I've been thinking along the
lines of why I love the doctrines of grace, and I've been thinking
about preaching on that. And somehow or other, my mind
is overwhelmed when I think about it, because I believe that love
for the doctrines of grace is synonymous with love for the
truth. Love for the truth. And when
you begin to think upon such a subject as this, There's so
many verses. There's so many thoughts that
enter into your mind. It's extremely difficult to form
just a message in your mind and expect to stick to it when you're
delivering it. And so I'm looking to the Lord
for leadership this morning on how, just what to say about such
a subject as this. I do not believe that I'll be
able to begin, just hardly more than begin this morning, to talk
about this great subject. But I thought about this verse
of scripture here in Psalm 11, verse 3. It says, if the foundations
be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? Now Paul said in
2 Timothy, he said that the foundation of God standeth sure. having
this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone
who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So we have
two verses of scripture before us. One is, if the foundations
be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And then we have the assurance
that the foundation of God will stand sure. that it will stand
sure, that it will never decay and crumble. What a wonderful
thing it is to have under our feet the sure foundation of a
sovereign God. knowing that we shall stand forever
upon that foundation, knowing that the Lord is our God. But if the foundations were to
be destroyed, could you think with me a minute? One of the
first reasons that I would offer to anyone who would ask me as
to why that I love the doctrines of grace is that because when
I consider the alternatives, to the doctrines of grace, it
makes me love them more when I consider the alternatives. Think with me a minute if the
foundation of God's sovereignty could be destroyed. Think with
me if God was no longer the sovereign of the universe, if God did not
run this world. Now we believe that God runs
this world. We believe that God controls
everything, that he's absolutely and totally sovereign, and that
he controls the speck of dust that is blown by the March wind,
that he controls the flight of the insect in the summertime,
that God controls the little things and God controls the big
things. We believe that God Almighty
is in control. But beloved, have you ever considered
the alternative? Let's say that God was to say,
I'm no longer in control. I'm not going to rule the world
anymore. I'm going to just give all of
that up into the hands of my adversary. Beloved, if the devil
was to run this world, what a horrible, horrible, you know, he's the
father of lies. Do you know that he's that wicked
one? Do you know that he's that one
that would have usurped authority over God Almighty years and years
back in old eternity? That he was that angel that was
cast down, that fell down? He wanted to be God, he wanted
to be sovereign, and of course it was not permitted or allowed.
But if he were to run this world, what a terrible, terrible anxiety
would suddenly come upon us. We would be seized with such
terrible fear that we would not be able to go out of this building
this morning if we felt that the devil was in control. Beloved,
when you think back to how God, the God of the Bible, how that
He is absolute sovereign, it rejoices your heart. It's that
we know that many, many people are very, very much shaken up
when they hear about the God of the Bible being sovereign.
We know that everybody, when they pray, They confess when
they get on their knees and bow down that the God to which they're
praying, that he is a sovereign, that he is a sovereign, that
he can do what they ask him to do, that he's all-powerful, that
he's almighty. They confess this, but preachers,
when they get up to preach, They preach in such a way as it is
not yet decided who is the sovereign of the universe. Maybe God, maybe
the devil, maybe it's man, maybe it's the will of man, but it's
not yet decided. It's an issue that is up in the
air. It's something that we're going
to have to wait to find out whether God is able to overcome in the
end. Well, beloved, this, of course,
is contrary to all the Word of God teaches. I believe that the
foundation of God will stand sure. I have thought, as I mentioned
and as I read this verse, I thought a great deal about the alternatives
to the doctrines of grace. And I thought about the alternatives
to the sovereign grace of God, to the doctrines which we love,
the doctrines which we stand for, the doctrines which we preach
from week to week. I thought a great deal about
it. I thought about Adam in the Garden of Eden, and I thought
about the alternative if God was not sovereign in salvation. We know that he's sovereign in
creation, he's sovereign in providence, and he's sovereign in salvation. But I thought about if God was
not a sovereign in salvation, what a fix old Adam would have
been in. Adam, you know, he stole his master's fruit. And then
when guilt and shame came upon him, then he ran away. He ran
away from God in the garden. And if it had been, if there
was no doctrine of sovereign grace, if it had not been for
sovereign mercy, for God having mercy on who he would, and for
God in purpose willing to save old Adam, Adam would have never
heard that voice. He'd still be running to this
day. He would have never heard that voice. Adam, where art thou? He would have never heard that.
