Now the title to my message this
morning is two things that we must believe. Two things that
we must believe. I thought about maybe calling
it two things that we must understand. But I come to realize that not
any of us understand completely and entirely everything about
any subject in the Word of God. How much do we know about, really
and truthfully, can we say that we have matured and grown up
and fully understand the great truths of the gospel? No, certainly
we cannot. But we do believe the great truths
of the gospel. And while we cannot understand,
while we cannot maybe explain all the ins and outs of the blessed
truths of amazing grace, Yet we do believe them with all our
hearts. And so we're talking about two
things this morning that we must believe. And I hope that the
Lord will be pleased to bless our thoughts to your heart and
to your edification and to your up-building this morning. Now
we begin here in verse 9. And they said unto him, and this
is the Lord speaking, Where is there thy wife? And he said,
Behold, in the tent. And he said, that is, The Lord
said, I will certainly return. First of all, we have a promise
here. We have a promise. I will certainly return unto
thee according to the time of life, and lo, Sarah thy wife
shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent
door, which was behind him. We have here a promise made by
God unto Abraham and Sarah. Now, beloved, God is, in reality,
the great promise keeper. Now, we have, ironically, a group
of men that call themselves, in America, promise keepers.
But in reality, beloved, ultimately, God is the great promise keeper. If God makes you a promise, you
know that He's going to keep it. God is a God of His word,
not one word. that God has ever spoken has
fallen to the ground. God will honor his word. You
can believe the promises of God. But God said, I'm not a man that
I should lie, neither am I the son of a man that I should repent,
that I should turn from what I've said. God is a God you can
rely upon and believe. Now David said, I said in my
haste all men are liars. Now beloved, you can say it leisurely
today, all men are liars by nature, but God cannot lie. He is God. He cannot act contrary to his
nature. God is the promise keeper, truly. David said, I went forth from
my mother's womb speaking lies. I'm good at it. I've been doing
it ever since I come out of the womb, and natural man is a liar
by nature. Yes, he is. Now, I know that's
offensive to some people to hear that, but I'm talking about the
ultimate promise keeper. I'm talking about the fact that
God, when He says something, you can rely upon it. You need
not question it. You can believe it. You can pin
your hopes upon it. I mean, you can hang your heart
upon it. You can believe with all your heart. When God made
a promise, He always keeps it. He never, ever fails to keep
the promise. So we have, first of all here,
a promise. And then in verse 11, you have
a problem. Notice this, now Abraham and
Sarah were old, and they were well stricken in age, and it
ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Now beloved,
here we have, as we mentioned, a problem indeed. Here's an old
man and an old woman, and God's made a promise to them, and they
have not the ability to make any contribution to God in this
affair. They have been brought by a process
of time and years to the place where they can absolutely make
no contribution. They cannot in any way, as it
were, be involved here apart from the intervention of God.
God must come with mighty power and grace upon this couple if
they're going to have and bring into the world a son. And so
that's the problem. It ceased to be with Sarah after
the manner of women. It ceased to be. She's inadequate. She cannot do. She has inability. She has been brought to that
place where she cannot produce a child. She is no longer active
in that sense and cannot do so because of her advanced age.
And so it ceased to be. He might have loved God, but
that ceased to be when Adam fell in the garden. There might have
been a time when our father Adam could have walked with God and
been in fellowship with God and have lived forever being not
a sinner. The one who had violated the
purpose of God and the program that God had sent him upon and
the will of God and the word of God. But that ceased to be. And you're here this morning
and you are by nature one who has descended from our father
Adam and it ceased to be with you too. You are not able to
do anything. You're not able to make any contribution. You're not able to in any way,
shape or form assist the Lord. in saving you and delivering
you. It ceased to be. That ceased
to be back in the Garden of Eden when Adam fell into sin and plunged
the whole human race into sin. And so beloved, it ceased to
be. There's no power in us, no ability in us to deliver ourselves. Now then, the third thing that
we find here is in verse 14. And I would say just this before
we get to verse 14, about Sarah laughing within herself. We know
in the account over in Hebrews 11, where the writer of Hebrews
talks about the heroes of faith, when he mentions Abraham and
Sarah, he never mentions a word about her laughing. He doesn't
say a word about it. Isn't that amazing? And isn't
that wonderful that God does not impute sin unto those that
are His people? He does not. He did not impute
this sin unto her. She sinned. It was unbelief.
