I believe this message will be
a blessing to you. It was to me. And I believe the
Lord will, as we've come to expect but not, I hope, take for granted,
I believe He'll bless it to us this morning. John 7, verse 8. If you remember the context of
this, the Lord's brothers. He had brothers and sisters.
And they're named in other places in the Scripture. There's no
debate about that. earthly brothers and sisters in this world. And his brothers are mentioned here at the beginning
of the chapter, and they told him to go up to this Feast of
the Tabernacles. They said, you know, you're a
big miracle-working man. You need to go up and show off
at this Feast of the Tabernacles. And they said it mockingly. And
we'll see that. But look at verse 8. He replies
to them in this fashion. Go ye up into this feast. I go
not up yet unto this feast, for my time is not yet full come."
The Lord Jesus Christ refused to do what his brothers urged
him to do. We're given some insight into
the fact that they did say what they did in unbelief in verse
5. It gives an account there in
the chapter of what they said. And then at the end of verse
5 there it says, For they, his brothers, neither did they believe
on him. Look at the wording there. It's like that is given as a
reason for what they said. And that's appropriate. verse five is that whole verse
is dedicated to that. For neither did his brethren
believe in him. That's an explanation of why
they said what they did. And they said it obviously in
a mocking way. They challenged him to do miracles
amongst this crowd that no doubt would have been present at the
feast because they thought that he would be exposed as a fraud.
Look at the way that they said it, verse three. His brethren
therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that
thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest." The brothers
apparently had not been present when he had done these other
miracles that he had done. And they said, we want to see,
and there are others that want to see these miracles everybody's
talking about. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If
you want everybody to know who you are, You know, you say you're
God and the Son of God, you want everybody to know who you are,
then you wouldn't do things in secret. And then look at the
wording, if thou do these things, show thyself unto the world.
Oh, does that remind you of the language at Calvary? If thou
be the Son of God, come down from that cross. Do you hear
the mockery in that? You claim to be a miracle worker,
and he didn't, by the way. He claimed to be God. But if
you do these things, then prove it. Do it openly. Do it where
everybody can see it, which he had already done, by the way,
in front of 5,000 men plus women and children. He had broken just
a few loaves and fishes and fed all of them and had more left
over than they started with. But this is the mockery of the
natural man, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how clear God is, no
matter how plain, no matter how openly. Paul said this thing
wasn't done in a corner. Don't use that excuse. They said, if you be the Son
of God, tell us plainly. Don't deceive us anymore. He
said, I told you. I told you. He doesn't deliberately
deceive anybody. He didn't try to hide who He
was. He openly declared who He was and openly proved it, and
they still mocked Him, still doubted Him, still ridiculed
Him. That's the depravity of the natural
heart. And let me talk about this for
a little while. Here's a lesson in this for us.
The Lord deliberately did not do what they told Him to do. They not only mocked Him, but
they presumed to dictate to the Son of God what He should do.
And it sounded very reasonable to them. Nobody would, if they
wanted to be known, nobody would, you know, surely you'll go up
and do this, you know, it just makes good sense. No man, you
know, would do otherwise. Is that what they said? They presumed to dictate to the
Son of God what He should do, when He should do it, and how
He should conduct His ministry. And his response was, I will
not go up yet. Don't ever presume upon the will
of God or seek to impose your own puny will upon his. Don't
ever do that. Oh, and we do that in subtle
ways, don't we? Let's talk about a few of the
ways that we do that. There are a lot of examples of how the
natural man tends to do that. We'll touch on just a few. Most
insist, for example, that when we pray, That God changes His
mind about things. That God is open to suggestions. That prayer is kind of like God's
suggestion box. Have you ever heard that? You
get to talking to somebody about that. About whether God changes
His mind or not and how prayer fits in with that. And you'll
find out real quick what people think about that. Well, what's
the use in praying if God has already determined everything
and He doesn't change His mind? I'll tell you what the use in
praying is. God said, pray without ceasing. With thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known unto God. Acknowledge Him. Acknowledge His will in thanksgiving.
The Lord Jesus Christ didn't pray contrary to God's will.
He said, nevertheless, thy will be done. And it will be. You can take that to the bank.
Let your request be made known. You're the desires of your heart.
The Lord will listen to the desires of your heart. He's not going
to change His perfect, wise, eternal purpose for you. Do you
want Him to? Then you don't know Him. You
don't know Him if you want Him to. But pray and acknowledge
that you're utterly dependent upon Him. We pray to show that,
Lord, if this is going to happen, You're going to have to do it.
