If you would turn with me to
the book of Ephesians chapter 2. I've heard Brother Mahan say
before, well, that just preaches itself. You could just read it,
sit down and go home. But I do want to say this in
introduction. I was raised in religion. My mother and father, being moral people, thought that
a child should be raised in church. And I agree that that's true,
but it should be in a church that tells the truth about God
and about man. The church that I attended told
me from my youth about a God that wanted to save me if I would
just make a decision to follow Him. That this God begged and
pleaded for someone to love Him. He loved me and I must make a
decision to love Him back. It was within my free will to
choose to love him back. And you know something? I never
did love him. And as a young boy, I sung loud
and proud, Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me
so, and I believed it. But yet I never
loved Him. I was told emphatically by a
new preacher every two to three years we'd get a new one. He'd
come in with the same message. That Jesus loved and died for
everyone in the world. Every preacher I heard had the
same message. Jesus loves you. So you have
the choice or the will to love Him back. He's softly and tenderly
calling. Won't you give your heart to
Him? God wants to save you. Won't
you let Him have His way? But is that what the Bible really
teaches? My Bible don't read that way. and neither does yours. What a sad and pitiful Savior
that would be if those things are true. What a frustrated and helpless
Jesus we have if those statements are true. What a weak and unsuccessful
God we have if these are the things that Scriptures teach. Can God love us and we reject
His love? Is there one person in hell for
whom Christ died? If He loves the whole world and
yet there are people in hell, the assumption has to be that
some are in hell for whom He died. But His blood is precious and covers us from our
sin. So there's no one in hell for
whom Christ died. Is God's love resistible? Can
the created man reject his Creator? That doesn't even make good sense,
does it? If God created the heavens and
the earth by the word of His power, can He not do what He
wills with sinful man? Can he not do what he wills with
his own? We studied last week, Christ
said, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Maybe religion should take a
closer look at the Bible they claim to believe. Men believe that God's love is
universal and that he's frustrated by the rejection of his love
from sinful men. Nowhere in the Bible, nowhere
in the Bible does God even resemble this little tin God of men's
imagination. Matter of fact, I've seen beggars
on the street that have more authority than what they claim
God has. Reduced him to a beggar. Won't
somebody believe? Won't somebody love me? Won't somebody trust me? But he says, is it not right?
Is it not lawful? Is it not expedient for me to
do what I will with my own The Apostle Paul tells us plainly
in Ephesians chapter 2 what we are, who God is, and what He's
done for His elect. Dear children of God, the theme
of Scripture is salvation of the Lord. The theme of Scripture
is Christ and Him crucified. The question of Scripture is
what do you think of the Savior? Redemption is God's work. It's
not our decision. Salvation is by the will of God,
not the will of man. So begin reading with me in verse
1 of chapter 2, Ephesians 2, verse 1. And you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins. Paul starts this statement
speaking of saved men and women and he says, and you. We're talking
about you. I'm fixing to tell you something
about you. And you. And I thought about that. I think
by nature my favorite three words are me, myself, and I. And Paul meets me right where
I'm at. He says, and you. You want to talk about you, David?
Let's talk about you. You. Dead in trespasses and sin. Well, what about me? I'm just
as good as the next guy, right? I wish I had a nickel for every
time I'd heard that. But the correct statement should
be, I'm just as wicked as the next guy. I'm just as dead as
the next guy. And notice the words They're
italicized. They did not appear in the original
text or translation. So it would be correct, or would
not be incorrect, to read this passage this way. And you who
were dated in trespasses and sins. Now the words, hath he quickened,
were added. And you and I are spiritually
dead in trespasses and sin. We know that scripture teaches
the wages of sin is death. And we will be paid death as
wages for our work of sin. Hath he quickened is added because
it had to be God who made us alive. Because we're dead. It has to be from some outside
source from ourselves. Because a dead man can do nothing
for himself or anyone else. These words were added because
when the rest of Paul's words are proclaimed, it's the only
obvious conclusion. Only God can give life. Just as He formed Adam out of
the dust of the ground, Scripture says He breathed into him the
breath of life. The breath of life. And only
God can breathe into spiritually dead men and women the breath
of life. Only then does our soul truly
live. Now why is it that people can
believe that God spoke the worlds into existence? that he said
let there be light and there was light that he formed man
out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath
of life and they seem to accept that with no controversy but
you tell them that God does the same to dead men and women spiritually
they want to argue and fuss you know why? because men won't have
something to do with their salvation barking up the wrong tree barking
up the wrong tree. And Paul continues in verse 2
and he says, wherein in time past you walked according to
the course of this world, you walked according to the prince
of your heart, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience. That was my
name before the Lord saved me. Child of disobedience. All saved men and women agree
completely with the condition that Paul claims that we are
