Take your Bibles if you have
one and turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 13. Chapter 13. I'd like to begin reading with verse
38 and read down through verse 48. Acts 13. 38, Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man, the man he's been talking
about is the man Christ Jesus who has been raised from the
dead, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness
of sins. And by him all that believe are
justified from all things from which ye could not be justified
by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye
despisers and wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days,
a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare
it unto you. And when the Jews were gone out
of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might
be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation
was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed
Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue
in the grace of God. And the next Sabbath day came
almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But
when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and
spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing you put it from you
and judge yourself unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have sent thee to be a light of the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, They were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. I want to speak primarily this
morning on the 43rd verse, where when the congregation, when it
was broken up, many of the Jews and the religious proselytes
followed Paul and Barnabas, who were God's servants, God's preachers,
who speaking to them persuaded them, prevailed upon them to
win them over to continue in the grace of God. They persuaded
them to continue in the grace of God. And I find myself this
morning in the position of being a persuader. As I stand here
before you this morning, it is my responsibility as a preacher
of the gospel to persuade you this morning, those of you that
have become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, those of you
whose sins have been put away and pardoned by faith in Jesus
Christ, to persuade you to continue in the grace of God. Now, we
believe that a work of grace is necessary in the heart of
a sinner before that sinner can love and serve God. A man, as
he comes into this world, as he's born into this into this
world, he is unable to love and to serve God as he ought and
as the Word of God commands him to do. We maintain the incapacity
of man in his natural state to do anything good in the sight
of God. Romans 3, verse 10 through 12
says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.
They're all gone out of the way. They're together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. So we maintain that man in his
natural state, his inability, is such that he cannot do good
in the sight of God. Can an Ethiopian change the color
of his skin? Can a leopard change his spots?
So is he that is accustomed to do evil, so can he do good. He cannot do so. He has not the
ability, the power, the strength to do that which God would have
him to do. We contend that the condemnation
under which the sinner lies to everlasting misery, necessitates
an entire change of heart, a new principle, yea, even a new nature,
before he can be a Christian. There must be the impartation
of a new nature to you before you can be counted among believers,
among the children of God. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
5 and 17, a very familiar verse, Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things become new. God must put in you a new nature. He must give you the nature of
His own Son. He must, by the Holy Spirit,
create Christ in your heart. Christ, the new man, must dwell
in you before you can say that, I'm a Christian, I'm a believer,
and before you can ever begin to think about continuing in
the grace of God. Now, this change cannot be brought
about by formal admission into the external church or by participation
in the ordinances of that church. A standing in the grace of God
is necessary. I want to read to you out of
Romans chapter 5 and the second verse of that chapter. Maybe
I'll read verse 1 too. Therefore being justified by
faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So beloved
believers, That is, true believers, they have a standing in the grace
of God. They stand in God's grace. Before God, they have a standing
just as if they'd never committed a sin. They have a standing just
like Jesus has before the Father. They are perfect in the Lord
Jesus. They are complete in Him. They
have a standing, and it's all by the grace of God. It is not
by any work of merit that they have accomplished. It's all by
God's grace. Now, this standing in grace is
by the direct influence of the Spirit of God. It's given by
God according to the good pleasure of His will, of His free mercy,
and it's given for Christ's sake. It's given for Christ's sake.
Now the first evidence is of this vital change. First evidence
is that you've been visited by God and that he's given you a
new nature, that you've been born again from above, that you've
experienced The new birth is the fact that you have repented
toward God and you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance
toward God. Now that means that you've changed
your mind about who God is and what God is all about. You've
changed your mind and you've turned around in your thinking,
and now you believe that God is holy, now you believe that
God is one who has claims upon your life, now you believe that
God is that one that you're to worship and bow before and submit
yourself to in his lordship. He's that one that you're to
reverence. He's that one that you are to live for and to acknowledge
in your life. You have repentance toward God.
Before God puts his nature in you, you couldn't care less about
God. You couldn't care less about
his claims on your life. You couldn't care less as to
whether you ever bow your knee to the God of the Bible or not.