If you will, you can make me clean. That's a good prayer,
isn't it? If you will. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as
always, our great example, said, Thou will be done. Thou will
be done. But it didn't keep him from praying,
did it? No, no. Not at all. Paul prayed, Lord,
take this thorn in the flesh away from me. And he prayed it
over and over and over. And God said, My grace is sufficient
for you. My grace is sufficient." And
whatever he says is good and right. But you know, when we
say, well, God's got to change His mind or prayer is useless,
we're seeking to impose our puny, vile, carnal will upon God's
will. That's what they wanted to do.
Here's what you need to do, Lord. That's the way that we pray.
If we don't know Him, that's the way people pray, don't it?
Here's what you need to do, God. And they do it just that brashly
at times. I've heard them do it. Here's
what you need to do. No, we never, surely we're not
so foolish. But we are, aren't we? To seek
to impose our will upon God's. He'll do what He wants to do.
And that's what's right. And we got no say in it. It's
an imposition upon His will to pray any other way. Then, Lord,
this is my desire, this is my heart bared before You, but I
want You to do what seems good to You." If God does change His mind,
and if our prayers can bend His will, then we ought to quit praying.
We ought to quit praying. We'll mess things up, won't we?
We'll mess things up, sure enough. Or do you think perhaps that
maybe God doesn't have a plan at all and He's just waiting
you know, to hear what we think about it. Maybe he doesn't have
any purpose at all and he's open to suggestions, not my God. Job said he is of one mind and
who can turn him? Who can turn him? Who in their
right mind would want to turn the omniscient, all-wise, all-loving,
all-gracious God or have any impact whatsoever? upon his will
and providence." But we do that. By nature we do that. Whenever we complain about anything
or show any contempt against God's good providence, and we
do that all the time, don't we? If not with our lips, we do it
in our heart. Why me? Why did it have to happen that
way? Well, because God's on the throne. And he doeth according
to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and nobody can stay his hand or say unto him,
What are you doing? That's why it had to happen that
way. Will you bow? Or will you seek to impose your
will upon God, like these brothers did? Will I? Oh, what a lesson
for us, my friends. What a reminder. And then sinners,
of course, speak of saving themselves by an exertion of their free
will. And when they do, they exalt
their will above God's. Here's what's right. I know what's
right. I know what ought to happen.
I know what's good and what... I determine the outcome of things.
These brothers wanted to, didn't they? We'll tell him what to
do and he'll do it and, you know, and everything will work out
great. No? No, you won't tell God what to do. It's very common
for natural man, for unbelieving man to do what these brothers
did. Very common. Our Lord asked His parents when
He was a very young man, wished ye not that I must be about my
father's business? And that's what He was about
every step that He took on this earth. And this question could
have been asked of these brothers. He's going to do what His Father
has told Him to do. Not what you want Him to do.
The Lord Jesus Christ came down to this earth and became a man
in order to accomplish a specific work. He came to do something. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners. And everything He did had something
to do with that. Everything. Everything. Every decision He made as a man
Every action he took, whenever there were various possibilities
that a man might take, the one that he chose was the very one
that would accomplish this work of salvation for his people.
The very one in every case. Matthew 5.18, For verily I say
unto you, the Lord said, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot
or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law. till all be
fulfilled." He fulfilled God's law in every jot and tittle.
And that had to do with all of his actions, everything that
he did while he was on this earth. He had to do it in the perfect
way. John 8, 29, he said, He that
sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone.
For I do always those things that please Him. It may not please
His earthly brothers. It may not please you. It may
not please me. But it will please the Father.
So be it. So be it. He didn't come to do
that which pleased men. Everything He did was orchestrated
precisely and done in such an exact way as to accomplish the
perfect honoring of the law of God and the redemption of His
people. And our will had nothing to do
with it, and it still don't. Nothing. We don't get a say in
it. Our two cents worth is what got
us in trouble. There is one time that man ever
in the history of time ever exercised a free will. And you know what
the result of it was? Disaster. Complete and utter
disaster. Adam was given a free human will,
and he chose to defy God, and be God himself, and disobey the
Almighty Sovereign God. To defy Him and His Sovereign
Godhood. And that's what man will do every
time. And we don't have a free will anymore. Our will is depraved
and bent toward sinning. Even when it was free, defied God. What do you think
it's going to do now that it's depraved and bent toward evil? I'll tell you what it's going
to do. It's going to do what the prophet said. Can the Ethiopian
change his skin? Can the leopard change his spots?
