I express my gratitude to this
congregation for this meeting, for the wonderful food making
us feel so welcome, so glad to see us. And I really enjoy seeing
so many people I haven't seen in a while. And I love the Lord's people wherever
they are. I love the Lord's people. You know, David said he was numbered
among the living, and that's what we are. We're numbered among
the living. Everybody else out there is dead. We live among
graveyards. We live in graveyards. Dead people. Dead people all
around us. Some of them stink worse than others. Some of them
are like Jared's daughter, just been dead a few minutes. Some
are like the widow's name, son, you know, dead 24 hours. And
some have been like ladders. They've been dead so long that
they stink. They've just taken up God's face. They stink to
me, you, and everybody else if you come across them. But I want
to bring a message this evening, God willing, on the foundation
of our faith. The foundation of our faith.
It says here in Isaiah 8.19, And you have heard some wonderful
preaching, wonderful. And when they shall say unto
you, seek unto them that have familiar
spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter. You say,
people like that? Oh yeah, you see these signs,
you know, stop here and have your fortune read, you know,
palm read here. People have seances, that's what
he's talking about. Read in the newspaper to check
out their astrology and see what they have to say and get their
cookies at the Chinese restaurants, you know, and read that and see
what's going to happen to you. That's what he says. Should not
a people seek unto their God? Well, of course they will. If
their gods have familiar spirits and wizards, Pete and Mudder,
they'll seek unto them. for the living, people that are
living go to the dead. And then he makes this statement
to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, this word right here, 66 books, 66 books, 39 and 27. If they speak not according to
this right here, if they can't find a place in the scriptures
to show you what they believe. And they got to bring you philosophy.
They got to bring you opinion. They got to bring you, I think,
if they speak not according to this. Now, there's places you
can go where they call and they gather around in a Baptist church
and 95, 98% of the people won't even have a Bible. Why do they
need them for? They're not going to read out
of them. The preacher ain't going to preach
from them. There's going to be very little said about it. And
that's what he says. If they speak not according to
this word, here's the reason. It's because there's no light,
no revelation, no understanding in them. Now, I'll read a verse
of Scripture. You don't have to look at it.
This is what our Master said. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth is come, He will guide you into all truth, for he shall
not speak of himself. He won't come and talk about
himself. He won't come and bring attention
to himself, such as you need the baptism of the Holy Ghost
so you can speak in tongues by evidence. He won't have you waving
your arms and all that to give evidence that he's in your midst.
But whatsoever he shall hear, what he hears in the portals
of glory, What he hears there in heaven, what he hears among
people, and he will show it. Whatsoever he shall hear, that's
what he'll talk about. And he'll show you things to
come. Now watch this. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive
of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father
hath, they belong to me. Therefore, said I unto you, that
he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. So when the
Holy Ghost is present, when the Holy Spirit is present, it's
not in how powerful the preacher preaches or how loud he gets. It's whether he's telling the
truth on the Lord Jesus Christ or not. It's whether he is telling
what this blessed book says about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there's
only two religions on all the face of the earth, only two.
I don't care what place you go on this globe, on this planet.
Whether it goes by Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, it
makes no difference. There ain't but two religions.
It's either free will or free grace. It's either man in his
merit or sovereign mercy. It's either man's by his own
goodness or it's God's grace in Christ. You see, these are
diametrically opposed. Free will and free grace are
diametrically opposed. Merit and mercy are diametrically
opposed. They cancel one another. They
annihilate one another. A man has been in our service
a time or two and he wrote me a letter and he says, you know,
I believe in sovereignty of God and I believe in free will too.
I said, I said, it's impossible to believe in both of them because
they oppose one another. One destroys the other. And that's
true. If a man is saved in any way
by his will, in whole or in part, he is not only saved by God's
will. He can't be. If he is only saved
by God's will, by the free grace, by the gracious grace of God,
by the sovereign grace of God, by the grace of God that he gives
in Christ, then he's not saved by his own will. Now is that
not right? Can't be both. And this is the
controversy. I believe this is the issue that
we face over and over and over and always must face and will
face to the day we die. In which men have been divided
over for years and for centuries even. Does God save me? Or do I, by the use of the grace
that He gives me and offers to the whole race, when that grace
is extended to them, do I cooperate with that grace, and by my cooperation
with that grace, do I save myself? Uh-huh. That's what's talked about in
it. John Wesley taught that. Anybody think John Wesley knew
the gospel, they're sadly mistaken. He didn't even come close to
it and did it on it. But that's what he taught, that God gives
grace to every man. And when you cooperate with that
grace, when he gives it to you, that's how you become saved,
by cooperating with that grace. It's a cooperative effort. Now,
we got a co-op down home, and when I want to buy some feed
for my horses, buy some feed for the cows, or need a shot
for them, I go to the co-op and get it, fertilized. But God don't
have a co-op. God don't have a co-op. God needs
no cooperation. God does what He does when He
does it, as He does it for whom He will. He doeth according to
His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and no man can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What
doest thou? Now let me ask you this. This
blessed book says that a man is dead in trespasses and sins.
