of Job, and they
figure Job is the oldest book there because there is no other
reference made of it. Job knew what he believed. He
knew what he believed. Abraham knew what he believed.
Enoch knew what he believed. Cain and Abel, they came to worship
God. And Abel, he came with what he
thought was right. He reasoned it out. a family
oriented thing if he sit down with his wife and said well what
do you think? How do you think we ought to do this? You know
I just don't, you know dad he's kind of set in his ways and he's
getting smug on him and I don't know if we ought to do all that,
you know this is new times, this is new times now, this is just
not, we're not back in the garden anymore, we're out here, we're
out here. And I think what we need to do, I'm a gardener, that's
what I do, you know maybe Abel, he tinned sheep. That might be a thing for him
to do. But I'm a gardener, so I'm going to take all this stuff
out of my garden, I'm going to bring it down here, and I'm going
to worship God, and I'm going to lay these things down on the
altar of God. That's what seemed right to him. It's what was logical
to him. It's what he felt from his heart.
He didn't go down there and play games. He went down there to
worship God. But he went down ignorant. He went down ignorant. And it said God had no respect
He had no respect to Cain. How come? Because Cain didn't
come with an understanding. Cain didn't come with an understanding
of who God was and what God required. He put aside the wisdom of God. He put aside the counsel of God.
He put aside the instruction of God. And he just did what he thought
was right. And God had no respect to it.
And the next day he walked with his brother Abel. He had respect
to Abel because Abel brought the sacrifice. Abel brought according
to the instruction of his father, according to the gospel promise
of the woman's seed and what he would come and what he would
do and what he would accomplish and how he would accomplish it.
And he came in faith, believing. And God had respect to his sacrifice. God had respect to him. And the
next day he saw his brother upset and troubled and fussing and
fuming. And he took him by his hand and
he led him out in the field. And he said, let me talk to you
just a little bit. Let me reason with you just a
little bit. And he began to reason with him about the gospel. And
all it did was infuriate him. It made him angry. And he rose
up and he killed him. I don't care how far back you
go. You can go all the way back to the beginning. You can come
down in time. You can go through the New Testament.
You can read through the book of Acts. I don't care where it
is. This world despises the gospel of God's sovereign grace, and
they despise those who stand for it. They can't get to God,
but they can get to you. They can get to you. And they despise it because they
have no understanding. No understanding. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness
unto him. And he can't understand them.
He cannot understand them because they're spiritually discerned.
And they get upset and they get angry. I hear this all the time. You're
just narrow-minded. You're narrow-minded. I've got
some sisters and brothers that tell me that all the time. You're
just narrow-minded. You're too dogmatic. You need
to learn to compromise a little. You need to learn to listen to
what other folks say. I hear what they say, but I weigh
what they say in the light of the Word of God. And what they
say is not according to the Word of God. And I hear this. I hear this a lot. You need to
learn to bend with the breeze. Change with the tide. These were
olden times. These were the good old days.
You need to adapt to the times. And then I hear this comment
all the time. That's just your opinion. It wasn't too long ago
you were talking to a relative and he told you that's your opinion.
That's just your opinion. That's your interpretation. Our
church don't believe that way. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
4. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul
exhorts the church to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they
were called. Not that any man has any worthiness
in him or has any merit in what he does. but that he be faithful
to his calling, faithful to his profession, faithful to his confession,
faithful to the gospel he received. Look here in verse 2. And to
do it with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering. That is, don't get upset. Don't
get upset. When you stand up and preach
and somebody gets mad and stomped, don't get upset. You didn't know
anything either until God opened your eyes, did you? You fight
and kick and got just as mad as they did. Don't get upset.
Be long-suffering. Forbearing one another in love,
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace. There is one body and one Spirit,
even as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father of all who is above
all. and through all and in you all. And it is given to us, you read
through these next several verses, it is given to us by grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ who ascended up on high
and laid captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. What did
he give? Listen, verse 11. He gave some
apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastor
teachers for the perfecting, that is, for the maturing of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, or
mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ. that we henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up," now listen, "...into him." Into him. He's the hope. He's the salvation. He's the object of your faith.
