I want so much for you to know my God. I want you to know His salvation. I want you to know the forgiveness
of sin in Jesus Christ the Lord. Really, really. I have no interest
in persuading you or anyone else to make a profession of faith,
have no interest in getting folks to join this church, have absolutely
no interest in getting you to do something. I want you to know
God's darling Son and the free pardon of your sin by His blood. I want you to be able to go home
with a quiet conscience. with peace before God. To that
end, I'm going to preach to you this morning on the reversal. The title of my message is The
Reversal. The complete, perfect restoration
that Jesus Christ makes for sinners. Our text will be Zechariah 10,
verse 6, but I want us to start in Luke 24. Luke 24. And please listen carefully as
I work my way to our text. What I have to say is immensely
important. In Luke 24 and 47, our Lord Jesus
tells us why it was necessary for him to die. There are many
places where he tells us of the necessity of his death. Here
he speaks of it a little differently than in other places. He said
he must die as our sin-atoning substitute, that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. God commandeth. It's not a suggestion. It's not just an invitation.
It's not an offer. God commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. God commands you and God commands
me to repent. Sinners must repent. Our Savior said, except you repent,
you shall all likewise perish. I call upon you this day to repent,
that is, to turn to Christ. Repentance is a turning. It is a change of mind, a change
of masters, a change of motives. It is a lifelong change turning
toward God in Christ. You must repent of your sin. That's what you are. You must
repent of your sins. That's what you do. And you must
repent of your righteousness. That's what you think you are.
To repent is to make a complete reversal. A complete reversal. Except you repent, you shall
all likewise perish. But I know this, and I tell you
this because I want you to know it. Before any sinner repent,
before any sinner turn to Christ, he must be turned by Christ. You don't need to turn there,
but in Jeremiah 31, we read of Ephraim bemoaning himself. Bemoaning
himself because the Lord had laid his rod upon him. And he
cried, Turn thou me, and I shall be turned. For thou art the Lord
my God. Surely after that I was turned,
I repented. If at this moment, If at this
moment, sitting where you are, without moving a muscle, without
doing a thing, if at this moment you turn to Christ in repentance,
if you can turn to Him, it is because the Lord Jesus has turned
you to Himself by His omnipotent grace. You make a reversal, He
has reversed you. You do the turning, but he has
turned you. And you cannot do the turning,
except he has turned you, and if he turns you, you shall be
turned. It is this reversal of grace
that the Lord Jesus said he died to accomplish. He did not say
he died so that we could tell sinners to repent, though we
do. Rather, he tells us that he died that we might proclaim
repentance, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in his name among all nations. There is a big difference between
telling sinners they must repent and telling sinners that Christ
turned them, that Christ has accomplished repentance. When
God commands all men everywhere to repent, he commands them to
turn to him. But when our Savior, by virtue
of His death on the cross, commands us to preach repentance, He commands
us to proclaim to sinners the turning of sinners to Him by
grace. By virtue of this sin-atoning
sacrifice, we proclaim liberty to Christ's captives. Now that's
what the book of Zechariah is all about. Turn back to chapter
9 in the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 11.
This prophecy is a prophecy of the coming of Christ, of the
accomplishment of redemption by him, and of him setting captives
free by his grace because he has redeemed them. In chapter
9, verse 11, after describing our Lord's coming to die upon
the cursed tree, As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant
I sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water.
Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Even today
I declare that I will render double unto thee. The word repentance. basically means, just what I've
said, a reversal. And the gospel we preach proclaims
a reversal. The repentance accomplished,
the reversal accomplished for us that we proclaim in the gospel
is the reversal of all things by Jesus Christ so that now all
things are made new. The repentance commanded is a
reversal of our thoughts and our minds and our attitudes about
the sins that He has remitted and how He's done it. This proclamation
of reversal is the blessed proclamation of the remission of sins. He has reversed everything, even
putting away our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. His prisoners were
sent forth out of their prison because he remitted their sins.