Now can a dead man will himself to life? Can he, as he sits dead,
I talk to him, I encourage him, I preach to him, I get down in
his ear, I get down in his face, and I weep tears on his chest,
and I beg him, and I plead with him, I lay my head in his lap
and pray. Was that going to get that man,
if I convince him, talk that dead man to will himself into
life? Now a man, being a corpse can destroy itself from within
itself by the seas of sin that's in itself. And that's what's
in every member of the human race. Now, beloved, I say, I
say we cannot make too much of this business of a dead man giving
him life and cooperating with God. Because free will and salvation,
merit in salvation, man's goodness in salvation is a lie. Always
has been, always will be, and will always be that way. Nobody
that believes in the free will of man will be in heaven. Not
one soul. You know who's going to be there?
People who believe in the free will of God. When a man argues
for the free will of man in salvation, what he's doing, he's arguing
against the free will of God in salvation. He's saying, God! has to come and owes me something. And when he owes me something,
he has to pay me. And when he gives me my opportunity,
if I take my opportunity, I'll be saved. Now, let me ask you
this. Everybody heard this all their
life. It's a peculiar thing in the South where they talk about,
you know, God's got to give every man a chance. I've heard that.
Oh, especially in the South, you know. I don't know how many
people come talk to me, trying to convince me how mixed up I
am, how wrong I am, and bring their Bibles and try to show
you no. I'm going to try to straighten you out, preacher. Well, I need
to straighten it out, but not over the gospel. But anyway,
they say that God's got to give every man a chance. Now, you
think about that a minute. You think about it. If God only has to give you one
chance, And you live to be 85, and He just gives you one chance
in those 85 years. And when you get that chance,
if you don't jump at that chance, and that's the only one He has
to give you, what's going to happen, you reckon? You reckon God's playing the
lottery? That's what it sounds like to
me. We're playing the lottery with God. But oh my, we can't make too
much of this business about the free will. I'm telling you, beloved,
the man who trusts his own free will is a lost man, regardless
of how religious he may appear to be, regardless of how religious
his attainments may be, how high they may be. He may have a doctor
in front of his name. He may have a Ph.D. in front
of his name. He may have credentials that
cover his whole study wall. He may be popular, he may be
preaching to thousands, but if he believes by his own power,
he saves himself and those who trust him and his message. If
he's a Pharisee and lives a so-called holy life, irreproachable life,
and he puts his will over God's will, and his will having precedence
over God's will, if he holds to his own ability, It will damn
him and all who listen to him without a shadow of a doubt.
And I wouldn't be afraid to stand and tell that in the basilical
at Rome and tell the Pope that. Or Billy Graham that. Or anybody
else for that matter. Would you? Because that's the
truth. How do I know that's the truth?
I've been there and I've been here. I know what it is to trust
that out there. And it didn't get me nothing.
Nothing. And I tell you, beloved, God
is determined to save by free grace. That's the only way He
saves a man. He's determined to save a man
by free grace, and man is determined to save himself by his free will. Who do you reckon is going to
win? Beloved, this is the great issue. This is the great issue
between God and man. And I'm telling you, man must
be brought down. I can't bring him down. I can't
even bring myself down. I can't subdue my own will. Even
as a converted man, I cannot subdue my own will. As a converted
man. And I'm telling you, man must
be brought down. His will must be subdued. His ability must be magnified
to his own heart and put down at the feet of sovereign mercy,
or he will bust hell wide open with a lie in his right hand,
cussing God while he goes. Ain't that right? And oh my,
as he goes into eternity, he'll continue to fight against God
to his last breath, claiming the power of his free will. And
beloved, the defense of the doctrine of grace and the doctrine, as
Tom said, truth is one, it's a whole. When you find doctrine
in the Scriptures, it's always singular. When it refers to God
and the gospel and the truth of God. When you find doctrines,
it's always plural. It's always doctrines of devils
or doctrines of men. That's because they've got to
have a whole bunch of them. Got to be changing them all the
time, but God's doctrine is one and singular, always. But the
defense of the grace of God, in light of what I said, is a
defense, I say, of true religion. And I say this, beloved, today's
religion has no thus saith the Lord to back it up. Does it? No thus saith the Lord. You can
get up and preach ethics. Todd's talking today, called
Sunday morning while he was on vacation. Found a church that
had sovereign grace by it. He's called him up, wanted to
go worship. And he said, what are you going to preach on today?