He's the ransom. He's the redeemer. He's the justifier. He's the mediator. He's the high
priest. That you grow up into him. He's
the head of the body. We're going to grow up into him
in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Now, I'm going to
tell you something. I hope God will give you the
ability to understand what I'm saying. There is a sharp line
of division set forth in the Word of God. It's sharp. It cuts. It divides. It's not God's design to have
peace among all the people of the earth. It's not God's design. That's the design of the church
of this world. That's what its design is. Everybody
to be happy. They want everybody to be happy
no matter what it costs. And they're willing to sacrifice
and compromise the name of God to bring it to pass. They want
this peace. But there's a sharp line of division
drawn in the Scriptures, and that line is drawn by the gospel
we preach. That's why it's so important
that we do not compromise this gospel. This is not my gospel. It's His. Paul calls in his letter
to the Romans, he calls it the gospel of God. It's His gospel. It ain't mine. It was just entrusted
to me. It's entrusted to you. Go ye into all the world, now
listen to this, this is in Mark chapter 16, you know this, you know this
verse by heart. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned. Believe
not what? The gospel. The gospel. This gospel divides and it unifies
at the same time. It unifies believers. It brings
believers together. They strive in the unity of the
Spirit and a bond of peace. They strive. They hear this gospel
and they're just knitted together more. The more they hear it,
the closer they get. The more they understand it,
the closer they are with one another. After a while, and I'm
telling you the truth, I can't quote for you the whole New Testament,
but if you'll just read for yourself Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
and listen to the teachings of our Lord. They said, your mother's
outside. He said, who is my mother? Huh? Who are my brothers? Who are
my sisters? They that do the will of God.
The children of God. Believers. And I'm telling you
the truth. When you hear the gospel and
the Spirit of God knit your hearts together, you love one another.
And after a while, they become closer to you than your own brothers
and sisters. I don't despise my brothers and
sisters. I don't hate them. It's just
that I love and am closer and have more common ground with
believers than I have with them. And so I spend more time with
believers than I do with them. Now, I'm telling you the truth.
It unifies, but it divides. It divides. Believers are mature. They grow
in grace and knowledge of Christ unto a perfect man. Believers
hear this gospel, and they come out, coming out from amongst
them. That's what they do. They come
out. They come out of darkness into light. world and its God
and its religion and its principles and all the things that have
to do with this world, they leave those things and come to Christ.
They come to Christ. They come out of the world. They
walk in the Spirit. They walk in faith and they love
one another. Unbelievers shake their heads.
They throw out their lips and they walk out the door and they
don't come back. Listen to this here in Luke chapter 12. Turn
over there with me. Luke chapter 12. I have no reason to stand up
here. We're not building some big organization.
Anybody who's got enough sense to come in out of the rain knows
that. Take a look at our building. Take a look at our group. We're not out here trying to
build some big organization. I'm not trying to get you to
join a club. I'm not trying to get you to join this church.
I'm trying to get you to look to Christ. I'm trying to get
you to look to the Word of God. See what God says. Let God be
true and every man a liar. Come with that attitude. Come
with that attitude. Let God be true. Set it aside. Set aside the notes. Set aside
this man. Set aside everything. Open this
book and say in your heart, let God be true and every man a liar. and see what God has to say.
I'm not afraid to commit what I say to the Word of God. Listen to this. Luke 12, verse
51. He said, Suppose you that I am
come to give peace on earth, that is, to reconcile all men,
to console all men. He said, I tell you nay. But rather, what does he say?