That's the alternative, beloved, to God being sovereign in salvation. No sinner would ever hear the
voice of God. Think about a son of Adam in
this world, born into this world, born of a woman, born unclean,
born with a nature that despises God, hates God, born with enmity
in his heart toward God. And there is no sovereign God. There is no salvation which has
been purposed and planned. There's no God that sets his
love upon men. There's no God that determines
beforehand that he will have mercy. Here's his great mercy
stored up in his heart, but he's made no plan to have mercy upon
any man. And here's the sinner, the son
of Adam, out here in the world, destined to go on in his rebellion
until he completely destroys himself and goes off into the
lake of fire. No intervention from the God
of the Bible, because you see, he is not God, and therefore
he is to embrace the sons of Adam. I'm talking about the alternative
to God's sovereign grace. I'll tell you, beloved, if there's
anybody that ought to rejoice and be glad, it's those sons
of Adam that God has intervened in their life. God has come to
them. They've heard the voice of God by the Holy Spirit through
the Word of God, and they have been summoned and called out. God has crossed their path. There's
been somebody intervene on their behalf. Oh my soul, how wonderful
it is that God does intervene, and that he does enter into the
picture, and that God does cut off sinners, hedge them about,
and bring them out of their sin unto himself. How wonderful that
is. But consider the alternative.
As we said, the son of Adam alone in this world, owning his sin,
going to hell forever, the judgment of God to come upon him, because
there's no escape, none to help, none to help! Beloved, the sinner
would be in the same fix, listen to me now, as the Lord Jesus
Christ was when he hung on the cross, there was none to help,
none to help and the reason there was none to help was because
God had given his son as a sacrifice and he was going to hell for
all of his people and it was just as if there was no God none
to save him none to save him and he could not save himself
that's a picture of the fallen son of Adam apart from the intervening
grace of God he is left to himself and there is no one to help no
one to intervene And the Lord Jesus hung there. He hung there
and said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me and left
me in this place? Why have you left me on this
cross? But beloved, it was because He was numbered with the transgressors. It was because our sin had been
laid upon Him. It was because the sword of God
was piercing Him. It was because He was being made
sin for us. He was being bruised. He was
being hung on that tree that He might bring us to God, and
He was forsaken of God. And so, beloved, the sinner in
this world, oh, how wonderful it is that there's a day of grace,
that there was a day of grace in my life. I shall praise Him
forever, that there was a time, there was a day of grace when
God intervened and when God began to work in me. I'm ashamed that
the work is no more than it is, and for as my being, all I've
been to the work of God in me is a hindrance. How do you feel
about it? I just feel I've been a hindrance to it, and that's
about all the part I've got in it. You know, most of the time
people say, well, I did this, and I did that, and I did something
else. Well, I did too, I did too, but all of it was just standing
in the way and getting involved in things that just hindered
as it were. If God could be hindered, I've
done all I could do to hinder Him in my life. But beloved,
listen. The Lord started to work. That's
the point. The Lord did intervene. Here
was the son of Adam going merrily on his way to hell. And God said,
I set my love upon him. I set my love upon him in old
time. And I chose him and I gave him
to my son. My son died for him years ago. And I'm gonna have him. I'm gonna
have him. I'm gonna save him. And when
it's all over with and done, it shall be to the praise of
the glory of my grace. I mean, as people observe him
along the way, and if the record was brought out and laid out,
and all of the failures and the sins of our life were laid out,
oh, it would be to the praise of the glory of His grace that
we were saved. Is that not true? It certainly
would be. So, beloved, think about that.
you first meeting the Lord, and how if you look back upon that
aright, you'll see that if the alternative, when you consider
the alternative to that, you would know that you would be
still lost, still on your way to hell, still headed for judgment,
still under the wrath of God with no hope for escape. All
right, and then when we get a little bit further along in that, we
can think about this, we can think about how that God not
only intervened and crossed our path, and brought conviction,
but he brought power to our lives and converted us. He did, sure
enough, deliver us. He didn't just say, well now,
he didn't throw a red flag and say, now wait a minute, wait
a minute, sinner, stop right there, stop right there. No,
the Lord did that, but he also brought power. He brought power
and made us willing. He brought power, made us willing
to repent. Brought power, made us willing
to confess what we were by nature. Brought power, made us willing
to trust. And he gave us faith to trust.