He said, husbands how to be good, women how to live godly lives,
wasn't it? He's going to preach on how to tell women how to live
godly lives. That's ethics. That's philosophy. You can get
up and preach morality. You can preach Reformation and
do all these things without the Holy Ghost. But the new birth,
regeneration, man is laid helpless before God. He can preach, he
can teach, he can reform, he can have morality, he can have
ethics, he can have philosophy, he can have science, he can have
a Bible, he can join a church, but the new birth, regeneration
as it did Nicodemus lays a man helpless before God. How can
this be? If I can't see the kingdom of
God, and I'm a master of Israel, and I don't know when you talk
about heavenly things, and all I understand is earthly things,
how will I see the kingdom of God? How can I be born again? It lays a man helpless before
God. Shut up unto a faith which is
the sovereign gift of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
Holy Ghost is the only one who can make that faith effectual
in a man's heart, who can make that new birth effectual in a
man's soul. Huh? The sovereignty of God in
salvation. Absolute sovereignty of God in
salvation. I didn't seek God, He sought
me. People say, I found the Lord. Where'd you find him at? Where'd you find him at? Where
was he at when you found him? See how stupid it is? It's absurd
when you think about it. I never will forget, I was out
in Elon College where old W.J. Berry was. You remember W.J.?
Old fake contender. Years and years and years ago.
And I was learning a little bit. I was, you know, I was so green
and, oh boy. But I was out there and I told
W.J. Berries and visiting with him, talking with him. And I
mentioned, you know, accepting the Lord. He said, how in the
world do you do that? I said, what? He said, how do
you go about accepting Jesus? Tell me how that's done. Explain
that to me. Explain how you go about accepting
Jesus and letting him into your heart. Needless to say, I shut
up. Oh, you see, I've been there.
I've been there. And I'll say this, the sovereignty
of God in salvation, that's the ground, that's the foundation
of the gospel. And we appeal to the scriptures
for our faith. And when I say our faith, of
what we believe, not the compendium of all that we believe. And yet
the faith that's in us, that's subjective in us, that goes outside
of itself to find its hope. You see, religion must have something
to bind itself to. It must have a foundation. It
must have a basis. It must have an ultimate appeal.
That's why Simon Peter says, you know, be ready to give a man a reason
for the hope that's in you with meekness and fear. Be ready to
give that, a reason of your hope. And it's just reasonable to ask
a man what's the reason of his hope. If somebody comes and asks
you, say, would you baptize me, preacher, what's the reason of
your hope? I want to join the church. Why
do you want to join the church? What's the reason for your hope?
What's the reason of it? What's the hope based on? So
religion has to bind itself, has to have a foundation, an
ultimate appeal. Some say it's consciousness.
I feel like there's a supernatural being out there. supernatural
power out there somewhere. It can be it, it can be his,
it can be it, whatever it might be. I see another day a book,
a Bible, offered that Thomas Jefferson wrote. Thomas Jefferson,
you can get it. And what it is, is that you know
what he'd done, is that he believed that Christ was nothing but a
moralist. And that's all he was, a deist and a moralist, that
God's in us. And that all Christ was was a great example, a great
teaching. If we followed his example, followed a golden rule
on that, we'd be saved. So what he'd done is he took
out everything in the Bible but the good sayings of Christ. What
he called the good sayings, the moral teachings of Christ. I'm
sure glad he's a politician, not a preacher. But that's where man's at. Most
people honestly think that they've got the power within themselves,
Ron, to save themselves. You know, but they have this
consciousness, man searching. When he goes searching for God,
you know what he finds? He finds a God like himself.
