I'll turn to Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20. The passage we're looking at
is from verse 17 to the end of the chapter. We're not going
to look in any detail. We're going to focus on one verse or the
things that one verse clearly implies. And that's verse 27. In verse 27, Paul tells the elders
of the Ephesian church, I have not shunned to declare to you
the whole counsel of God. I have not shunned to declare
unto you the whole counsel of God." And I've entitled this
message, Paul's School of Theology. Paul's School of Theology. And
there's a reason for that. I was prompted to do it because
I received some brochures in the week about another school
of theology that takes place every year. I received some brochures
about a school of theology that's going to take place in the summer.
And looking at it, no doubt there will be some things that are
very good and there are one or two preachers that we know who
I'm sure will stand up and preach nothing other than Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. But there was other stuff there
that really disturbs me. It really does. And I thought,
well, let's compare. There's one school of theology.
What about Paul's school of theology? We ought to take note of this. What would Paul's school of theology
have as its syllabus. You know, you go to school and
you do an exam course and there's a syllabus. These are the things
that we're going to cover. What would Paul's school of theology
cover? You see, that brochure gave us
a syllabus as to what that summer school of theology is going to
cover. What would Paul's school of theology cover? Well, in one
short phrase, it would be this, the whole counsel of God. All the counsel of God. The counsel
of God is the wisdom of God. What God has got to say to mankind.
The wisdom, the advice of God. You know, a counselor gives advice,
helps. The whole counsel of God. Don't
you want to be counseled by the living God? By the true God? Well, what does it mean, this
whole counsel of God? Well, we have to interpret Scripture
with Scripture. And there's nobody better to
ask in terms of the writings of Scripture than the Apostle
Paul himself. For he wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse
2, and he backed up the same sentiment again and again in
other places. When he said he preached the
whole counsel of God, when he said that, he meant this, I determine
to know nothing else among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If you write notes in your Bible,
which I most definitely do, put a note next to verse 27, that
what that means is 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2. That's
what Paul meant by the whole Council of God. And note that
it's important to listen to what this man has to say. Yes, it's
the Holy Spirit speaking, but he's speaking through the Apostle
Paul. And it's important to note, it's important to note what he
says because, did you notice as we read it? These are his
last words to the elders of the church at Ephesus. Why did he
gather together just the elders of the church at Ephesus? Is
it because they live on a higher spiritual plane and they are
the ones that ought to know these things but the others don't really
matter? You know, they got together the important spiritual people.
Is that why he did it? No, obviously not. The church
of Ephesus was very large. It was a very big church. It
had to be taught broken down into smaller groups. There were
elders in the church who were guardians of the doctrinal stance
and the teaching of that church and so he gathered them together
so that they could hear in a small group on the beach before he
departed. And he said to them, I have not
shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. These are
his last words. If you had an opportunity to
speak your last words, if you knew that within days you were
going to be here no longer, what would you say? What would you
say? Would you have anything worth
saying? Would you have anything to say that others might find
it worth listening to? Well, this man did, because this
man You can see from how much of the New Testament that he
wrote. He had such a powerful testimony that we've seen before.
He's got something to say that's worth listening to. Paul the
Apostle had a dramatic conversion, as you know. A dramatic conversion. Going along the road to Damascus,
absolutely determined to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ and
the followers of Jesus Christ, and to bind them, and to put
them in prison, and even to kill them. He was going with venom
and fury in his heart against this, and he had the most dramatic
conversion, such that it has fallen into our everyday culture
and language to talk of a Damascus Road experience, of those that
experience some dramatic change of mind. Now note this, when
people have a dramatic change of mind, so dramatic as that,
so absolutely dramatic as that, it is nearly always destructive. It is nearly always destructive.
Nearly always. If somebody who is sane and in
his right mind going one way with one particular thing in
mind has such a dramatic about turn in his thinking, more often
than not it's because he's lost his sanity. He's gone mad. As Festus, in a few chapters,
we'll see, says to Paul, Paul, you are mad. Your learning has
made you go mad. You've lost your sanity. You've
lost it completely. And he says, no, most noble Phaistos,
I haven't lost my sanity at all. I know exactly what I'm talking
about. He knew exactly what he was talking about because this
change was divinely caused. It was divinely brought about.
