I invite you to take your Bible
this morning and turn with me to the fourth chapter of the
book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4. And I'd like to begin reading
with verse 11 and read down through verse 16. Verse 11 through verse
16. And he gave some apostles, and
some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to
and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the
slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted
by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working
in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto
the edifying of itself in love. There are many voices in the
religious world that are clamoring to be heard in our day. Every preacher, I think almost
without exception, that I've met in my lifetime tells me that
they have been sent of God and that they have a message that
you ought to hear. I believe without exception most
every preacher will tell you that they have been anointed
of God, sent of God, and that you ought to hear their particular
brand of religion. Well, what is a poor soul to
do in this world that is attempting to find the truth, who does not
want to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, who does not
want to fall prey to the conmen in religion in our day and time?
How are we going to grow up into Jesus Christ, into that stature
of the fullness of even He that is the head of the church, the
Lord Jesus Christ? What can we do? How can we know
whether what we're hearing is of God or not? You know, beloved,
we need to be very, very serious about this. We need to question
ourselves. Is what I'm hearing, is it of
God? Is it from God? Is it biblical? Is it true to the inspired record? Jeremiah 23 and 16 tells us that
they speak a vision of their own hearts, speaking of the prophets
in the Old Testament. They speak a vision of their
own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Behold, he
says, I'm against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their
tongues and say he saith. For who hath stood in the counsel
of the Lord, and hath perceived, and heard his word? Who hath
marked his word, and heard it? Isaiah 8 and verse 20 says to
the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. Ephesians 4 and 14 that we've
just read to you this morning says that we henceforth be no
more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness
whereby they lie and wait to deceive. Beloved men and women
of our day, and I've met several of them, are very much tossed
to and fro. We've got it now, have we not?
in our day and time, every wind of doctrine. You can hear every
doctrine and you can hear it being perverted. All you have
to do is listen. All you have to do is pick up
the religious periodicals and read them. All you have to do
is just simply tune in and you'll find out that we have every wind
of doctrine blowing about in our day. This is a day when the
people of God, the professing people of God, they seem to have
no foundation. Now we're thankful that God has
given us a word, that God has sent a message from on high,
and that God has given us some men and put them in the church
that'll be faithful to his word, faithful to his testimony. But
most people today, they do not know what they believe. You ask
them and they can't tell you what they believe. They tell
you they believe they're saved, but they can't tell you anything
about what it is that they really believe in their hearts, about
the truths of God's Word. Well, the Scripture says, by
the slight of men. It means that we have common
men that are in religious circles. It means that we have those that
have this cunning craftiness, this ability to, as they speak
to men and women, they have the ability to wrap those people
around themselves and to draw them to themselves and to use
those people. They can drive, as someone said,
they can drive a round plug into a square hole and never leave
any shavings. They're very, very crafty. Now they lie and wait to deceive,
the scripture says. They butcher people's souls.
They're preying on people. They're stealing from them, and
they're calling it shearing the sheep. And all the time, these
false prophets are lying on God, telling men and women something
That they have no foundation in the holy word of God to be
telling them now in verse 15 It says but speaking the truth
in love May grow up into him in all things which is the head
even Christ now beloved That's what we long to do And that is
to speak the truth in the right way. We feel obligated before
God to minister the truth of God, which God has been pleased
to reveal unto our hearts. In love to God, in love to Christ,
in love to the people of God to whom we preach. We feel this
awesome obligation. Well, beloved, this morning let
us see if we can do that. Now, I know that sometimes it
may seem that I'm angry with somebody when I'm preaching,
and that the truth is not going forth in love. Well, you pray
for me. I don't want it that way. I want
to speak the truth in love. But sometimes those who speak
the truth, their message divides. And folks, they misunderstand
what it is that the preacher is all about. I remember there
was a time when, back in the fifties, when my sister Jeanette,
who's a little older than I am, she would come to hear me preach
when I was in my twenties. And when we would go home, she
would say, John, you know, it just seems to me like that you're
mad when you're preaching. That you're either mad or you're
obsessed with what you're talking about. And I said, sis, you just
pray for me that I'll be obsessed. with what I'm talking about,
that I'll have the burden of the Lord, and that I'll never
be able to shut my mouth. The devil's tried to shut my
mouth for years from preaching what the Word of God teaches,
and by the grace of God, I stand here before you today still able
to hold up my head and to preach His Word. And I want to speak
the truth simply, sincerely, and in love. Well, how do we
go from here this morning to be able to get into a message
of God's Word? How are we going to know whether
or not what we're hearing is really of God? Is there a test
that we can put to what we're hearing that will show us whether
or not we're hearing from God or not or whether or not we're
hearing right out of the heart of a man? Well, there are five
tests I think that you can memorize and that you could have with
you that you can determine this morning if our doctrine is biblical
or if it is an invention of our own heart. Number one, let me
just give these to you. I'm not going to preach on them.