And you, you who have been turned to him by the hearing of him,
declared that he has reversed everything, he says in verse
48 of Luke 24, you are witnesses of these things. Every redeemed sinner, every
sinner who has been made to know God's saving grace experimentally,
every sinner who trusts Jesus Christ is his witness. Right where God put you. You
who believe are missionaries. We support missionaries here
and abroad. We support the preaching of the
gospel wherever God is pleased to raise up men, and we have
the ability to help them, preaching the gospel of God's free grace.
But don't ever allow sending a dollar or a thousand dollars
a week to a missionary. Remove from you the reality that
you, right where God has put you, are his missionary. And he says, you are witnesses
of these things. So go, as he told the maniac
of Gadara once he had healed him by his grace, go and tell
your neighbors and your friends how great things the Lord has
done for us and has had compassion upon us. Our experience of grace,
and that's what I want to talk about, our experience of grace. Oftentimes we talk about God's
purpose of grace, we talk about the accomplishments of Christ
at Calvary, but our experience of grace is that which is made
sure by and arises from God's eternal purpose of grace. It
is made sure by and arises from Christ's accomplishments for
us upon the cursed tree. But don't ever imagine and don't
ever think that God's purpose of grace, or Christ's accomplishments
at Calvary, or the Spirit's work in us in the experience of grace,
one nullifies the other, or one is more important than the other.
Don't ever imagine so. The working of our salvation
is the work of the triune God. Jesus Christ our Savior makes
it very plain in His Word. We were saved by the purpose
of God in old eternity. When God saved us and called
us with a holy calling, giving us His grace and His salvation
in Christ Jesus before the world began. That's not my theory,
that's God's Word. But the purpose of God alone
is not enough to take you to heaven. I'm not looking for something
to say I want it to stick in. The purpose of God alone never
took anybody to glory. Never. But won't we save from
eternity? Doesn't that guarantee our salvation? You heard what I said before,
didn't you? But the purpose of God is not enough. It also is
required that Jesus Christ, the God-man, God the Son, the Son
of God our Savior, be put to death in our room and in our
stead. And when our Lord Jesus Christ
died at Calvary, when He cried, It is finished, atonement was
made, sin was put away, righteousness was brought in, salvation's work
was finished. We were there crucified with
Christ and when he rose, we rose together with him and have been
made to sit together with him in heavenly places. When he took
his seat on the throne of God, we sat down in him. But the blood
of Jesus Christ is not enough to take you to heaven. I want it to sink in. Brother
Don misstated that. I stated it exactly as I intended. It is true, without shedding
of blood is no remission. There is no forgiveness of sin
except by the death of Christ. Christ accomplished our redemption
and our justification when he died at Calvary. It was done.
But that's not enough to take you to glory. Something else
still is required. Turn to Titus chapter 3. Titus
chapter 3. If we are saved, if we are to
enter into Heaven's eternal glory, there's something else just as
necessary, just as vital, just as essential to our salvation
as the work of the Father and the work of the Son. We must
be saved by the blessed work of God the Holy Spirit in the
experience of grace. It's called the new birth. It's
called regeneration. It's called being born again.
It's called being quickened. It's called being made alive
in Christ. And it's called more than that.