All consider, consider the alternative to that. Now that here it is,
God throwed the flag and said, now you do something about your
situation. It's time for you to do something
about your situation. It's time for you to turn around
and get yourself straightened out. And get yourself on a path
here that leads to heaven and glory. And the sinner, he trembles. The sinner looks at himself.
The sinner sees no ableness in himself. All he sees is inability. All he sees is that God's holy
and he's a sinner. And he sees that being righteous
is something that he's unable to be. And therefore, he knows
his desperate state. desperate situation. I'm telling
you why I love the grace of God. When I consider the alternative,
when I consider that God would say to me, sinner do something
for yourself and I couldn't do anything for myself. I was hopelessly
enslaved in sin. I had a nature that was contrary
to God. I had a nature that was biased
to sin and still is. A nature that still turns away
from God. And the only reason why I'm able
this morning to come here to this place is because God continues
His work in me and continues to draw me unto Himself and continues
to feed the spiritual nature which He's put in me. But if
you consider the alternative to what God's done in your life,
when he turned around and gave you help, gave you enablement,
when he lifted you up, and when he put in you what had to be
put in you in order for you to become what you are now, when
you consider that, oh, you must love the doctrines of grace,
you must love the grace of God, because it did provide that which
God demanded of you, and I rejoice in that. I'll tell you, I talk
about the Lord's righteousness. He is the Lord my righteousness.
I talk about that because, you see, I know that we can never
be righteous. Even if we want to be, we can
never be as righteous as God demand that we be. And we need
His righteousness, and He has given us that righteousness.
He made Him to be sin for us. He, Christ, do no sin. God made him to be sin for us
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God gave us what
he demanded of us. The alternative to that is that
we'd still be clawing on the wall. We'd still be beaten on
the wall. We'd still have this awful pressure
upon us, this awful burden upon us, this awful stress in our
life trying to be what God wants us to be, trying to get good
enough to go to heaven, trying in some way or another to work
out a righteousness that would please God like those Jews in
the 10th chapter of the book of Romans You see, not submitting
ourselves unto the righteousness of God, but we've been enabled
to do that. Submit ourselves unto the righteousness
of God, unto that gospel that has revealed God's righteousness. So you see the trail I'm on? You see the trail I'm on? Okay,
then when you begin to think a little bit past that, You begin
to think about the preservation of the believer and God in his
grace. You know, the Bible says, and
there was a verse that came to me one time, it was a powerful
verse of scripture, and I've read it many a time, quoted it
many a time, but there was a time the other day when that verse
got a hold of me in a special way, as John chapter 10. And
in verse 29, where it talks about the Lord Jesus said in verse
28, I give unto them eternal life, they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck you out of my hand, and my Father
which gave them me is greater than all, no man's gonna get
them out of his hand. No man's gonna get him out of
his hand. Now anybody that's got a lick of spiritual sense
knows what that verse means. They know that God has put us
in the hands of Christ. And they know that the Lord Jesus
Christ has represented us before the Father, satisfied the Father,
and before we belong to Christ, we belong to God. God had chosen
us in sovereign election and God chose us and we are in his
hand and Jesus said, why no man. He said, my father which gave
you me gave them, my people me. He's greater than all. No man
is going to get them out of his hand. No man. Now, I don't know
what that means to you, but the alternative to that is like I
heard a fellow say the other night, oh, Elmer Gantry. I heard
him say, well, of course, he's been dead for several years,
but I heard a part of a movie that he was on. And he said,
I got saved and then I got lost. I got saved, I got lost. I got
saved and saved and saved. He said, I've been saved more
times than I can remember. I don't remember whether I've
been saved more times than I've been lost. I don't know what
my situation is. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
when you get in that kind of... The alternative to us being in
God's hand, not being able to be plucked out of His hand, is
just that very thing right there. It's that very thing. You wanna
know why I believe in eternal security? I believe in it because
of the fact that I'm in his hand. I believe in it because he got
a hold of me. God got a hold of his people. And because he's
got a hold of them, them, beloved, they're in his hand safe and
secure as the ages roll. They're safe and all is well
with the Lord's people because they're in his hand. They belong
to him and God is all powerful. Consider, consider and think. You people ought to think more
than you do. I guess we all ought to. But we ought to think a whole
lot more. It would make us more appreciative.