Even so, neither can you do good who are accustomed to do evil.
It is your nature. It is your habit. It is your
way to do evil. always evil, only evil. God saw that the imagination
of man's heart was only evil continually. Mark it down, my
friends. Mark it down. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
came to do his own good, perfect, free, and sovereign, gracious
will. And we have no influence on that.
And if He's given us a sound mind, we don't desire any. Don't
desire any. We exercised our free will and
fell. And now that Christ has come
to redeem us from that fall, will He wait upon our will in
any way whatsoever in the matter of redemption and salvation?
What a foolish thought. What a foolish thought. Will
the Son of God take advice from a sinner? No. He said to his
brothers in verse six, your time is always ready. My time is not
yet come, but your time is always ready. What did he mean by that?
Well, I got some help on that. In other words, he's saying this
is of no consequence to anybody when you go, how you go, where
you go, if you go, but not so with me. Do you hear that? Learn this vital lesson from
that. If your actions as a human being, as a moral free agent
that we've been described by some, if your actions, your efforts,
your endeavors, your interests, your involvements do not honor
God and further his purpose in this world, they are of no consequence. How does that sit with you? No
consequence. That's exactly what he said to
his brother. Your time is always ready. But I do always those
things that please the Father. And what I do and when I do it
and how I do it is a vital, vital consequence. You tell me this,
what difference in this world does it make how many widgets
you sold last year or last quarter or how many you will sell next
quarter? If that's your business, I used to sell widgets. And you
know how much difference it makes how many I sold in 1994? Not
a lick. Not a lick. Oh, it was important
to me then. But in the overall eternal scheme
of things, that which we give ourselves to in this world is
of zero consequence. Nothing. Nothing. It means nothing. Whether your candidate for president
wins or loses, What difference does it really make? I'm not
saying don't care about it, and I'm not saying don't go out and
sell as many widgets as you can sell. The Lord's given you the
job to sell widgets. Do it with all your heart. Do
it heartily as unto the Lord. And sell as many as you can sell
and support your family. That's not the point. I'm saying
this, if it doesn't honor God, if it doesn't honor Christ, if
you don't honor Him in it and with it, No consequence. That much right there. Zilch. Whatever glorifies God is worthwhile,
and whatever does not is not. Is that clear enough for you?
I care who wins the election, but I don't care that much. It
doesn't consume me. I'm not caught up in it, are
you? I'm going to vote for who I'm going to vote for and I hope
they win. But I don't care so much that it's vital to me, that
I'm going to be upset about it or not rest in the Lord's will
in it one way or the other. Are you? And that's by God's
grace that I'm not. I don't care that much. But our Lord's time on this earth,
and let me say this. It's not so much the actions,
it's not so much what you do in this world, but it's the motive
of the heart. Why do you do it? Why do you
do it? You see, this battle is won or
lost in the heart. If you're selling widgets for
His glory, then that's good. That's good. That's good. To honor Him with it. To worship
Him with it. to further His cause if He's
gracious to include you. He doesn't need you. He doesn't
need me either. And the minute we get to thinking
that He does need us, He'll show us that He doesn't. Our Lord's
time on this earth was vital, essential. Every second that
ticked by, He was doing always those things that pleased the
Father. He did everything that we couldn't do, everything we
didn't do, everything we wouldn't do. in order that we might stand
in His righteousness before a holy God and be accepted. Every second! The eternal God entered the realm
of time. Can you even begin to grasp that? He made Himself subject unto
time. The great I Am. God, strictly
considered, is not subject to time. The Scripture says He inhabiteth
eternity. He dwells and operates independent
of time. Eternity is not a limitless span
of time. We talk about eternity past and
eternity future because we ain't got enough sense to know any
better. There is no such thing as past and future in eternity.
Eternity is not a limitless span of time. It is apart from time. It is independent of time. And
that's where God dwells. Time had a beginning. In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That was the beginning.
And time will have an end, my friends. Time will have an end. In Revelation 10.5, what monumental
language this is. And the angel which I saw stand
upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven.