in. God has revealed to his sheep this truth about themselves dead. and you're not dead due to the
fault of another. Though it's true that we inherited
Adam's state, our father Adam's state, still we are guilty in
our own trespasses and sin. So we can't place the blame elsewhere. God's revealed to his sheep this
truth. and we agree and take sides with
God against ourselves and we say we're children of disobedience. We all walked according to the
course of this world, he says. When men used to be executed
in prison, I don't know, it may still be the same today, but
when the day of their execution came, They walked from their
cell to the execution chamber. And as they walked along, the
guard would yell, not yell, but loudly say, dead man walking,
dead man walking. And this is what we were before
grace, before God visited us in His sovereign mercy and grace. We were dead men and women walking. We were walking, but we were
walking to our execution. Paul writes here that we walked
according to the course of this world. The course of this world
is nothing but darkness and black. We've walked blindly with no
truth about God. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4 says, "...and
whom the God of this world hath blinded, the minds of them which
believe not." What are unbelievers blinded
from? It goes on to tell you. It says,
lest they are blinded from the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ who is the image of God. Lest he should shine unto
them this glorious light of the gospel they will never ever see. But religion has taught men that
they shine in themselves so that God might take notice of their
excellent works. But believers know better. Rebellious men and women are
blinded from the light of the glorious gospel of Christ unless
except our Lord should shine unto them. We do not shine unto God. But
God shines unto us the glorious gospel of Christ. And dear friends,
it is glorious. You think about God humbling
himself to become a man. Walked this earth always doing
good. Never sinned in thought, word,
deed. Worked out a perfect righteousness
for Tyler Richard, for Glenn Hanson, for all those
that trust in him. Worked out a perfect righteousness. Stood in my place. Died as a
horrible, horrific criminal. You know why? because this criminal
should have been there on that cross. And Paul makes his case clear
against us and he even includes himself in the group of whom
he speaks. Look at verse 3, he says, among
whom also, look at those next words, we all had our conversation. There's none excluded from this. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. They've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And he says, among whom also
we all had our conversation in times past. What was our conversation? Well, it was in the lust of the
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. My theme used to be, and I was
quite proud of it, if it feels good, let's do it. We all had, all of us. Isaiah said, all we, like sheep,
have gone astray. We have turned everyone, everyone,
to his own way. Romans 3 10 through 12 says,
as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. We've all come short. There's none that understandeth
until God gives understanding. There is none that seeketh after
God. Had a fellow not long ago say,
I found Jesus. Didn't know He was lost. If you've crossed the path with
the Christ of the Scriptures, He found you. He found you. They're all gone out of the way.
They are together become unprofitable. Christ said, when you've done
all that you should do, you know what you call yourself? Not special. You call yourself unprofitable
servants. Servants nonetheless, but unprofitable. God's able to raise up. We opened
the door back there, Ray, and I was talking about the leaves
that come in. He's able to raise up stones, leaves, whatever to
praise Him. God's not dependent on us for
Nothing. That's not good English, but
that's true. altogether become unprofitable.
There's none, he reiterates, there's none that doeth good,
no not one. We all had our conversation in
the lust of the flesh. And until God intervenes, all
men and women walk after the flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind. They follow the devices and the
desires of their own hearts. They give themselves up to the
conduct of their own fleshly mind, refusing to make Their
reason bow to divine revelation. Man reasons within himself, and
he says, well, I'm not perfect, but I'm not all that bad. You better read what this Bible
says about your state before God. And if He gives you eyes to see
it, you'll like the old prophet of old say, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Why? Because
we've all gone astray. There's none that doeth good. God tells us in 2 Corinthians,
God's Word says, cast down imaginations. And that's what we have today.
We have men who have imagined a God with whom they have to
do. And they can control Him, and
they can manipulate Him, and they can just about justify anything
before Him. But they better get ready to
do business with the God of heaven and earth. And believe me, you
don't want to go out and meet God without a mediator, without
a surety, without a substitute. He said, cast down imaginations,
cast down every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. But sinful man doesn't want to
stoop to the authority and sovereignty of God. Christ told a parable
one day and he said, these men said, I will not have this man
rule over me. Man by himself will never conclude
that he's dead and can do nothing for himself. Children of wrath
insist that they've willed themselves saved and they keep standing
by the works of their own hands. Now I'm going to tell you something.
Do you know what man has done by his own hands? You can find it in Acts 2.23. Let me read it to you. Christ
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. Do you know what that means in just plain terms? God delivered
him. God determined before the foundation
of the world that His Son would die for the sins of His elect.