And when he finds him, he'll appeal to him. There was a woman,
I've seen a woman on television one time, she was talking about
what it meant to be a saved person. And she said, we're salvation
ultimately lies. She said, When you go to the
mirror, look in the mirror and look at yourself and say, look
at your Savior and tell him what you want. Ain't that right? Oh, well, we've
got to go to if you ain't got your consciousness, then that's
not looking for him there. What about your traditions? What
about your traditions? And there's multitudes of traditions.
Some are good traditions. The traditions of reading the
scriptures in a service, that's a good tradition. Praying before
service, that's a good tradition. Making the Word of God, the preaching,
the prominent thing in a service, that's good tradition. Men meeting
to pray before service, that's a good tradition. Singing good
God-honored hymns, that's a good tradition. But there's lots of
traditions that men have got a hold of that's not good. Altars
is not good. Getting people to come to the
front to accept Jesus is not good. Getting people to make
decisions by raising their hands is not good. Getting people to
make the music just right so folks can be persuaded to come
to the front like they equate coming to the front is being
coming to Christ. That's not a good tradition.
That's not a good tradition. And nor do they appeal to associations.
It's like the fellow said, why do you believe? I believe what
my preacher believes. Well, why does your preacher believe? He
believes what I believe. Well, why do you both believe? We believe
what our church believes. And that's where associations are.
They meet, thousands of them meet, Southern Baptists, Methodists,
and they make great decisions. You know what kind of decisions
they make? Well, let's take Worm like me out of one of the hymns.
Let's take sinner out of one of the hymns. Let's take wretch
out of one of the hymns. Let's decide whether we want homosexuals
to be in the ministry or not. Let's decide whether we want
women to be preachers or not. That's the kind of decision.
Let's decide what kind of Bible we want to approve of. Let's
decide what kind of Sunday school literature and what kind of books
we're going to approve of. That's what they do. That's what
they do. And then they have their councils
where the council is set down. And they might write them out
89 things of this is what we believe and this is another thing
we believe. And like Gary said, I want to read Isaiah 53. You
want to know a preacher's creed? You don't know what a church's
creed is? It's Isaiah 53. That's our creed. What's our
statement of faith? Isaiah 53. That's our statement
of faith. Oh, what's our charge of salvation? Christ Jesus was wounded for
our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed. Oh, my. Oh, that's Catholicism,
the Presbyterians. Everybody says, well, they believe
in the doctrines of grace. They don't believe in them very
much. The ones I've met don't. Anybody that's sprinkling infants
that don't know nothing about the grace of God, I'm telling
you, if you're a Presbyterian here, I'm sorry for you. I'm
sorry for you, but that's the truth. Anybody that's letting
children take the Lord's table because they're in the covenant,
you don't get in the covenant in the church by baptism, sprinkling,
or anything else. You get in the covenant as God
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. But I'll tell you what they do
know. They know the Westminster Confession. They'll say the long
version or the short version. Short version or short catechism
or the long catechism. They do know the Westminster
Confession. And you know that whether quote
that or quote the Scriptures. You say, boy, you're making it
hard on them for it. They need it maybe. You think I'm making
it hard on them. You wait till they face God. Would you like to face God as
a baptizing infant? How do you baptize an infant?
Can an infant believe? Can an infant repeat? Can an infant know Christ? Can
an infant hear the gospel? And those are all the things
that there has to be. Like I said, I'm getting off
there. Religion must have something
to bind itself to, a foundation. Tradition, associations, counsel.
Or to the Bible. Or to the Bible. This blessed,
glorious book. Oh, this blessed, blessed, glorious
book. Right here. Black and white. Words on paper. Words on paper. But oh, what
words. What words? Oh, it's a book. And when this one's worn out,
I'll get another. And it's a book, I can go buy another. I've got
several of them at the house. But it's what it contains. It's
what it holds. It's the contents of it. Two
testaments, an old and a new. And this blessed book is infallible. It's without contradiction. People
say, contradict yourself. I never have seen words contradict.
It's without confusion. It don't have a mistake in it.
The Bible, I'm telling you, is the test of true religion. Thus
saith the Lord. That's what brought us to thou.
That's what brought us to not only bow and submit to God Almighty,
but somebody to quoting and preaching from this blessed book, dealing
honest with us from this precious Word. And as somebody done that,
it brought us to bow, and as it brought us to bow, it brought
us back up, enables us to stand up and declare the truth as it
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only thing that we can
appeal to If it's not according to the law and the testimony,
not according to this Word, it's because there's no light in it.