Titus chapter 3 verse 5. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done. But according to his mercy, he
saved us, now watch this, this is how he did it, by the washing
of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. I take that
to mean, Darwin, God saves sinners by the washing of regeneration
and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And without that, there's
no salvation. How did he do that? Which he
shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That
is as a result of Christ having died in our room instead as our
substitute. Now watch this, verse 7. That
being justified by his grace. We were justified by his grace
when our Savior died in our room instead. But we were not made
heirs. We were heirs, but we weren't
made heirs. We were heirs, heirs of God and joined heirs with
Christ, but we had not been made heirs yet. We had not taken possession
of anything yet. Read this. Being made heirs,
we were justified by His grace that we should be made heirs
according to the hope of eternal life. Now listen to you, Pastor,
as I tell you plainly what this book teaches. It is the experience
of grace. the new birth, the gift of life
in Christ that gives sinners hope before God. God's purpose
makes salvation sure for his elect, but God's purpose doesn't
give hope to anybody. You read about election and predestination,
so with our hope it'll be all right because God's purpose is
sure. That's not hope. That's miserable despair. That's
not hope. That's just fatalistic philosophy
with religious overtones. That's not hope. Not as it's
described in this book. Christ's death upon the cross
is the singular basis of the sinner's hope. But Christ's death
on the cross gives hope to no one. Gives hope to no one. Well, I know every sinner for
whom Christ died is going to be in heaven, so I hope I'll
be there. Hope he died for me. That's not hope. Not as it's
described in this book. What gives me hope? It is Christ
in you. Is that the language of this
book? That God says is the hope of glory. Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Christ, not Christ dying for
you, not Christ being the land, slaves and foundation of the
world for you, not Christ being your surety, Christ in you, the
hope of glory. When Christ is formed in us by
omnipotent mercy and almighty grace, by God the Holy Spirit,
in the experience of grace, granting us repentance toward God and
faith in Jesus Christ, He makes a complete reversal of all things,
restoring that which He took not away in the complete restoration
of our souls to God. It is this reversal of grace
this reversal of all things, this perfect restoration of every
chosen redeemed sinner that we experience in Christ, that sweet
experience of salvation that's described in Zechariah 10, verse
6. All right, let's look at this
one verse for the time it remains. Our blessed Savior is speaking,
and this is what he declared. And I will strengthen the house
of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring
them again to place them. For I have mercy upon them, and
they shall be as though I had not cast them off. For I am the
Lord their God, and will hear them." Oh, what blessedness is
in store for you who are yet to be called. Oh, what blessedness is ours
who have been called. Take a look at the salvation
here promised by our God, our Savior. I will strengthen the
house of Judah. For what? For whatever they need.
Christ is our strength and our shield. The Lord Jesus Christ
is that one in whom alone we are strong and who alone is our
strength. And I want to tell you something
that this religious world knows nothing about. Are you listening? Mark Henson, when you are weakest,
then you're strongest. Stand up and be strong. Stand
up and be counted. Stand up and make a name for
the Lord. That's not the language of this book. That's not the
language of this book. The Apostle Paul spoke of a messenger,
a thorn in the flesh, Satan, that God had given him. That's the language he uses.
This thing was given to him by God, lest he be exalted above
measure. Now, try to understand what he
just described. Because he had been raised to
the third heaven, he saw things no other man had ever seen and
heard things no other man had ever heard. He was God's apostle
to the Gentiles, sent to write the bulk of the New Testament
by himself under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. And though
God used all the apostles for various things, he said, I more. And he wasn't bragging. He was
just stating fact. He said, God's done this by me
more than by any other man. And then he said, lest I be exalted
above measure, God sent the devil himself to beat me in the face
all the time. And I asked him three times,
take it from me. And he said, live with it. This
is what you need. What was it? That thing that
you and I struggle with most? Pride. Self-sufficiency. Self-confidence. And he said,
every time my ugly monster raised its head in me, I'm brought to
my knees before him, and I'm made to know my weakness. And
the Master says, my grace is sufficient for thee. And Paul concludes from that
by inspiration. When I am weak, then I'm strong. Then I'm strong. When I'm nothing,
I'm everything. When I've got nothing, I've got
everything. When I can do nothing, I can
do anything. Because Christ's strength is
made perfect in my weakness. Let me see if I can help you
in a very practical way. Some of you I know have struggled
for years with assurance. Oh, if I could just have some
assurance. If I just had real peace, the joy of faith, full
assurance of faith. That's the language of the book,
isn't it? If I could just have that. Let me ask you something.
Let me ask you. I'm asking for a show of hands
among you who believe. Lift your hand now, right now. who when first you trusted Christ,
you had a problem with assurance. Anybody? I've never met, I've never, I've
never yet seen a believer who when first Christ was revealed
to him, when first he trusted Christ, he said, oh, I just wish
I could know. I just, oh, I just wish I had
some assurance. All I'd give anything if I had
the confidence you have. I've never known that happen.