This is part of the preface to our message. Number one, does
it give God all the glory? What the preacher is preaching.
Does it give God all the glory? Now, beloved, there's no getting
around this acid test. That which does not glorify God
in all of his perfections cannot be of God. that which shares
God's glory with the creature, it cannot be true. Isaiah 42
and 8 says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will
I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Salvation by the works of man,
salvation by the will of man, salvation by the merit of man
is contrary to sound doctrine, for it takes away from the glory
of God's free and sovereign grace. So that's the first acid test.
The preacher you're listening to, does what he say glorify
God? Number two, Does it humble man
and put him in the dust before a great and sovereign God? Now, beloved, in all doctrine,
he must increase and we must decrease. John 3 and verse 30. Now, true doctrine puts man in
his rightful place on the dunghill. Is that true? A true Bible doctrine,
as we understand it and as we study it out, will put man on
the dunghill. If I'm in the least degree more
than nothing, that would make my Lord in some degree less than
everything. And it puts God in His rightful
place. True doctrine puts God in His
rightful place, upon His sovereign throne on high, ruling. and reigning
over all of his creatures, and disposing of each one of them
according to the good pleasure of his will." The preacher you're
listening to, does his doctrine humble men and put them in the
dust before the Lord? Number three, does it honor the
justice of God and the holy law of God? Listen to me. Whatever
God does must be in accordance with his own righteous character. Romans chapter 3 and verse 26
says, to declare, I say at this time his righteousness, that
he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Romans 3 and 31 says, do we then
make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
the law. Now listen to me, God cannot
justify without a Redeemer. And where redemption has been
accomplished, God must justify and he must forgive. Now, when
we say that God, whatever he does, he must do in accordance
with his own righteous character, We mean that the justice of God
must be satisfied before God can ever save a sinner. God could
not save one of his elect unless his justice was satisfied. And
the justice of God cried out that every soul that sinneth,
it must die. And somebody, either the sinner
or his substitute, must stand up and suffer that awful death. for sin. And the Lord Jesus,
our substitute, suffered that death. Now the law must be honored. The law of God, the holy law
of God as it was given to God's people. It must be honored. It must be magnified. Now, I'm
not saying that it can be magnified by men. We know better. That
it can be honored by men in that it can be kept perfectly by man.
We know what the Israelites of old did. They kept lower in the
standard. They knew they couldn't keep
it. They were convicted, they were guilty in their hearts,
and they felt that their guilt but they couldn't keep it so
they just kept lowering the bar, lowering the bar until all of
the Israelites could jump over it with ease and therefore they
felt that they had really accomplished something obeying the law. But
the Bible says that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
justified in his sight. The Bible says that Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth unto
the Jew first and also unto the Greek. Hear me out this morning.
