If you have your Bible this morning,
turn back with me to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Our
text this morning is verse 9. Listen to the language of the
Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth. For ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be
rich. I read to you our text, verse
9, I want to mention verse 1. We remember that the Apostle
Paul here is writing the church at Corinth about an offering
that they are to raise in the church there to send to the poor
saints at Jerusalem. And the Apostle Paul says, Moreover,
brethren, we do you to wit the grace of God, simply saying,
I want to tell you about the grace of God that's bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia. I want you to know about the
grace of God in that church, the church of the Macedonians,
how that they, in a great trial of affliction and the abundance
of their joy, their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their
liberality. I just wanted to say at the opening
that any time a church or a brother or sister in Christ is blessed
and enabled to do anything that is to the honor and glory of
our blessed God, it is because of the grace that has been bestowed
upon them. Because of the grace that was
bestowed upon them. Now, beloved, if we keep this
in mind, I think it will ever keep us humble before the Lord.
And I think that our language and our speaking with one another
that we'll be able to honor Christ and honor the Lord when we're
ready always to give praise and honor to the grace of God that
has been bestowed upon us. Now then, I just wanted to say
that because I felt it was so important that we say it. And now to verse 9, our text. He says, For ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The text speaks first of all
about something that the people of God know. And I just want
to say a few words this morning about... I want to talk to you
about something that you know. I have heard that people like
to be told over and over again what they already know. If you tell them what they do
not know, they may or may not hear what you have to say. Well now, we will speak of something
this morning that all Christians are so familiar with that it
can be said they know it. They know it. Now whatever else
you know or do not know, it can be said, ye know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ. If you be a child of God, if
you be one that the Lord has been pleased to raise out of
the pit of sin and death and brought you into the life and
liberty of the glorious gospel of grace, you know of the grace
Christ you cannot be a believer and not know of the grace of
God in truth The Bible says in John 1 in verse 16 because of
his fullness Have all we received and grace for grace of his fullness
have all we all believers received and grace for grace for the law
came by Moses and but grace and truth came by our Lord Jesus
Christ. So I'm talking to you about something
that you know. You would have no faith if you
had not this knowledge of the grace of God. You would have
no salvation apart from God's grace. You remember Ephesians
2 and verse 4, Paul said, but God who is rich in mercy for
his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in
sin hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved
by grace you're saved Paul said when you were dead in sin God
came and quickened you to life and with all his grace you didn't
deserve it And there was no reason, as far as you and I are concerned,
that he did so. But it was all of grace. Every
bit of grace. It wasn't because of who our
parents were. It wasn't because of how we were
educated. It had nothing to do with whether
we had or had not. It was all because of the free
merit and free favor of our blessed God. And then Ephesians 2, 8
and 9, you remember, says that by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus, and two good works, which God hath before
ordained, that we should walk in them. So wherever we would
have no faith, we would not be saved, we would not be the children
of God. It's a very essential part of
our very profession that you know the grace of God in Christ
Jesus. Now for some of you I suppose
that there are some doctrines that are too high or deep for
you to comprehend, experiences maybe which you have not yet
attained, and some graces that are yet not consciously enjoyed
by you. But you do know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ. You do know that. If you're a
child of God, if you're an inheritor of the riches of God's gospel,
you do know the grace of God. That though he was rich, yet
for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might
be rich. You know first of all then, that
he was rich. I want to talk to you about this
verse, a very simple message. Talk to you about things that
you know. you know that he was rich. Now we believe that he was infinitely
rich and eternally rich for he is very God of very God and none
could be as rich as our God. Philippians 4 verse 19 Paul reminded
the church at one of the churches there in Macedonia he reminded
them that He said that God would supply all of their needs. He
said, but our God will supply all your need according to His
riches in glory by Christ Jesus. According to His riches in glory. So our God, my friend, is rich. He is rich. He has boundless
wealth. We sang the song, Oh, the unsearchable
riches of Jesus Christ. Now the earth is the Lord's,
the Bible says, and the fullness thereof, and the silver and the
gold, our Lord said, it's mine. It's mine. It belongs to me.