It would make us rejoice more in the grace of God if we would
think a little bit more about the alternatives. And when you
hear people bad-mouthing the doctrines of grace, you could
just get so glad in your heart, you just become tickled about
it. You say, well, you folks are nuts. You never considered
the alternative. Why don't you consider that for
a little while, and then you'll rejoice in the grace of God. You'll praise the name of the
Lord. Well, that brings me over here
to this Psalm that we read this morning, Psalm 115. And let's
look a little bit right here before we close. I'm not planning
on keeping you too long this morning. I just felt that these
things were some things that I could say maybe to open up. this subject and uh... maybe
the lord will give us uh... give us uh... uh... a clear mind
and we'll be able to talk more about this uh... next week but
here we see in psalm 115 not unto us oh lord not unto us but
into thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake wherefore should the heathens say where is now their god but
our god is in the heavens he hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. Now this brings me to the second
point this morning that I want to make. I've talked a little
bit about the alternatives to the doctrines of grace and how
merciful God is, that he is a God of purpose and a God of plan
and a willing God, a God who's willing to save his people and
save them to the uttermost. And now, what I want to say is
one of the reasons why that I love the doctrines of grace is because
those doctrines magnify and glorify the God of the Bible. Now, beloved,
verse one here in this psalm says, not unto us, O Lord, not
unto us. Immediately, that takes the sinner
out of the picture. The sinner says, not unto us. Man says, not unto us. Not unto us, O Lord. We're fallen. We're fallen creatures. We have
failed. We have sinned. We've transgressed
the law of God. Not unto us. All the glory of
man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower
thereof falleth away. Not unto us. Not unto us. We drink sin like a dog drinks
water out of a mud hole. We are given over. We're biased
toward evil and toward that which you hate. Not unto us. Not unto
us. Not unto carnal man. Not unto
the will of man that takes up arms against God, that if he
could get to God would shoot him with a shotgun or stick a
knife in the breast of God. Not unto us. not unto us, but
into thy name give glory. For thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. Now, in order to be able to appreciate
what I'm saying to you, I want you to turn with me over to the
book of Ephesians, chapter 2. The book of Ephesians, chapter
2. You know, when we read the book
of Ephesians, there's so many wonderful things in this book,
so many powerful things. And I thought about some things
I had read recently, and I wanted to share something with you here. You know, Just talking about
the kind of people we are, and the fact that we do not deserve
any glory. We deserve no glory, and we cannot
praise the Lord. I don't know, is that the thing
there rumbling? Oh, that's a helicopter. Oh,
a motorcycle. Thank you, brother. Thank you.
That will straighten us out. But anyway, when we think about
the grace of God and think about what we are and the fact that
we are to receive no glory in this matter of salvation, but
that the doctrines of grace directs us unto God and enables us to
magnify the Lord There's two passages that comes to my attention. The first one, and I told you
to turn to Ephesians, but it's in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Hold
your finger in Ephesians, but turn over there to the 1 Corinthians
chapter 1, and I want to read here a passage of Scripture.
that helps us to see why it is, not unto us, not unto us, but
into thy name be glory. Here in this chapter, beginning
with verse 26, it says, For ye see your calling, brethren, how
that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world How many times have you said, Lord, I'm
so foolish? I am so foolish, I have made
so many, many mistakes, and we fail so often. But God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not
to bring to naught things that are. In verse 29, that no flesh
should glory in His presence. Verse 31, that according as it
is written, he that gloryeth, they glory in the Lord. Verse
30 is of great importance here and we'll not miss that. But
of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The point being
that God has chosen His people and who they are. God has chosen,
he said, you see your calling, not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called. I was reading a little
article the other day that was written from the standpoint of
whether or not the doctrines of grace make men humble or not.