A man must receive the testimony of God or perish. And, beloved, this blessed book
is a direct revelation from God Himself. You know, this is not
words about God. This is the Word of God itself.
It is the Word of God. If our Lord was here, do you
think he would come up with something else to say besides what he's
already said? If our Lord got up tonight to be in this service
and he was going to preach, we'll say, this is the Lord Jesus Christ. And like they've done the day
that his public ministry started, they handed him the scroll of
Isaiah and he stood up and he began to quote, Isaiah, raised
from Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. And he began to quote from that.
Do you think if our Lord Jesus was here, you think he would
not say exactly what is already said? Would it change one word? Huh? And oh my, and the Bible
is unique. Oh, this precious word. That's
why I say it's the foundation of our faith. It's consistent
with itself. You go all the way through this
book, there's one message, and it starts unfolding in Genesis.
And as it unfolds, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger
and bigger and bigger until it culminates in the death of our
Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection and His ascension, and us looking
for Him to come back. Huh? It's the only book. Now,
there's been lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots
and lots and lots and lots and lots of books written. Lots of
books written. Don, have you ever wrote a book?
I should have done that. I should have not taken a drink
of water. Let you all calm down. But it's the only book out of
all the books that's been written. There have been a lot of books
written about this book. A lot of books. I got, I don't know
how many commentaries on Genesis. On Acts. From John. Got John's
guilt commentary on the whole Bible. He commented on the whole
thing. Lots of books written about this
book. But this one right here is the only one that tells you
about God. Everybody else tells you what
they think about God or what they think God said. But this
right here is the only one that actually declares. And I'll tell
you something. It does not prove His existence.
Don't try to. In the beginning, God. It just
declares Him. In the beginning, God. Do you
know in the first 34 verses of the Bible, first 34 verses, The
name God is mentioned thirty-four times in the first thirty-five,
thirty-five times, excuse me, in the first thirty-four verses
of the Bible. God is. God. God, who at sundry times. God, who from the beginning. God, you know where the gospel
starts? It starts with God. God has from
the beginning chosen you. It's the gospel of God concerning
His Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible starts with God. Everything starts with God. I
started with God in my mother's womb. I started with God before
the foundation of the world, because God started with me back
there. And this is the only book that
will tell you the truth about man. Oh, you read books about
men? And oh my, this is the only one
that will tell you what you really are. It will call you a worm,
a grasshopper, call you wicked, wretched, a
sinner, dead, cursing God, haters of God, men with enmity in your
heart against God. It will tell you things about
you that you didn't even know. It'll tell you that your righteousness,
the best thing you've ever done, is like a filthy rag. It'll tell
you you never had a thought about God in your life until He put
it there. It'll tell you that you never
loved nobody but yourself, and that you love pleasure in yourself
more than you love God or anything else. It'll tell you that you
drank iniquity like it's water. It'll tell you when you're born,
the spots fly upward. And then He'll say, bow down
and pray. And oh, it's the only one that'll
tell you about Christ, the blessed Lord of glory. And the first
promise you hear in the Bible was formed in the first of a
curse. When God said, curse it, are
you Satan? He'll crush your head, but his
head will bruise your heel. That's the first promise, the
seed of the woman. The seed of the woman, right
there, is concerning our blessed Savior. Oh, my! And this blessed book talks about
Christ, and He's manifested in the Old Testament. There's as
much gospel in Genesis as there are in Galatians and in Romans,
if you know the gospel at all. There's enough gospel in the
first five verses of Genesis, chapter 1. that Don could preach
from. I couldn't do it, but Don could
preach from it for a while. Take me about 40 minutes. But it's the only book in the
world, now listen to me, it's the only book in the world which
can only be read and understood in the light of supernatural
elimination. You do not understand a thing
about this book. if you're not regenerated. It's
a closed book to you. Huh? Ain't that right? He used
it a minute ago, but now look over in 1 Corinthians 2.11 with
me, just a moment. You know, the natural man, we'll
see it here in a minute, 1 Corinthians 2.11. You know what the psalmist
said? He said, only in thy light shall
we see light. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, here's
His disciples. They walked with Him for three
years, a little over three years. And they walked with our master,
with our blessed Lord. And when it was all said and
done, when he was raised from the dead, before he ascended