He created the heavens and the earth, and we're expressly told
that by Him, that is by Jesus Christ, were all things created. He was rich in his essential
deity and rich in the homage of the holy beings that he made. You remember Isaiah 6, 1-4 where
it talks about the seraphims and how they cried out, Holy,
Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty. The Lord Jesus Christ being in
heaven prior to His coming to this earth, in His first coming,
He was rich in His deity and in the homage of the holy beings
that He made. Heaven is heaven, you know, because
He is there. because Jesus is there. By him
all things consist, Paul said in Colossians, and therefore
all things reflect his glory and his honor. You cannot look
at God's creation without seeing the richness of God's very being
and the riches of His glory which He has expressed in that which
He has made. We're not of those who believe
that Jesus was a mere man. I'm trying to tell you something
here that you know, we know better than that. We know He was no
mere man. We couldn't trust our salvation
to the very best of men. I couldn't, could you? No, our
salvation is in the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
Lord Jesus must have been happy as he was holy when he was in
the bosom of the Father. You know, before He left Heaven's
glory and came down here to this world of sin and woe, the Lord
Jesus was rich in happiness in the presence and fellowship of
His Father in Heaven. And He was holy when He was in
the bosom of the Father, as He is holy this day, seated at the
right hand of God. We say that He was rich. We make
that statement. But that is a poor expression,
after all, for human language utterly fails to express how
rich He really is. He was more than rich. He was
more than great. He was God. Yea, all that that
word can possibly mean, our Lord Jesus Christ was when He was
here in the body of flesh. Next, we also know, brother and
sister, that though he was rich, he became poor. We sung the song
a while ago talking about how that he wandered on earth, speaking
of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had been sent by the Father
into this world, he wandered on earth as the poorest of them. Well, beloved, the Lord Jesus
Christ was rich, and we know that he became poor. There was
a point when he became poor. And I'm only telling you something
that you know full well. He became poor. Well, how poor
was he? Although he was infinite, he
was so poor that he had to be sheltered in a stable because
there was no room for him in the inn. He was so poor that
he was the companion of a humble carpenter at Nazareth. And he wore the common garment
of a laborer. It was woven from the top to
the bottom without seam. He had not where, the Bible says,
to lay his head. The Bible says that though the
birds have nests, and the foxes have dens and holes, the Son
of Man had not a place to lay his head. He was so poor that
he was indebted for his daily bread. to the charity of those
gracious sisters, women who followed him and ministered to him out
of their substance. And the Bible says that he owns
a cattle on a thousand hills. But there was a time when he
sat on the well at Sychar and asked and said to a poor sinful
woman, give me to drink. The Lord Jesus Christ became
poor. He knew what faintness and hunger
felt like. He knew about that. And the longer
that the Lord Jesus lived in this world, the more intense
his poverty became until at last he was forsaken, you know, by
both God and man. He was taken out to die without
a rag to cover his nakedness. And when he was dead, he was
buried in a borrowed tomb. Never was there anywhere else
such poverty as the poverty experienced by our Lord Jesus Christ. It
was not only external, it was also internal. He became so poor
through bearing our sin that He lost the light. of the Father's
countenance, emptying Himself of all the repute He had, He
became a spectacle of scorn and shame because of our shameful
sin had been laid upon Him. Because our sin had been laid
upon Him, He became what he was there on the cross, suffering,
bleeding, and dying. And I remind you, although he
was rich, he became poor. He became poor. I remind you
yet further of something else that you know, that though he
was rich, yet for your sakes, for your sakes, he became poor. It was out of love for his people
that Jesus Christ left his throne in heaven to come to this earth
and to die on the cross of Calvary. Let me say that one more time.