It was the sovereign God in the Lord Jesus Christ who stopped
him and said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And so
Paul is credible. We need to listen to his syllabus
for this school of theology. Paul's school of theology. He's
a pattern for preachers. Paul is the pattern that we should
seek to imitate because his approach was very focused and very single-minded. Whatever the great spectrum of
teaching that there is in the Scriptures was constantly, it
wasn't a spectrum from over there to over there, it was a spectrum
like a rainbow. And what was at the center of
the rainbow? Christ and Him crucified. That's what was there, right
at the very center of it, the focus of everything. When he
taught the accounts of the patriarchs, when he taught what the Psalms
teach, when he taught what the prophets said, all of these things,
what was their message? It was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He was the objective. And who
were the target audience for Paul's school of theology? Was
it just for the super spiritual ones to go off to Bible college,
or to seminaries, or to whatever? Absolutely not. You see again
and again, he systematically taught the whole church. You
can read in the earlier part of Acts 20, there's the account
in there, you'll know it well, of the young man Paul had preached
all day long. It's not a pattern for the sort
of sermons that I'm going to preach. It's not scriptural authority
for me to stand up at 10 o'clock in the morning and still be talking
at midnight. Not at all. But on this particular occasion,
Paul did. And all of the church was assembled
there. Because here comes the man with
the Word of God. With the teaching of the Gospel
of Grace. And he has to be systematic about it. And he has to be thorough
about it. And he's seeking to establish
them. Because he might not see them again. He probably won't
see them again. He wants them to be established. He wants them
to be rooted and grounded in the truth. He wants them to be
built on the foundation, which is the rock. the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wants them to be anchored. He wants them to have an anchor
for the soul. We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast
and sure as the billows roll, as the storms come along. He
wants them not to be children tossed to and fro with every
wind of doctrine because there are wolves coming in. What are
the wolves? They're not the dog-like animals
with furry coats on. He's talking about the people
of God as sheep. And if you've ever seen on the
nature programs, there was a lovely program about Yellowstone Park
and about the ravening wolves charging through Yellowstone
Park, most successful in the winter, picking off the little
deer and the little antelopes and all of these things. They're
ferocious. And this is what he's saying.
The people of God are like sheep. They're as tender and vulnerable
as sheep. And in will come wolves, grievous
wolves, verse 29. So he's building them up. with
defense. And he says in Ephesians chapter 6, take unto you therefore
the whole armor of God with which you will be able to withstand
the attacks of the devil. So it's Paul's school of theology,
everywhere he went, was to teach the church, to teach all in the
church, not just the super-spiritual ones, all of them in the church,
to give them a grounding, to give them the protection of the
Word of God, which would preserve them and bring them to eternal
glory. His approach was what we call, sorry this is a little
bit modern jargon, but proactive. It was, do something, don't just
do nothing. Don't just leave it all passively
to take place for itself. His method was preaching and
teaching. Look in verse 28. This is his commission to the
elders of the church at Ephesus. Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock. He's talking of them like a flock
of sheep, but he means the people in the church, the vulnerable,
tender people in the church, over the which the Holy Ghost
hath made you overseers. like a shepherd to guard them
and protect, like under shepherds to feed the church of God which
he has purchased with his own blood. This is what they were
to do, feed the flock of God. Feed them, teach them, build
them up. Feed them with what? Feed them
with that manna which came down from heaven. Jesus said, I am
the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the
wilderness. I am the bread of life. He is
the bread of life. His word is the bread of life.
Man shall not live by bread alone. Man shall not live by the things
he eats alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth
of God." So this was Paul's approach. Systematic, instructive, engaging,
and thorough. But always, at the center of
everything, of all of his doctrine, was Christ crucified. I determine
to know nothing else among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So if this is the syllabus, of
Paul's school of theology, what would it comprise? What is it
to preach Christ crucified? What is it to declare this whole
counsel of God? Now, no doubt others can break
it up into all sorts of other different points, but I, for
this morning, have broken this up into seven points which mark
out that which it is to preach Christ Jesus and Him crucified. Seven things, what it is to preach
Christ Jesus and Him crucified. First of all, to preach Christ
crucified, to know nothing other than Christ crucified, is to
preach the Scriptures. It's to preach the Bible. It's
to preach the Word of God. Why is it that? Because Christ
himself is the Word of God. Do you know, I have a thing about...
I don't have a big thing. It doesn't bother me unduly.
And don't let me make you feel guilty in any way whatsoever
if you have a Bible with red writing in for the words of Christ.