Can you picture this? Here's an angel. And swear by
him that liveth forever and ever who created heaven and the things
that therein are in the earth and the things that therein are
in the sea and the things which are therein, that there should
be time no longer. No longer. I just got lost, didn't
you? How can there be no time? How
can anything happen at all unless it happens before or after something
else? How? I don't know. But I know
that's where God operates. That's where He lives. He is
eternal. Time had a beginning and time
will have an end, but our Lord had no beginning and has no end.
He's that priest after the order of Melchizedek. You remember
Melchizedek? He was a pre-incarnation of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. Listen to the language in Hebrews
7.1 where Paul talks about Christ. And the whole context of the
book of Hebrews is showing how Christ is exalted and Christ
is preeminent. And he says here, for this Melchizedek,
the Lord Jesus, this Melchizedek, king of Salem, king of peace,
his name shall be called the Prince of Peace, priest of the
Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter
of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth
part of all, first being by interpretation king of righteousness. Who do
you think that is? And after that also, king of
Salem, king of peace, without father, without mother, without
descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." That's
our Lord. Oh, our Lord Jesus Christ. He
said, I'm the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He
told that group of reprobates, He said, you trust Abraham as
your father. He said, there's one greater
than Abraham here. Before Abraham was, I am. He didn't say I was. Before Abraham was, I am. He has always been the I am,
the great I am, and he always will be. Without beginning of
days, neither end of life, but made like unto the Son of God,
he abideth a priest continually. And yet our Lord spoke of his
time. The word is translated hour in
many places. My hour is not yet fully He told
his brothers, my time has not yet come, so I'm not going up. Look at verse 9. When he had
said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. It was
like he said he wasn't going, he didn't go. But when his brethren were going
up, then went he up also. Notice that word, then. He said,
I'm not going up yet. And he didn't. But then, when
the time was right, when God had purpose from all eternity
that He would, and when it was His will, His sovereign, omniscient,
unalterable will to do so, then He went up. Also unto the feast,
not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought
Him at the feast and said, Where is He? They expected Him to be
there because it was His custom as a Jew, as was instructed by
God, to be at these feasts. And He was. But He had secreted
Himself. And there was much murmuring
among the people concerning him. For some said, He's a good man,
others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people. Howbeit, no man spake
openly of him for fear of the Jews." Now, as we said, the Lord
deliberately didn't go up to the feast when His brothers went
and when they desired Him to. But He did go up later. It doesn't
say how much later. He just said to them, I go not
up yet. But then he did. It wasn't until the midst of
the feast when the Lord, it said in verse 14, that we'll see in
a minute, it said that he went up and taught them in the temple
during the feast. But it was in the midst of the
feast. And this feast was an eight-day event. So about the
fourth day, he went into the temple and taught them. So I
don't know if he went up the same day that they did, just
later in the day, or the next day. It doesn't make any difference.
He went up when he wanted to and not when they wanted him
to. That makes a difference. He went up to the same place
that his brothers went, but he didn't go up with them. He hid
himself from them. They kept a religious feast.
Now you think about this briefly. They kept a religious feast that
typified Christ himself. The Feast of Tabernacles. It
typified and celebrated the fact that our Lord tabernacled in
human flesh. The incarnation of the Lord Jesus
Christ was set forth and celebrated in this feast. And they celebrated
the feast, but did not perceive Him there, and did not believe
on Him. What are they doing? Do you ever
ask yourself that? If people deny and hate the Sovereign
Christ, what are they doing at their church houses? What are
they doing on Sunday morning? They're using His name and they're
singing songs about Him. And then you present Him to them
and they gnash their teeth. What are they doing? I'll tell
you what they're doing. They're trying to please God
by their religious observances. and they will not bow to the
Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is the sinner's righteousness."
They hate the sovereign Christ. Oh, but they love pleasing God,
and God's pleased when we go to church, isn't He? Oh, He's
going to put a gold star by my name this morning. I went to
church. No, you didn't. You blasphemed God is what you
did if you didn't bow to His sovereign Son. Well, I could talk about that
for a long time. I go back to the Old Testament where the Lord
described the holy days where his son was denied and he said,
they make me sick. Your religious meetings, your
going to church makes me sick at my stomach, God said. Well,
I thought it was good to go to church. Well, why'd you go? What'd they say there? What went
on there? Was Christ worshipped there?