But nevertheless, in the heroes of faith, she is numbered as
one who believed God, and Abraham was one who was fully persuaded
that everything that God had promised, he was able to perform. Okay, so then we've had a promise,
and we've had a problem, and now we have, in verse 14, we
have a power. We have the power of God. And
so in verse 14 it says, is anything too hard for the Lord? At the
time appointed, I will return unto thee. At the time that I've
appointed, the time of my choice, at the time that I please. And
God had this in mind from the very beginning. He had it in
mind when Sarah and Abraham was contriving to help him by Sarah
suggesting that Abraham go into Hagar and that he have a child
with Hagar. And he did. And when Abraham
was crying to God, O that Ishmael might live before thee, God still
at that time, he had this in mind. God always had this in
mind. It was in the mind of God to
give them a child at the time appointed. You see, God is always
on time. May not be my time and your time,
but God is always on time. His schedule is right up to snuff. It's right there, and it is according
to that which is right. He said, I will return unto thee
according to the time of life, and Sarah shall. Sarah shall,
not she may, she shall. have a son. It's a certainty.
It's going to happen because the power of God is going to
bring it to pass. Now, beloved, there are two things
that I said that we must believe. And in order for us to have the
faith of God's elect, this is what I believe that the saving
faith is made out of. It's the stuff that saving faith
is made out of. First of all, it's our inability
our inability, and secondly, it's God's ability. Those are
the two things that occupy the hearts, I think, of true saved
people. That is their inability. They
always are brought to feel their inadequacy, their inability to
save themselves. The Lord brings them to that
place. Now, I'd like to give you a few scriptures quickly
in order that you'd be able to see what I'm talking about. Do
you believe in inability? Do you believe in total inability?
Do you believe that you're like Sarah and Abraham was when they
were 190 years old, unable to have a child,
and it ceased to be with them, do you believe that you're unable,
that you're not able, that you have no ability whatever to assist
Christ in delivering your soul from sin? Now in John 6 and 44,
Jesus said, no man can come unto me. And there in that verse of
scripture, our Lord Jesus taught the lack of ability of a man
to come to Christ. And this was according to Christ
himself. He says, no man can come unto
me. unto me. He doesn't have the
ability to come unto me. He doesn't have the spiritual
ability. It's contrary to his nature.
You will not come unto me that you might have life. You won't
do it. It's contrary to your nature
to come out of your sin and to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have your Bibles, hold
your finger here in Genesis and turn with me to the book of Romans
chapter 8. There's two verses here that
I want to call to your attention. I'm talking about inability,
that a man has not the ability by nature to come to Christ,
to believe on Christ, and to trust Christ, and to be what
God would have him to be. And here in the 8th chapter,
the first verse I want you to look at is verse 6. It says,
for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. There are those in this world
who are just simply in the flesh. They are carnally minded, fleshly
minded. And when you're in that state,
you're in a state of spiritual death. If you've not been quickened
by the Holy Spirit and regenerated by the Spirit of God, you are
in a state of death. before the Lord. Now look, if
you will, at verse 7, because the fleshly mind is enmity against
God. Notice he uses a noun, not an
adjective. It's not that we are at enmity
against God. Once in a while we kind of feel
bad toward God. That's not it. It is that by
nature we're enemies of God. We're enemies of God from the
hour we're born until the hour we die unless we've been regenerated
by the Spirit of God. Unless God has put his divine
nature in us, we are enmity against God. We do hate God by nature. And so if a man hates God, then
he's not able to listen to it now in verse 8. So then they
better in the flesh. cannot please God. First of all,
in verse 7 he says, for it is not subject to the law of God.