I can tell you why. Because when you first trusted
Christ, you came to Him in utter weakness. In complete nothingness. In absolute emptiness. In complete
corruption. And you looked away to Him. And you said, blessed be God,
I'm His and He's mine. And then the next morning you
got a little stronger. And you started looking in here. Don't
look for evidences in you. Don't do it. Don't do it. Faith is the evidence. Christ
is our strength. Look on. He says, I will save
the house of Joseph. Our great Joseph, the Lord Jesus
Christ, will save all his house. Do you see him yonder, our Joseph,
seated on his throne? He declares, I am in the place
of God to save much people alive. I will bring them, watch this,
I will bring them again to place them. To place them. Look here. You're
looking at a man who never fit anywhere. I didn't fit in in
my home, and I didn't fit in at school, and I didn't fit in
society. I didn't even fit in with the
fellows who followed me through the streets. I didn't fit anywhere. Anywhere. Until one day, God
Almighty arrested me by His grace, and He fit me somewhere. He fit
me in Christ. He fit me in His body. He fit me in His kingdom. He fit me in His church. Put
this stone right where He wanted it in His temple. And I can't tell you until God
does it for you how blessed it is to fit in. I will bring them again to place
them, set them right where I want them, right where they're supposed
to be, to fit them. The old primitive Baptists back
in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, they used
to conclude a song service or conclude a worship service and
they'd sing a song and it says, anybody seeking a home? That's
a pretty good way to put it. Are you seeking a home? There's no home like the Son
of God. No home like His church and His
kingdom. Read on. Here's why it does it
all. For I have mercy upon thee. He didn't say I will have. He
said, I will save them, I will strengthen them, I will place
them. But he said, I have mercy upon them. He hath mercy on whom
he will have mercy. Our only hope is mercy. All these things arise and flow
to us from God's mercy. They are performed by God's mercy.
Our only hope is mercy. But oh, what a blessed hope for
sinners! Because he delighteth in mercy. Now, look at the next line. Here's
the reversal. And they shall be as though I
had not cast them off. They shall be as though I had
not cast them off. Just as the nation of Israel,
because of their apostasy from God, had been cast off, and taken
captive by the Babylonians and held captive for 70 years. And at the appointed time, the
Lord gathered them again to place them in his land. So God's elect
were cast off with all other men because of the sin and fall
of our father Adam. And all the race was cast off
with him. He cast us off that he might
gather his elect to himself in grace. and placed them in his
holy city. He that scattered Israel, Jeremiah
said, will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock. And when he gathers his elect
to Christ, by His omnipotent mercy and grace. When He calls
His chosen redeemed sinners to trust His Son, He says, they
shall be as though I had not cast them off. What does that
mean? Oh, I can't imagine it, really. And I certainly can't answer
the question fully. But I can give you enough to
rejoice your heart forever if you can get in on it. At present,
You who are without Christ are far off from God. Aliens, strangers, without hope,
without God, without Christ. The Word of God declares that
you're condemned already. And you know without me telling
you, the wrath of God abideth upon you because it terrifies
you day and night. But here, the Lord God promises
perfect restoration to sinners. who were cast off in the garden.
Not only does he make chosen sinners as though he had not
cast them off, he makes them indescribably more noble, more
glorious, more blessed than they ever could have been had he not
cast them off. Now, this will come as a shock
to some folks when they hear it. Romans 8.28 includes the
fall of Adam. We know that what works together
for good to them that love God? To them who are the called according
to His purpose? All things except the fallen. All things except
Lucifer. All things except the demons.
All things except evil. No! All things work together
for good to them that love God. To them who are the called according
to His purpose. All things. The sin and fall
of Adam The sin and fall of our race, the sin and fall of God's
elect in Adam was not an accident. It was ordained of God. Because
God purposed something better for his chosen than we could
ever have known had we enjoyed life without the fall. And the
sinner has granted faith in Christ. He's made to know in the blessed
experience of God's grace Some things that Adam could never
have known in the garden. Let me name you a few. Election. Had there been no fall, had we
not been cast out from the beginning, from the face of the Lord with
our father Adam, we could never have known the wonders of sovereign
electing love, mercy, and distinguishing grace. But as soon as a sinner
is turned to Christ, as soon as you, oh hear me, God help
you now to turn. Turn to Christ. Look to Him. Believe Him. And as soon as you
believe Him, you can read the book of God's election with your
name in it. Knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God, because our gospel came to you, not in word
only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and what else? Much assurance. Much assurance. There's something else. Had we
never known what it was to have been cast off as an obnoxious,
unwanted, aborted child from the womb, cast off naked and
polluted in our own blood, we could never have known the blessed
sweetness of adoption. I have a lot of friends, some
will be getting this message, who adopt children and they love
them. Jennifer and Bill, Ron Pam's
daughter and son-in-law just adopted two and they love them.