back to glory, he began to open their understanding, the things
written in the scriptures concerning himself. Now, if we're going
to have any understanding, he's the one that opens it. It's not
the preacher that does it, it's he that does it. We got, you
know, Henry May had made this statement years ago, and we've
all used it over and over again. A man cannot tell what he don't
know no more than come back from where he hasn't been. And if
we don't know the gospel, the people we preach to won't know
the gospel. But if we're preaching the gospel, that's what God uses,
and it's the Holy Ghost that comes, and he's the one that
enlightens the understanding. He's the one that gives Christ
open their understanding. And who else is going to open
their understanding? I can't. You can't. God can't. None of
us here can open a man's understanding. Who does that? Well, and I say
this, regeneration determines your theology. You think about
that a minute. Regeneration determines your
theology. If you're not regenerated, you're
going to have some sorry, sorry theology. But if you're regenerated,
you'll have the right theology. But look here in 1 Corinthians
2.11. For what man knows the things
of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him? And here
I am, I'm up here, got my spirit in me, that's my spirit, for
what that's worth. And how in the world will you
know what's in me? What I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I believe,
my emotions, what I understand, how I feel, what's in me, unless
I tell you. If I stand up here and don't
say nothing, you won't have a clue what's going on inside me. Now watch this. Even so, the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. A man
don't know anything about things of God. Ain't that what it says?
No man knoweth the things of God, but the Spirit of God. Now
watch this. But now, now we have not received
the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God. the
Holy Spirit of God, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. And when He freely gives us these
things, that we know the things that are freely given to us of
God, which things also we speak not in the word which man's wisdom
teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. We compare spiritual
things with spiritual, one scripture with another scripture, but the
natural man, he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolish unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they're spiritually discerned. Now, let me say something about
this regeneration, this new birth. This new birth, as far as I know,
is done by a seed, exactly like a child's born in this world,
like a seed put in a woman's womb. The Scriptures tell us
that the incorruptible seed, the Word of God, being born again,
not by corruptible seed, but incorruptible seed. The Holy
Ghost takes the gospel, the Word, and He comes and He puts a seed
in a person's heart while a man's preaching by the Spirit of God. He puts that in his heart. Now,
how long it takes for that seed to germinate, God only knows.
But when they come, there's seeds in that heart. And that seed
begins to grow. Now, look over here in Mark chapter
four with me just a minute. See if I can make good on that.
Look over here in Mark chapter four. But that seed begins to
grow. Now, that's not. And that's why, you know, everything
is after its own kind. If we've been born, been begotten
again by the will of God. By his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. And this seed is put in a man's
heart. And as that seed, and we don't know, that's why we're
so encouraged when we see somebody showing some interest. But that
seed lays there, and it takes so much time for a seed to germinate. When you put a corn in the ground
or a bean in the ground, it don't just come up overnight. It lays
there. It's got to die before it can come alive. But it'll
give evidence of life. And this Spirit comes to a man,
and when the Spirit puts that seed in a man, that incorruptible
seed, the Word of God, And our Lord said, if there's a man that
goes forth, he's like a man sowing seed. Ain't that what He said?
And as that seed is sown, we just get some man, some soil,
some water, but it's God that gives the increase. There'll
come a time when that seed will spring forth, and we don't know
when it'll be, but when it does, regeneration is something we're
absolutely passive in. We have nothing to do with. God
does that. It's His work. And conversion
is when we, in repentance and faith, turn to Him. But now watch,
this seed, and somebody's been put in you, Christ in you, that
seed in you, prevailing birth till Christ be formed in you,
and what happens is that God in that seed brings into existence
a man who never existed before. A spiritual person. A new man.
And it's called created. In righteousness and true hope,
only God can create. Only God can give life. Now watch this. Here in verse
26 of Mark chapter 4. And he said, so is the kingdom
of God. As if a man should cast seed
in the ground and should sleep and rise night and day. That's
what we're doing, sowing seed. And the seed should spring up
and grow up. He knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth
fruit of herself, first the blade." That little old bitty blade comes
up out of the ground. Then it comes up into an ear.