That's the fleshly nature. It's not subject to the law of
God. And I want you to notice something
else. Neither indeed, what's that word? Can be. Neither indeed
can be. So here the fleshly mind is not
subject to God's law. It's not subject to the holy
law of God, the spotless law of God. It cannot be, it cannot
be a fleshly mind. I know that some people try to
get their children to live holy lives according to the commandments
of God. And I'm certainly not going to
fault that. But I'm going to tell you this, the Word of God
says that they have spiritual inability. They're not able,
a person in the flesh. And maybe you've had the same
struggle. And some of you, I know, have had this struggle, and maybe
all of you have. But probably all of us have,
but some of us didn't understand it when it was going on. But
I'm here to say this morning that we are unable, due to the
old flesh nature, to be subject to the law of God. Neither indeed
can be. You just cannot be subject. I'm talking about now outwardly
you might conform to part of the law of God, but the internal
demands of the law, the spiritual demands of the law, you are incapable
of keeping. So then he goes on to say in
verse 8, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. cannot please God. You can't
please God, you can't keep His law, and you cannot come to Christ
in the flesh. This is inability. That's what
I'm talking about. Okay, now in 1 Corinthians chapter
2 and verse 14, if you want to turn there with me, I'd like
to show you something else in regards to this inability of
natural man. In the second chapter, verse
14, he says, But the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God. The natural man is unable to
receive. Now, you might think, well, to
receive is not hard. That's real easy. I offer you
$10 and you just reach your hand out and receive it. Well, that's
receiving. But when it comes to spiritual
things, the natural man has not the ability, he has not the appetite,
he has not the ability to reach out and take spiritual things. They must be delivered unto him,
and they must be applied unto him by the Spirit of the living
God." Now notice this. He said that they cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness unto them,
or to him. So they're foolishness. He considers
them to be a bunch of foolishness, these things of the Spirit of
God. And now look, neither, what? Neither can he know them. Neither can he know them. Jesus said, no man can come unto
the Father except by me. Here, Paul said, a natural man
cannot know the things of the Spirit of God. He's unable to
know them because they're only discerned or understood by a
spiritual mind, by somebody who has the Holy Spirit abiding in
them. Somebody that the divine power
has operated upon. And I'll tell you, you can try.
You can try to speak the language of Canaan. You can try to fellowship
with God's people. You can try to go in and come
out among the Lord's people. You can act. You can play the
part and all of that. But you cannot know the things
of the Spirit of God until you're regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Until the power of God comes
down and comes upon you, you're helpless. You inability, you're
as helpless as Sarah was when it ceased to be with her after
the manner of women and you cannot produce spiritual life. You have
no ability in yourself to do so. By nature we lack this ability
and we cannot receive the things of God's Spirit. Well, what is
this inability? Well, somebody said, well, is
it physical? No, it is not physical, because
my friend, you have as much ability, you have as much ability to come
to the house of God, you've got two feet, and you can come to
the house of God, and you can walk in, and you can sit down,
you can take a seat in the house of God and listen to the gospel,
as well as you can walk into a tavern and get drunk. You can
do it. It's not a physical inability.
You've got two ears, one hanging on each side of your head, and
you can listen to the gospel. It's not a physical inability.
And even if you've got a hearing impairment, there are people
that with sign language can get the message of the gospel to
you. It is not a physical impairment. Neither is it a mental impairment. Oh, you've got mental ability.