Whether it makes them humble. And there were some interesting
things that was pointed out by Conrad Murrell. He's from Louisiana. And he had some good things to
say about some people who would take the doctrine of election,
that's so blessed and clear, and contemplate that doctrine
in such a way as to provoke strutting, that they would feel that they
were somebody because God had chosen them. And he had some
real good things to say, and I'd like to just share them with
you this morning at this point. He says that some have managed
to regard the elect as, more properly, the elite. We're given
more Bible to teach us that God has chosen the worst and the
dullest than the best and the brightest. But God hath chosen
the foolish, weak, base, despised things that are not." 1 Corinthians
1, verse 27-28. The fact that a few of the wise
and mighty and noble are called will provide the proud person
ground to believe that he's included in that company despite the evidence
to the contrary. But even so, if these words are
to be taken seriously, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 24-27, if these words
are to be taken seriously, we must abide in this reality, the
world of the non-elect is far superior to us in every aspect
except the grace of God. Do you remember what the Bible
says? It says the children of this
generation are wiser than the children of light. Now listen
to this, we are indeed, so far as the natural man is concerned,
talking about the Lord's people, intellectually, physically, social,
psychological, for our psychological powers, we are the sorriest of
humanity's lot. Election is intended to show
God's free love, His initiative, His determined, redemptive purpose. It is more suited to display
His willingness to save the worst among us than the best. Now,
beloved, that's why, that is, not unto us, not unto us, but
unto thy name give glory. Now, you say, well, preacher,
that kind of hurts me. You could have just left that
out. But, beloved, it's absolutely true. The Lord has saved not
the brightest, but the dullest among humanity. The Lord has
saved not the elite. We are not the elite. We're the
elect. And there's a whole lot of difference
in that. Isn't that right? That's a lot
of difference. Well, the only thing that makes
us different is what was it? The grace of God. That's the
only thing. The grace of God. And that's the whole point. That's
what we're driving at. Okay, now in Ephesians 2. Let's
look at these verses here quickly. I'm talking about the fact that
the glory It glorifies God, the doctrines of grace. It magnifies
God. We take away from men. We've
often said we preach the sinner down and God up. We magnify the
Lord. We lift up the Lord because it
is the Lord who has intervened. And if you look at verses 1 and
2 here, and 3, then when you get to verse 4, you see that
so very clearly. And you hath he made alive who
were dead, he's quickened us who were dead, in trespasses
and sins. Wherein in times past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the Spirit. that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. You see why it's not unto us,
not unto us, but unto thy name, among whom also we all had our
behavior in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature,
just like everybody else, it's under the wrath of God. No two
seed here. we were children of wrath even
as others that's our condition in verse four is where this picture
changes and we begin to see that the glory belongs to God but
God he intervened but God came but God who is rich in mercy
and what did that verse say not unto us not unto us but into
thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake but
God who is rich in mercy rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sins quickened us together
with Christ by grace you're saved by grace you're saved by grace
ye are saved ye are it's a fact by grace God's people are saved
and we've been raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show
the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus for by grace are you saved not that you've been
fixed up and made savable if but you are saved by grace through
faith and that is of God. That's a gift of God. That was
given by God in covenant mercies. It's God's gift, not of works,
lest any man should ask for the glory. Lest any man should boast
and say, I got a share in this glory business. You don't have
any share in the glory, for we're His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus under good works which God had before ordained that
we should walk in them. So we see then, beloved, that
the glory is given to God. The glory must be given to God.
God must be magnified and praised and adored. And the doctrines
of grace, why I love them so much, is that they glorify God. They glorify Him. and magnify
the Lord. And I am happier when I glorify
God than I am at any other time. I want to magnify God. Now listen
to me now. The regenerated soul, the new
man in us, wants God to be glorified, wants God to be magnified. And
that's why the new man loves the doctrines of grace. Regenerated
soul loves the doctrines of grace. Now, I think that we can see
very clearly then this morning that there is a great truth here
as to the doctrines of grace and all God's people, I think,
love the truth and I think that the more we study, the more we
listen to the word of God being preached faithfully, I think
that more and more we'll love the Lord, love His truth more
and more. May the Lord be pleased. I think
I'll stop there. I think I've said enough today and trusting
that the Lord will lead us on in the week to come. Let us have
a word of prayer. Father, in the name of Jesus,
we thank You for Thyself and thank You, Lord, for this great
work that You've done. And thank you that we are privileged
today to talk about these things, and that the Spirit has helped
us, and that we have entered in and been blessed today. Even the Lord has blessed us,
and we thank you. We praise your great name. Now,
Father, lead this people. Direct this people. Be near each
one this week as they go out into this world. Pray father
that you'll keep them. I pray that you will minister
to them. I pray Lord. You'll meet their needs I pray
father. You'll give them a blessing.
I pray that you will show them That our father you you're greater
You're greater than they ever imagined and that your power
will be so manifested to them your love and mercy so manifested
to them Oh God unto me that we may be able this week to worship
and give glory to thy name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.