And after that, the full corn in the ear. And that's what happens. And I say in this new birth,
in this business, in Regeneration Determines Theology, when a man,
if he's regenerated, he knows he's dead. If he's regenerated,
he knows how lost he was. If he's regenerated, he knows
God's sovereign. If he's regenerated, he knows
Christ is the only Savior. If he's regenerated, he knows
his impotence and his inability. If he's regenerated, he reads
this Bible, not subjecting it to his will and his understanding,
but he subjects his will and his understanding to what the
book says. He doesn't want to argue, doesn't want to debate,
he just declares it. And God takes and brings into existence
a man through that seed. Just like you're sitting here
because of your mom and daddy, and he brings into existence
a man that can see God, can hear the voice of God, can commune
with God, converse with God, fellowship with God, walk with
God, enjoy God, and delight in God, and long for the day when
the old man is destroyed and the new man is in full bloom
in glory. Now, ain't that right? God don't
commune with the natural man, and the natural man don't commune
with God. It's only the spiritual man that knows God, and that
spiritual man don't exist until God puts him in there. How in
the world do you come to Christ, setting where you are, if there
ain't a man inside you that's not reaching out after Him? How do you call on God without
saying a word, unless it's that man inside of you calling on
Him? How do you see the Lord Jesus Christ except you see Him
with the eyes of that new man, that spiritual man, that man
that God made in Christ? That's why we don't have altar
calls. That's why we don't have you
raise your hands. You get to Christ, converse with Christ,
enjoy Christ, enjoy God, enjoy the Word all by yourself. With that madness in you and
that madness in glory, you're united, joined together by the
Holy Ghost of God. Believe that? I do. I believe that. And let me hurry. I'm going to finish. You see,
the Bible speaks with great authority. The foundation of our faith is
this. It speaks with authority. It claims to be divine. It says,
thus saith the Lord. How many times does it say, thus
saith the Lord? You know what Scriptures mean?
Holy Scripture means? It means writings, holy writings.
That's what Scripture means, holy writings. Holy writings. Now, you know, Rupert mentioned
it this morning about evolution and creation. Now, a man can
be an evolutionist and say, I believe in God. But it can't be an evolution
to be a Christian. Can't be a believer. Look in
Psalm 33 with me just a moment. I'm going to wind it up. I really
am. I know you. You know, and this is the thing,
sociologists, scientists, psychologists, politicians, all that, they say
man started at the bottom. and is slowly, slowly, slowly
but surely working his way to the top. But the Bible says we
started at the top and fell all the way to the bottom. And we
fell so far that we can't come back by ourselves. We can't get
up by ourselves. We can't find our way out by
ourselves. God's got to come where we are.
He's got to invade our world. invade our minds, invade our
wills, He's got to break in on us. He must come to where we
are. He must come with such power. He must come with such force. He must come with such authority. He must come with such glory
where we are, or we're not going to be saved. He's got to break
into our little worlds. And look here, talking about
creation, look here in verse 6 of Psalm 33, verses of evolution. By the Word of the Lord were
the heavens made. Now, this is our authority. Well, you can't prove that God
made the worlds. I can too. I've got more authority
than these other fellows got. They just decided the other day
that the earth is older than they thought it was originally. How old they know it is. There's
people living on this earth that don't even know when they was
born, how old they are. So how do these people know how old
the world is? And I may get to where I don't
know how old I am. I may not even know my own name. But God
knows me. But he said, By the word of the Lord were the heavens
made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He
gathered up the waters of the sea together in a heap, And He
lays the depths in the storehouses. Now listen, let all the earth
fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of Him. For He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Oh, my. Well, I love this. I love it. And this, beloved,
is true. The Bible meets the sole supremest
needs. It deals with three infinities.
Three infinities. Infinite holiness. God is holy. Holy, holy, holy. It deals with
infinite guilt. Man is guilty, guilty. The law
comes and every mouth is stopped and the whole world becomes guilty
before God. And it deals with an infinite
atonement, an infinite satisfaction through the blood sacrifice of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our peace. The Bible tells
us about three absolutes. Three absolutes, an absolute
sovereign. When someone is sovereign, he
has to be absolutely sovereign. He's not a sovereign at all. All authority, all power, all
dominion must belong to him. He must be the final authority. And not only that, but it shows
us as absolute sinners. There's not a spot on us, in
us, nowhere that's good in the sight of God outside of Christ.
We're full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores. Never been
a good man that lived on the face of this earth apart from
what God done in him. And then it deals with an absolute
Savior. There's one Savior. One Savior. He's the absolute Savior. One
person. One person that men must come
to. One person who shed His blood. One person who satisfied God.