It was out of love for his people that Jesus Christ left his throne
in heaven to come to this earth to die on the cross of Calvary. O believer, this morning you
ought to take this truth to yourselves. Jesus Christ loved you and gave
himself for you as much as if nobody else had ever lived. He loved you and became poor
for you. For you he endured that shameful
kiss which Judas betrayed him with. For you his shoulders were
bared to the Roman scourge. For you his hands were nailed
to the tree, his thorn-crowned head smitten by the soldiers,
and his marred countenance bespeared with their spit. For you, the
Lord of glory, became a worm and no man, and was despised
and rejected of men. Surely there was nothing in us. to move him to suffer such indignities. Yet it was all for you and me
that he suffered. All for you and me. It was for
your sakes he became poor. That sacred head was wounded
for me. All this for me. It was for me
that he became poor. Now then, next notice as Christ
for your sakes became poor, It was that ye through his poverty
might be rich. Might be rich. It was that you
would become rich. Now, do we know that we're rich? I wanted to ask that question
because there are many, many poor, tested, storm-tossed children
of God in the world who do not know anything about how rich
they are. They often forget about it. Many
of God's children go around living in this world not aware, not
aware that they're rich. Kind of reminds me of the lady
I read about who lived in poverty and she was not aware that she'd
had a relative that had died and willed her a lot of money. And she lived all her days out
on this earth, and when she was just about ready to expire, somebody
got around to telling her that she had been left a great sum
of money in a will. She lived in ignorance of that.
You know, beloved, we have honor many times, and yet we're not
aware of it. And do we know that we're rich? And how rich are we as the people
of God? We know that the scripture here
tells us that we know this, but do we really know this? That
through His poverty we are rich. You're rich through that which
is imputed to you. For all that Jesus had and did
is yours. Are you aware of the fact this
morning that all that Jesus had and all that he was is yours
through imputation? It's yours because God has reckoned
it to your account. Because God has put it to your
account. All that Jesus had and did is
yours. He was our representative. He
was our substitute. And his matchless righteousness
is yours. Now you came in here this morning
and probably you didn't feel righteous when you came in here.
But my friend, if you're a believer in Christ, if you know the grace
of God in truth, and if you've ever been brought savingly to
the knowledge of Christ and been brought to believe on Him, then
my friend, His matchless righteousness is yours and you're wearing it
right now. Oh, beloved, it's true, it's
true, that as God looks down upon us this morning, He sees
no blemisher, spot, or any such thing. He sees only the righteousness
of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's looking upon us as though
we were as well off as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We're as
righteous as He is, as holy as the Holy One, as we have believed
on Him. Then it's been imputed accredited
to our account. His atonement is yours. His precious blood has washed
all your sin away. You see, I'm plagued by thoughts
of sin. I'm plagued by what I've been.
I'm plagued by what I've done. I'm plagued by that. I'm cursed
by it. And Satan will not allow me to
forget it. My friend, let me say that his
atonement is yours. That he died to atone for sin,
not his own, but for your sin and my sin. And if you be a believer
and if you know the grace of God, then you know that your
sins have all been washed away in his blood. They've been put
away. What can wash away our sin? Nothing but the blood of
Jesus. But if you're in Christ, you
stand clean today because of His atonement. Now then, where
as white as snow, without spot, before the eye of the all-seeing
One. God sees everything, but He can't
see any sin in His people. because the Lord Jesus Christ
became poor that they through his poverty might be rich in
forgiveness and cleansing and in righteousness. And then also
we're rich because the life of God in the Spirit is in us and
you can never die. If you are a believer, if you're
a child of God, we know that the Lord has been pleased to
put life in us. Life by His Spirit. We've been
begotten by the Lord. We've been born again. We're
children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And we know
that the Bible teaches that we've been given the very life of God. And what kind of life is that?
Well, Jesus says, as I live, then you will live. And as long
as God lives, His people will live. The kind of life he gives
is eternal life, life eternal. He gives that kind of life. And
I'm rich this morning because I have eternal life. One of these days my life will
end here, but my life will never end. I shall be with the Lord
for all eternity. And if you're a believer and
a child of God, you have eternal life. You have it right now. Jesus says, I give unto my sheep
eternal life. I give it to them, eternal life.