You can mouth words, and you can listen to words. For an example, the tiger can
eat grass. A sheep will eat grass, but very
seldom, I don't think you would find a sheep ever eating meat. I don't believe so, because it's
contrary to its nature. Your nature, Jeremiah 13 and
23 says that Can an Ethiopian change the color
of his skin? Can a leopard change his spots? It's impossible to do that. So
a man cannot change his nature. Ephesians 2 and 3 says that we
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And because we believe not God
and believe not Christ, the wrath of God abide upon us. And so, beloved, we cannot change
this nature. Man's will is in bondage. Because it's not in bondage to
any sinful, corrupt nature. But your nature is in bondage. It's in bondage. rather than live. And that's
the choice that you made in Him. And the power of that choice
is still upon you. You're in sin today. You're dead
in sin. You have not the life of God
in you. Holy God, you know your own heart
and you know the rebellious nature of your heart and your sinfulness
and your corrupt nature I say to you the will is not free the The only time it was free back
in the Garden of Eden, you know what happened Adam and He told
God to go on back to heaven, that he would run this world.
He'd run it like he wanted to, and so he did. That's essentially
what he told him. Just go on back to heaven. We'll
run the world. Sure, you'll run the world. And
so Adam disobeyed God. He rebelled against God and plunged
this, as we said earlier, into sin. And then another time at
Calvary. Oh, at Calvary is where God step
back as it were, and said to sinful man, have your way, do
what you will with my son. Do what you will. Let your old
nature vent itself. Let that venomous nature of yours
pour itself out here upon my spotless beloved son. And these
men took the holy, harmless Lord Jesus Christ with my son. And so my friend,
if God was to give you your way, oh, where would you end up? Where
would you go? Where would you end up? What
would you end up doing, you know? And if our foolish hearts are darkened
through the ignorance that is in us, By nature, our foolish
hearts are darkened. But you know, beloved, I'm amazed
about how smart men really are. They're smart in the things of
the world. They're so smart in the things of the world. I mean,
I can't stay up with all of these modern appliances and all this
technology. I don't have any ability to stay
abreast of it. I don't know anything about it.
But men are smart by nature. But when it comes to the things
of God, They're ignoramuses. They're absolutely ignorant because
of the blindness of their heart and because of the darkness that
has come over their mind. They're very intelligent, but
they cannot understand the gospel. They have not the ability to
understand the gospel. You say, well, it's so plain,
it's just a very simple story. Yes, my friend, it is a very
simple story, but you cannot understand it savingly until
it's revealed to your heart. You say, oh, I think I understand
it. You may, but you'll go to hell with that kind of attitude
because it's got to be revealed to your heart. until you know
in your own soul the power of it and the grace of it. Oh, how bent we are by nature
to go on in our own way. We're so bent by nature where
our hearts are so darkened and we're so ignorant that what we
ought to love, we hate. Isn't that right? What we ought
to love, we hate. And what we ought to hate, we
love. That's our nature. That's exactly our nature. Even
our conscience, the Bible says, is defiled. Now that brings me
to ask you three questions quickly here before we pass on to the
last part of our message. And these three questions are
this. Number one, do we believe this regarding ourselves? Do we believe in inability? Do
we believe that we cannot, that it cease to be with us? after
the manner of life, that we don't have any power in us, and that
we are lost. Do you believe what God said
in Genesis 6 and 5 before the flood? That every imagination
of the heart of man, the thoughts of the heart of man, is only
evil continually. Can you believe that? Do you
believe it about yourself? Do you believe it about your
own situation? Number two, a fellow that's in
this situation that we've been describing to you that is unable,
has inability, spiritual inability, what can a fellow like this do
to save himself? What can he do? What can this
man do that's in this kind of a state? He can't understand
the gospel. His heart's darkened. He can't
receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to
him. And he's dead in sin. What can he do? What can this
man do? Is there any contribution that he can make to his salvation
being in this state? What can he do? Does he have
anything to offer God? Not anymore, as we said earlier,
than Sarah had when God came and said, certainly, you shall
have a son." Well, thirdly then, this question, how dependent
are we then on the grace of God if this be our case? How dependent
are we? Well, I say to you this morning,
we're totally dependent, 100 percent dependent upon the grace
of God, that God would come, that he would intervene, that
God would come, that he would lay hold of us and bring us out
of our sin. unto the Lord. Now that brings
me to the last thing, and I'll talk a little bit to you here
about the power of God's ability in our last part of this message.
