the book of Ezekiel chapter 16. I appreciate Brother Randy enduring
and persevering and reading through this entire chapter. I do hope
that you were listening to what was being read. I think that
the message will mean a whole lot more to you if you were listening,
if you were paying attention to what was read here this morning. I'd like for us to look at verse
62 and 63, the last two verses of this chapter. And I will,
God says, establish my covenant, my covenant with thee, and thou
shalt know that I am the Lord. That thou mayest remember and
be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of
thy shame. When I am pacified toward thee
for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. I guess if I had to give a title
to our message this morning, it would be the heart full and
the mouth closed. There are two things in this
chapter that stand out to me and I want you to notice them
this morning in the opening up of this message. First is the
extraordinary sin of Jerusalem or the sin of Israel. God speaks
of this sin of idolatry in the strongest imaginable language. He represents Judah's sin as
being greater than the sins of Sodom and Samaria, though both
Sodom and Samaria had been destroyed for their abominations even before
his speaking these words. Now he compares Judah's backsliding
to the lewdness of a woman who forgets her marriage vows and
sins with many lovers adding filthiness to filthiness as she
goes along. He shows sin to be a violation
of the heart's love to God and the soul's chastity towards the
Most High. That's how he pictures sin here
in this chapter. Next, the other thing that is
set forth here in this extraordinary chapter, we mentioned the extraordinary
sin of Jerusalem, of Judah. The next thing that's set forth
here is God's grace, God's abundance grace, God's free, sovereign,
merciful grace. How when he began with Israel,
he found her like an infant that was cast out in her blood, unswaddled
and unwashed, and he took her up in all of her filthiness and
said to her, and our brother emphasized this word as he read
this morning, He said to her, live, and washed and cleansed
her and clothed her and gave her jewels. And when she grew
to riper years, she turned aside from him and turned his mercies
into occasions of provocation and made his blessing to be instruments,
to be the very instruments of sin. And he describes himself
as pardoning her again and again. and yet she continued to invent
new sins. Now looking down all the while
upon Sodom and Samaria with a holier-than-thou attitude, and yet behaving worse
than they, and going deeper and deeper into rebellion against
the Lord, and yet His mercy follows her, His love still pursues her,
and He makes the chapter to culminate these verses that we read to
you as our text this morning with such words that set forth
his pure love and sovereign grace. Now, there are two words that
if we can ever learn the meaning of them, those two words are
sin and grace, I think will teach us deep practical wisdom. I would like for you to hold
your finger here in Ezekiel chapter 16 and turn to the book of Romans
The book of Romans chapter five, and I'd like for you to look
at a couple of verses here, verse 20 and verse 21. Sin and grace,
sin and grace. In verse 19, it says, for by
one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. So here in this verse you have
those two words, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That
as sin, in verse 21, hath reigned unto death. And sin does reign
unto death. Even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now,
beloved, for those that are under the law, we know that the law
entered that the offense might abound. Always, if you live under
law, you are judged by the law of God to be a sinner. You're
always a sinner judged from the bases of the law. It really is
difficult for me to understand how it is that anyone who has
once been delivered from out from under the law and under
the bondage of sin and out from under that place where they have
been judged and are being judged constantly as a sinner worthy
of the judgment of God, how that once they've gotten out from
under that, why they would ever want to go back under that law
of bondage and sin. But it says where sin abounded
and sin abounds in the life of every son of Adam. Sin abounds. Where sin abounds, grace did
much more abound. Thank God that the grace of God
abounds and is greater than all of our sin. The grace of God
is greater than all of our sin. Now, no one ever measured the
depth of either one of these words. except our Lord Jesus
Christ. And when he measured them, was
in Gethsemane's garden, when he was in a bloody sweat, and
on Calvary, when he poured out his soul unto death. We see both
sin, its result, in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
we see the grace of God in God delivering him up, and sparing
not his own son, but delivering him up for us all. Now, only
the suffering of the lover of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ,
only He knows the depths and the perfection of these two words. Wouldn't you agree with me? Of
sin and grace. Only the lover of our soul knows
the depths and the perfection of these two words. May we be
helped to enter in a little further into their meaning here this
morning. Now, beloved, I want to talk about three things in
the time that we have allotted here this morning. And the first
thing that I want to talk about is the condition into which the
grace of God has brought all believers, and that is that God
is pacified towards them. When I am pacified, God said
toward thee, for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. When I am pacified toward thee. And the second thing we want
to talk about is the knowledge which has been imparted to all
believers. They know first of all the covenant
and they know the Lord. And they know themselves these
three things. And then lastly, we'll have a
little to say about the silence, which is forever work in all
believers. Because God said, thou shalt
never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I
am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done. So then,
first of all, let us look at the blessed condition into which
every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has been brought by the
sovereign act of God's pure mercy. We've been brought into such
a condition that God can say to us, I am pacified towards
thee for all that thou hast done." Now isn't that an amazing statement?