and it's because I died, the death that was due their sin,
that they have eternal life. They live because I died, and
because I was raised from the dead, and because I represented
them, they now have a life in the Spirit. And who can describe
the riches of a life in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit? Oh the
joy, oh the blessedness, oh the wonderful, wonderful communion
and fellowship with a holy God that we sinners are able to have. Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
He who was rich became poor, that we through His poverty might
be rich in communion with God. He was forsaken of God that you
might never be forsaken of God. He was cut away off from the
light and the countenance of God in order that we might forever
enjoy the countenance and favor of Almighty God. And so my friends,
see how rich you really are in the Lord. And then all the glories
of heaven are yours. Who can describe the glories
to come? That wonderful, wonderful time
that God's people are going to have when they're going to be
able all through eternity to look upon the magnificence of
the riches of our great God, to see all that there is to see
in heaven above, and to glory, be involved in the glory that's
going to be revealed. And so the glories of heaven
are yours, beyond the stars, the endless realms of bliss are
all yours. That's how rich You really are
if you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Think of it.
You've been lifted up so high. Why? Because He was dragged so
low. You've been lifted up so high
because He was dragged so low. You have been filled because
He was emptied. You live because He died. Just think on these things, believer,
and may you this morning be able to rejoice fully in our blessed
Lord. As you think of your innumerable
mercies that have been bestowed upon you, remember that there
is not one of them that does not have the mark of the blood
of Jesus upon it. Now think about that. All your
riches, you go over them and you want to maybe write them
down on paper. But as you think of them, remember
that they were all bought. by the Lord Jesus Christ. They
all have the mark of the blood upon it. He became poor that
we through his poverty might have these riches. All your possessions
have come to you through the well-beloved who impoverished
himself so that you might be enriched. You think on this until
it softens your heart. You think on this until it excites
praise in your heart. All your possessions have come
to you through the well beloved who impoverished himself that
you might be enriched. Think of it. Meditate upon it. You know we spend too much time
in the world thinking like the world, meditating on things that
simply are temporal and have so little time to spend on thinking
about how we are, how we've been so blessed in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Ye know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. And this point, or the point
we must never forget is that it was grace that led him to
do this. You know, the Bible says where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Aren't you glad? Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. So it was grace that led him
to do this. Grace that led Him to do it.
As far as you and I was concerned, He was under no obligation to
come and save us. Under no obligation. I like that
little part of that song that we sang moment by moment or day
by day, whatever the name of it was, that this charge on Himself
He laid. Beloved, do you know that the
Lord Jesus Christ placed Himself under obligation, voluntarily. It was all of grace. It was voluntary
on the part of our Lord Jesus Christ. He did not have to come. There was no reason that he had
to come, except he placed himself under obligation to make us rich
through him becoming poor. As far as I was concerned, the
only obligation was that which he placed on himself. You ask,
well, why did he do it then? Why did he do it then? Well,
beloved, you'll have to ask him. when you get to be with Him,
you'll have to ask Him. That's one of the questions you'll
have to ask. His great love wherewith He loved
us. The Bible talks about that great
love. Well, why did He love us? Did He do it because He loved
us? Amen, He did. He did it because He loved us.
Well, why did He love us? Well, according to what I understand
about the Word of God, it was for reasons known only to Himself. for reasons known only to himself. There wasn't anything in me to
merit esteem or give the Creator delight. Nothing in me, nothing
in you. It was all of grace. And I want
you to understand that. And you know, many, many people,
they sit and they wonder and they worry and they fret and
they stew about this. But salvation and all of its
blessing is through the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have Him,
you have all God has for sinners. His great love, wherewith He
loved us. Well, briefly, I want to call
to your attention some things that I feel are due Him because
of what we know. We know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. There are three things that I
want to call to your attention that I believe that is due our
God based upon what we have studied this morning in 2 Corinthians
8 and verse 9. Now, if you know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, first of all, it is do Him that you
trust Him fully. That you trust Him fully. Now, whether you're a saint or
a sinner, my exhortation to you this morning, based upon this
verse of Scripture, our text, is that you trust Him. Now, I know that we're trusting
in Jesus if we're saved. You say, well, I'm trusting Christ.