Now, do you know why I have a problem with Bibles in with the words
in red of Christ? They're the words of the man,
Christ Jesus, when he walked the earth in red. But do you
know what's the Word of Christ? All of it. All of it is. All
of it, from Genesis to Revelation, all of it is the Word of Christ.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. All of it is His Word. All of
it speaks of Him. John 5, 39, speaking to the Pharisees,
you search the Scriptures for in them you think that you have
eternal life and the implication is and so that is true. If you
want to know the way of eternal life, it's this book that will
teach you. These words are they which speak
of Me. To the disciples, the risen Christ,
on that road to Emmaus, and in other places in the upper room,
opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.
And what was the key to the Scriptures? Beginning at Moses and the prophets,
He expounded to them in all the Scriptures how they ought to
live. No, He didn't. What did He expound? In all the
Scriptures, beginning at Moses and the prophets, the things
concerning Himself. That, says Jesus, is the message
of the Bible. That is the message of the Bible.
Paul's school of theology, the Scripture. And do we just do
it mechanically? Because people do go to Bible
school and they study the language and they study this writer and
that writer and they compare this with that and so on and
so forth. And it can be all extremely mechanical
and at the end of it, the person that's been through it is as
dead and lifeless and lacking in any living knowledge of the
risen Christ and of eternal life as any man that's never done
that. It must be with Holy Spirit power and Holy Spirit quickening. For the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus
said, if I go away, I will send to you another Comforter. And
when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will teach you all
things. He will show you the things of
Christ. He will take those things which
are mine, said Jesus, and reveal them unto you. The Holy Spirit
comes. And when you read this word,
with Holy Spirit enlightening, With Holy Spirit eyes, with the
umim and the thumim, if I can use that analogy from the Old
Testament, you see the things of the living God. As Paul said,
we have the mind of Christ. And how do we have the mind of
Christ? When others around don't have the mind of Christ, even
though they read the same words, it's because God comes by His
Holy Spirit and reveals the things of Christ to His people. So firstly,
to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not, concerning
Christ according to this word there is no light in them for
all of these things speak of Christ and him crucified every
bit of it all the pictures of the Old Testament how God makes
a man right with him through the doing and the dying of the
glorious and infinitely valuable person of the Lord Jesus Christ
secondly Paul's school of theology to preach Christ crucified is
to preach the fallen state of man, the fallen state of man,
the total depravity of man. You cannot preach Christ and
Him crucified unless you do preach the fallen state of man. For
what was the point of Christ coming and being crucified if
it were not for the tragic state of man by nature? We preach that
in the Garden of Eden whatever scorn modern man might pour on
that concept. We preach that in the Garden
of Eden the whole of the human race fell from a state of blessedness
and obedience to the God who had made them in an act of sin
and thereby that sin passed to all their descendants, every
single one of them, down through Noah when there were just eight
left and on that propensity to sin passed on all. It's rebellion
against God. It's opposition to the law of
God, to the justice of God, to the holiness of God. All of it. And it's all under the curse
of God. For the law says this, cursed
is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. And all have sinned, says Paul
in Romans. There is none righteous, quote
in the Psalms. No, not one. None. Well, surely. Surely so-and-so was on a different
plane. Surely such-and-such a person
was good enough to go to... No, there is none righteous. No, not one. Man in his fallen
state is absolutely ruined. In and of himself, he's not just
sick in trespasses and sins. Man in his natural state, that's
you and me by nature, are dead in trespasses and sins. Dead
in trespasses and sins. We're not under the love of God. We are by nature children of
wrath, even as the others. All of us have sinned. How bad
is sin? How can you know how bad sin
is? I, in myself, just by thinking of these things, I don't think
I can get close to it. I might get a bit closer to it
if I think like this. What did it cost God to save
a sinner from his sins? What did it cost God? I'll tell
you what it cost Him. It cost God the precious blood
of His dearly beloved Son. You know, we can so often be
so flippant about this and think that it didn't really matter
and it wasn't a great price. You know, God knew He was going
to do these things. God knew that Christ was going to die,
but He was going to rise again from the dead. So really, why
do you make such a big thing of it? The cost. Oh, that we would appreciate
the cost. The cost of redeeming a soul the cost of the precious
blood of the Son of God, of Christ being forsaken. Read Isaiah 53
and see the pouring out of the heart of God for His people. You know, if there's something
that you have to do to achieve a desirable end, but yet that
thing that you have to do is the most revolting, most obnoxious,
most dreadful thing you could face, even if you knew 100% for
sure you were coming out of the other side of it unscathed. Even
if you knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was going
to be the result, nevertheless the going through it is the most
appalling, costly, agonizing, tortuous thing. And that's what
he did to save his people from their sins. There's a hymn that
we'll sing at the end. Oh, teach me what it meaneth,
that cross uplifted high. It's a prayer. Teach me what
it meaneth, that cross uplifted high, with one, the man of sorrows
condemned to bleed and die. Oh, teach me what it cost thee
to make a sinner whole and teach me, Savior. Teach me the value
of a soul. You see, what is that Psalm saying? It's Psalm 49 and verse 7. No
man, no man by his own efforts can redeem his brother for the
price of their soul is precious and it continues forever. What
he's saying is we can't do it. It needs someone of infinite
price to do it. The fallen state of man. Thirdly,
in this school of theology, having got our message from the scriptures,
having preached the fallen state of man, then on the syllabus
there must be the holiness of God, the state of the one who
is the God of the universe. You know these scriptures again.