I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done. Now
I say that this is the condition into which all believers have
been brought. That God, their God, is pacified
toward them. Now the Hebrew word here, pacified,
sets forth forgiveness and atonement and pardon. And with that which,
and what the word properly signifies is to cover a thing. It means
to cover a thing with that which adheres to and sticks to the
thing covered. Not with dry dust or leaves,
which could be easily be removed, but with glue or pitch, so that
the thing hidden cannot easily be brought to sight again. Now
the same word is used concerning Noah's Ark. In Genesis chapter
6 verse 14 it says, Thou shalt pitch it, or cover it, within
and without with pitch. Now all the planks were to be
covered with pitch, not with water-based paint, mind you,
but they were to be covered with pitch, thick pitch, which would
cover them, a sticky substance which would adhere to the wood
and penetrate it and cover it all together. Now hear me out.
When God forgives our sin, He covers us as completely as the
wood of the ark was covered within and without. Our sin is hidden,
it's covered from His observation. Now can you imagine our God being
pacified toward these idolatrous wicked and sinful people of Jerusalem. Can you imagine our God being
peacified, peace coming to where he was no longer able to observe
what they were, where he couldn't observe it any longer. It was
completely covered, covered with, as it were, a pitch that you
could never be washed off. It penetrated the wood and it
covered it. And so, child of God, I beg you
to think on this for a moment. God is pacified towards you because
your sin has covered all of it. It is all gone. As far as God
is concerned, your sin has ceased to be. It is out. It is gone
as far as God is concerned. He laid it on the Lord Jesus
Christ, our substitute, and he took it and bore the penalty
of it. And nay, there's more to it than that. The sin itself. He has, you remember in the Old
Testament how that hands were laid up on the head of what they
call the scapegoat. and sin was transferred to the
scapegoat. And then the scapegoat was taken
out into the wilderness and he was driven out into the wilderness,
never an eye to be laid on it again. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ is our scapegoat and our sin has been laid on him. Not
only did he buried on the cross and die in our room instead in
place, but he's taken our sin and he's taken it away. And the
Bible says he has finished transgression and that he's made an end of
sin. Made an end of it. Made an end
of it. Could we not, should we not rejoice? Because sin abounded in our lives
and we were damned. We were sentenced to an unending
hell because of our sin. Well, the Lord Jesus has made
an end of it. Somebody said, I think sin is
the big problem. is indeed a mammoth problem,
but our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ, has made an end of it.