Somebody had to live a perfect life under the real, the true,
the righteous spiritual law of God in order for God to have
a righteousness that He could give unto His people. And the
Lord Jesus Christ, I'm here to tell you this morning, the Son
of God lived under the law. He obeyed every child until 11. He satisfied the law. He honored
the law. And the Lord Jesus Christ He
is that one that is spoken of in Jeremiah that said, he's the
Lord our righteousness. He's the Lord our righteousness,
and so here's righteousness, and you know I'm thankful for
his death. Oh, how I praise God for his death. That awful death
outside the city of Jerusalem on Golgotha's brow. Our Savior,
the Lord Jesus, died in our room and stayed in place. But how
grateful I am for his lovely life. for his perfect life. Because you see, I could have
no righteousness before God if it was not given to me. God must
give me what he demands of me or I'll go to hell. I can never,
never satisfy God on my own. And I'm here to tell you that
we preach the justice of God satisfied. We preach the law
of God completely honored. Do we make void the law through
faith when we preach that men and women are saved and the righteousness
of God is imputed to them through faith? Do we make void the law?
No. Paul said no. He said, God forbid
we establish the law. That's the way we establish the
law. We preach somebody that honored
it perfectly and somebody that's willing to vicariously live that
life in order that we might have a righteousness before God that
God would accept. And I tell you that God cannot
justify without this surety, without this Redeemer. And I'm
telling you that where redemption has been accomplished, and that's
what we preach. We preach a redemption that has
been accomplished. We're not preaching redemption
that we're working on or that somebody else is working on.
We're preaching one that has been accomplished, and where
it has been accomplished, God must justify, and God must forgive,
and he will. Number four, does it exalt the
person and work of Jesus Christ the Lord? Is what the preacher
preaching, does it exalt Christ, and does it exalt His person
and word. All doctrine begins and ends,
beloved, with Christ. He is the center and the substance
of the entire Word of God. If you're not right on Him, you
can never be right about the rest. And don't you forget that.
We must be right about the Lord Jesus Christ. Any teaching which
detracts from Him or His finished work to any degree is untrue. Now, you listen to me. I'm telling
you that any teaching which would detract from him or his work
to any degree is untrue. Now, Martin Luther once said
that there were three things which he dared not think of without
Christ. He said, number one, his sins. He said, I dare not think of
my sins apart from Christ. because he knew that the Lord
Jesus, according to what the Bible teaches, is that Jesus
has done something on the behalf of the elect about their sin,
and that Jesus has paid our sin debt in full. And so, beloved,
I don't want to think about my sin apart from the death of Jesus
Christ. And then he said also he didn't
want to think about his death apart from Christ. Oh, my friend,
we can only have comfort and solace as we meditate upon Christ
and meditate upon the great victories of our Lord Jesus Christ over
sin and death and the grave. And when we think about those
great victories, how we can rejoice, oh, we must not, we must never
detract from the Lord Jesus Christ. And then also, he said, I don't
want to think about the day of judgment. I don't want to think
about ever coming into judgment and how wonderful it is. The
Word of God says in John 5, 24, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life. Romans 8 and 1, There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, those who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Now that's
the fourth thing then. We cannot, we must give all honor
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Is what you're hearing preached,
does it honor Him? Number five, and lastly, does
it give consolation and comfort to believers? What you're hearing,
does it give consolation and comfort to your heart? You're
a child of God, you believe that God has saved you through faith.
You believe that you're one of those that can be termed a believer. And therefore, you need consolation,
you need comfort. And there is consolation and
comfort in the Word of God. But all the preachers are around
with their pen knives. You see, preachers feel that
they have the authority to go through the Word of God and to
cut out, or as it were, to leave out. what they feel should not
be preached to the Lord's people. I've heard it over and over.
You cannot preach the doctrine of election in our day and time. You cannot preach it to a congregation
of people that some of the people are advanced in the faith and
others are just, you know, they're immature and you cannot preach
it to a congregation of believers. Well, True doctrine, far from
being harmful and dangerous to God's people, it brings solace
to the hearts of those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Divine
truth forms a solid foundation upon which we find security and
hope. And so, beloved, we must hear
the truth of God, or we're not gonna be comforted by it. But
if the preacher is honest, he'll preach all of God's truth as
it's been revealed, the best he knows how. Paul said, I haven't
held back anything. He told the Ephesian believers,
he said, I haven't held back anything. I preached the whole
counsel of God to you, the best I know it. No man knows it all
perfectly, but he must preach what he knows and what he believes.
Oh, the poet said, upon a life I did not live, upon a death
I did not die, I stake my whole eternity. And so I must know
about that, about that death that I did not die and that life
that I did not live. I must know about it in order
to be able to be comforted as I stake my whole eternity upon
that. Now then, I come to bring, this
is the heart of the message, and I know that we've spent a
little time, but we've moved quite rapidly, and we'll be able
now, I believe, to get in those things that I feel the Lord has
burdened me with this morning. There are four things that I'm
hearing in our day and time. I want to discuss them briefly,
and then there are four questions that I want to ask about these
things that I'm hearing, and then we will attempt to answer
the four questions that we ask at the outset. And may the Lord
be pleased to help us. And now, today's religious leaders
in churches, they positively declare four things. They declare
four things. Now, it is not my wish to build
a straw man just to tear it down, and I do not want to misrepresent
anybody. Is this true, or have I misunderstood
what men are saying in our day? Now, I'm not as smart as some
men, but then I'm not as dumb as some others either. But I
would like to ask you, and I'd like for you to listen to me.
I listen and I read everything I can get my hands up on, and
I'm no novice. I've been in this thing a long
time, and I believe that I know that there are four things that
are preached by, I would say, 99% of preachers in our day and
time. I believe that they're preaching
this. Number one, they say God Almighty
loves everybody without exception. They love all men. They say God
loved Mary and He loved Jezebel. They say God loved Peter and
that God loved Judas. They say God loved Israel and
He loved the Amalekites. They say God loved Jerusalem
and He loved Sodom. They'll not say God loved Jacob
and hated Esau because they'll not touch that. They will not
in any way, shape, or form get involved with that because the
Bible plainly states that God loved Jacob and he hated Esau. Now the second thing I'm hearing
is this, is that God wills the salvation of every human being. Now I'm not overstating it, what
they say is that God wants to save everybody and is trying
to save everybody. Is that what they preach? Some
of you have heard them maybe recently. That God wants, that
God wills, that God desires the salvation of all men without
exception. Now that's what I'm hearing.
Thirdly, they preach that Jesus Christ died on the cross for
everyone without exception. And that when he died, he paid
for every sin of every person of every generation in all the
world. This, my friend, is what they
teach. Fourthly, they teach that the
Holy Spirit strives with all men, that God knocks on everybody's
heart's door, that the Holy Spirit calls, that the Holy Spirit tries,
strives to save everybody, but cannot do it. Now, if these four
things are true, and this is what almost every preacher I
say in America is preaching, and what churches are supporting
and propagating across the land, that God loves everybody, that
God wills the salvation of everybody, that Christ died for everybody,
the Holy Spirit calls everybody without exception, if those things
are true, I ask you these questions. Number one, What does the love
of God, if God loves everybody without exception, equally the
same, what does the love of God have to do with my salvation
anyway? If one man is in heaven that
God loved and the other man is in hell and God loved them both
equally, Does the love of God have anything whatsoever to do
with eternal salvation? I ask for you to meditate on
that for a few moments. Does the love of God really have
anything to do? God's love has no power, no distinction. If God loves me and I still go
to hell, that is not love, my friend, and that makes the love
of God powerless, impotent to save anybody. Now you ask yourself
that question, what does the love of God have to do with the
eternal salvation of the souls of his elect? Number two, if
God wills the salvation of all men, and God wants to save everybody,
desires to save everybody, what does the will of God have to
do with my salvation? Well, it has absolutely nothing.
If God wills for me to go to heaven, and I end up going to
hell, then the will of God, my friend, is useless. It's impotent,
and it has been thwarted. If they're right, the will of
God has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul. Number
three, if Christ's blood was shed to save all men, then what
does his blood have to do with our salvation? The Bible tells
me that the song of heaven is unto him who loved us and washed
us from our sins. in his own blood. Well, if he
loves everybody that's in hell, and if he washed them equally
the same as he washed me, then that song has absolutely no meaning. You're talking about an atonement,
my friend, that does not atone. You're talking about a redemption
that does not redeem. You have a sin offering that
does not satisfy a thrice holy God. You have a propitiation
that does not propitiate. If Christ died for everybody
without exception, the people in heaven owe nothing to his
blood, really. For the people in hell, he died
for them, too. And if they went to hell, what
proof have you got you won't go? I asked you those questions. What is it that's going to keep
you out of hell? For whom Christ died and paid
the debt, equally as much as he paid it for you, then what's
going to keep you out of hell? no distinction, no power, no
regeneration, no. I think these preachers are inconsistent.
They talk out of both sides of their mouth. They're like the
creek down in Oklahoma I heard about. It's a mile wide at the
mouth and an inch deep. These people are talking. I say
they're inconsistent. Saying God is almighty, then
saying God wants to save you and you, and you won't let him.
You won't let him, but he's almighty, you see. Not only that almighty,
God's going to send you to hell, but he loves you. He loves you. He's going to send you to hell.
Well, that's totally inconsistent as far as I'm concerned. If God
loves the people in Sodom, those who perished in the flood, then
who of you really wants God to love you? This is a strange love
indeed that can love somebody and then they perish finally. Now, the Word of God teaches
us, and I want to try to answer these questions, I must do so. The Word of God teaches us that
salvation is of the Lord in the beginning, in the middle, and
the end. And that salvation's not a human project, it's a divine
project. This is God's work from the beginning. His love, listen to me, His love
does have something to do with our salvation, praise God. His
love has something to do with the salvation of his people.
His love is the very foundation of our salvation. Listen to the
word of God. John 3, 1 John 3 and verse 1. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. Behold, what manner of love. The word behold means look, look
at that love of God that hath been bestowed upon us. We've
been recipients of it. that we should be called the
sons of God. 1 John 4 and 10, hearing His
love. Not that we love God, but that
God loved us and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our
sins. 1 John 4 and verse 19, we love
Him because He first loved us. Ephesians 2, verses four and
five, but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us
together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. By his great love,
wherewith he loved us. Isn't that a wonderful verse?
And then we've been quickened, made alive unto God, due to his
love on our behalf. He loved us everlastingly. Now
I'm going to tell you something. I'm fixing to tell you something
right now. And there was never anything
that you ever heard a preacher say that is more important than
what I'm fixing to tell you right now here this morning in this
little building. And I want you to listen carefully
to every word I'm telling you. And that is, that it is impossible
for a holy, I'm talking about a thrice holy, righteous God
to love a sinner outside of Jesus Christ. I'm telling you, of God
are we in Christ Jesus, and we were put in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world. We were chosen in Christ in reference
to Christ, and we've been hid in Christ from before the foundation
of the world. Now I'd like to read out of Job
chapter 25. I'd like to read here just a
few verses. And listen to these verses. I'm
telling you that a holy God cannot love a sinner outside the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what I'm telling you is that
God's love is in Christ. It's in Christ. Now listen to
these verses. How then, beginning with verse
four, Job 25, how then can man be justified with God, or how
can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even to the
moon, and it shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight. How much less man that is a worm,
and the son of man which is a worm. My friend, I want you to think
with me a little bit. Now, if you think about John
3 in verse 36, it says, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life, and he that believeth not the Son. He that believeth not
the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him. He that believeth not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. So the wrath of God abides on
all of those that are outside the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there
no wrath on with God? Is there no wrath with God? Then
how do you account for the flood? How do you account for the flood?
Does God love everybody? I asked you, how do you account
for the flood? Can't you imagine that ark floating
along and Noah and his family and all the animals in the ark
and God shut the door of the ark and it's floating along on
the waters of the flood and the swollen bodies of, we're told,
millions are floating around and bobbing up and down on the
water of the flood and there being a bumper sticker on the
back of the ark saying, smile, God loves you. Can you imagine
that? My friend, I'm here to tell you this morning there is
wrath with God. There's wrath with God. How do
you account for Sodom and Gomorrah? God raining fire and God raining
hell out of heaven upon those cities. God's wrath, my friend. How do you account for the cross?
How do you account for the fact that God hung his son on a cross,
on that gory tree? How do you account for that if
there's no wrath with God? It was that God was sparing us.
That's the message of the cross. It was that God is a God whose
justice must be satisfied. He must punish sin, and he punished
sin in our substitute. but there's wrath with God. And
unless you're in Christ, the judgment of God is surely come
upon you. Psalm 5 and 5 says, the Lord
hateth all workers of iniquity. It says God is angry with the
wicked every day. There is not one of us here who
can claim the love of a holy and righteous God outside of
Jesus Christ. Paul wrote in Romans 8, And verse
38 and 39, he says, for I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. So there's where it is. It's
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hebrews 12 and 6 says, For whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and he scourgeth every son. whom
he receiveth. Yes, the love of God is the very
foundation of our salvation. Aren't you glad to hear it? And
aren't you glad that he loved you with an everlasting love,
and that he set his affection upon you in old time, and that
he gave you to his son in the love gift to his son, and that
Jesus, that you've been hidden him ever since then. God loves
all those who are in his son. So that takes care of that. That's
what the love of God has got to do with our salvation. But
you're not hearing that in our day and time, but you're hearing
it here this morning by the grace of God. Now number two, the will
of God, I want to say this, and I want to make it clear, the
will of God is the cause of our salvation. Listen to Galatians
1-4. Who gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world according
to the will of God and our Father. There it is, plainly spelled
out. Now if salvation is left to my
will, I will not be saved. Jesus said, you will not come
to me that you might have life. The human will is in bondage.
The human will is depraved. The human will is biased to sin. It loves darkness rather than
light and will not come to the light because it'll be manifested
that their deeds were wrought in darkness. No man can come
Jesus says unto the Father, except the Spirit draw him. It is not
our will that brings us to Christ. It is God's will. It is God's
will. How many verses can you think
of in the Bible that teaches this truth? I never, never, never
back off from using the Word of God in my messages. I saturate
my messages with the Word of God. I don't want anyone to ever
believe I'm up here preaching these things out of my own heart.
I have no, I have no, there's no reason for me to do that.
I would not conceal the word of God from you. Romans 9 and
verse 16 says, so then it is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. James 1 and
18, of his own will begat he us. with the word of truth, John
1, 12, and 13. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believed on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. God willed our salvation, and
of course we willed it when we were made willing in the day
of his power. When God's power came upon us, we were made willing.
Oh, we must have Him. We must have Him. We must come
to Him. We must trust Him. We must pray. We must look to
Him. We must stay our souls upon Him. Absolutely. If God willed the
salvation of all men, then I believe all men would be saved. Ephesians
1 and 5 says, having predestinated us, you see there's us and then
there's them. But having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of what? His will. His will. Verse 11. in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will." John 6, 37 through 40. talks to us about this will. When it says, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, Christ says, and they that come to me
I will in no wise cast out. And this is the will of Him that
sent me, that every one which the Father has given to me, that
not one of them will be lost, and I'll raise them up at the
last day. And so the Lord Jesus, that's
His will, that He save all that the Father gives to Him and He'll
never reject them and never cast them out. Now none of us here
want anything to do, we do not want to be left to our own will. Is there anybody here that would
like to say, I'd just like for God to leave me to my own will? Anybody that would ever make
a statement like that is the most foolish person alive. Oh,
don't you want God to cross your old will? Don't you want God
to lay a hand on you and intervene? Don't you want God to head you
up and hem you in and fix it so that you cannot do anything
but look to Christ? Don't you want him to do that?
Ah, my friend, this, you know David, when he had numbered Israel
and God gave him three choices, how he would chasten him, and
David said, don't turn me over to anybody but yourself. Oh,
I just want to fall into the hands of the Lord. That's what
I want. Let me fall into the hands of God. And I'll tell you
what, I want God's will. I don't want my own. I want God's
will from the beginning to the end. And the greatest holiness
that you will ever find on the face of this earth, my friend,
is not my will, but thy will be done. That's where holiness
is. That's what it's all about. I want God's will to be done,
not my own. I'm not going to be selfish.
I'm going to do what God wants me to do. And I'll wait on the
Lord and know it and do it. And that was our Lord Jesus.
He says, I come into the world not to do my own will, but the
will of him that sent me. Wasn't that what he said? But
the will of him that sent me. So we don't want to fall into
our own hands. We want the will of God. And
it's the will of God that determines our salvation. Thirdly, the blood
of Christ, for whom was it shed? There is no truth in all of God's
Word that is more important, that is clearer for me, that
is easier to lay hold of for me than the effectual, complete,
particular redeeming death of my blessed Blessed Lord Jesus
Christ. I do not know of any doctrine
that we preach that is easier for me to receive than this,
that if Christ died for me, then I am saved. If he died for me, I am eternally
justified. I'm eternally saved. If he paid
my debt, then it's paid. It's paid. Romans 8, 33 says,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifies. And it says, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. It is Christ that died. So don't
you see, my beloved, his blood cleanses me. I'm clean every
whit. Now, in Romans chapter 4, and
I'm going to take the liberty to turn there quickly and read
this to you, I want you to hear it. In verse 6 of Romans 4, even
as David also describeth, and that word describeth means declare,
He declared the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Blessed is that man whom God
does not charge with sin, seeing that his sin has been charged
to Christ and paid for in full. Now what a man believes about
the death of Christ accomplished will determine what he believes
about the extent of his death. If he believes that Christ accomplished
in his death full payment for his sins, then he knows that
his sin is not an issue from here to eternity, that Christ
has satisfied the justice of God on his behalf. Well, what
did he accomplish? The purpose of his death was
to make God just and justifier. It was to pay for our sins. Our
sins were laid on Him. All we like sheep have gone astray,
and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. In His
body on the tree, the just for the unjust, literally, actually,
Jesus paid all of our sin debt, our past sin, our present sin,
Our future sin, my sins of thought, my sins of imagination, my sins
of dreams, my sins of attitudes and deeds, my sins of walk, my
sins of talk, my sins of acts. They were all laid on Jesus and
they were paid in full. He took all the sins of all believers
of all ages on himself and literally paid for them. Do you believe
that? I do. I believe that. He separated
our sins from us. The Bible says, as far as the
east is from the west. And he buried them in the depths
of the sea. He put them away. Now, if he
did that for me, then I'll rejoice in that. I'll rejoice in that. I'm thrilled about that. The
old hymn writer said, I'm blessed. He said, I'm blessed. He said,
I'm forever blessed. My rags are gone, and I'm dressed,
not in garments. He said, not in, dressed in garments. He said, white as snow. I'm married
to the Lord, the Lamb, whose beauties I can never explain,
nor half his glory show. He died for me. He saved me.
He washed my sins away. He put them away. Okay then,
now listen to me. If he put away everybody's sin,
then we have what is termed universal salvation. And what we ought
to do is go tell everybody they're safe. You get my point? Just
go tell everybody they're saved. If he was a savior, then we're
saved. If he died for everybody equally
the same, and if he represented everybody on that gory tree,
then just go out and tell everybody. If salvation is by the death
of Christ, and something that we do as preachers tell us, that
the death of Christ is of no avail unless we do something,
we gotta do something. Well, if that's the case, then
we're all hopeless, and we're all lost, and nobody here has
got a shot at it. Nobody here's got a shot at it.
If he paid everybody's sin debt, then baptize them all and bring
them all to the Lord's Supper. We might as well stop this foolishness.
They got as much right to it as we have. If he died equally
the same for all people. No, he died for his people only.
He died for His people, I say only. He represented them. You see, in the first Adam we
died, and in Christ, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, we
live. We live. He represented the elect. He was the surety for the living
family. And last of all, the Holy Spirit
What does the Holy Spirit have to do with our salvation? Well,
it quickens. It brings to life all the sheep
of Christ. Now, you listen to what I'm saying.
I'm not born again because I believe. This generation of preachers
will tell you that if you believe, you'll be born again. Ain't a
word of truth to it. You cannot believe the gospel
until it's revealed to you. And the only way it can be revealed
to you is when the Lord by the Holy Spirit comes and quickens
your heart. I believe because I'm born again. That's why I believe. Because
I am born again, I believe. I'm not born again because I
see. I see because I've been quickened to life. You who were
dead in trespasses and sins, He made alive. He made you live. And we do live unto God. But
I see because I'm born again. I'm not born again because I
love God. I love God because I am born
again. Because God has done something
in me. Because He done something in me more than He did. You know,
there was 11 of us kids, my family, my dad's family. And I know God
saved a couple of us, and I just know that he had to
do more in me than he'd done the rest of them. I'm here to
tell you this morning that God brought me out. I know he did,
and I know he did more according to his purpose in me than he
did in my brothers and sisters. I know he did. And I'm more responsible. I'm obligated because of what
God's done. I know he did. Who hath made
thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received?
And if you've received it, then why do you glory as if you had
not received it? I'm here, I'm bragging on the
Lord. I'm telling you, I'm telling you that I've been born again.
And I love God. I love God by the grace of God.
I don't love him as much as I ought to love him, but I do love the
Lord. Now the Bible says, the wind
bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whether it goeth, so as every
one that is born of the Spirit. You can't explain it. A brother
and sister can sit in the same row in the church, the gospel
preached, God save one of them and let the other one go on in
their sin. We know God's sovereign in that.
We know he's sovereign. The wind bloweth where it listeth.
That you hear the sound there, you can't tell where it come
from or whether it's going. And the scripture says, so is
everyone that is born of the Spirit. Some of the most unlikely
people that I ever met in my life are now believers on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Never would have believed that
they'd ever been saved. And if you'd have went out hunting
some candidates for Jesus, those people, you'd have left them
alone. You wouldn't even have touched
them. But the Lord touched them, and the Lord saved them. He did
it. He did it. Now there's a birth from above.
Whenever a man is born of the Spirit of God, it's evident that
he's one of Christ's sheep from eternity. One of Christ's sheep
from eternity. And you know those are the people
I'm looking for. I'm looking for them. I'm looking
for the sheep of Christ. And it's wonderful to be able
to preach to some of the Lord's sheep and to see the reaction
on their face. Paul said, I endured all things
for the elect's sake. I put up with whatever I had
to put up with for the elect's sake. I did it. And I'll tell
you this, I'm looking for the Lord's sheep. And if you're one
of them, I'm glad to know you and to have your acquaintance.
I don't think this one, I think I can truthfully say, I don't
need anything you got, just your prayers. But I appreciate you,
you're the Lord's sheep. You're believers in Christ and
you believe the truth. May God be pleased to own this
message this morning. Now I think you can see the revelance
of all that we started out saying earlier. And what we had to say
about applying the acid test, applying the test. whether or
not what you're hearing is of God, or whether it's of a man.
May God help us all. Father, in that lovely name of
Jesus Christ, we thank thee for this privilege of preaching this
morning. May you own this message, and Father, may it be remembered
in the hearts of these dear ones that have come out, and may they
have grace to go out and share the message. with others, may
they have wisdom to share it. And Lord, if there's some soul
here this morning and they know they're hopeless and they've
been shut up to the Lord's salvation, may they, our Father, believe
savingly today through the grace of God. May the Spirit of God
come and do that great work of regeneration that they may believe
and say and testify of the Lord's wonderful salvation in their
lives. We pray it in Jesus' name, for His sake. Amen.