I'm trusting Christ. But do we trust him as he deserves
to be trusted? Now there are some here this
morning who are not trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. You have
not come to Him as a sinner. You've not come to Him casting
yourself and your whole case upon Him. You've not come to
Him trusting in Him and His salvation and in His holy arm to deliver
you. You have not come to Him. You
are not trusting Him. And then there are those that
are believers here this morning and you claim to be trusting
Him But the question is, do we trust Him as He deserves to be
trusted? Has He not given us the most
convincing proof of His love that can be conceived? Can you
think of any other way? The Bible says that we have been
shown the love of God by Him laying down His life for us.
And beloved, this is truly the most convincing proof of his
love that he was willing to become, he was rich, was willing to become
poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. How is it that
we do not always rest in his love? when He has given us proof
of His love, how is it that we do not always rest in His love,
feel confident about that love, lean our whole weight upon that
love, and live in the full conviction that that love is our very own,
that He loved us. that he loved us enough to come
into this world to represent us and to bless us with all these
treasures of the gospel. Sometimes we get into doubting
castle, doubting castle, John Bunyan's doubting castle, you
know, fretting and worrying and stewing. Surely, beloved, it
is time that we trusted our Lord more fully, seeing what He was
willing to do. Surely it's time that we trusted
the Lord fully and not bring a reproach upon His name, claiming
to be the children of God and not believing and trusting His
providence and His care for our lives. We, in the light of our
text, ought to be, whatever happens, to us never to carry a burden,
but to take it to the Lord. Now, we need that admonition.
According to this text of scripture, the Lord so loved us that he
was so willing to empty himself, so willing to make us rich. My friend, why would we ever
carry a burden? Why would we worry? Why would
we fret? Why would we mistrust? To the
very least, it's the very least we can do in the light of this
text is to trust Him and lay our lives down before Him and
to believe Him. Now, not to do so, I believe,
is an insult to our God. It's an insult to the Lord Jesus
Christ. What do you think He was there
on the cross for? Why was He emptying Himself out? Was it that we might mistrust
Him and insult Him? If He was willing to invest His
all in us, then my friend, we ought to trust in the Lord with
all of our hearts. As Proverbs 3, verse 5 and 6
says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not
under your own understanding, but in all thy ways acknowledge
Him, and He'll direct your steps. So the first thing is, according
to my understanding of the text is that we ought to lay everything
in His hand, we ought to trust Him with everything. Trust Him
fully. Trust Him fully. Now the second
thing that is due Him, as if we know the grace of God, is
to number two, love Him. Love Him. The Bible says clearly that we
love Him because He first loved us. His love is the reason for
our love. Now I'm sure if I asked you this
morning, you would say, but I do love Him. I do love Him, preacher. If I insinuated that you did
not love Him, you would say, but I do love Him, preacher. Now suppose this morning He were
to come to your pew. He would have come right there
to your pew and asked you what day out of this last week that
you would want him to take as a specimen of your love to him. Which day would it be? Can you think about that a little
bit? Just think about that a little bit. You say, well, I do love
him, preacher. I do love him because he became
poor that I, through his poverty, might be rich. Now I do love
him. Well, what day last week would
you want the Lord to take as a specimen of your love toward
him? Might I ask, what week in the
last month would you want the Lord to take? I mean the final,
the final, this is it! This is it! Lay it out! Can you
give evidence of your love to the Lord Jesus Christ? What about
yesterday's actions? No, no, no, you say, Master,
Master, no, do not do such a thing. We don't want you to hold us
to yesterday's actions, or last week's actions, or last month's
actions. We don't want you to do that.
We just want to be able to go around and spread it around that
we love the Lord Jesus. No, my friend, the Bible teaches
that if we love Him, we'll obey His commandments. If we love
Him, we'll follow Him. We'll do His will from our hearts
if we love Him. And our cry is, O Lord, give
us grace to love Thee more. Because we're all conscious right
now, the finger having been put on us, we're all conscious that
we do not love Him as we are seeing what he was willing to
do for us. We do not love him as we ought. May the love of Jesus Christ
fill our souls. If somebody were to say so-and-so
loves his children, I wouldn't doubt that. If you were to say
so-and-so loves his wife, or this woman loves her husband,
or these children love their parents, I wouldn't doubt that.
But my friend, our love to Christ Our love to Christ. Oh, that
we were filled with as much passion toward the Lord Jesus Christ,
He who was rich and became poor, that we through His poverty might
be rich, that we were filled with as much passion toward Him,
and we would love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul.