Made an end of it. This day, O believing child of
God, there is fulfilled towards you that scripture which says,
in those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none in the
sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon
them whom I reserve. So the depths have covered your
sins, there's not one of them left to meet you in the judgment,
hallelujah. The Lord is pacified for all
that we've done, so that no grounds remain for a quarrel between
us and God. Isn't that wonderful? We often
think about that song that says, nothing between my soul and the
Savior. Nothing! Nothing! No quarrel
anymore between us and God. You say, well, I kind of feel
sometimes like the Lord's still quarreling with me. Well, I think
we should understand by what the Word of God says that whether
we realize it or not, We have had our sins covered, and the
Lord has been pacified, and he is at peace with us. And the
scripture says, O God, I will praise thee, for though thou
wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest
me. Yes, the many countless sins
that we've committed since childhood are all forgiven. Isaiah chapter
43 and verse 25 says, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy sins. And that one black sin, which
maybe cost you more regret than many others, has been removed
as a thick cloud. The one repeated sin, which grew
into a habit in your life, which seemed as though it mastered
you completely and brought you into utter bondage, it too, my
friend, has died when Jesus died. Now they're all gone, they are
buried, never to arise again. Not one of these dead things
shall live for the efficacy of the death which slew them is
eternal. The death of our Lord Jesus Christ
put to death our sin. They cannot rise against you
from the grave, no, not one of them, while sun and moon endure,
no, while God lives, for he said they shall not be mentioned against
you anymore forever. Who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? God is pacified towards his people
for all that they have done, altogether pacified for their
sins have ceased to be as far as God is concerned. Now, brethren,
This is not occasionally true. This is not occasionally true,
but always true, whether we enjoy the sense of it or not. Now,
I want you to listen to what I'm saying. The standing of a
believer, and again, I'm reminded of old brother Shelton. He would say when he was getting
ready to come to something, I mentioned it last Sunday, I'm gonna jump
a creek now. And so you listen to what I'm saying. The standing
of a believer does not depend upon his recognition of his standing. Now this is very important that
you see that. There are many times when a believer can seize
sins, but cannot seize pardon. Many, many times we feel our
sin and the weight of it. But we cannot. We cannot see
that God has been pacified. We still feel, as I mentioned
a few minutes ago, that he's quarreling with us, and that
he has a quarrel with us. Well, are we pardoned? Yes, we're
pardoned. while self-condemned. We can
be condemning ourselves and yet we're pardoned. There are times
when a man would give everything that he has if he could read
his title clear to mansions in the skies, but he can find no
place to give his offering. He just simply cannot, he cannot
see and feel and recognize that he is pardoned. Now, it was not
when the Israelites saw the blood on the doorpost that they were
spared. You remember that old story in the Old Testament when
the Passover lamb was offered and the blood was put upon the
doorpost. They could not see the blood because they were inside,
sitting at the table, eating the flesh of the lamb with bitter
herbs. How could they see the door post
on the outside and see the blood? They were unable to do that.
The Lord said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And Christ is our Passover lamb.
And he said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. This is the
main thing. Beloved, the main thing is that
God sees the blood of His Son that was shed on our behalf and
sees that our sin is covered with the blood of His Son and
that He's pacified toward us for all of the sins that we've
committed. It's not whether I can read my
title, Clear the Mansions in the Sky, it's how God looks at
this thing. And of course it's joyous to
be able to read your title clear. It's joyous to be able to rejoice
and look up to God. And it's joyous to be able to
feel the power of the blood, the atonement of our Lord Jesus
Christ upon one's sins. And when my eye of faith is dim
and my sense of rest in Christ is overloaded with a yet deeper
sense of my own unworthiness, yet still my standing is not
altered, my security is not affected, the pacifying of the Lord's toward
me is not changed a bit. Not changed one bit. At all times
in the dark as well as in the light, in times of downcasting
as well as uplifting, the Lord is pacified towards his people. Don't think I'm just trying to
wear this out. I'm not. I'm trying to get it so fixed
in your mind you won't ever forget it. I'm trying to so preach it
so that you will enjoy it for the rest of your life. So you'll
be able to hide yourself in this truth and be able to worship
a God who is able to deal with the greatest problem you have.
And that problem is sin. And he's dealt with it already.