And so you remember back there in Genesis 18 and 14 where God
said, is anything too hard for the Lord? That's the ability
of God. God has the ability to do whatever.
With man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible.
and God is able to do it. But I wanted to say just a little
bit about this, what is not, this power of God. What does
it really mean that God, nothing is too hard for the Lord. What
does it really mean? Now I know there's some people
that might say, well that means just God can do anything. He
can do just anything. And I've known some religious
people that said, well I believe that God can do anything. I believe he can say with or
without the truth. Make any difference. He can say
with or without the truth. Well, beloved, that's not what
this means. That's not what it's talking
about. God does not say with or without the truth. God saves
with the truth. James 1 and 18 says, Of his own
will begat he us with the word of truth. With the word of truth. Ephesians 1 and 13 talks about
how we were sealed with the Holy Spirit After that we heard the
word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. It's the word
of truth. It's not a lie. God will bless
the truth to the salvation of souls. He will not bless a lie
to their salvation. So can God save with or without
the truth? The answer to me is no. He cannot
do that. He will not do that. Now some
say, well, is there anything else that this great God that
you talk about all the time cannot do? Well, there are some things
that He cannot do. He cannot lie. God cannot lie. We mentioned that earlier. He
cannot tell a lie. He cannot deceive. He cannot
deceive. It's contrary to His nature to
lie to anybody or deceive Anybody he's not going to do that. So
the God of the Bible somebody said well, can he save without
a sacrifice? He being the great God that he
is and the truth is he cannot God cannot say without a sacrifice
He cannot save your soul apart from Jesus Christ Bearing in
his old body to the tree your sin. That's the only way somebody
said all preachers there's all kinds of ways to heaven and I
preach to some of them people back through the years and made
them very, very angry because they thought there were many,
many ways to go to heaven and that there just wasn't one way
to get to heaven. Well, Jesus said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. The truth and the life. And there
is no other way that God can save a sinner apart from the
sacrifice of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if you're
looking for God in his general mercies to pardon you and save
you and just forget about your sin, you're mistaken, my friend. Until the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, that taketh away all sin, is applied to your sinful
soul, you're not going to be saved. Christ must die and His
death must be believed upon and His resurrection from the dead
must be believed upon. Now beloved, faith is not believing
that God can do anything. That's not faith. That's not
Bible faith. Faith is believing that He will do what He said
He would do. That's what faith is. Now Abraham
and Sarah were called upon to believe the promise. that God
give, I will certainly return to thee according to the time
of life. I will do it. Sarah thy wife shall have a son. That's the promise of the Word
of God, the naked Word of God. We must believe it. Faith is
always connected to the Word. It's always connected to the
Word. Faith hangs on what God has said. Now, Beloved Romans 10 and 17
says, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
By the Word of God. If you want faith, believe the
Word. Study the Word. Find out what
God has promised. Find out what He said. Find out
what the Scripture says. David one time prayed, said,
Lord, do as thou hast said. Do what you've said. Find out
what God is willing to do. Now, somebody says, well, I think
he can do anything he wants to do. Well, Shirley, my friend,
you know, if you're going to take that attitude, maybe someday
you'll get up, find God in a bad mood, and maybe He'll do just
contrary to the Word. But no, no, not the God of the
Bible. That's not going to happen. You can believe that God's going
to do exactly what His Word says. You can count on it. I mean,
you can bank on it. You can go, I mean, to the outer
limits on it. God's going to do exactly what
He said He would do. He cannot act contrary to His
Word. He cannot. Believe in your heart. Confess with your mouth the Lord
Jesus and thou shalt be saved. That's what God said. Believe
in your heart, confess with your mouth. You believe under righteousness
and with the mouth, confession is made into salvation. That's
how men and women are saved. You believe the word of God.