A division. Ain't that what it says? A division. For from henceforth there shall
be five and a half divided, three against two, and two against
three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son
against the father, the mother against the daughter, and the
daughter against the mother, and the mother-in-law against
her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
There is a sharp line, I'm trying to tell you, I'm trying to point
you to the Scriptures. There is a sharp line of division
between the believer and the unbeliever, between this world
and the children of God. And it's drawn, that line is
drawn by the gospel we preach. There's nothing more important
on this earth for you to hear than the gospel. The gospel. One of the disciples told the
Lord, he said, my father's dead. He said, let the dead bury the
dead. You come with me. There is nothing, nothing more
important in this world than the gospel of God's sovereign
grace in Christ. I don't care what it is. There is a line of division set
forth, saved and lost, natural and spiritual, heavenly and fleshly,
dead and alive, believers and unbelievers, vessels of mercy
and vessels of wrath. And this division is not brought
about by opinions and interpretations and vice. It is brought about
by a clear and dogmatic preaching of Christ from a free pulpit. Now, that is how it comes. It's
always come that way and it always will. Well, I'm just not going
to hear him. You'll go to hell. That's just the truth. Ain't
that what he says? He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not what? The
gospel that was preached to him shall be damned. Ain't that what
he said? Now, you do what you want to
do with that. It has nothing to do with opinions. I quoted
in something in Sunday school this morning out of Ephesians
2, I think it's verse 12. He said, By grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of
God, not according to works. It's not according to your works.
Huh? That not of yourselves. It is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's
not more than a two-syllable word in that whole verse, and
yet the whole world is set staunch against the sovereign grace of
God. Now you tell me, is that an opinion? Is that a bias? It's the plain
declaration of the Word of God, and we don't want any part of
it. We don't want any part of it. Paul was so jealous over
this gospel that he wrote to the Galatian church. He was angry. He was upset. He was bewildered. And he wrote to them in this
letter, and he said, If I or an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel unto you than that which I preach, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed of God. I
don't care if it is an angel. Maybe something happened to me,
he said, and I'll come back. But he said, if I bring another
gospel, Let him be accursed. Let him be accursed. Now, that's
how serious and solemn and how clear this declaration of the
gospel is. They're one body. The body of
Christ. His bride, His church, His temple,
His sheep. One spirit. They're not ten or
fifteen spirits. They're one spirit. One comforter. One teacher sent from God. One
spirit with one goal, to take of the things of Christ and show
them unto you. If that is not what is going
on, you have received another spirit. You can read about that
over in the Corinthians. There is another gospel, another
Jesus, and another spirit. That is what he says over there. One body, the body of Christ. One spirit, creating in men a
new nature, new principles, A new hope. You're calling one hope, he said,
if you're calling. That's just one hope. Well, I just, you know, my hope,
I made my peace with God. I just hope I can keep on keeping
on. That ain't the hope. That ain't
the hope. Well, I just, you know, I'm going
to keep going. That ain't the hope. There's
just one hope, John, and that's Christ. That's the hope. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. There's no hope
outside of Christ. There's no hope in religion.
There's no hope in the refuge. There's no hope in the walk.
There's no hope in the will. All the hope's in Him. In Him. If your hope's not in Him, you
don't have a hope. And there's just one hope. They're
just one faith. They're just one baptism. How
many baptisms have we got in this world? Sprinkling and sprinkling
babies and sprinkling adults and all this kind of stuff. All
these different baptisms and washings and all this nonsense.
They're just one baptism. The word baptism means immersion. Immersion. You can't say anything
apart from immersion. What are you going to say? What
are you going to confess? Listen to these verses. He said,
I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
They was buried, and that He rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures. This gospel is not anything that
anybody says about Jesus or everything that everybody says about Jesus.
This gospel has to do with what God said about it. That's what Paul said. What did
God say about it? I know what the Jews said. I
know what the Gentiles said. I know what Pilate said. I know
what all these men say. I know what religion says. What
does God say about it? Now, that's what's important.
What did God say? Faith believes God. It believes
God. This message will never ring
true to your heart until you see God in the message. How shall they preach except
they be sent? The gospel is about what God
has to say. The gospel is how that Christ
died for our sins, was buried, rose from the dead on the third
day according to the scriptures. And I don't have time this morning
to go into every aspect of His death, burial, and resurrection,
but I want to give you four things that I see clearly defined in
the scriptures concerning these things. Four things that I preach
and declare dogmatically without apology and without compromise.