He's dealt with it in the person of his son. Now I would that
we could grasp this more fully and live in the power of it more
completely. Child of God, have a grateful
and restful memory of your complete deliverance from the wrath of
God that is due to sin. God is pacified towards you concerning
all your sin in all of its heinousness and hideousness and horror and
whatever conception that you have of your sin, and it may
be a very alarming conception that you have of your sin, God
is pacified towards you concerning that sin. Sin, and no man, let
me say, ever had a true estimate of his sin. It is always worse
than we think it is. Is that true? Our sin is always
worse than we think it is. Sometimes when we're dealing
with young converts and they are alarmed at their sin because
God has awakened them and in the words of the old Puritan,
they've been illuminated and they see their sin and they abhor
their sin and they're talking about the greatness of their
sin. Many, many times we might say to them, oh now, now wait
a minute, you haven't lived very many years and your sin surely
couldn't be that bad and you're surely not all that great a sinner.
My friend, you let them look at sin and you let it be as enormous
as it can possibly be in their eyes. And the reason for that
is that if they're little sinners, Jesus will be a little savior.
And if their sin is great, Jesus will be a great Savior. And if
their sin is enormous to where they don't feel they'll ever
get out from under the load of it, they'll see Jesus as the
great burden bearer and that he lifts up this awful load of
guilt and sin. Let them understand that they're
ever been as bad as they think they are and are worse yet in
the eyes of an all-seeing God. And a God who finds wrong even
in that host that is above. And so God cannot look upon sin.
His eyes are too pure. And we need to have, no man ever
had a true estimate of his sin. Bless God for full deliverance
from sin's penalty and its power. Bless the Lord for it. I'm saying
that the condition which God has brought us into is that he's
pacified for all the sins that we committed. Now number two,
the number two thing, and we must hurry on. What we've learned
in the process of reaching this peaceful standing with our God,
we've learned three things. Now, I do not say that we've
all learned them equally. I do not say that. And I do not
say that we all have equal ability to articulate these things and
talk about these things intelligently. But first of all, I want to say
that we've learned salvation by covenant. Salvation by covenant. Now, he says, God says, I will
establish With these people, he said, I will establish my
covenant with thee. Now, we were lost by a covenant.
Do you understand that? We were lost by a covenant. Adam stood before us. He represented
us in the old covenant of works. And he failed, bearing the responsibility. He failed. What I want to say
is, he let us down. He let us down. He fell and we
fell in Him. Now, beloved, if you're out of
Christ today, that is where you are before God. You stand in
a failed covenant. You're in old Adam and you stand
condemned in old Adam. You have sinned by one man, entered
into this world, and death by sin, and you stand in that old
covenant. Now the devils, when they fell,
they fell each one for himself so they could never rise again,
but we fell. that God was going to restore
us again. Here it is. Jesus Christ comes
the second Adam and God makes a covenant with him which runs
like this. If he will bear the penalty of
their sin, if he will keep the law, If he then all that are
in him shall be delivered from every sin, and the righteousness
of the second Adam shall be imputed to them, and they shall be loved
and blessed as if they were as righteous as their representative,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. the one that has entered into
covenant with God. Salvation is by covenant, not
that God's made one with you. No, he had enough experience
with that in the Garden of Eden. Man is a failure wherever you
put him. God must make a covenant with
the God-man, that one who is not going to sin, and that one
who will never fail. Isaiah says, he shall not fail. Isn't it wonderful that God has
made a covenant with him? And the Lord Jesus has been faithful
unto God. I never get tired talking about
the blessed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only
is he righteous as far as God is concerned, but he was righteous
as he lived out his life in this world. In all things, he sinned
not. He sinned not. He never committed
a sin. He was holy and righteous. And the Lord Jesus has lived
that righteous and holy life. in order that we might have a
righteousness of our own, that God would be satisfied, and that
would pacify God on our behalf. And when we get in Him, God is
pacified because Jesus lived a perfect life, and He lived
that vicariously. He lived it in your place, in
your room, and in your stead. Have you learned this? Christ
is a covenant for the people. Christ is my Adam and I'm in
him and God saves me now not because of what I did or am,
but because of what my covenant, of what my covenant surety was
and is. That's how I'm saved. That's
why I'm saved today, is because of my covenant surety, the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is a covenant, now you listen
to me, There's another creek, I guess, that we're about to
jump. This is a covenant I cannot break. Now, does that sound all
right? To Sovereign Grace Baptist people,
this is a covenant I cannot break. Now, the covenant that God made
with these people here, he said it's an everlasting covenant.