Your idea is that of Pharaoh of old. Who is the Lord that
I should obey him? Who is God that he has a right
to tell me what to do? But once God puts his spirit
in your heart and the new man is formed in your soul, then
your attitude toward God is changed. You have repentance toward God.
And this is not something that happens once for all. It's a
lifelong process. You are continually repenting. We repent all the time. We must
repent all the time because repentance is a change from the mind of
the flesh to the mind of God. And that takes place the whole
life. of a believer as we go along day by day in our pilgrimage
toward eternal glory and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do
you now trust Christ? Do you now believe on Him? Do
you now believe His Word? Do you now believe that He is
that One that the Father has appointed, that One that the
Father has sent, that One that the Father has given to be the
all-sufficient Savior of His people? I tell you this morning,
if you believe that, And if you believe that He hung on a cross
representing you and dying in your room and stood in place,
then my friend, I believe you have this new nature. I believe
God has put that new man in you. I believe you have a standing
in the grace of God, and you're one of those that we can persuade
this morning toward continuing in the grace of God. Now, the
earnest of all future good in this life and the life to come
is you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in
sins. I say the good for this life
and the life to come is in those words right there. If you're
alive unto God, my friend, It's good, it's good. Praise be unto
his name if you're alive in the Lord and Christ dwells in you.
This conversion, this change of heart, this new birth has
been compared in the Word of God to many things. Let me just
give you an example or two. First of all, it is revealed
in the Word of God that this change or this conversion is
the giving of eyesight to the blind without which you cannot
begin to see. Now John 3 and 3 says, Verily,
verily, I say unto you that except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. It's not that he is not going to enter into the kingdom
of God. He can't even see it from afar off. And it's whenever
God is pleased to apply the eyesalve of faith to your heart and to
your soul that your blind eyes are open and you're enabled to
see. And John 6 and 40 says that this is the will of Him that
sent me that everybody that believes on the Son and sees the Son will
have everlasting life. And that seeing of the Son is
not a physical seeing of the Son of God, but it's a faith
seeing. It's whenever one believes on
the Lord Jesus savingly, they're enabled to see the Son in His
glory, and they're able to see the glory of God in His face.
They're able to see who He is, and what He's done, and where
He is, and they're able to rejoice in that and have hope because
of that. Now in the second place, it's
the bringing of the dead to life. In the Bible, it is pictured
as the bringing of the dead to life, without which he cannot
begin to exercise the functions of life. Now, if somebody is
alive in the Lord, then they can function like they were alive
in the Lord. Now, John 5 and verse 24 says,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."
So that individual that believes on the Lord, that is trusting
The Lord Jesus Christ, he's passed out of death unto life. Ephesians
2 and 1, we mentioned it a few minutes ago, you hath he quickened. That word quickened is brought
to life. Brought to life. Here's a man
dead in sin, he's born that way. He comes into the world that
way. He's dead toward God, and God quickens him. He brings him
to life. He raises him up, as it were,
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And you remember in John 11 and
43 and 44, where Lazarus had died, and the Lord Jesus came
in verse 43 and cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And
the next verse says that he that was dead came forth. He came
forth. Well, that's the picture of salvation. That's the picture of eternal
life being given to a dead soul. God must speak, and when he speaks,
then life is given, and then one can begin to function like
somebody that is alive. He can begin to sing praises
to God. He can begin to worship. He can
begin to read the Bible with understanding and knowledge.