Here's the first thing. This gospel declares the fall
and ruin of all men. Christ died for our sins, he
said, according to the Scriptures. See, we won't bring these little
petty things. I watched a movie the other night.
And I'm not picking on Catholics. I'm telling you, I can pick as
much on Baptists or Nazarenes or somebody else as I do Catholics.
But Catholics have a confession. And we used to, and the Nazarene
church, it was just a different time. We didn't confess to the
priest, we'd just stand up. And that was the favorite time
for everybody because you got to hear what they did. And I was sitting there thinking,
and this guy got in the little booth and he began to confess,
you know, on this day, such and such day, I had these thoughts,
or had those thoughts, I did this, I did that. Brethren, that's
not sin according to the Scripture. Do you know that? That's not
your sins. Sin is not what you do. Sin is
what you are. It's what you are by nature.
We were by nature the children of wrath even as others. It's
your nature. You can't put your finger in
the dike. You can't stop it. It seethes out of every pore,
he said. The poison of ash, Paul said,
is under our lips. Destruction and misery are in
our ways. Man's fallen, he's depraved,
he's altogether sinful. He can't do anything. He can't
do anything. He's altogether in sin. Would you say in preaching that
a man can't do anything good, anything righteous? He has no
worth, no potential, no value in his person? No, sir, that's
what God said. That's what God said. Read Romans
3. Paul pointing out to them that
there was a religion, and these people had the Word of God, and
they had the sacrifices of God, and they had the priesthood of
God, and they had all these things that God laid down. They had
all the right words. They had all these things all
given to them. They had a great advantage over
the Gentiles, but he comes there in Romans chapter 3 and he said,
now there's no difference. Their religion didn't profit
them a bit. How come? Because we have before proved
both Jew and Gentile are all under sin. All under sin. Something has to be done about
your sin. And man's totally depraved. He can't do anything. He won't
even seek God. There's none righteous. There's
none that understand it. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone astray. They all together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. He's all together in sin. In sin. The only way for him
to be saved is for God to intervene and do something for him that
he can't do. And he did that when he sent
Christ. Christ. You're never going to
seek Christ until you see yourself a sinner. Not a sinner by what
I say, but a sinner according to the declaration of God. By
one man, sin entered into the world, death by sin. Death passed
upon all men. How do I know that? All sin.
All sin. And I'll give you a bit of prophecy.
I'm going to prophesy this morning. All these kids that you may have
one day, they're all going to sin too. Why? Because death passed. That's
why. And it's going to keep on passing
until God winds this thing up. The only hope you have is that
God, in His eternal purpose, Intervene on your behalf and
send his son to die for your sins. Christ died for our sins
according to the scripture, and our sins are according to the
scriptures as well as his death. And then secondly, this gospel
sets forth in the word of God, and it declares how that Christ
died for our sins. He died as a substitute. A substitute. He taught it from the day in
the gardens when Adam fell. He slew the animal. Substitution
is what he revealed to Adam. He revealed it to Abel. He revealed
it to Enoch. He revealed it to Noah. All down
through time, he established his law and the ceremonies and
the priesthood and the tabernacle. And all down through time, what
did he teach? A substitute. A substitute. A substitute. All down through
time. He died as a substitute. That
means he took the place of sinners under the judgment and wrath
of God. Look over here at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Brethren, I'm not here to argue
with you. I'm here to try to point you in the right direction.
You can't be saved believing in a lie. You can't be saved
and be deceived. You've got to hear the truth.
My sheep, he said, hear my voice. That's the way of God. It's not
my way, it's His way. I'd have never picked this way.
I'd have never reasoned this way out. He revealed it to me. And He revealed it in me. Over here in 2 Corinthians chapter
5, up here in verse 18. All things are of God who hath,
I just can't bear for a few minutes, who hath not made it possible, not formed
a plan, but hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing,
not charging their trespasses unto them. Now, wait a minute.
But I've heard you say, God is holy. He will by no means clear
the guilty. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. Cursed is every one who continues
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
How then can God not impute, not charge is what that word
means. How can God not charge their sins unto them? He's a
holy God. They sinned. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. How can this holy God not
charge them with sin? That's the mystery of the gospel.