One person who saves sinners. One person by which we approach
God. One person who, beloved, offered His blood in the presence
of a holy God. One man, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's no other Savior on the
topside of God's earth. other than Jesus Christ, the
Lord of Glory. None other. No other way. No other way for
you to talk to God or God talk to you. No other way for you. For God, as old Scott Richard
said, God won't touch you with a ten foot pole outside of Christ. And beloved, it reveals the way
of salvation. This blessed book does. The foundation
of our faith. And no man could have ever imagined
it. And when it's revealed to him or shown to him from the
scriptures, he won't receive it unless God does it. When we
read Christ is the wisdom of God and we're saved by this,
he's the wisdom of God in this word, he becomes the wisdom of
God. And we see God's wisdom in Christ
in his word. We see God's wisdom in the way
he saves the sinner, taking our sins, our sins, all of our sins. of all of his people, of all
the ages, marching his great tyrant armies. And they come. And they come marching. When God called for us to come
forth, our Lord Jesus stood up and said, Give me shame. Give
me his guilt. Give me his black heart. Give
me his wickedness. Give it all to me. Give me what
he is. I'll take it to myself. Give
me his life. Give me his life. Give me all
that he is. Take all the blackness that's
in his heart. Everything that's about him,
take it, and I'll take it to myself." And when he took that to himself,
God being holy, God being just, he had to punish his blessed
son. He could not. As a soulless sinneth, it must
die where God finds sin. He's got to punish it. And when
he found that sin, that sin, my sin, my sin, he took it to himself and it
became his. And when it became his, it ceased
to be mine. And when it became his, God said,
I'm going to slay Donny Bell. I'm going to kill him. I'm going
to kill him. I ain't going to let him go. I'm going to kill
him. I'm going to kill him. And he did. He slew me, Jason. Slew me. Blew back his sword
of justice and stabbed me right straight in the heart. Took his
cup of wrath and turned it upside down. And the Son of God drank
it dry. And beloved, all of my death,
all of my sin, all of my rebellion, everything that I am, God punished
me once and for all in His blessed Son. And when I heard that, and
when I understood that, and the Holy Ghost made me understand
that, that when He hung on that cross and everything happened,
there was a fulfillment of Scripture. And when he cried out, Oh my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God forsook me right there. I didn't know it then, but He
forsook me right there. The only time He's ever going
to forsake me. And then our Lord Jesus, why
would He forsake him if He didn't have sin on Him? Was that just
a legal transaction or was that actually a substitution? Was it actually someone standing
in the stead of another? Was it a real death he died?
Was it real sin he had charged to him? Was it real sin that
he took to himself? And as he was there and God forsook
him, it got dark. Where God ain't, it's dark. Where
God refuses to come, it's dark. When God forsakes a man, it's
dark. out of their darkness. And then when the sun come back
out, our blessed Redeemer cried out,
It's finished! It's finished! It's finished! It's finished! Then when a man came and preached
to me that Christ bore my sin in His own body on the tree,
and God punished me because He was identified with me in all
His afflictions. My afflictions was He afflicted.
And there He was. And when a man told me that,
and I believed it by the Holy Ghost, that's when the gospel
became the gospel of my salvation. All that took place before I
even existed. Huh? Oh, Christ is the power
and wisdom of God. I've been punished. I've died. I haven't got by with one sin.
Not got by with the first sin. Have you, Moose? Huh? Even the ones you ain't seen. The ones I ain't seen. You know
how many sins I commit that I'm not conscious of doing? We all commit sins that we're
absolutely not conscious of. But they've got to be atoned
for, they've got to be paid for, they've got to be punished. So if I've been punished, there
ain't no danger of me being punished again. If I've died, I can't
die again. And did you see that where he
read in Ephesians 2 where Tom did? Together, together, together,
together. Together with Him, together with
Him, together with Him, together with Him, together with Him. Do you believe that? I believe
that, don't you? You know what I'd do if I was
you and if I didn't know the Lord? If I was you, you know
what I'd do? I'd reach out right now in my
heart and in my soul, and I'd say, Lord Jesus, these preachers
have been talking about what you've done, how you bore sin,
how you suffered the punishment, how you died the death with sin
of your people on Him, Lord, oh Lord Jesus, did you die for
me? Did you bear my sin? And oh my, if you could come
to him, if you could embrace him, if you could look to him,
I can tell you you did. I can tell you you did. Amen.