He can begin to apply himself in the service of his God in
this world in whatever way the Lord was to call upon him to
do. And then thirdly, it's the release
of a slave from bondage. without which he cannot enter
the service of another master. You see, when we're born into
this world, we are the servants of Satan. Yea, the Bible says
we're children of the devil. We don't like to admit that and
we don't like to say it. And people don't want anyone
telling them that, that they're children of the devil by nature. But nevertheless, that's what
the Word of God teaches, and we're slaves. We've been taken
captive by the devil at his own will, and we are slaves. We're the servants of sin until
we're freed by that one that is stronger than the devil. until we're freed by the mighty
one, the one whose arm is not shortened that it cannot save,
one whose ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, until he intervenes
on our behalf. We're slaves and servants. We're
born slaves to sin. And we must be delivered out
of this bondage. Out of it, I say, we must be
delivered out of it. And we cannot enter into service
to another master as long as we're in this condition of slavery. And all men by nature are in
it. There are many verses, Romans 6 and Romans 7, deals with this
subject. But we've got to be delivered
from the old master. And when we're converted, that's
when we're delivered. And now we can serve the new
master. our Lord Jesus Christ. It's like
a woman whose husband is alive, and as long as her husband is
alive, she's not free to be married to another. But when her husband
is dead, then she is free to be married to another. And we
as the people of God, once we're delivered from Satan, then we're
free to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ and bring forth
fruit unto God. But we must be delivered out
of the iron bondage of Satan. That's what the deliverance of
the children of Israel out of Egypt, that's what that picture,
them delivered out of Egyptian bondage out into the glorious
liberty of God's children. Now this would be to demand,
listen to me this morning, now these are some of these figures
that I mentioned. for the conversion, the spiritual
regeneration of the soul. All of these imply a definite
work of grace. While the heart is unaffected
by the grace of God, the heart of the sinner unchanged, his
spirit unrenewed, it would be, I think, vain would be the right
word to use to exhort him to serve God and go through the
motions of leading a Christian life. No, you would never find
me trying to get you to live a Christian life until you're
born of God's Spirit. I would never try to do that.
I know that some parents get real concerned about their children
because their children don't live like Christians. Well, are
they Christians? Are they believers? Do they have
a standing in the grace of God? Is the new nature in them? If
not, you're going to make little hypocrites out of those children. because you're going to try to
teach them children to imitate Christians and they're going
to grow up believing that they are one because they're acting
like one. And you cannot be a Christian by acting like one. My friend,
you must become one in your heart, in your soul, and then you'll
be one. This would be to demand the fruit
before the tree is ever planted. This would be to reap the harvest
before the field is ever sown with the seed. And I'll tell
you, there must be a work of grace in the heart before one
can continue in the grace of God. That's the point I'm trying
to make, is that God must do something in a man, in a woman,
in a boy or girl, before they're going to be able to function
like somebody that is spiritually alive. Now, repent then and believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be conscious of your need. of such a change, and believe
that it is the gift and purchase of redeeming love, even the gift
of the grace of God. Now this is the foundation of
Christian character. This is the living principle
without which the action and duty of life, service to God,
can never be carried on. And remember this, well, Paul
and Barnabas persuaded them to continue these that had evidence
that God had worked this mighty change, that God had affected
them. They were following Paul and
Barnabas and they were being persuaded by them to continue
in the grace of God. If you're in it, then continue
in it. if you're in it. Well, what is this grace that
Paul was talking about? Paul and Barnabas was prevailing
upon these believers to continue in. Paul tells us over and over
again in his epistles that were saved, that were justified, and
that were called sanctified and preserved and glorified by the
grace of God without any works. But what is grace? Almost the
very last one of all professing Christians Tell me that they
believe that salvation is thy grace, some kind of grace. Now
beloved, you won't have to listen to me very long before you find
out that I believe in sovereign grace. That's what I believe
in. And I'll tell you I don't believe there's any other kind.
but sovereign grace. That's what I'll tell you. The
Word of God lays such heavy emphasis upon the fact that salvation
is by grace that it's very difficult for anyone who claims to believe
the Bible and to openly deny the grace of God in the salvation
of a soul. It's very difficult. I'll tell
you what, you can get the Pentecostals, you can get the fundamentalists,
You can get whatever religious group you want to and get them
pinned down. And all of them will say, we
believe that salvation is by grace. We believe it. Well, my
friend, it is so mixed, their grace, it is so mixed with merit,
human works, that it is no more grace. Romans 11 verses 5 through
6 says that if it's of works, then it's no more of grace. If
it's of grace, then it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is
no more grace, and work is no more work. You can't mix the
two. Salvation is either by grace
or it's by works. Now, beloved, we believe that
salvation's altogether free favor of God. Salvation's altogether
by God's mercy. Salvation is altogether by sovereign
free grace. God bestowing that gift upon
his people. Brother or sister, grace that
looks to the worth of a man, grace that looks and waits upon
the will of man, or depends upon the work of man, is a grace that
I believe is a frustrated grace. And frustrated grace is not the
grace of God. God's grace is not frustrated.