He told David, he said, it's an everlasting covenant ordered
to all things ensure. It's not a covenant that can
be altered. Now, it's not made with me personally. I'm personally
the benefactor of it. And I'm personally the one blessed
in it. But the Lord Jesus, the covenant
was made with Him. Christ is the only one who can
break this covenant. He will not and He has not, and
therefore the promise is sure to all the seed. And it's a covenant
that, as we mentioned, God said to David, it's the order of all
things, and sure, a covenant which God will never turn aside
from. He never will. My covenant I
will not break, says God. I won't break it. I won't break
it. Now the God that promised that
is a God that cannot lie. A God that cannot lie. And this
God is that God who promised eternal life before the world
began. A God who cannot lie. He said, my covenant I will not
break. Now there are certain people
in the religious world who cannot stand to hear this preached too
plainly. They cannot bear it. They get
their hackles up whenever they hear somebody speaking too plainly
about the believer's privilege and the believer's security.
But, beloved, we cannot help the way they feel about it. Let
me say that Isaac lives at home and rejoices in his birthright,
and if Ishmael and his mother, if they love slavery better than
they love freedom, then let them have it. Let them have it. Let
them go their way. But if we be and we keep the
promises Isaac was, our name is laughter. That's what our
name is. It's laughter, as the name of
Isaac was. So we will rejoice as a true
heir that shall not be driven out forever, brother, sister.
Never shall we be driven out. We cannot break this covenant.
We cannot do it. If God owns you, puts you in
His Son, you're in His Son forever. I told you here a while back
that we can be out of Christ today and in Him tomorrow, but
we cannot be in Him today and out of Him tomorrow. You cannot
be. You're either in Christ or out
of Him. And if you're out of Him, my friends, seek the Lord. Cry to God, because if you die
out of Him, you'll perish forever. And that's what you need to be
most concerned about, is getting into Christ. Crying to God, seeking
the Lord. Somebody said, if I just knew
God loved me. If I just knew I was one of the
elect. My friend, you don't have to
be concerned about those things. Just now believe on the Son of
God. Do you believe on Christ? Are
you in Christ? That's the question. Dost thou believe on the Son
of God? And I'd walk these aisles and
go in between the chairs and tap you on the shoulder this
morning, consider it done. Dost thou believe on the Son
of God? Now my friend, if you believe
on the Son of God, you know God loves you, and you know you're
one of the elect. Your obligation and responsibility
before God is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's your
obligation. That's what you must do. And
I don't think anybody's going to have any trouble knowing that
God loves them if they become believers on the Lord Jesus in
the true sense of the word. They'll know that. They'll know
their election, that it is of God. Well, it's a blessed thing
to learn the covenant of grace, isn't it? A blessed thing. Well,
the next thing, and I must hurry, number two is that we've learned
that Jehovah is indeed God. He says, and thou shalt know
that I am the Lord. You shall know that I'm the Lord.
Now, God saved us in such a way that we've learned that He's
God. Then He's God. The salvation is of the Lord. The way that God has dealt with
us, the way that God has laid hold of us, the way that God
arrested us, the way that God plucked us out, the way that
He came by these folks from Judah and Jerusalem was that He passed
by in the time of love, in the time that He purposed. And He
said, live. And God did that to us. Now we've
learned that he's God, that he brought me to himself. Salvation
is all his work. It's all His work from the beginning
to the end. If you were in heaven today and
go around and tap everybody on the shoulder, that's in glory,
praise in God today from the depths of their soul. They having
received the ability and the potency to praise God as He ought
to be praised and tap them on the shoulder and said, what is
it that you, what's this all about? And they said, well, He
hath redeemed us to Himself out of every nation, tongue, race. He's redeemed us unto Himself,
and this Lamb is worthy of all of our praise and all of our
glory. He's worthy of it all. And my
friend, that's what we need to understand, and we've learned
that He brought us, that salvation is His work from the beginning
to the end. And we also learned about His sovereignty. We've
learned that He's Lord. We've learned that He is King
Jesus. And that's language, that's our
language among ourselves. Christ is Lord. Christ is a Sovereign. God is Sovereign. And that Christ
is a King. Now, beloved, what all that means
is this. And like I said, we've not all learned this equally,
but we have all learned it to some degree, if we're saved.