They love them, they're delighted. But adoption these days is far
different from what it was when most of us were growing up. Used
to be if you wanted to adopt a child, you could take your
pick of any of them because nobody wanted them. You could take your
pick of them. You could hold out for what you
wanted. You could go down to the adoption agency or go down
to the orphanage and just pick out the child you wanted and
take it home with you. Had to sign some papers and prove you
as a fit parent, or sort of fit, and take the child home with
you. Because you chose that child. I used to hear Brother May tell
a story about an orphanage down in Alabama. He said a man and
his wife couldn't have any children, and they decided they wanted
to adopt a child. And they made an appointment
to go to the orphanage, and when they got there, as they got out
of the car and started to walk in, they spotted this dirty,
little, snaggle-toothed, red-headed, freckle-faced boy. They just
stuck his fingers in his ear and bagged him, had him stuck
his tongue out at him and just made faces at him. They got almost
door, thought he picked up a rock, threw it at him. Just looked
at him, walked in. The gal at the agency, she started
parading in the children. And she had them dressed up.
Our men had the girls' hair all curled up and they was spit-shining
polished and the boys all spit-shining polished one after another. And
finally she said, well, have you seen one of the children
that you'd like to have? And the man looked at his wife
and she looked at him. He said, ma'am, as we were coming
in this morning, and he told her a story about that little
freckle-faced, red-headed boy, dirty, making faces at him, throwing
rocks at him. And she said, oh, I'm so sorry. She said, we've got 59 children
here up for adoption. That's Johnny. He's number 60.
The man looked at his wife. She looked at him. He looked
at this lady. She said, we'd sure like to take him home with
us. That's the adoption I'm talking
about. You were cast out from your mother's
womb, naked, polluted. None eye pitied thee. But I passed by thee, and behold,
thy time was the kind of love that I spread my skirt over you. And I said to you, Live, and
you became mine, and I decked you out. I decked you out with
my beauty, and you were made beautiful through my beauty that
was put upon you. Had there been no fall, had we
not been cast away without it, We could never have known the
sweetness of redemption by Christ's precious blood. Turn over to
Isaiah 51. Hold your hands there in Zechariah.
Turn to Isaiah 51. Oh, the blessedness of being
redeemed. Do you know the angels of God
wonder what that's all about? Read Ephesians 1. The angels
of God, or Ephesians 3. The angels of God wonder what
that's all about. They know it happened. They know
the price of it. They know the facts of it like
most religious people do. They don't have a clue what it
is to be redeemed and never can. We do, don't we? I've been redeemed. Redeemed how I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite
mercy, His child and forever I am. Redeemed. You can't possibly
know anything about redemption until you know what it is to
be cursed. And I've been cursed. Cursed
by God and cursed by my own conscience. The curse is clean, gone forever. That can't be. Oh yes it can. It sure can. I'm not cursed anymore
because I'm not guilty anymore. I'm not guilty. Christ took my curse away because
He took my guilt. And He took my sin and put it
away. And now He declares fury is not
in me. Look here at Isaiah 51 verse
21. Therefore hear now this, thou
afflicted and drunken, but not with wine. Thus saith thy Lord,
thee Lord. Thus saith thy Lord, thee Lord,
and thy God, now watch this, that pleadeth the cause of his
people. I'll work on that sometime. Behold,
I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling. Even the
dregs of the cup of my fury thou shalt no more drink it again." I used to go to bed every night drinking the trembling cup of
fury and its bitter dregs. And I woke up every morning drinking
the trembling cup of fury and its bitter drinks. Oh, how bitter. He took it out of my hand. And I've never tasted it again. And I sure haven't wanted to.