God set out from old time to save his people by his grace. Even old Noah back at the time
before the flood found what? in the eyes of the Lord. He found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. God is always, somebody said
He saved them one way in the Old Testament, He saves them
another way in the New. It's not so. God always saved
His people by grace. Never did He save them any other
way. There's not going to be one soul in heaven that is there
by human works and human endeavor. They'll be there by the grace
of God only. They're not going to get there
any other way. This is the reason Paul said in Galatians 2.21,
I do not frustrate the grace of God. If righteousness could
come by law works, then Christ is dead in vain. Christ died
in vain. I'll tell you, Christ is the
Savior. Not you and Christ. Not you doing
what you think Moses would have you to do. Christ is the Savior. He is the one that delivers.
I'm talking about grace. Grace is the unmerited favor
of God toward the ill-deserving. Grace is unconditional. God says,
I'm going to save that woman. God says, I'm going to save that
man. And grace is unconditional on the part of God. Now I recognize
that, and this is not something that just happened yesterday.
I have been accused all of my ministry, forty some odd years
in the ministry, of being an antinomian. And the reason that
I'm looked upon as being an antinomian is because people think I preach
a salvation and they've heard me right. I preach a salvation
without any works. I preach a salvation altogether
based on the work and merit of the Son of God. I preach a salvation
that's altogether of God from the beginning to the end. And
I'll tell you this, that any preacher that does not preach
the grace of God to the point where he is looked upon by the
religionists as being an antinomian has not got within spitting distance
of the gospel. Now you say, well now, I just
don't think that it's necessary to get that hard-nosed about
it. I'm telling you, if a man preaches the gospel, you know
what they said about the Apostle Paul? Why they said that man
preaches, do evil that good might come. They said that's what he's
preaching. He's preaching do evil that good
will come. It's the same thing they say
about me. That fella says that what you
do, how you live before you're saved has got nothing to do with
whether God saves you or not. And he don't. It don't. Now, I'm not saying that it won't
make a difference after you get saved, because it will. The new
nature in you, the new life in you, is going to make a difference.
And you're going to walk different. You're going to live different.
And you're going to follow Christ once he saves you. But before
God saves you, your works has got nothing to do with it. It's
altogether of God's grace. And it's unconditional. Anything
earned, merited, or deserved by you is not grace. And don't
tell me it is. So I made a contribution, you
made a contribution, you ruined it! You've fallen from grace! There's no such thing as a man
being saved by his merit, by his deservings. The man who thinks
he deserves God's salvation, he does not believe in grace.
No, he doesn't. The person who imagines that
his acceptance with God depends upon his will, his works, his
worth, does not believe in grace as the Bible speaks of grace. It might fit The religion is
the idea of grace, but not the Bible teaching of grace. I say
to you, they've fallen from grace. Fallen from it! You add anything
to the finished work of Jesus Christ and you've fallen from
grace. Fallen from it. They talk about grace, but grace
does not mean to them what it does to a poor, helpless, guilty,
bankrupt, self-condemned sinner whose only hope has been found
in Christ. It don't mean the same thing.
Mark it down. No one will ever honor and extol
the grace of God until they've experienced it. Am I right about
that? Once you are bankrupt and once
you don't have anything to pay with and you owe God and you
can't pay up, And Jesus Christ steps forth and says, I'll pay
that sinner's bill. I'll satisfy God on his behalf. I'll go to hell for him. I'll
suffer his hell on the glory tree. Listen to me. Listen to
me. I'll tell you what, I'll talk
about grace after experiencing that, after knowing that I've
been set free and I'm not going to hell and knowing that life
is everlasting and it's been given to me through free grace.