You know how I know that? Because it says He was the Lamb
slain before the foundation of the world. Who's He slain for? God's sheep, God's people. It
says, Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, you You, you, you, me, have taken and
by wicked hands crucified and slain. Now do you want to brag
on what you've done by your hands? I don't. I'm ashamed. And as I've told you before,
I would have been yelling at the top of my lungs with the
rest. Release unto us Barabbas. and crucify this Christ. That's what the scriptures say.
That we with our wicked hands have crucified and slain. The
only one thing that we can truly claim to have done is to actually
crucify our Lord. We are truly by nature the children
of wrath even as others. Now look at verse 4, here's where
the gospel, this is the good news. But God, but God who is
rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us. Doesn't sound like a defeated
God to me. Doesn't sound like a God who's
trying and wanting and can't and frustrated and aggravated. No. But God who's rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us. I was reading in
Psalms the other day, and I ran across Psalm 49, and I don't
believe I've ever seen this verse. But it said, Like sheep, they
are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them, and the upright
shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty
shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God. Don't you love the but Gods of
Scripture? But God will redeem my soul from
the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." Salvation
is not me receiving Him. Salvation is Him receiving me. One day when Christ said, there
will be some that stand before me and they'll say, Lord, didn't
we prophesy in your name? Didn't we cast out devils in
your name? Didn't we do many wonderful works?
And the Lord said, depart from me, you doers of iniquity. What
was that doing, iniquity? They were preaching, they were
casting out devils, they were laying hands on the sick and
they were recovering. He said, I never knew you. It's not that I know Him, it's
if He knows me. David said in Psalm 73, My flesh
and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and
my portion forever. He said in another place, he
said, Promotion, for promotion cometh neither from the east,
nor from the west, nor from the south, but God is the judge. And he put it down one, and he
set it up another. If you've ever been promoted
in your job, God was behind it. I can guarantee you that. Oh, you may have worked hard.
You may have been faithful to attend work, but behind it all
is the providence of God. In the book of Acts, it says,
"...and the patriarchs moved with envy, and sewed Joseph into
Egypt." That wasn't a good thing. But it says, "...but God was
with him." One day, the king threw Daniel in the lion's den,
but God was with him, and he shut the mouths of the lions,
hungry lions. They lay his lambs at his feet.
Why? God was with him, but God And the Apostle Paul said, but
God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, yet dead, Christ died for us. Now that right there
ought to tell us that there's nothing in us that merits it. There's nothing in us that deserves
it. It's by the free and sovereign
grace of God. One day, one of the churches,
one at Corinth, I believe, they began to talk among themselves.
And one says, you know, I kind of like the way old Paulus
preaches. You know, he preaches right down
on my level. And the other says, oh, I disagree
with you on that. I like Paul. And he got word
of it. And he wrote to him, he said,
I have planted, Apollos is watered, but God gave the increase. God gave it. So then, neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth nothing,
but God that giveth the increase. He said, There hath no temptation
taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful. Whatever comes my way, good,
bad, or indifferent, it's all good, because God is faithful. Who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able? But will with the temptation
what? Also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
Oh, the love of God. Misunderstood in this generation
in which we live. But what love to the Chosen of
God. But God, who's rich in mercy. for His great love wherewith
He loved us." God is rich in mercy. God is great in love. And you know what? God's great
love must be great to love us. We're children of disobedience,
but God. We're children of wrath, but
God. We're dead in trespasses and
sin, but God who's rich in mercy. We're full of lust. Scripture
says we drink iniquity like water. We by nature love everything
God hates and hate everything God loves, but God. But God is the same thing as
saying salvation's of the Lord. But God, who's rich in mercy,
wherewith He loved us. Now don't miss the beauty of
verse 5. Look at it with me. Even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace
are you saved. God loved us, He called us, He
saved us, even when. Now that won't mean a whole lot to
you until God shows you where you were, when, even when. Even when we were dead. Being
dead, we could not love Him. People tell me all the time,
you know, I love the Lord and He showed mercy. No, you got
that all wrong. We love Him because He first
loved us. And even when we were dead, we
could not love Him. We could not decide to follow
Him. We could not merit His love. We're dead. We could not work,
we could not see, we couldn't hear, cannot speak, can't plead
our case. We're dead. We couldn't make ourselves better.
Well, I'm going to straighten things up and fly right and then
I'm going to come. No. You're dead. Dead in trespasses
and sin. And a dead man can do nothing.