Lord, give us grace to do it. in remembrance of Gethsemane
and Golgotha, I claim your heart's best love for the Master, for
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so my friend, do we love
Him as we ought? Do we love Him as He deserves
to be loved? And that's a question we need
to ask ourselves and we need to examine ourselves in the light
of this text. Thirdly and lastly, in proof
of your love, render to Him the service that is due him daily. Now the Apostle Paul was attempting
to excite the church at Corinth to be liberal toward the poor
saints at Jerusalem because he suggested to them that in verse
14 by an equality at this time your abundance may be a supply
for their want that their abundance also may be a supply for your
want that there may be equality The Apostle Paul here was talking
about the fact that there's times when you got something in your
pocket. Somebody else don't have anything
in their pocket. And that's the time for you to
be generous toward that individual and there'll come a day when
that individual have something and maybe you won't have and
they'll be generous toward you. That's exactly the principle
that he was laying out here in verse 14. Well, praise the Lord Jesus Christ
for dying for you, and never let it be said, or never let
anyone have to come to urge you to be obedient to Him. Be willing
to lay down your life for Him. It's time, beloved, that we examined
ourselves to see whether our experience is real or not. I
want you to turn back with me here to 2 Corinthians chapter
4 to one verse, well a couple verses here. 2 Corinthians chapter
4 or 5 it is. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
14. Paul says, For the love of Christ
constraineth us. Now what do you mean by that?
He said the love which Christ had toward us, He said it puts
us in the mood, it puts us in the mindset that we ought to
be in, in order that we would do what He would have us to do
and be what He wants us to be. The love of Christ constraineth
us. We've talked about what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for His people. He goes on to say here,
because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're
all dead. And the one, he died for all
his people, and all of them are now dead in him. Dead in him. Like Paul said,
you're crucified with Christ. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. I am crucified
with Christ. I'm dead. I'm to be dead to the
world, dead to the mindset of the world, dead to the things
around me that would draw me and cause me to cling to this
world. I'm to be dead to that and alive
unto God. And that he died for all that
they which live. They which live equals those
that he died for. Because through his death, all
his people come to life. They all come to live. We live
because he died in our place. He suffered our death. We live.
We live. Now then, I want you to get this
next part of this verse. That they which live and we live
in Christ should not henceforth live unto themselves not live
unto yourself anymore but unto him which died for them and rose
again live for him live for him and don't ever have to have somebody
come around and urge you saying brother sister why don't you
be obedient to the Lord why don't you Follow the Lord. Why don't you obey His Word?
Spontaneous love deserves spontaneous love. Is that a true statement?
And the love of the Lord Jesus Christ deserves our love and
our doing. May I have the privilege of doing
something for the Lord Jesus Christ, who for my sake became
poor, doing something for Jesus. And if there's anything to be
done that is more lowly than other service, less seen and
less honorable than other service, that, my friend, maybe is the
post for me and you. Maybe it is. Anything for the
Lord Jesus. That ought to be our motto. Seeing
that He was rich and became poor, that we through His poverty might
be rich. Go and imitate Him as far as
you can. Imitate him as far as you can.
If you see anybody in need, be generous, for Christ was generous
towards you. If you meet a sinner, do not
turn your back on him as a Pharisee might, because Christ turned
not his back on you. He didn't turn his back on you.
Now, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but others
do not know it. They do not know the grace of
God, but you know it. And one of the reasons you have
been made to know it is in order that you may tell it to others.
We need to care for our own sake. Sinner, if the grace of Jesus
Christ does not save you in this life, the justice of God will
destroy you. It will destroy you. We believe
that. We believe that, and we have
a message on our hearts. If we're saved by His first coming,
then praise the Lord. But if you're not saved by His
first coming, then you're going to be damned at His second coming.
You'll be damned at His second coming. Oh, may the Lord be pleased
this morning to give us a greater appreciation for our glorious
Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the fact that he was
made poor in order that we might be made rich. May the Lord bless
this gospel to our hearts, these truths to our hearts.