Think I ain't gonna talk about it? Well, I'll talk about it,
ain't nobody gonna be able to shut me up about it until the
breath is gone out of this old body. It was only after Paul
had experienced the grace of God that he declared, by the
grace of God, I am what? I am. By the grace of God I am
what I am. Before he was a religious lost
law keeper and he was a blasphemer who hoped for salvation by something
he did. But Paul nowhere takes any credit
after he experienced the grace of God for his salvation. He
ascribes the whole of his salvation. to God's love and mercy and grace
which was given him in Christ Jesus before the world began.
Is that right? I don't find anything but that
in the Word of God. He knew that he did not make
himself to differ. He knew that. From others, a
great change had taken place in his heart. His opinions, his
affections, ambitions, desires, hopes, motives had been radically
changed. And that took place on the road
to Damascus when God struck him down and saved him by pure grace. He wasn't cooperating with Jesus
at all. He was on his way to put Christians in prison. He was on his way to destroy
churches, and God struck him down. No cooperating with Jesus
there. We hear these fundamentalists
say, well, you just put yourself in the way of salvation. Well,
Saul didn't put himself in the way of salvation, but God had
purposed and determined to cross his path. And he did it, didn't
he? He crossed his path. and saved
him by pure grace. Old Saul didn't know what to
think. The light from heaven blinded him and the Spirit of
God came into his heart and he was changed. That's your only
hope, poor sinner, is that God will cross your path and visit
you and change your life. And he attributed the change
to the grace of God alone. Well, how does grace change a
person? How does grace save a man? Well,
grace does not save us by overlooking our sins and pretending that
they don't exist. No, that's not the way grace
does it. Grace does not save us by enabling us to keep the
law of God. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. If righteousness come
by the law, as we said earlier, Galatians 2 and 21, never forget
it, Christ is dead in vain. Grace does not save us by giving
us religious ceremonies to observe and good works to perform. Because
2 Timothy 1 and 9 says, who has saved us and called us with a
holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. So you see, it's not by giving
us something to do, Titus 3 and 5 says, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by
the washing of regeneration and the renewal brought about by
the Holy Ghost. That's how it took place. Well,
how does grace save? Grace saves by imputing, by God
imputing, and that word means to accredit, our sins, the sins
of God's elect, imputing their sins to Christ and punishing
him for these sins as our substitute. Because this upholds and satisfies
the inflexible justice of a holy God. Our sins are imputed to
Christ, and he is punished for those sins. God didn't overlook
my sin. No, he laid them on Jesus. We
read in 1 Peter 2 and 4, who his own self. Bear our sins in
his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live
unto righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. who his own self
bear our sin in his own body on the tree. Let that speak to
you. Romans 3 and 24 being justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3 and 13 Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
that are written in the book of the law to do them, and cursed
is everyone that hangs on a tree. And Jesus hung on a tree, cursed
of God, took our curse upon Him, and delivered us from that curse.
2 Corinthians 5 and 21, He hath made Him to be sin for us. He
knew no sin, but that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. So grace saves by giving us the
gift of life and the gift of faith. Grace makes Christ and
his sin atoning death a very precious thing to believers.
The death of Christ is of no benefit to any sinner until he
is enabled to believe in that death and believes that that
death was his death to sin. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, John 3 and 18, but he that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. Grace saves us by keeping and
preserving us unto eternal glory, 1 Peter 1 and 5, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. That which grace begins, grace
completes, does it not, Philippians 1 and 6? He that hath begun a
good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Well, Paul prevailed upon these
people then. He persuaded them to continue
in this grace that we've described. Well, why not? Why not continue
in this grace? This is an astounding statement
indeed. Continue in the grace of God.
It's astounding from this standpoint. It's just like saying to a man
that you have saved out of a burning house. You've doctored him up
till he no longer feels any pain, and then having to beg that man
not to turn around and go back into that burning house again.