And Abraham, you know, he was fully persuaded in Romans 4 and
1 that what God promised, he was able to perform. When we
think of God's power immediately, let me just take a little bit
of time here. I meant to be done by now. But you see, that don't
always work out. When we think of God's power,
we think of His ability to create. His ability to create. God's
power. This God who is able to do according
to His Word. He can make something out of
nothing. Did He not say? Did He not speak the world into
existence? Did He not make it out? He made it out of nothing
that existed beforehand. He just literally spoke it into
existence. You explain that. My friend,
you cannot, but I believe it, don't you? I believe it. That's
how it got here. Sure as I'm a foot and a half
high, that's how the world got here. It got here by God speaking
it into existence. Now then, he said, let there
be light, and there was light. That's exactly what he said.
He said, let there be light. So there was the lesser light
to rule the night and the greater light to rule the day. He furnished
His world. He can bring into existence what
was not there before. That's power. And here you are,
dead center, lost. Power on the inside. Needing,
needing, so needing. And God has power to create. And somebody said, well, what
you ought to do is bring your heart, give your heart to the
Lord. Well, I'm not sure He don't want that one you've got. He
don't want that one. No, no, but the Bible says that
he will take away the heart of stone and he'll give you a heart
of flesh. He'll give you a heart that you
can feel something with, a heart that will respond to the Spirit
of God. And then he said, my son, give
me thine heart. My son, give me thine heart.
And so here you are this morning, and you need a new heart. You
need a new heart. Well, the God of the Bible can
create one in you at the snap of your finger. He can. He can
create it. Oh, the scripture says, if any
man be in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5, And verse 17, if any man be
in Christ, he's a new creation. All things have passed away,
behold, all things become new. Things that a man used to hate,
he then loves. And things that he used to love,
he hates now. Because God gives him a new heart.
Somebody said, just bring your faith and bring your repentance
to the Lord. No, no, no, no, no. That's not
what you ought to do. That's not sound advice. You
come to Him and He'll give you faith and repentance. The Lord
Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead that He might give
repentance and faith unto the Israel of God, unto His people.
He's been raised from the dead. Christ is alive. He's at the
right hand of God to give, to give, to give. And what you need
is what God can create, what God can do in you. Oh, it ceased
to be with Sarah, and it ceased to be with you. But God's going
to do something in Sarah, and God can do something in you according
to His will, according to His purpose in the time of life.
Now it is said that we cannot destroy matter. My friend, I
thought about that a little bit. People say, well, you can't destroy
matter. A man's body, you bury it. and there's still something
there, even after it's went through the sieve of the worms and other
matter, it just cannot be destroyed. It cannot be. But my friend,
do you know God can destroy something, completely destroy it, remove
it, completely take it out of existence? He can do that. And
the Bible says in the book of 1 Corinthians, I think it is,
chapter 1, verse 28, he spoke there about bringing to naught
things that are. Bringing to naught things that
are. Now, if you think about that,
what did he do with our sin? What did he do with it? They
actually existed. I'm telling you they existed.
Remember feeling the guilt of them? Don't you remember feeling
the sorrow of them? Don't you remember feeling the
weight of them? Don't you remember? Sin actually exists. It's a real thing. But my friend,
God is able to bring to naught things that are. He's able to
completely take our sin and to remove it. Oh, not only to forgive
it, not only to hide it, not only to cover it, but He's able
to just take it out of existence. And it no longer exists for the
people of God. Their sins are gone. Gone! And you can't find a trace of
them. Nowhere is there a trace of sin against God's people. So He can bring it to naught.
My sin, He brings it to nothing. Now in Jeremiah 50 and verse
20, if you want to turn there with me right quick, here's a
blessed verse that I want you to look at. Jeremiah 50 and 20,
and it explains exactly what I'm talking about. In those days,
and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, they'll be looked for, the iniquity of Israel shall
be looked for, sought for, they'll be going around, scratching around,
trying to find it, and there shall be none. There shall be
none! And the sins of Judah, they'll
be looking for. They'll be scratching around,
trying to find them, moving this and that, looking for the sins
of Judah. And they shall not be found. God said, for I will pardon them
whom I reserve. I'll pardon them. And when I
pardon sin, when I pardon sin, my friend, you can seek after
it, you can look for it, you can go to any lengths to try
to find it again. But it's all gone. This is power,
brother, sister. This is the power of God. God
only can just completely bring to naught that which is and destroy
sin, every particle of it to where it does not exist. And
beloved, that's the way I want to die. I want to die with my
sins look for, but not to be found. That's the way I want
it to be in the day of the judgment. When I come before God, my sins,
they look for who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect.