They can flippantly trip off the tongue. Habakkuk 1.13, the
art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look upon
sin. God cannot look upon sin. Why
did Christ on the cross cry out, My God, My God, why have you
forsaken Me? The Scriptures give the answer
that He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. And when
Christ was made sin, the Father had to turn His eyes away for
He could not look upon that which was sin. And Christ was made
sin in that moment on the cross. And He had to turn away. He had
to forsake Him that justice might be established. Isaiah 55 verse
9 says this, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts. We so often think that God is,
as one of the reformers said, altogether like unto one of us,
and He's not. The God of the universe is holy.
He dwells, the scripture can't put it into words that we can
fully understand, but we read that He dwells in unapproachable
light. He dwells in unapproachable majesty
and light, the God of the universe. He is absolutely, unchangingly,
legally holy. Absolutely. This is bound up
in the character of God, that God is absolutely pure, the very
opposite of what we are by nature. If He was to do anything other
than condemn sin and punish sin and exact a payment for that
separation from Him, He would cease to be God. He cannot. He
cannot continue as God. And do as so many modern preachers
say, effectively just sweeps in under the carpet, oh it doesn't
matter. Let's hide it out of the way. He deals with it. He
pays for it. He blocks it out. He doesn't
treat it lightly. He's a holy God. And therefore
we teach this. What a chasm there is. What an
enormous gulf there is from where we are as fallen man by nature
and where He is as holy God. But in the middle of it all,
fourthly, the fourth thing that would be in Paul's school of
theology to preach Christ and Him crucified is the grace of
God. Because although we are sinners
and deserve His condemnation, and although God is absolutely
holy and just and right in all that He does, shall not the God
of all the earth do right? Yet He's a God of grace and of
mercy. He has eternal sovereign purposes. springing from love for His elect. For before the beginning of time,
in a way that we cannot understand, and for reasons that we can never
fathom, God chose out of all mankind that would ever exist
an innumerable multitude of people from every tribe and kindred.
And there appeared to us where we are more of them at some times
than at others. And in some times like these
times, there seem to be very, very few. But God has an innumerable
multitude whom He gave to Christ, His Son, to establish righteousness
and justice on their behalf, out of pure, sovereign grace,
the grace of God. And it sprung from that eternal
love, which is the essence of God. God is holy. Oh, but praise
God, God is love. How do I know God is love? One
of the shortest verses in the Bible tells me. God is love.
God is love. He is. God so loved the world,
by which He means not everyone that ever existed. He cannot
mean that, for in John 17, he says, I pray not for the world.
He can't love a world that he then chooses not to pray for.
But it's a world of sinners whom the Father has given him. God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He gave
that cost. Teach me what it means, that
cross uplifted high. He gave His only begotten Son
that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. God commends His love, Romans
5, 8. God commends His love to us. He shows us what... I can't put it into words. What magnificent love is the
love of God for sinners. He commends His love to us in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For the people
of God, Christ has always been the Lamb slain from before the
foundation of the world. He's always been that Lamb the
covenant the covenant which saves his people from their sins the
covenant between the father and the son and the Holy Spirit that
covenant is the everlasting covenant and that which seals that everlasting
covenant that which guarantees that everlasting covenant is
the blood of that great shepherd of the sheep our Lord Jesus Christ
through the blood of the everlasting covenant the grace of God the
grace undeserved absolutely undeserved absolutely unmerited absolutely,
purely out of love for his elect people. We preach the grace of
God. And then, fifthly, we preach
this. In this school of theology, Paul's
school of theology, preaching Christ crucified, we preach this,
we preach satisfaction. Satisfaction in Christ. You see,
remember these two words, substitution and satisfaction. The substitute
is Christ, who substituted for every one of His people in all
matters concerning God and in all matters relating to the law.