That's what it's like to have to stand before people like you
this morning and to prevail upon you to continue in God's grace. It's like a man who jumped off
a bridge into deep water and he cannot swim and you rescue
him and then you have to persuade him not to climb back up on that
bridge and jump in again. That's what it means whenever
a preacher got to stand before men and women and persuade them
to continue in the grace of God. To have to persuade a poor sinner
who has tasted the grace of God to continue is almost inconceivable
to me. It's a testimony to the fickleness
of human hearts. That's what it is. to the fickleness
of human hearts. I'm surprised that God puts up
with us, saints and sinners, with our blindness and the hardness
of our hearts. It's no wonder that there's so
few grace preachers around. It is a wonder to me that God
still lets us meet together, no more than we appreciate the
grace of God. To the average religionist, a
grace preacher is the most useless creature on the face of God's
earth. The average religionist. Got
no use for a grace preacher. Because they don't believe in
the grace of God. They spit on it before breakfast every morning.
Religionists. Now you think I'm hard-headed
and I know you think I'm hard-nosed. And some people say that, oh,
what that man preaches is the truth, but boy, he is hard. Honey, let me tell you something,
if you would have been through what I've been through, you'd
be hard-nosed too, and if you wasn't hard-nosed, you wouldn't
be here. You wouldn't have ever got here if you wasn't hard-nosed. I'm telling you, I know what
I'm talking about. The average religionist don't have any use
for a grace preacher, but God is good to you. Satan, sinner
alike. God is good to you. He's given
you a building to meet in. Chairs to sit in when you get
here. Automobiles to drive. You didn't
have to walk to get here. You had automobiles to come in
to this building. Good clothes you have to wear
to the services. We have good singing here and
we have good fellowship. And we have a Bible to read.
And then there's a preacher to listen to. He ain't much, but
he's here. He shows up and he preaches the
gospel. And still we feel burdened this
morning to prevail upon you to continue in the grace of God.
It shows how low down and depraved and ungrateful we are by nature.
We're just by nature that way. What else can a sinner like me
do but continue in the grace of God? You care to ask yourself
that? What else can a sinner like me
do but continue in the grace of God? But it's a fact, though
a sad fact, that we have to be persuaded. Now I'm the one who
is, like I said earlier, supposed to do the persuading, but every
once in a while I need, I need someone to call me, someone to
write me, somebody to preach to me. somebody to encourage
me to keep on keeping on. Because, you see, this is a fallen
world we're living in. And you see, we're every one
of us fallen. And you see, if you jump off
of the bank, wherever you jump off of the bank in the stream,
If you don't put up a fight, you're going the way the water's
going. That's the way you're going, friend. You're going downstream. And you're going to have to put
up a fight. And you're going to have to begin to turn them
waters and begin to swim if you're going to get upstream. Dead fish
always float downstream. They do. And I'll tell you what,
we're going to have to put up a fight. Well, I need what Paul's
talking about. I need to continue. And what
does he mean here? I'm watching the clock too. You
don't have to do that. I'll take care of it. What Paul
was talking about is continuing in the belief of the gospel of
grace. He's talking about believing
and continuing in the doctrines of grace and the teachings of grace. And
I think you should make it a You know, we have what we call
Calminians. They're half Calvinist and half
Arminians. And then we have the Whiskey Calvinists
I talked about here one time. And we got all kinds of, you
know, folks that are Half and half, well half and half is alright
in a milk jug or in a coffee cup, but it ain't worth a dime
in a New Testament church. Half and half. A fellow that's
half and half, he's on his way somewhere. Most of the time he's
on his way back, he's not on his way to being a full-fledged
Calvinist, he's on his way back. You see, to Arminianism. I tell
you, we're going to have to encourage one another Paul says, I want you to depend
upon, I want you to study the doctrines of grace. I want you
to study them. We got a brother over here that's
been buying Lorraine Botner's books, his book on predestination
and giving them away. Well, I think that's glorious.