Was he bowed to? Was he preached in his person
and work? So he went there, and this is
a sad but accurate picture. The feast signified the Lord
Jesus Christ and these brothers and everybody there. You know,
they talked about him. It says that some said, he's
a good man. Others said, no, he's not a good man. Oh, but
he's done this. Oh, but no, but he's done that. And they talked
about him there, and they're talking about him down the road
here. They didn't perceive him there. He hid himself from them.
Did you notice that some said he's a good man, others said
no, that he deceives the people, but nobody worshipped him. Nobody
said he's the Son of God. Nobody said he's God in human
form. Nobody said he's the Christ.
Nobody. Nobody worshipped him. They talked
about him. They debated him. They used his
name like they're doing all over this city, all over this country,
but nobody worshipped him. Will we worship Him this morning?
Will we bow at His feet and say, Lord, if You will, You can have
mercy on us and on my children, if You will? When we observe this table, will
we discern the Lord's body or will we just be keeping a religious
ritual? Will we think about the effectual
sin-atoning blood that redeemed all for whom He shed it. And
will we rejoice in that? Or will we just be having a ceremony
of some kind to please God? Nobody worshiped Him there. Look
at verse 14. Now about the midst of the feast,
Jesus went up into the temple and talked. And the Jews marveled,
saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
He didn't go to the college I went to. He apparently doesn't have
any degree. Nobody can vouch for him. Well,
should we listen to him? Jesus answered him and said,
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. Now, our Lord
is not loath to own this doctrine as his own. He's not saying it's
not mine, that the Father's doctrine and my doctrine are two different
things. He's saying that this doctrine is not his alone, but
it was given to him by the Father. Everything that he said, he said,
the Father told me to say it. Everything. They dismissed his
doctrine because they hated him, and they hated the truth, just
like men always have and always will. And they sought to discredit
him because they hated him. How'd they do it? Well, he didn't
have any credentials. And there's nobody to vouch for
him. Nobody bestowed any honors on him and said, he's gone to
our school this long and we're giving him this. He's a doctor
of divinity. He's a master of theology. Nobody
said that about him. And when our Lord uses the word
doctrine here, he says, my doctrine is not mine. Don't miss the fact
that he didn't say doctrines. It's singular. He's referring,
and he's not saying that, he's not identifying one single particular
doctrine or aspect of his teaching. But all of the teaching of Christ
is one doctrine, singular. It can't be divided. It can't
be separated. You can't take part of it. You
can't leave out part or add to it. The whole is perverted if
we do. You don't have the doctrine of
Christ if any part of it is left out or if anything is added to
it. Acts 24 14 Paul said I confess
unto thee that after the way which they call heresy so worship
by the God of my father's believing all things which are written
in the law and in the prophets there is such a thing as the
truth of God you understand that the doctrine of Christ. A multitude
of truths when considered separately, no doubt. And that's the only
way we can understand things, isn't it? That's why we break
things out, and that's why I have points in my message. Let's consider
this for a minute, and then we'll consider this, and then we'll
consider... because I can't understand any other way. But it's one doctrine. One doctrine. One doctrine. The truth. of God, all of the
truths that we consider and rejoice in that are from this book. We
didn't make them up. They weren't passed down from
generation to generation, or at least that's not why we own
them. Some are. And if it's the truth
of God, it may be passed down. But that's not why we own it.
We own it because it's the truth of God. Not because granddaddy
believed it or anybody else. All makes up the truth. Paul
said something in Hebrews 8.1 that I think will help us understand
this. He said, Now of the things which
we have spoken, this is the sum. Everybody knows enough about
math to know what a sum is. You may have 2 plus 2 equals
4, and 4 is the sum. Or you may have half a page of
factors and division and subtraction and multiplication that all adds
up to one sum. And you know enough about math
to know this, if you take one of those factors away, if you
change one number over here, you don't have the sum. You've
got a different sum. And that's what Paul is saying.
Everything I've said to you, here's the sum of it all. And
what was it? We have such an High Priest. Christ Himself is
the sum and substance of all theology, of all doctrine, of
all scriptural truth. Christ is the sum. If you take
anything away, you don't have the Christ of the Bible. The
doctrine. And so our Lord said, this doctrine
is not my own. And they didn't like what He
said, and they dismissed it, and they tried to discredit Him.
There's nobody that has bestowed any kind of honor on Him. He
didn't go to our college. So He answers that concern. And
we'll close with this. Look at verse 17. If any man
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God, or whether I speak of myself. What a promise! Verse 18. He that speaketh of
himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory
that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in
him. Did you hear verse 17? If any
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. Why should we listen to this
man? He didn't go to Bible college.