He substituted for His people. And as the substitute, He satisfied
everything that God demands, that we might be brought to Him,
that we might be made right with Him. And on what basis does He
satisfy? Because you see, the question
is, how does Christ crucified satisfy God's justice? How does
it do it? Isn't that an important question?
How does Christ crucified satisfy God's justice so that you and
me, that we might be declared right with God and accepted by
Him? Let me give you these things.
Firstly, it's on the basis of the person and work and worth,
person and worth of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is important. You know, those who say, yes,
Jesus is a Savior, but He's not truly God. Sorry, not valuable
enough. not worth enough, not worth enough
to save a soul. If he's just a created other
being, he's not worth enough to save a soul. He must be the
infinite God. It's not just a good man hanging
there on the cross of Calvary, but it's the God-man hanging
there on the cross of Calvary. That's how he's able to save
the person and worth God was in Christ, 2nd Corinthians 5.19,
reconciling the world to Himself. God was in Christ doing that.
In Him, this one, this one who is not just another one, in Him
who is God become man are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. That's what Colossians 2 and
verse 3 says. You see, yes, He became man. He became fully man. He took
on Him the form of flesh, the likeness of sinful flesh, we
read. He took that upon Him that He might live and die in the
place of His people as a man. But the human life that He took
upon Himself had to be of infinite value if it was to save a multitude
of sinners. It had to be of infinite value.
And so it was. He, who before was not a man,
became a man. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under
the law, to redeem, to buy back those who were under the law.
A human life of infinite value. This is how he can satisfy the
justice of God. Secondly, how can Christ crucified
satisfy God's justice? of the grace of Christ. I've
already spoken about the grace of God and it's all tied up with
the grace of Christ. But the point I want to particularly
make here is that the grace of Christ is very particular. He
did it and accomplished it for His people. For His people. Call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. Who are His people? As many as
believe in Him. They're His people. Those who
believe in Him are His people. The grace of Christ. This is
how He does it. He doesn't just lay it wide open
as an offer to everybody. He specifically pays the price. He pays the ticket for every
single one of those whom the Father gave to Him from before
the beginning of time. This is how He satisfies justice.
He takes... If you're His, He takes your
sins and mine. And He deals with them. And He
pours out His lifeblood for them. And He establishes righteousness
on behalf of those people. He does it all particularly.
And then thirdly, satisfaction in Christ. How does Christ crucified
satisfy the justice of God? He justifies His people. He sanctifies
His people unconditionally. He does that which is necessary
so that His people are declared just. His people are declared
righteous. His people are declared not in
need of condemnation, for they're righteous and just in Him. He
does that unconditionally, without works. This is so important. So important. If I would point
to one thing in that other syllabus of a school of theology that
I was referring to, it's this standing out clearly. A complete
contradiction of what I've just said. This is unconditional salvation. This is unconditional satisfaction. You see, my works before the
law of God, my works don't earn my salvation. I think most would
agree with that. I think anybody in the evangelical
Christian world would agree with that. My works don't earn salvation. But neither do my works prepare
me for salvation. They're not a prerequisite without
which I cannot be saved. It's unconditional. Not only
that, they don't earn, they don't prepare for, but if I'm saved,
my works don't improve my salvation. They don't. They don't make me
a better Christian. You hear people talking about,
oh, so-and-so's a much better Christian than me. I'm sorry,
in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are all complete in Him. You're
either in Him or out of Him. And if you're in Him, you are
complete in Him. Your works do not improve you
in the standing of God. Your works don't maintain your
attachment to Christ not at all he says my sheep hear my voice
and follow me no one can pluck them out of my hand because he
keeps his sheep they don't maintain it and our works do not complete
our salvation we're not here now getting better and better
and better so that we'll be fitted for heaven not at all because
if that were the case If that were the case, how many works
could you do with your hands and your feet nailed to a cross?
I don't think you could do many, could you? And yet there was
one man that we know of in the Scriptures that did, that thief
on the cross, had no opportunity to do any works, and yet Christ
promised him, this day shall you be with me in paradise. Unconditional,
absolutely unconditional. My works don't earn, prepare
for, improve, maintain, or complete my salvation. Only in Christ
crucified is God a just God and a Savior. Isaiah 45 says, a just
God and a Savior. In Romans 3, 26, that He might
be just and the justifier of those whose faith is in Christ.
We're complete in Him. And then fourthly, under this
point of satisfaction in Christ, He is the fulfillment and end
of the law. You see, there is the law that
would accuse us There is the law by which Satan would condemn
us. There is the law which would
drive us down to hell because we've all broken it. For there
is none righteous, no, not one. But Christ Jesus is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Romans
10, 4. What does the Scripture mean?
If words mean anything at all, does it not mean Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to those who believe? The law
was our schoolmaster, says Galatians, to bring us to Christ. The law
was our schoolmaster to show us the hopelessness of our condition
under the law, to bring us to Christ. And preaching Christ
crucified doesn't abrogate, doesn't do away with, doesn't negate,
doesn't neutralize the law, but rather, as Romans 3.31 says,
it establishes the law. How is the law established and
fulfilled? In Christ Jesus. Sixthly, Sixthly,
to preach Christ crucified is to preach the triumph of Christ.
I'm going to have to hurry for the sake of time. But it's to
preach not a hope that He will succeed, not a perhaps that He
will succeed, but that the Lord Jesus Christ has actually succeeded. He has triumphed over the powers
of darkness. Colossians 2.15, He made an open
show of them. In that very moment when they
thought they had triumphed, Satan and all of his forces thought
they had triumphed by nailing the Son of God to a cross of
wood, and destroying the child of the woman who would save his
people from their sins. In that very moment, the power
of Satan was utterly neutered, was utterly destroyed, was utterly
blunted. He was raised for our justification,
delivered for our transgressions, raised for our justification,
and he is triumphant, triumphant, highly exalted, a name above
every name, finished salvation. This is what it is. He's finished
it. He's completed it. He's triumphantly completed it. There is nothing left to be done.
And in Psalm 24, we see Him, the Lord of hosts, bringing His
children, I and the children whom the Father has given Him,
into heaven. And so therefore, the message
to believers, whatever the circumstances is this. It's that message you
read again and again in the Revelation. Fear not. Don't be afraid. Don't
be afraid. Why not? Because He's sovereign.
over it all, because he's accomplished all of his sovereign purposes,
absolutely all of them. He stands with one foot in the
sea and one on the land, turning the pages of that little book
which are his eternal purposes, and they're all in his hands,
and he is the one who causes all things to work together for
the good of his people. And then finally, just time to
mention this, finally, the seventh thing I've got here. This is
Paul's school of theology. This is what it is to preach
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We must preach conformance to
Christ. Conformance to Christ. You see,
I put this challenge to you and to myself. Don't tell me that
any of these previous points apply to you. Don't tell me that
any of them apply to you if your goal, if my goal is not to be
holy and like Christ in practical living in everything I do. Don't
tell me that, because it's not true. Those who are Christ's,
who've been purchased with His blood, who've been freed from
condemnation in the Lord Jesus Christ, long to be conformed
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why does He save His people?
For good works that He prepared beforehand that we should walk
in them. For good works that would improve us as Christians?
No. For good works that display the fruit of the Spirit, that
we are His, that we are bought by Him. conformance to Christ
is dying to self and living to Christ not my way Lord but thine
as he prayed in that garden if it be possible take this cup
from me but not my will but thine be done and so we do we pray
that I might die to self and live to Christ for to me for
to me said Paul to live is Christ and to die well that's gain because
that's more Christ and everything else that I have, the things
of this world." He says, there's nothing wrong with having things.
God's people have had things and Abraham was a very rich man
and so on and David and Solomon lived in splendor and majesty
and there's nothing wrong with those things. But it depends
whether those things become idols. It depends whether those things
take the place, the rightful place of the living God. And
so Paul's epistles always contain applied theology. He gives the
teaching concerning satisfaction in Christ and he says, in the
light of this unconditional saving truth, wear the uniform of that
unconditional saving truth. Wear the uniform as his people
of that unconditional saving truth. So this is Paul's school
of theology versus religion's school of theology. It's the
message of Jesus Christ and of Him crucified. And I believe
that this and this alone is the message that calls God's sheep,
calls God's people, it feeds God's people, it protects God's
people, and it preserves God's people, and no other. And that's
what we seek to do. Well, we're now going to sing
our closing hymn, which is 555. 555. Teach me what it meaneth, that
cross up