You got a little extra money, buy some good books on the grace
of God and give them away. Go up to Choteau and go through
the bookstore and buy some good books on the grace of God and
give them away to people. encourage people, depending on
the spirit of grace, continuing to attend to the means of grace,
reading the word, prayer, attending to the house of God, fellowshipping
the saints of God. This is the way we continue in
the grace of God. Why is this so? Because we're
all Arminians and free willers and legalists by nature. It's
our natural religion. We're all that way. We're born
that way. And like I told you, we're fighting,
we gotta go upstream. We'll forget God and how He saved
us in a minute if He doesn't keep somebody persuading us to
continue in the grace of God. Now, below, you can teach a man
to be a plumber, you can teach him to be an electrician, you
can teach him to be a mechanic, you can teach him to be a welder,
and you don't have to go over it and over it again every day!
But you preach the grace of God to an individual and you've got
to keep on persuading that individual to continue in the grace of God
or else it'll get away from them. It'll get away from them. Now
it doesn't mean that God's salvation don't last. It means that our
perception of how God saved us, we'll just get weak in that.
and it'll go away. The idea, the truth of the Word
of God will water down in our system. We got to study it. This
is why we need one another. This is why we need a preacher.
This is why we need good hymns. This is why we need sound preaching.
Men must be persuaded to continue in the grace of God. It won't
be long if a man does not unveil himself the means of grace, if
he does not study, if he does not meditate, he'll fall back
into thinking and talking just like a free willer. Yes he will. I'm no novice. I've been around.
I know what I'm talking about. We'll not do our duty towards
God and our generation unless we maintain, encourage, support
the ministry of the grace of God. Without it, in a few years,
even this group will slip back and call an Armenian preacher
to preach to you. I'm warning you, we don't have
to get a man to lie to us. We'll lie to ourselves. That's
the kind of people we are. We'll lie to ourselves. We don't
know our own hearts. You stay away from the preaching
of the grace of God for a while and only God knows what you would
do. It scares me. These grace churches
across America full of people who have a head full of truth,
but they don't have a thing in their hearts, most of them, don't
have anything. This is not conviction. There
isn't very many preachers in America today that raise their
voice to talk about the grace of God. And the ones that are
doing it are getting old, and they're going to die off. And
it scares me to think about where the next generation of preachers
are going to come from. Where are they going to come
from? Why you can't get these mealy-mouthed
preachers to open their mouth, say anything that they think
somebody is not going to, you know, unless everybody's going
to agree and everybody's going to applaud them. They're not
going to do it. And that's why the day will come
when you'll say, or hear somebody else say, there's really not
that much difference between these churches, is there? There's
really not that much difference. Well, you really didn't hear
anything. You've surely not heard much, if you would say such a
thing. Well, I think that probably we have at least
stirred the waters. We must attend to the means of
grace, privately and publicly. Ever since God saved me, I had
to go to meeting. I just had to go to meeting,
that's all. I mean, don't think bad about it. I used to, when
I was young, I walked five or six miles round trip. But I had
to go to a meeting. I had to go hear the Word of
God. And it's a dead giveaway if a man's careless about his
attendance to a gospel ministry. It's a dead giveaway. And I'm
not here to preach down to anybody. I'm just telling you, you better
It won't last. What you've got won't last without
the means of grace. You need to be under the sound
of the gospel. Now we're on berrations as it
is, aren't we? Around here, is that true or
not? Berrations! Just barely got enough, barely
get enough to survive. Well, what is it to continue
in the grace of God? To continue in the grace of God
is to place your very soul your very life, everything you are,
in the able and willing hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
be glad you did. All you have been, place it in
His hands. I don't want nobody bringing
up my past, and then all you are now, Place it in His hands
and there ain't very many people, I don't know of a soul here,
that'd be so prideful that you'd stand up and say, I'm everything
now I ought to be. No, every one of us know we're
lacking. We need God's mercy and forgiveness
every day of our lives. But everything I am now, I just
put it in the hands of the Lord. Just did it right now, just put
it in His hands. That's what it means to continue
in the grace of God. And then all you hope for in the future,
Just trust the Lord for it. Trust Christ for it. Into the
hands of Him who is able. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1 and
12, For I know whom I believe, persuaded he is able to keep
that which I have committed unto him against that day, to find
comfort there and there alone. All you have been, all you are
now, all you hope to be, put it in His hands and trust Him. Trust Him. And don't go looking
anywhere else. It is to find in Him all you
need, time and eternity. It's for your soul to be alarmed
if you find yourself looking somewhere else. Rest, your refuge,
must not be in anything else besides Him. Because if that
be the case, if you run to a work, run to a righteousness, a duty,
find comfort in that, it ought to scare you to death that you've
looked away for a moment from the Lord Jesus. I'll tell you,
He is salvation. I'll tell you, you can put your
whole life in His hands, and you can trust Him. and believe
in grace. And most of us are unhappy. And
it's because we're still legalists. We're strapped to that board
that says that if you don't just do such and such and so and so,
you ain't never gonna be... God'll never do anything for
you. Well, I'll tell you what, everything He done for me, He
done it in spite of what I am. He done it in spite of me. He
done it because who Jesus is. That's why He did it. That's
why he did it. That's all grace. That's all
grace. But this sinner, if he gets to
heaven, it'll be by the grace of God. And I persuade you this
morning, I prevail upon you to continue in the grace of God.