Why should we listen to him? Why is what I say true and I
openly declare to you that what they're saying down the road
is not true? Because I know what they're saying and it's a lie
on God. Why should you believe me about that? Well, two things
in this passage. First of all, Anybody who honors
God and I mean truly in your heart honors the sovereign God
of the Bible as he's revealed in his book If you honor God
and love him and seek to obey him Is that what it said if any
man? will if any man desires To please
God if any man desires in his heart to honor and worship and
love God God the Son makes this promise. You will know the truth. Wait a minute, Chris. I thought
you believed that God is sovereign and that nobody wants to know
the truth. They don't. Not unless God gives you that
desire. The prophet said, Turn thou us, Lord, and we'll be turned.
That's when you're going to turn and acknowledge God and desire
Him. It's when He gives you the heart to do so. But you listen
to the promise of the Son of God. He said, everybody that
wants to know me will know me. Is that what he said? You look
at it again. Any man who will, will. My goodness, that took my breath
away when I saw that and it still does. If any man will, do you
have a desire to know the truth this morning? You'll know it.
He will not allow you to be deceived if he's given you a heart Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they'll
be filled. Is that what he said? Do you
desire to honor Him or are you still honoring the flesh? Are
you still trying to honor your own will and your own decision
and your own thoughts of God? Or do you have a true honest
interest in what God said? If you do, God gave you that
and He will satisfy it. Is that a good promise to your
heart? Oh, that blesses me. If any man will, he shall know."
What a promise. What a promise. And here's the
foolproof test. Here's another part of the answer.
Why should you listen to me? Why should you listen to me?
Why should you listen to those that we respect and love that
preach the gospel? Why should you listen to them
and not somebody else? Here's the foolproof test. Verse
18. Does it glorify man or does it glorify God Almighty? Did
you see what he said? He that speaketh of himself seeketh
his own glory. And he didn't say there, although
they do talk about themselves a lot, he's not saying he that
speaketh about himself. He's saying it's of himself.
He's prompted by self. God didn't send him, he sent
himself. That's what he's saying there. You know what he'll do? He'll glorify man and not God. But if he is a man sent from
God Almighty, you know who he'll glorify? The one that sent him. Foolproof. Foolproof test. You write it down. You write
it down in your heart. Let's apply this test briefly.
And I won't take the time that I wanted to on this. But I would
say the defining doctrine, part of the doctrine of Christ that
defines this church perhaps as opposed to others might be the
electing free grace of God as opposed to the free will of man.
Let's see which glorifies who this morning. Just briefly, free
will, to say that man can do as he pleases and that his will
determines his destiny. Does that glorify man or God?
Let's think about that for a minute. That doctrine says that man is
the master of his own destiny and that his decision is preeminent
in the matter of salvation. I'm not overstating the case
now. That doctrine says this, that man's decision is the single
determining factor in man's eternal destiny. What does that doctrine
say about God? It says that God wants to save
you, but He can't do it unless you want Him to. Does it pass
the test or fail? God's waiting on you, on your
sovereign will. And I'm not misapplying that
word. If your will determines your eternal destiny and decides
the matter of your salvation, then your will is sovereign,
absolutely sovereign. have any effect on it, it's completely
up to you. God's done everything he can
do and now it's up to you. Who gets the glory out of that?
It's a rhetorical question. All right, election, the electing
free grace of God, and we'll include in that, for time's sake,
the doctrine of the effectual, precious, sin-atoning blood of
Christ, that everybody he died for shall be saved, is saved
by his effectual sin atoning blood. How does man fare in that? It's absolutely completely humiliating
to man. Absolutely humiliating. It puts
man completely in the dust. It says that man is so depraved
that he has no say in his eternal destiny whatsoever. He's completely
dependent and utterly hanging upon the mercy of God in Christ
as to whether he will spend eternity in hell or in glory. That's humiliating, isn't it?
I'm so evil that there's nothing I can do to help myself. I'm
completely upon the mercy of Christ. If you will, you can. If you will not, I will go to
hell, just as sure as I'm sitting here. That's humiliating, isn't
it? You talk about dust. You talk
about putting a sinner in the dust now before God. Paul asked
this question In Romans 3 or 4, I believe it is, where is
boasting then? He said we're justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And
then a few verses down he asks this question, where is boasting?