Christ said no man can come. Why not? He's dated. And unless the Father which hath
sent me draw him. That means make alive. Drawn
by the grace of God. Made alive by He who is life. No man can come except but God. Same thing. Except the Father
which has sent me draw him and I'll raise him up at the last
day. Now if we had a dead man lying
in a coffin up here right now, and this may be an extreme illustration
but I want you to see. how extreme this is to think
that we can do anything to merit God's salvation. If there was
a dead man that laid here in a coffin, would any of us, now
I'm being honest and you be honest with yourself, would any of us
expect him to do anything to impress us? No. We say he's dead. Sir, I want you to come up out
of that coffin and do a good work." We would laugh. He's dead. And yet men think
that dead men can do something to save themselves. Have we really
truly gotten a hold on what it is to be dead? Well, here's what God's done
for us, verse 6. And he hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What has God done for his people? He made us alive. You hath he
quickened who were dead. He's raised us up together with
Christ. Christ is life and if I'm with
Him, I'm alive in Him. He's made us sit together with
Christ, in Christ. Often times people ask silly
questions, especially if they know that you love the Lord or
that you're faithful to attend church. I've had them ask me
many times, what do you think heaven is going to be like? The only thing I know and the
only thing I care about is that heaven is being with my Lord. I'm not too concerned about the
streets of gold. I'm not too excited about the
pearly gates. I want to be with Him. I want to worship Him. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. The thing that interests me about
heaven is that's where my Lord is. That's where He is. And in verse 7, we see that God
gets all the glory. That in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us. through Christ Jesus. God is
going to show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness
toward us through Christ. Notice where the exceeding riches
of His grace and His kindness go. Toward us. Who is this letter written to,
as I said in Sunday School? Well, Ephesians 1.1 says it's
written to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful
in Christ Jesus. God's riches of His grace and
His kindness go toward His saints and to the faithful in Christ
Jesus. Not to the whole world. but to
those whom this letter was written. Now let me tell you something
about the beauty of substitution and something amazing about the
kindness toward us. In order to show kindness to
you, Bill, in order to show kindness to you, Amos, God killed his
precious son. Oh, salvations of the Lord, alright. And verse 8 reiterates then,
for by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. For by grace we are saved. Whose
grace? God's grace. marvelous, infinite,
matchless grace what we saw. It is His to give as He wills. It's God's grace. And we're saved
by grace through faith. And God gives the faith. God gives grace and then He gives
us the faith to believe it. Sounds to me like salvations
of the Lord. It is God-given because the Apostle
makes it clear. He says, it's not of yourselves.
You can't muster it up. You can't work to get it. You
can't merit it. You don't deserve it. It wouldn't
be grace if you deserved it. Grace is undeserved, unmerited
favor. In verse 9, he says, it's not
of works, lest any man should boast. And that's exactly what
Paul said in Romans chapter 3. He said, Whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare
what? His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say at this time, His righteousness. You know why we're not talking
about our righteousness? We don't have any. Not worthy of mentioning. It's filthy rags. To declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of
him which believeth in Jesus." And Paul asks the same question. He says, where's boasting then? It's excluded. No room for boasting
in ourselves. We have nothing to boast about. By what law of works? Nay, no
sirree. Don't even try to justify yourself
based upon works, but by the law of faith. That's what the
Bible says. Now I'm going to give you the
conclusion of the matter. Verse 10. For we are what? His workmanship. His workmanship. Created where? in Christ Jesus
unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them." Now we're not saved by good works. Don't tell
anybody I told you that. We're not saved by good works.
We're saved by grace through faith. And that's not over sales. It's a gift of God. Never forget that we are His
workmanship. His workmanship. God made us willing in the day
of His power. We are His workmanship. We're
created in Christ Jesus, in Christ, by Christ, through Christ, is
where salvation is found, dear sinner. Can you see Him high and lifted
up? If you can, it's because God's given you eyes to see Him. The child of God can never be
saved by works, but it's created in Christ unto good works. And
these works, it says in verse 10, these works hath God before
ordained. That's the same as predestination. God has predestinated any good
works that we might do. And they're in Christ, through
Christ, and by Christ, that we should walk in them. Now that was a feeble attempt
to try to show you the truth, but let me ask you, does it not
bear witness with your heart? It's the Lord's doing. You are here today and it's the
Lord's doing. If you have an interest at all
in the things of God, it's the Lord's doing. If you can take sides with God
against yourself, because believe me, there's a multitude who cannot. I don't know, I ain't that bad. And a child of God says, oh,
that's me. That's me. So I leave you with these words.
They're the same words the Apostle Paul wrote in Hebrews 3.15. He said, today, today, not tomorrow,
today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Harden
not your hearts. Bow to it. Rejoice in it. Salvation's been accomplished,
and it was done for me. I didn't have to do a thing,
but bow to my Lord. I pray that the Lord add His
blessings to His Word.