And those who continue, they do so by the grace of God. The first step is by grace, and
the last step, right over the threshold into glory, is by the
grace of God. We try to teach our children
all their life, stand on your own two feet. And God comes along
and tries to teach us all of our lives that you cannot stand
on your own two feet. You've got to trust the grace
of God. And you've got to prevail in it. You've got to persevere
in it. stay on the Lord. You must be kept, you must be
helped, you must be provided for by His grace. And those who
continue, verse 48 talks about those who are ordained to eternal
life, those who continue are those ordained to eternal life. They just keep on the grace of
God. A fellow said, well, told Spurgeon one time, said, well,
I would come back and hear you, but I heard you once. If I heard
you once, I heard everything you got to say. Old Spurgeon
said, well, that's all right. That's right. That's good. That's
good. Preachers got one message, the
grace of God. He got one person to exalt, the
person of Christ. He's got one message, salvation
in life, holy all together in this person, Jesus Christ. And it's all together by grace,
all by God's free favor, all by God's mercy. I'll tell you
what, I wished, I just wished that when I was the age of Jonathan,
the age of some of you young people back here in the back,
these girls here, I just wished that there would have been an
old preacher get up in my face told me young man I prevail upon
you continue in the grace of God and tell me what it meant
to do it I'd have been a different person all my life if somebody
would have been honest with my soul and there's one thing I'm
not going to do I'm not going to let you go this church without
knowing what I'm talking about. I prevail upon you. Continue
in the grace of God. Now everything's rosy now, it's
alright, the preacher's here, and everything's rosy. Just like
that, all can change. And then you'll begin to think
someday, well you know we heard a sermon here one time, by continuing
in the grace of God, I just wonder if we're going to be able to
find somebody that'll talk about it, knows anything about it.
Get somebody to stand up and talk a little bit about the grace
of God. Brother, won't you do it? Well, I remember some things
he had to say. Maybe we could get a tape and
dig it out and find out a couple things and maybe have a little
something put together. Okay, you better get serious. There's got to be a backbone.
There's got to be a... What's the word I'm looking for?
There's got to be a group. There's got to be some men here
that knows the grace of God and that will stand for generations
to come and see what the grace of God is preached in this city. Still, I'm looking for the word.
I don't generally have to want for a word, but that word that
I'm looking for, I can't seem to find. But we'll just use the
word group. Gotta be some people. men and women that stands for
the grace of God and perseveres. Father, in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, our lovely Lord Jesus Christ, we ask that your
blessing would rest upon this message. Thank you, Lord, for
giving us a word from you. Thank you for your pure, unadulterated
grace. Oh, I hope I preached it right. And I hope that the message went
forth in power. I hope that you will affect the
hearts of these people by it. Save some poor old sinner and
enable them to get a hold of this and rejoice in it. Praise
the Lord for it. Oh, Father, we don't have any
time talking about what we can do, what others ought to do.
We just have time to maybe just say a few things about what You've
done and how we praise You for what You've done in Christ, how
You saved us, washed us from our sins in His blood, how we
praise You. In Jesus' name, Amen.