That's the mystery of the gospel. Look down here in verse 21, that
same chapter. For he who, God, hath made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. That's substitution. That's substitution. He bore our sins, the apostle
said, in his own body on the tree. I have a confident assurance
facing the judgment of God, even though I sin, and I am sin, and
everything about me is tainted with sin. I have a confident
assurance toward the judgment of God because my sins were not
charged to me. They were charged to Him. Charged to Him. Oh, listen to
this, when the fullness of time was come, Galatians chapter 4
verse 4, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son made of a woman, made under the law, responsible to
it, accountable for it, to redeem them that were under the law
that we might receive the adoption of sons. Substitution. Listen to this,
Hebrews 9, verse 24, I am trying to show you, Christ died for
our sins according to the scriptures. According to the scriptures.
Hebrews 9, verse 24, Christ is not entered into holy places
made with hands, which are the figures of the truth. but into
heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us,
nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest
enters into the holy place every year with blood of others. For
then must he have suffered since the foundation of the world,
but now, once," one time, in the end of the world hath he
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." That's
substitution. That's substitution. All the
sins of God's elect from the foundation of the world to the
end of the world were laid on him, charged to him. He stood
accountable for them, responsible for them. He opened not his mouth. He didn't argue about it. He
didn't plead his righteousness. He didn't plead anything. He
closed his mouth and took what was due him. Despising the sin, despising
those things, despising all those things he bore, and he offered
his soul a sacrifice unto God. And over in Isaiah chapter 53,
it said, When the Lord saw, The agony of his soul, the suffering
of his soul is that he was satisfied. Satisfied. God is satisfied. He is not satisfied with our
doings and goings and praying and preaching and everything
else we do. The only way it can be acceptable to God is through
our Lord and through our high priest. Everything we do tainted with
sin. But it's made acceptable in him. But he's satisfied with
Christ. He's satisfied with that sacrifice.
He's satisfied with his suffering. And he took them away. Ain't that what it says? He put
away. It's gone. I don't guess if I lived to be
150, I'd never get old. My sins are gone. I see them. I feel them. I experienced them. But I'm going to tell you something.
He said, I remember them no more. You know why God don't remember
sin? Because they're gone. They're gone. They're gone. Think about it. Gone. Half in
a substitute. In a substitute. shall see the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied." Over in Hebrews 10, verse 6,
he said, "...in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou
hast had no pleasure." God never had any pleasure in those things.
He had no pleasure. Read Isaiah 1 where he talks
about Israel holding up hands and going through the motions
and coming into His courts and all that type of thing. He said,
who told you to do that? Why are you coming in here? Who
required this at your hand, tread my courts? Come, let us reason
together, he said. Though your sins be like scarlet,
I'll make them white as wool. On one way you're going to reason
that, and that's in Christ. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. prepared of God, witnessed throughout
the volume of the book. He comes to do the will of God
and accomplish His will, and accomplish it He did. And then
thirdly, I preach Christ, the end of the law for righteousness.
And I'm not going to go into it and elaborate on this point
because I preached everything I know about it last week, but
there's just one righteousness and that's His. That's His. And it's yours by faith. by faith. Now, you want to take the book
of the law, you go right ahead. You go right ahead. You get over
there in those first five books of Moses, and you memorize all
those statutes, all those sanitary laws, all those ceremonial laws,
all the Ten Commandments, you get them all memorized, and you
go out here and by your own obedience, you try to produce a righteousness
acceptable to God. And you'll perish in your ignorance
the same way Israel did. They were zealous. Nobody can
question their zeal. They were zealous. They had a
lot of things going on for them, but they were ignorant of the
righteousness of God. And what did Paul say about that
righteousness? For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. Not to everyone, but to everyone
that believes. And then fourthly, the gospel.
according to the Scriptures, declares the absolute, total,
and sovereign reign of the resurrected Christ. Philippians chapter 2,
it tells what he did, how he humbled himself, how he had become
a servant under the law, how he bore the wrath of God, the
sufferings in spite of men, how he was humiliated, and that having
satisfied God, God raised him up. The day of humiliation is
over, my friend. God raised him up and he said
he gave him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus
Christ, every knee is going to bow. Every tongue is going to
confess of things in heaven. They're not a creature in heaven
that ain't going to bow their knee before this king. There
is not a creature in the earth in God's time that ain't going
to bow that knee before this King. There is not a creature
under the earth, not a creature in hell, who ain't going to bow
that knee before this King. Oh, listen to this. Over in 1
Timothy chapter 6, Paul was encouraging young Timothy as a preacher.