Now, I drink the sweet waters from the whales of Salish. Forgiven. Curse removed. Sin gone. Pardon justified. Accepted! Oh, let me take another drink.
How can that be? Faith in the Son of God. And I could never have known
it had Adam never seen it. Had Adam never fallen, we would
never have known the blessedness of forgiveness. A fellow reading
once a geological report as he was riding the train. He sat
there in the train and he just kept looking at the same page
over and over again. He didn't laugh. In fact, looking
at that he didn't laugh. He looked at it again. He just
laughed. And finally curiosity got the
best of the fellow sitting beside him. He said, Mister, what are
you reading? I was just reading this geological
report here, and it tells me right here that the ocean at
its depth is seven miles deep. And I remember where God said,
He cast my sins into the depths of the sea. And I just have to
laugh. He's cast our sins into the infinite depth of the infinite
sea of His forgiveness. never to charge them against
us. Had we not been cast off in the garden, with the ruin
of God's creation, with the entrance of sin into the world, we could
never have known what it is to be made new creatures in Christ.
When our blessed Savior says, they shall be as though I had
not cast them off, this is what He means. Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, He's a new creature. Old things are passed away, and
behold, all things are become new. This is one of those many
promises by which Peter declares we have been made partakers of
the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. In the new birth, this is what
God does for Sarah. He creates in us a new life. A life Adam could never have
known in the garden. He forms Christ in us. Puts righteousness
in us. Makes us righteous, pure and
holy. Puts in us a spirit in which
there is no guile. That's not something natural.
That's Christ in you. He causes us to have Christ formed
in us the hope of glory. so that we are now made meat
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. We were
not made meat to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light when Christ redeemed us, because we had not yet been
born again. We are made meat Fully prepared
to be partakers of heavenly glory when Christ is formed in us by
His grace. It is written, follow peace with
all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
And Christ in you is that holiness without which no man shall see
the Lord. Listen to this. There shall in no wise enter
into anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life." Here's something else. When Adam was in the garden,
he walked with God. But the book says that. But you
know what he didn't do as he walked with God? He had no fellowship
with God. He had no communion with God.
None at all. You see, in order to have communion,
there must be equals. I have a lot of black friends.
I was raised a southern white boy. And I'll tell you what I
want to know when I meet my black friends. I try my best to find
out from them how they think. Because I want to understand
how they live in this world. And I've had several of them
do their dead level best to communicate it to me. But you know what I've
come up with? I've decided it's a black thing
I won't understand. And I'm not poking fun at anything.
I'm telling you the truth. Because we're not equals. I don't
mean I'm superior to my friends or they to me. I mean we're not
equals. We're not equals. I'm not a black
man, and he's not a white man, and there's no way on this earth
we can understand one another's lives. It can't be done. We're not equals. We walk together,
but except in Christ, with regard
to all natural things, there's no communion. They could write your friend
too. Am I telling you the truth? In all things natural, no communion. No communion. Can't be. Because
we're not equals. Now listen to me. Listen to me.
When Adam was in the garden, he wasn't God's equal. In Christ
he is. I could never have been God's
equal. by nature. But now, Christ is
formed in me. And God sees me in Christ. That's the only way God sees
me. And you know what He sees in
me? You know what He sees in me? The only thing He sees in
me is Christ. That means he sees nothing amiss
and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. That's life, life eternal in
Jesus Christ the Lord. Life in the blessed experience
of grace. Back here in Zechariah, the Lord
tells us Why he does it? He says, because I'm their God.
And he says one more thing. One more thing. I will hear their
prayer. I take that to mean if you call
on Him, if you pray for His mercy, you pray for His salvation, He'll
give it. I take that to mean if you turn
to Him and pray, turn to Him and worship Him, it's because
He has turned you by His omnipotent mercy. Oh God, will you do that
today, that in the ages to come you might show forth in us the
exceeding riches of your grace and your kindness. in Christ
Jesus for the glory of your name. Amen.