And that is that we have no rights. of our own, and we make no claims,
and that we forfeit all the rights of creatureship by our sin. Now when our daddy Adam sold
us out in the Garden of Eden, we lost every right of creatureship. We lost it. Now let me tell you
something. I'm at his disposal. If he come
along and said to me, And if he washed me, I mean, if he picked
me up when there was absolutely nothing that I could do for myself,
when I was totally, utterly lost, and he came to me in my ruined
condition and saved me, and he rescued me, and I've been delivered,
then, my friend, I don't have any rights. I'm at his disposal. A slave has no rights. A slave,
he is subject to his master and the goodwill of his master. And what he has in life is due
to the mercifulness of his master. It's due to the love of his master.
The love or the hatred of his master. A slave. But we're the
slaves of Christ and we've been bought with a price. We're owned
by him. May the 22nd, 1976, the Lord
came to me and said, I'll take you on as my slave. I've been crying to God, crying
to God, crying to God, Lord, do you own me or don't you own
me? I will take you on as my slave. So from that hour on,
now I was saved a long time before that, but from that hour on,
I'm conscious and aware of the fact that I don't have any rights.
I don't have any rights. I don't even have the right to
command respect in this world. I don't have the right. You know,
my friend, we ought to think, and Matthew Henry in his book
on meekness talked a lot about how we ought to commune with
the grave. How we ought to think about the
grave. And that it's going to be our long home, you know, as
far as this body is concerned. And now we take offense easily.
We're all guilty. We all got pride clear up to
here. And we just get, you know, we get offended easily and we
just, you know, we're just like a bunch of little bratty kids
running around full of pride and sin. But I want to tell you
something. I want to tell you something.
Picture yourself in the grave. Your old body in the grave. That's
what it's going to end up. And picture somebody as your enemy
coming up and spitting right on your grave. What are you going
to say? You ain't going to say nothing.
You're not going to say nothing. And the believer is dead. And
his life is hid with Christ in God. He's dead. Dead to this world. Dead to the
things of this world. And he has no rights. And he
must bow his knee unto the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This doctrine
is not known by many in our day. They'll not have it. The doctrine
of the lordship, the kingship of Jesus, that God is sovereign
and that he rules and I lost all my right in my sin and now
I've been saved and I live for Him and if He died, He died for
us and if we live, we're to live unto Him who died and rose again
I'm calling on you, I'm calling on you that if you have been
saved to lay down your life to the Lord Jesus Christ to give
up your life to Him and to his ways. This doctrine is not known
by very many. They'll not have it. The Lordship
of Christ is a despised doctrine, and we've invented the carnal
Christian theory in order to let these rebels that are running
around here thumbing their nose at God and living as they please.
They're a bunch of snobs and a bunch of snoots, and they're
running around here acting like they're somebody. You know, one
of the sins of Samaria was their pride and the fact that they
felt like they were somebody. Fullness of bread, abundance
of idleness, pride was it. And I'll tell you, there's a
lot of people who won't bow their knee. Man, you know, he's an
oval creature. He must be considered. God must
deal with all alike, you know. Man's gotta have his day. These
are proud and arrogant boasting it's blasphemy. Now I'm not as
smart. I know you're a sinner thrice
over and I know I am too. And I'm not as smart as some
of these modern day preachers. Got their head full of education
and their pockets full of money they've fleeced off of people.