It is Christ that died, he rather that's risen again. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of those that believe that have
been regenerated by God's Spirit, brought out of this inability
by the power of God and made a new creature in Christ. Well,
he has the power to change things, doesn't he? even me. Listen to these verses, Philippians
3, 20 and 21, for our citizenship conversation is in heaven from
whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
change our vile body. He's going to change these vile
bodies of ours. That's power, beloved. Ain't
nothing else going to affect them. I'm telling you what, my
soul, you can work on this old thing and take any manner of
Different vitamins and all kinds of stuff that people recommend
and the doctors put you on the regimen of medication and and
all of my soul is of no effect Can't do anything can't change
these old bodies. They're dying. They're dying
soon. They're going to be in the grave
But he shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned
like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby
he is able to subdue all things unto himself. He subdued me. Has he subdued you? Well, if
you're his child, he has. He got the victory. He's got
the victory. Well, he can change all of this,
and that's power. That's power, as weak, as foolish,
sinful, ignorant, vain as I am. Listen to me now, He can fix
me up so that you cannot tell the difference between me and
Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. Now any God that can do that,
that's power my friend. That's power. And that's exactly
what I believe. And that's what the gospel is.
The gospel is that God fixes up a sinner so that nobody can
find any fault with him. He's blameless. Unreprovable.
Unreprovable in God's sight. God's seeing better than any.
Cannot find a fault with him because he's been changed by
the power of God. Well, I don't understand the
depth of this, but oh, my soul, I do believe it. Lord, help my
unbelief. Am I in belief that God does
change his people? Listen to these verses and I'm
done. Ephesians 3 and 20. Now unto him who is able. Now
unto him who is able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all, that we're
able to ask or think according to his power that works in us. And then Hebrews 7 and 25. He
is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him,
seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 2
Timothy 1, 12, For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day. 2 Corinthians 9 and 18, God is
able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always,
having all sufficiency, may be able to abound to every good
work. God is able. The power belongs
to God. He has the power. Oh, we have
the problem, but God has the power, now unto him who is able
to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with ecstatic joy. And verses 27 through 29, there
were two blind men that came to Jesus and said, O thou Son
of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus went into a house,
and they followed Him into the house. And they asked that He
would heal them of their blindness. And Jesus asked them a question.
He said, Believe ye that I am able to do this? Do you believe
I'm able to do this without you being able? I don't need your
salve, I don't need anything you got. Do you believe without
any contribution from you? Do you believe, helpless as you
are, blind as you are, do you believe that I can do this? Do
you believe it? Do you really believe it in your
heart that I can do this? Do you know what he said? He
said, according to your faith, be it unto you. According to
your faith, in the next verse, be it unto you. According as
you believe what I've said. My ability. My ability. So my friend, you have the promise,
you have the problem, and you have the power. Two things that
we must believe are inability and God's ability. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life. But the wrath of God abideth
on him. Father, in the name of Jesus,
we thank you for your precious word. Oh, how we praise you for
your precious word. Father, would you own it? Would
you own it? And would you come? We've tried
to exalt you in your power, and we just pray that thou would
visit some poor soul and deliver them out of their bondage. Bring
them into that glorious liberty of the children of God. Bring
your children to experience more and more and more of this blessed
and glorious liberty that's in Christ. And may they feel the
power of God coming upon them, day after day, the power of God
coming down and visiting their poor lives. Oh Lord, we're so
helpless, we're so needy. Strengthen us, oh Lord, strengthen
us. And in our weakness, make us
strong. We pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.