How is man going to get any glory out of that? And he answers the
question, he's not. It's excluded. Man's not going
to get any glory out of that. So you find a man that's preaching
that, preaching Christ, and preaching the sinner shut up to the sovereign
Christ. And they're telling the truth.
They're telling the truth. It says that man's will is inconsequential
in the matter of salvation and in all other matters. It says
this in the language of Romans 9.16, it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. but of God that showeth mercy."
That's what this doctrine says. And the Lord Jesus Christ preached
that truth. And they didn't like it. And
they said, why should we listen to you? And He said, first of
all, if you had any desire whatsoever to know the truth, you'd know
it. And then secondly, the one that's glorifying Him that sent
Him, that's the one that's telling you the truth. These birds that
are glorifying themselves, Don't listen to him. Don't listen to
him. It is not of him that willeth. Well, but does this doctrine
of electing grace and free justification by the precious, redeeming, effectual
blood of Christ, does it glorify God? It declares that God's will
is free and sovereign and that He chooses whom He will. that God Almighty, the Father
in eternity, chose whom He would and left everybody else to themselves. Romans 9, 11 through 13, before
they had done any good or evil, God the Father said, I love that
one and I hate that one. It declares that His Son, God
the Son, gives life to whom He will. John 5, 21, even as the
Father giveth life to whomsoever he will, so he has authorized
and sealed and ratified and given power to the Son to quicken whom
he will. The Son of God gives life to
whom he will. And this doctrine declares that
his blessed Holy Spirit regenerates whom he will. John 3, 8. The
wind blows where it wants to blow. And you can hear the sound
of the wind, but you can't tell where that wind came from, and
you can't tell where it'll go. And that's how it is with everybody
that's born of the Spirit. You can see the effects of His
grace upon the heart of a man, but you don't know where he came
from or where he'll go. You can't affect him. You can't
make the wind. You can't channel the wind. They
try to tell him what to do. He's of one mind, and who can
turn him? And I like it that way because He doeth all things
well. All things well. I'll tell you something else
this doctrine declares about God. It declares that even though
all men do deserve, richly deserve, and we have earned eternal hell
as our portion, God in His infinite, amazing, free, and sovereign
grace has said nevertheless, I will have mercy. I'll have it on whom I want to. I'll have mercy. And the reprobate
says, now that's not fair. He can't have mercy on who he
wants to have mercy on. He's got to be fair about it.
He's got to give us a decision in the matter. But you know what
the real sinner says? Thank God he's going to have
mercy on somebody. Lord, while you're showing mercy,
would you please have mercy on this one? That's the attitude
that that leper came with. Lord, if you will, may it be
your pleasure, your desire to have mercy on me. And the Lord
Jesus Christ said, I will. I will. And he always does when
he's approached like that. Always. Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Freely,
without a cause. There wasn't any reason for Him
to save you. There was every reason in the
world for Him to put you in hell, but not a single reason for Him
to save you except He loved you. He loved you. Whom God, through
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through
the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus." Where is boasting then? Does man get any glory
out of that? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law
of faith. Now, if faith is something that
we work up, If Abraham were saved by works, then he would have
whereof to glory before God. But not so, Paul said. Not so. But faith is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. All true preachers and
all true believers cry honestly from their hearts what David
prayed in Psalm 115.1. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name give glory."
And the Lord Jesus Christ said, the one that speaks for God,
the one whom you ought to listen to, the one whom you don't have
to question, you don't have to say, well, he didn't go to school.
You don't listen to the one who's a doctor of divinity or a master
of theology. You listen to the one that glorifies
God Almighty in the gospel of His precious Son. That's who
you listen to. And they all say, not unto us,
Lord, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and for
Thy truth's sake. May that not only be our prayer,
but the desire of our hearts, that God get glory in all that's
done here, and may He, in His sovereign grace, grant that desire
in all things. Let's observe the table this
morning, and as we do, He said, as often as you do this,
Could anything be simpler? Do we need to spend a bunch of
time talking about what he meant by that? He said, remember me.
That's not complicated, is it? As we eat and as we drink, remember
that he gave himself, he gave his soul an offering for sin
and he shed his precious sin-atoning blood and he gave him the cup
and said, this blood is the new covenant in my blood. Take it
and drink it. Shed it for you. I shed it for
you. Can we remember him this morning?
I pray he'll Enable us to do that as we worship