And I'm not even as smart as I look like I am. I'm not. But there's one thing I know
for sure, and that is God is a sovereign. And I know that
He demands that we lay down our lives, that we give Him our heart,
that we be subject to Him, and that we don't go off here, that
God resisteth the proud, and He gives grace unto the humble,
and that God does what He pleases with His people, and He has every
right to. Shall not the Lord do what he
will with his own? Doesn't he have a right to do
what he will with his own? Don't he have that right? Did
he not say, be content with such things as you have? Sometimes
people look on us and I kind of feel like maybe they think
we're a failure in some way and they're ashamed of us. Kind of
ashamed of us because we're not asserting ourselves in the world
like other people do, you know, with the great ones that came
from Egypt. Scripture mentioned it the brother
will remember right here Committed whoredoms with the great ones
Other words, they got these people that they that they've got out
here and they're great ones Oh, they're just well off and they're
doing fine and and it's just something else and they just
they just they just want to hobnob with these great ones Well, my
friend I want to tell you something God Almighty in mercy has done
great things for me. And I have the unsearchable riches
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I hope before God that nobody
will ever look down on me and say, I pity that poor old preacher
out there. He struck out materially, it
seems, and he lives in such a fashion that we're just kind of ashamed
of him a little bit. Well, I hope not. I hope not. My friend, God's had mercy on
me, and I got the true riches, and if I never have anything
else, let the great ones go their way. They don't know anything
when it comes to who God is. Who God is. And I'll keep bowing
my knee as long as I live by the grace of God. unto God's
sovereignty and will not look away from the fact that God has
a purpose for all things and that He will fulfill that purpose
toward me and toward His people. Now this is not comfortable.
And some can remember your whole lives. You can remember your
whole life, but you do not feel at all that you really owe God. what you are, yet you owe everything
to God. Okay, now the third thing, we
want to hurry here, we've learned ourselves, we learned something
about ourselves, and we need to think about this a little
bit. And like I say, this is not comfortable, and some of
you, you'll be confounded if you ever really see yourself
as you are, you will be dismayed, because you'll not be able to
find any excuse for your sin. Why did I live so long in sin
and unbelief? People go around the world to
do something, to feel something, and to be something. Go all around
the world and there it is. We're to be nothing. And Christ
is to be everything. He's to be everything. Are you
so jealous of yourself? And you know what the old lady,
she was telling her preacher, she's about to die. And she looked
him in the eye, and he was an upstart preacher and loved the
things of this world. And she said to him, the last
thing that'll die in a man is his love for himself. That's
the last thing that'll die in a man, is love for himself. He likes, you know, he wants,
but let me tell you, when we get down to the end and we really
know ourself, We'll quit looking around the world to do something,
feel something, and be something, and we'll be content to Christ
be everything in our life. And I am to be saved by what
He is and what He does. Have you ever put God's character
and your life out in the front of you and looked at it real
close? Your character and God's character? Well, it'll confound
you if you ever do. You'll be dismayed if you ever
have your eyes anointed with the eye salve of God's grace.
Now, beloved, I cannot speak for myself. Oftentimes I am so
confounded The Lord Jesus Christ will have to speak for me. All
I can do is admire and wonder and adore and love and bless
and praise and magnify God for such unexpected mercy toward
this poor sinner. We are confounded both by our
sin and by His mercy. And that brings me to the last
thing. I'm sorry to have to hurry over this, but I just have to.