He was just a young man. criticism of the old apostle
and taking sides with the old apostle. And he would just rail
on from every side. You can't even imagine in our
day, we can't imagine what it was like in that day. It was
acceptable back then. They could take you outside of
town, beat you to death, stone you, whatever. A lot of things
they could do to you then. And Paul is trying to give some
encouragement to this young preacher. Listen to what he tells him over
here in 1 Timothy 6. He said, which in his times he
shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King
of kings and Lord of lords, who only has immortality, dwelling
in a light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen or
can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. It is all
in his hands. I get so weary listening to people
talk about accepting him. making him their Lord. You can't
make him Lord. God made him Lord. God made him Lord. There is a
man seated in glory who is the blessed and only potentate, equal
with God, in authority, in power, seated at the right hand of God. Not a devil in hell can touch
me apart from his permission. I'm not saying he won't permit
him to. He did with Job. But he had to ask permission,
didn't he? Huh? He had to ask permission. He's
the Lord. I'm telling you, the biggest
question you and I've got to face is not what we're going
to do for Him. What's He going to do for us? Where He is? We're in His hand. The heart
of the King is in the hand of the Lord. That's where it's at.
He turneth it whether so ever He will. All the voters in the United
States can't get Obama to do anything. His heart's in the
hand of the Lord. He'll turn it withersoever he
will. And my heart and your heart's
in His hand too. I tell you, we're just vessels
in the hands of the potter, and he spins it, and he can make
a vessel unto honor or one to dishonor. That's just the truth. In Luke chapter 12, where I read
to you from a while ago in verse 58, this is good advice. This is good
advice. Listen to this. He told those
people, he said, when thou goest with thine adversary to the judge,
he got you by the hand. You done something. You done
something. You transgressed the law. You
done something. And you offended him. And he
got you by the hand, and he's taking you down to the judge.
Now listen, listen to what he says. As thou in the way. Ain't that where we're at right
now? Huh? God, whose law we've transgressed,
has us by the arm, and we're in the way. We're headed for
judgment. We're headed for death, we're
headed to the judge. While thou art in the way, listen
to this, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from
him, lest he hail thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into bondage,
into prison. And I tell thee, thou shalt not
depart thence till thou hast paid the very last might. We're
in the way. And there's one thing, one spark
of hope to you, and that's the gospel I preached to you this
morning. You heard the truth, and I give it to you from the
Word of God. I established every point I made
from the Word of God. I read to you the testimony of
God. And I tell you this, I beseech
you, By what you've heard this morning, settle with him. Why
do you fight him? It's a message of grace. It's
not a message of judgment. It's a message of grace. He requires
nothing at your hand except to bow. Bow down. Bow down. It's what you carry
in your hand and in your heart that stands in the way. He said,
come buy milk and honey without money and without price. Don't
bring nothing. Just come and bow down and receive
Him. Rejoice in Him. And I tell you this, you're going
to bow. Oh yes, you are. You can do what you want to in
this world, but you're going to bow in the next. You're going
to bow. And it's too late then. I ain't confessing. Yeah, you're going to confess.
Yeah, you are. Devils in hell are going to confess,
ain't they? The devils in hell are going
to confess. The question is, when? Are you going to confess now?
Are you going to bow now? Or are you going to wait until
then? Either way, you're going to confess. You're going to confess. Listen to what Paul said. If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus,
the Sovereign King of glory, if thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, that God made him Lord. God sent
him there in the heavens. This is God's mediator, God's
gospel, God's Son. That God raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation.