Sorry. Before the sun had ever shone
its light upon the land. Christ was slain in sinners'
stead, more numerous than the Sanhedrin. Jesus died a substitute In my
place stood He All my sin in Him He bore on
bloodstained calvary. Was this justice? Was this right? That God would die for me? How could I, condemned to die,
By Jesus be set free? Jesus died a substitute In my
place stood He All my sin in Him He bore On
Bloodstained Calvary Now I know what my pardon is,
Why it is I live. The reason is His for mine did
give Jesus died a substitute In my
place stood He All my sin in Him He bore On
blood-stained Calvary Blood-stained Calvary Would you turn back to 2 Timothy
chapter 1? Now, we're going to have a special meeting this Wednesday. Paul Mahan is going to be here
to preach for our New Year service. It's going to begin at the regular
time. And if you plan to attend the New Year's service this Wednesday,
please sign the sheet in the entry so we'll know how much
pizza to order. The service begins at 7 o'clock
and you may bring desserts and drinks if you want to. 2 Timothy chapter 1. It took the entire Bible to define
the gospel. Nothing can be left out. But do you know the gospel can
also be defined by single words? Grace. Faith. Blood. I have entitled the message for
this morning by one of those words, nevertheless. The whole gospel can be defined
by this word, nevertheless. It means in spite of. Now, Paul was writing to Timothy
from a Roman prison cell, and I believe that the conditions
were somewhat worse than the prisons of today. Evidently,
it was cold as you read this passage of scripture. Paul had
asked Timothy to bring him the coat that he left at Troas. And it seems that Timothy had
cowardly, disposition. We see this from the way Paul
wrote to him, beginning in verse six. Wherefore, I put thee in remembrance.
That thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the
putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the
spirit of fear. Evidently, that's what Timothy
was struggling, struggling with, I guess, the fear of man, fear
of the future, fear of circumstances. But Paul says, God has not given
us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound
mind. Now be not therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Evidently,
Timothy was displaying some bit of shame toward the gospel, shame
toward the trouble that it would bring. And Paul is exhorting
him, don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. And he
tells us exactly what that testimony is in this passage of Scripture.
Let's go on reading. He says, Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according
to the power of God who hath saved us. Here's the testimony
of the Lord. He saved us. You know, that describes everything
we believe, doesn't it? He saved us. And called us. What came first? The saving or the calling? He saved us. That tells us salvation
is outside of our experience. It's what he did. He saved us. Then he called us with a holy
calling. You haven't been saved if you
haven't been called. You call, you've been called. Now this
holy calling was not according to our works. but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Every blessing God has to bestow
in the Lord Jesus Christ was given to every believer before
time ever began. I love that. I've heard people say, well,
doesn't God give everybody a chance? Oh, salvation's not by chance.
It's by the purpose of God which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. But now is made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. This salvation that we
have is manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who
hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel whereunto I'm appointed a preacher. and
an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles, for the which cause
I also suffer these things." Remember, Paul was writing from
a prison. His circumstances were terrible.
And the reason I'm in prison, he says, is because I preach
the gospel. You know, men never have loved the gospel. They didn't
love the gospel in Paul's day. They don't love the gospel now.
The natural man hates the gospel. And that's why Paul's in prison,
because men didn't have any love for what he was preaching. He
was arrested. Men hated what he was saying
so bad that he was arrested and put in prison, mistreated, cold. Who knows what all he was going
through in that place. nevertheless in spite of all this I'm not
ashamed I've entitled this message nevertheless the gospel of God
is in this one word nevertheless in spite of this that's a good
definition of grace in spite of God saves in spite of. God works in spite of. We were in Mexico last week,
and I remember listening to Walter Groover. I can't tell you how
highly I esteem that man. If they were writing books of
great missionaries, he'd be one of them. And he was talking about
the ministry. He said, well, it's all been
done in spite of me. He really meant that. But you
know what? It's true. Every one of us are an in spite
of. Nevertheless, God is utterly holy and will
by no means clear the guilty. Nevertheless, guilty sinners
are saved. I don't encourage everybody here.
Nevertheless, thank God for this precious word. Nevertheless,
in spite of, I'm sure you will agree that in some respects,
this word defines the gospel. Nevertheless, now we're going
to look at a few places in the scripture where this word is
used. Would you turn with me to Proverbs
chapter 19? Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21. Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21.
The wise man says, there are many devices in a man's heart. That word devices is intentions,
purposes. Everybody's got an agenda. Everybody's
got something they want to do. There are many devices in a man's
heart. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord, that shall stand. Many plans, many purposes, many
imaginations, many agendas. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord shall stand. His will is always going to be
done. We read in Ephesians 1, verse
11, of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. We read in Isaiah 46, verses
9 and 10, where God says, I am God, and there's none else. I
am God, and there's none beside me, declaring the end from the
beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. I know everybody's got their
plans, but I know whose will is going to be done every time. The counsel of the Lord shall
stand, and the most glaring example of this is the cross. Look at
Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4, beginning in verse 24. And when
they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one
accord. and said, Lord, thou art God,
which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them
is, who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the
heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings
of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against His Christ. Their intention was
to put Him to death. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, Both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together.
What for? They intended to put him out
of business, to be done with him. What for? What took place?
For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. Now this I know, the counsel
of the Lord. The purpose of the Lord shall
stay in you. See, God is sovereign. That means
He has a will. That means He has the power to
make sure His will comes to pass. And that means He does always
make His will come to pass every time. And you can be sure of
this, the counsel of the Lord, it shall be done. Turn to Psalm 106. This is another one of my favorite
scriptures. Psalm 106. In verse 6, we have a confession
of sin. Psalm 106, verse 6. We have sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. Now I wonder when the last time
one of us made a true confession like that before God. Don't just
read over these words, oh would to God that we could enter in
and make this confession of sin before Him ourselves. We have
sinned with our fathers. We've committed iniquity. We've
done wickedly. Now remember, he said we've sinned
with our fathers and he gives the nature of that sin. Our fathers
understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They were spiritually
stupid people. They couldn't see what God was
doing. Remembered not the multitude of thy mercies. They were an
ungrateful people and an unthankful people They didn't remember the
multitude of his mercies, but they provoked him at the sea
even at the Red Sea There was a nature and their sin that was
provoking to God. It was so evil. It was so wicked
nevertheless What a blessed word Nevertheless
he saved them for His name's sake, that He might make His
mighty power known. Now, instead of what they were,
evil, ungrateful, a provoking people with their sin, their
sin was bad, like all sin is. Nevertheless, He saved them. Isn't that wonderful? That gives
me hope. Nevertheless, He saved them that
He might make His mighty power known. Now, what power God demonstrates
in saving somebody like me or you? He demonstrates such power
in not sending us to hell. That's what He demonstrates in
His power. What power is displayed by God in becoming a man? God became man. What power is displayed in His
life when He kept God's law perfectly and never sinned? What power
is displayed in His death? You know, just the fact that
the Son of God could die is mysterious to me. What power He displayed
in the fact that He could die? And what power He displayed in
what He did by His death? You know what He did by His death? He put away sin. He put away
the sin of everybody he died for so that they must be saved. Now, what power? He makes my
sin so that it's not, so that there isn't any sin. And this
is, I always love to think about this passage of scripture where
it says, there's sins and iniquities I'll remember no more. Now, the
Lord's got a very keen sense of memory in the sense that he's
never forgot anything. It's not like, well, I forgot
about that. No, it didn't happen that way
at all. The reason he doesn't remember any sin, there's only
one reason. It's because there's no sin there
to remember. He utterly put away my sin. What power is displayed in that?
I really don't have any sin. What power is displayed in his
resurrection when he raised himself from the dead? What power is
displayed when He gives me life? Here I am dead in sins and He
speaks life into my soul and I live. I'm enabled to hear the
Gospel. I'm enabled to believe. You see,
God saves that He might make His mighty power known. What power is seen in preserving
to me? Because I'm so weak, I'm so sinful,
I could fall away so quick apart from the grace of God. But the
Scripture says we're kept by the power of God. through faith
and through salvation. What power is going to be seen
when I'm made exactly like Christ? Nevertheless, aren't you thankful
for that word? Nevertheless, in spite of me
and my weakness and my sinfulness, He saved them for His namesake,
that He might make His mighty power known. Now, how can this
nevertheless be? Turn to Matthew 26 and I'll show
you. Matthew 26, beginning in verse
37, And He took with Him Peter and
the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful, and very
heavy. Then saith He unto them, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tear ye here, and
watch with me. And he went a little further,
and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me, Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done."
Now, what was the cup that he was speaking of when he says,
let this cup pass from me? And I know included in it were
the physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's included. But it's not what he was talking
about at all. Now this is something that you
and I just can't understand. You see, sin, because we're sinners, sin doesn't
really much bother us. We're used to it. We have a sinful
nature that we're born with and we're not overcome at the thought
of sin. But what our Lord was saying,
The cup that he was made to drink was the cup of sin, the cup of
wrath. He was made to be sin. And he was overcome with the
thought of that. His holy soul shrank back in
horror at the thought of being made all that's detestable, all
that God hates, all that's vile to God. Remember, God killed
him when he was made sin. The justice of God smote him
because he deserved it. He couldn't bear the thought
of being made sin, being made guilt. And none of us understands
what that means. We believe. We bow down. But
we don't understand what all is involved in this. But He does.
And He did. And He said, If it be possible,
let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will. but thine be done." He said,
I delight to do thy will, O God. And there's a reason sinners
can be saved, even though they're guilty. Because he said, nevertheless, not my with thine be done." Now
here's what He did when He did His Father's will. Turn with
me to Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. Paul says, am crucified with Christ." Now,
he doesn't say, it's just as if I were crucified with Christ. He says, I am crucified with
Christ. And the reason I don't have to
fear judgment is because I've already been judged. I am crucified
with Christ. You see, I'm one with Him, every
believer. This is another one of those great mysteries of the
Gospel. But every believer is united
to the Lord Jesus Christ so that whatever He does, they do. When
He was crucified, I was crucified. When He kept the law, I kept
the law. The oneness of Christ and the
believer. He says, nevertheless, He says,
I'm crucified with Christ. I am. And that when Christ died,
I died. That's what we confess when we're
baptized. We confess in Believer's Baptism that here's my hope.
That when He lived, I lived. When He died, I died. When He
was raised, I was raised. That's my confession of Christ
in Believer's Baptism. He says, I'm crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I really was crucified. Really was. Nevertheless, in
spite of that, I live. I live. Yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. I don't frustrate the grace of
God. I don't make meaningless and render void the grace of
God. For if righteousness came by the law, And Christ died in
vain, to no purpose. Listen, if you could be saved
by anything you do, then what Christ did was a complete waste
of time. But the fact of the matter is,
you and I cannot be saved by anything that we do. We can only
be saved by what Christ has done. And that leads us to another
verse here in the book of Galatians. Turn to Galatians chapter four. Verse 30. Well, let's read in verse 29.
But as then He that was born after the flesh persecuted him
that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now, Anybody who's
born after the flesh that has not been born of the Spirit of
God, who has not been given a new nature, they're not going to
like that person who believes grace, and they're going to persecute
that person. Nevertheless, verse 30, what
saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her
son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. Now, you remember what took place.
And Paul uses this to describe to us what law and grace is.
The bond woman is Hagar and her son is Ishmael. The free woman
is Sarah and her son is Isaac. Now, you remember God made a
promise to Abraham. He said, you're going to have
children and you're going to have these children through your
wife, Sarah. Now, 13 years pass and that promise
has not yet come to pass. And Sarah comes up with a brilliant
idea. She says, obviously, you're going to have children, but we
need to do our part or God's promise won't take place. Now,
I know God's made this promise, but we need to do our part or
that promise will not take place. So here's what you need to do.
You go into Hagar, my servant, and you have children with her,
and they'll representatively be my children, and so we'll
have babies. And they had Ishmael. And what
does God say of Ishmael and Hagar? And that represents the law.
Paul tells us that. That's man doing his part. God's
promise will not come to pass. It will not come to fruition
unless man does his part. And, you know, that describes
what most people preach and what most people believe in our day.
God wants to save everybody. Christ died for everybody. He
made salvation possible for everybody. But man must do his part to make
what God does work. Now all that is, is salvation
by works. Nothing else. There's not a drop
of gospel in that message. If salvation is dependent upon
man doing his part, nobody will be saved. But what does the Scripture
say? Cast out. the bondwoman and her
son. You see, grace and works can't
come together. They can't do it. What is the
command of Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son. Now,
the only kind of grace there is, is saving grace. Grace that
actually saves. Grace that actually makes me
perfect and complete in God's sight. You cast out the bondwoman
and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir. with the son of the free woman,
if you put any work in that makes salvation dependent upon that
work, you've made the whole thing of works. And you can't possibly
believe the gospel. Cast out the bondwoman and her
son. Now, since salvation is all of
grace and works are excluded, does that mean men should not
seek the Lord with all their heart because that would be a
work? Does that mean men shouldn't believe because that's making
salvation a work? Is that is that what that's all
about? We'll turn back a few pages to second Corinthians,
chapter three. The natural man will hear the
gospel. And then they'll say, well, we
we shouldn't take the Lord. That's that's a work we shouldn't
believe. That's a work. Look what the
scripture says in second Corinthians, chapter three. Verse 15, But
even unto this day, when Moses is read, the Old Testament, the
veil is upon their heart. They can't see. Nevertheless, nevertheless, when it shall turn
to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. You turn to the Lord. and you will be received." Period. Our Lord said, Him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. You know when a man comes to
Christ? When he has to. It's no longer a choice. Will
I or won't I? If it's a choice, you've never
come to Christ. You don't even know what it means. When that man was running into
that city of refuge with the avenger of blood on his heels,
did he stop and say, will I or won't I? No. He had to get into that city
of refuge. And I know when you'll come to
Christ, when you must have the Lord Jesus Christ, when you must
be found in Him, when you can't stand on your own, you'll come
then and not before then. Turn to Luke chapter 5. Verse one, and it came to pass
that it's the people pressed upon him to hear the word of
God. He stood by the lake of Gennesaret
and saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen were
gone out of them and were washing their nets. And he entered into
one of the ships, which was Simon's and prayed him that he would
thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught
the people out of the ship. Now, when he had left speaking,
he said unto Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your
net for a great big catch of fish. That's what that is referring
to. And Simon answering said unto
him, master, Now this is one of the many times Simon answered
when the Lord didn't ask him anything. But he answers. He's got his objection. Master,
we've toiled all the night and have taken nothing. Now I know
something about fishing. I've been fishing all night long. And everything about me tells
me that this is useless, that there's no point in this. It's
not going to work. I know something about fishing
and I've told all night and I'm not taking a thing. Nevertheless, at thy word. at thy word, I will let down
the net. Now my senses, my intuition,
my previous experience, what I have always thought, what I
have known, would lead me to conclude that this is not the
way to go. Nevertheless, At thy word, I
will let down the net. Now here is what we follow his
word. Now I want you to listen to me
real carefully. Nevertheless, at thy word, I'll let down the
net. This book is the word of God. It is the inspired inerrant,
infallible Word of God. The only way that you and I can
know God is through this Word. Now you're given two ways of
thinking. I can either know God by my reason,
by my logic, By my understanding, by putting things together, I
can see this and I can see that, and therefore I conclude this.
We can either know God by our reason, or we can only know God
by revelation. The revelation of His word, this
book, and the only way we can understand this book is if He
reveals it to us. We're totally dependent upon
revelation. Now we're given these two choices.
Revelation or reason? Now why is reason inadequate?
I can answer that question. Because there is such an irrational
element in every one of us and it's called sin. And it makes
it to where you can't trust even your reason or your logic or
your experience. All we have is His Word. Nevertheless, At Thy Word I'll
let down the net. In spite of all our natural objections
at His Word, we let down the net. But what about those people
who begin in the Word, but they don't stay there? Well, let's
talk about them. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2.
2 Timothy chapter 2. Verse 16, "...but shun profane and vain
babblings." Well, that's a very accurate
description of preaching, isn't it? Or the preaching of a false
gospel. profane and vain babblings, evil
and meaningless, useless words. I think that could be a description
of most of the preaching that's going on in our day. But he says,
shun that, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And there
were will eat, as doth a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus,
who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection
is past already, and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them
that are his. And let everyone that nameth
the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Now, these people's
faith is overthrown. They seem to begin in the word,
but they don't continue. Well, what about that? But nevertheless,
in spite of that, God forbid that it happened. And I know that it would, apart
from His grace. But what if I turned from the
gospel? What if I started preaching another
gospel? Air would creep in. If it would, the counsel of the Lord still
is going to stand. And here's the foundation. The LORD knoweth
them that are His. You see, not everybody is His. He said in Matthew 1.21, Thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins. Not everybody is His. He says
to one group, Depart from Me ye that work iniquity, I never
knew you. Now he knew who they were, he
knew what they did, but he never knew them. You see, when the
Lord knows somebody, that means he loves them. That's what the
word means. Adam knew his wife Eve, he loved
her. Whom the Lord foreknew, whom
the Lord foreloved, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his son. Now the Lord knoweth. them that
are His. And here is our hope. Here's my hope that the Lord
knows me. That's my only hope. My faith is not in my knowledge
of Him. This is not what I rest in, not
my knowledge of Him. What I rest in is His knowledge
of me. Paul said in Galatians 4.9, now
that you've known God or rather are known of God. That's my hope that He knows
me. That's the foundation of God.
Turn with me to 2 Peter 3. You've got a couple of other
scriptures. 2 Peter 3. Verse 10. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night in the which the heaven shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein
shall be burned up." Now, think about this. Everything you see
is going to be burned. I mean, this is all just waiting
to be burned. Everything about this world,
all the works, God's going to burn it all because of sin. You
know, some people, they used to use this Scripture to prove
that the Bible could not be the Word of God because they didn't
believe Elements could be burned up if they sure can. They sure
can. Sing then, verse 11, that all
these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. Nevertheless, we according to
his promise. Look for new heavens and a new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We're waiting, aren't we? Now let's go back to our text
in 2 Timothy chapter 1. Now Paul says, because of my
preaching of the gospel, I'm suffering these things. And he
was writing from a prison. And several times in the New
Testament were given descriptions of the sufferings of the Apostle
Paul. He was stoned. Five times he
was beat with the cat of nine tails with the 39 stripes, save
one, or the 40s, whatever, 39 stripes. He'd been robbed, been
misrepresented, been imprisoned. And yet, while he's riding from
this prison cell, just like in Philippi, remember when he was
in the jail at Philippi at midnight, he sang and gave praise to God
and the prisoners heard. And when he was riding from this
prison cell, and these were miserable conditions, he was cold. You
know how miserable it is to be cold. He said, could you bring
me my coat? I'm cold. And he's in these miserable
conditions. Yet he says, nevertheless, I'm
not ashamed. As a matter of fact, he actually
had great joy. He was very happy. He said things
couldn't be better. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed.
And here's why. For I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded. I'm convinced. I believe this with all my heart.
I'm persuaded that He is able. This is the very foundation of
our faith. I believe He's able. In spite of what I am, in spite of my present sinfulness, In spite of my weakness and my
fearfulness, in spite of everything about me, I'm not denying the
reality of that, but in spite of everything about me, I'm persuaded
that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him
against that day. Now, what is this thing of committing
to Him? You see, you don't really believe unless you commit. It's
all just talk unless you actually commit. Now, what is it that
Paul committed to Him? I've committed to Him the salvation
of my soul. I have no other hope but this. And I'm quoting the song from
Count Zissendorf, He wrote this, an old Moravian of the past,
but he said this, he said, when from the dust of death I rise
to take my mansions in the skies, even then shall this be all my
plea that Jesus lived and died for me. A belief in works in any way
is a failure to commit. That's the bottom line. You hold on to anything, your
experience, the things you stand for, your
growth, your understanding, you hang on to anything. and you
have failed to commit to Him. You only commit when you let
go of everything else, and this is your only hope. You enter
into this, when from the dust of death I rise to take my mansions
in the skies, even then shall this be all my plea, that Jesus
lived and died for me. Have you committed the salvation
of your soul to Him? Nevertheless, in spite of everything
about you, I don't care what it is, you're a Christian. A real Christian. A real believer. That's what believers do. May
God give us grace to commit The salvation of our soul to Him. Let's pray.