The time has really gotten away from me. And let me say a few
things about the silence, which is forevermore induced by us,
by God having been pacified for our sin, and by us having learned
these three things that we just mentioned. Thou shalt never open
thy mouth any more because of thy shame. Now, beloved, some
men's motto is, while I live, I'll crow. I'll crow while I
live. Though they have nothing to boast
of, yet as long as they breathe, they brag. They brag. You know the Bible says, for
by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works. Lest any man should what? Any
man should boast. Exactly right. But when God saves
a man, his self-exaltation is over forever. He stops him from
all boasting about what he is and what he's been and what he
thinks he will be. God just shuts his mouth. Now
brother, sister, I know that if the Lord would have shined
the light Now you listen carefully, I'm going to finish this, on
us today. Now can we say this with sincerity,
with Judgment Day honesty? I mean, we're before God. And
the scripture says, don't be hasty. God is in heaven and you're
on earth. Don't be hasty. But if God was
to shine the light on us today, right here in this building,
who would be the chief of sinners? Which one of us would be the
chief of sinners? Well, I'm inclined to believe
that no doubt I would be the worst sinner among you. That
I would be concluded to be the worst sinner among you, having
failed more of the grace of God maybe than any of the rest of
you. When I was a kid, I was afraid to go out at night. And
I had several older brothers and sisters. I was the seventh
child of eleven. And I had several older brothers
and sisters, and they would say, well, why, John, are you afraid
to go outside at night? You're not going to meet anybody
uglier than you are. And when I come to this church
and I meet with you, I know that I will not meet anybody that
is as sinfully ugly as I am. I'm confident of that. I just
feel that I'm beneath all of you. I feel that. But let me
say this to illustrate this truth. Let's say that suddenly each
one of our pasts were to be shown on a screen up here in front. Like Kevin had this sheet up
here the other day. But say that each one of our
pasts were to be shown on this screen. Even if it was just the
things that we had thought. in the last year, the things
that went through our minds in the last week, the things that
went through our minds in the last month, those things were
shown on the screen. What would be our reaction? And
when it come to our time for the show to begin, what would
be our reaction? Well, I'm sure that we'd get
up from Hoover City, we'd not say a word, We'd hit the door,
our head would be down, and we'd get in our cars and we'd go off
and we'd never come again. We wouldn't stay around to see
what's going to come up on the screen for brother so-and-so
or sister so-and-so. We'd just get out of here. That's
what we'd do. Our mouths would be shut. They
wouldn't be open again. It's true that we rejoiced in
God being pacified. It's true that we rejoiced in
the covenant and our salvation in the covenant. But my friend,
in God being sovereign, we rejoiced in it. But when we come down
and get serious about what we really are, our mouths are shut. They've got to be shut. Now, when Christ started this thing
with me, I know He could not see anything in me to love. But anything in me to merit esteem
or give the Creator delight. Nothing in me. And I'm equally
sure that He cannot see anything good in you. Nothing good in
you. I do know that He loves me and
I love Him. I do know that. I know that with
all my being. I know that. That He loves me.
I know He does. And I know that I love Him. I
turn my ugly face towards the Savior every day. And don't say
a word in my defense or for myself. Not a word of excuse. Not a word. I don't have a word to say. I
just let him do the talking for me because he knows what I am
and why things are with me as they are today. He knows. He
knows when we get to heaven that we'll talk about it and what
huge and horrible sinners we were, sure for hell, and he took
us in and made us beautiful through his comeliness. Blessed be his
name. We'll praise him throughout eternity's
day. But we quit talking about ourselves,
what we are, in this world. We give it up. We're ashamed
of it. Ashamed. Father, help us to remember Thy
covenant. Help us to remember Thee and
Thy Word. Help us to hide this message away in our hearts, to
shut our mouths about everything but You, and be always extolling
Thee and lifting Thee up in glory in what great work You've done
on our behalf and in us. There be some poor lost sinner
here today, may they come to the foot of the cross, give themselves
to the Lord Jesus Christ, Abandon all thoughts of greatness in
this life, and all thoughts of wealth and prosperity, and give
themselves over to the hands of the almighty King Jesus. And
may they become worshipers and great servants of His. May you
lay hold of some of these young people and make them forget everything
but Thee and Your claim on their lives. And I pray that there
will be a great moving of the Holy Spirit in our midst. and that there will be a believing,
a time of believing, and a time of stepping out on the behalf
of these young people, saying, the Lord is on me, and I own
Him, and I submit myself for baptism. I want to follow the
Lord and be His servant forever. God bless this congregation,
and do a great work in our midst. Thank you, in Jesus' name, Amen.