this morning to the book of 1
Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I would like to read for my text
this morning verse 9 and 10. Verse 9 and 10, 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. For I, this is the Apostle Paul
speaking to the church at Corinth, for I am the least of the apostles
that am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted
the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am
what I am and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not
in vain. But I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me. Now there are just special times
when you can preach on a text of scripture like the one we've
chosen this morning for our message. I trust that the Lord has prepared
each one of our hearts today to receive what he is willing
to give us as we look into his word. In these two verses we
find the confession the heartfelt confession of the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was a humble
man. He was a very humble man. He was humbled by the grace of
God. If any man is humble, it's due
to the grace of God in his life. Beloved, let me say that there
never would have been an Apostle Paul if it had not been for the
grace of God. Let me say to you this morning
that there never would have been a John Mitchell preaching the
gospel if it were not for the grace of God. And I feel that
many of you that are sitting here today that have been the
recipients of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, this would also
be your confession. And I believe that true believers
True believers, ere they die, this will be their confession
and their statement of faith, I am what I am by the grace of
God. I am what I am, Paul says, by
the grace of God. And he said in his grace, in
verse 10, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. And His grace, which was bestowed
upon me, was not in vain." Hallelujah. That the grace of God that has
been bestowed upon us, that it was not bestowed upon us in vain. It has been effectual. It has
been useful to the purpose of God. and to the plan and program
of our eternal, exalted High God. The grace of God was not
in vain. That moves my heart a great deal
this morning to think of that. Paul says, I'm the least of the
apostles in rank and dignity after the flesh. I'm the least.
and not meet, he said, to be called an apostle. And the reason,
he says, that I'm not is because I persecuted the Church of God. I persecuted those that loved
Christ, those that were in the way. of the gospel, those that
were walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. I persecuted them when
I was in my lost state. When I was in a state of nature,
I was an enemy, a bitter enemy of the Church of God. I was an
enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ. But when the grace of God came,
beloved I who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and was injurious
toward the Lord's people and the Lord's cause, he says, I
obtain mercy. I obtain mercy. I obtained mercy
when the grace of God came to my life. The unmerited favor
of God came upon me and God showed mercy because I did all of this
in ignorance. The unmerited favors of God produces
self-abasement. I said earlier that Paul was
a humble man. He was indeed. He would have
never been humble apart from the fact that when he was a lost
sinner, dedicated to the destruction of the Church of God, that God
in mercy struck him down on the road to Damascus and saved him
out of his lost state and took down the rebellion, took down
the flag of rebellion out of his heart and raised the flag
of peace in his soul and he became the Apostle Paul. Saul of Tarsus
became the Apostle Paul by the grace of God. Now Paul could
never think of the distinction that was conferred on him by
Christ without adverting to his own unworthiness. Every time
he thought about the grace of God, he thought about what a
sinner he was, what a rebel sinner he had been, and how dedicated
he was in all of his strength to destroying the people of God. We find that those of the children
of God that God intends to use and exalt, that he often allows
them to fall into deep sin and then he comes to them and lifts
them up out of the miry clay and sets their feet on a solid
rock and they never forget their past. They never forget the pit
from which the Lord took them. They're humbled by that. Now,
Paul never forgave himself for his sin, and he often refers
to it with the deepest contrition. We read 1 Timothy 1 and verses
13 and 15 sets forth how Paul felt about himself. He says that
the Lord counted him faithful, putting him into the ministry.
who was before a persecutor, an injurious man, but he said,
I obtain mercy. And Paul never forgot this. The
forgiveness of sin does not take away the remembrance of it. It
does not. An individual who is saved will
still remember their past. They'll still remember it. They'll
remember their sins and their rebellion of heart and their
stubbornness and hard-heartedness. They'll still remember all those
things. And I believe that this abiding sense of ill-desert in
the conscience of a man, this is what causes that individual
to have humility and to be humble and to extol the grace of God
with all their might and power in their life. And Paul, in respect
of personal merit, he said, I know that I did not deserve to be
accounted at all. I didn't deserve being laid hold
of by God. I had nothing about me that would
give the creator in any way, shape, or form be of any help
to God. And God must come to me and help
me. I need the Lord. And so his sole
ground of approbation was not the service. that he had rendered,
or not the service that he anticipated that he would render unto his
sovereign, but the favor which his sovereign had bestowed upon
him, he could say by the grace of God, I am what I am. That is, divine grace has made
me, as an apostle, as a laboring apostle, as a faithful apostle,
as one who is a preacher of God's grace, unto the Gentile world,
he said, it's God's grace that has made me what I am. Had I
been left to myself, I'd still be, I'd still be what I was in
my former state. I'd still be a blasphemer. I
would still be a persecutor, I would still be traveling the
countryside looking down the saints of God and persecuting
them had the Lord left me to myself. It is owing to the grace
of God that I am now an apostle preaching the faith which I once
destroyed. It is owing to the grace of God.
He believed himself to be a regenerate man, a forgiven man, a saved
man, and he believed that that condition he was in now was the
result of the unmerited favor of God. It was not because of
himself. I, Saul of Tarsus, have been
converted and I've been made into Paul the Apostle the servant
of Jesus Christ, and I attribute this great change entirely to
the goodwill and sovereign pleasure, yea, the undeserved favor of
the ever-blessed God. I say that I am what I am by
the grace of God. It brings me to say that if you
and I are ever saved, if we ever entertain the hope of having
our sins forgiven, being reconciled to God, having Christ living
in us, Christ dwelling in our hearts, us being meat for the
inheritance of the saints in life. It will be by the grace
of God. Amen? It'll be by God's grace. Now the text is an encouragement. It's a great encouragement. First
of all, it's an encouragement to the preacher. When a man stands
to preach, what a tremendous encouragement it is that the
grace of God is able to reach every sinner, the blackest sinner,
that lives on this earth, the grace of God. If God Almighty
commissioned me to go preach to the devil himself, I believe
I ought to go. You know, the Apostle Paul one
time was going to a city, the city of Corinth, and it was a
heathen city. And when he arrived, he received
a great deal of persecution. And the Lord appeared to him
at night in a vision and said to him, Paul, you just go right
on because I have much people in this city. There's many people
here that belong to me. I chose them by sovereign grace
in old eternity. I gave them to my son, your Savior
and Redeemer, and I'm about to do a work in them. And so the
Apostle Paul went on with that encouragement and stayed under
the persecution and stayed under the test and the trial of Corinth. And there was a church established
there, a people there, to whom he was writing in our text this
morning, that come to be an outstanding church and spreading the gospel
over the Gentile world in his day. Now then, it's an encouragement
to the preacher. We preach with hope. The Apostle
Paul said, I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they
might obtain eternal salvation with the glory of God. He said,
I endure it, I put up with whatever I have to put up with, because
I do it for the elect's sake. God's going to save some people
by His grace. I'm not looking for good people.
I'm not looking for people who merit something from God, to
whom God owes something. I'm looking for sinners. I'm
looking for those, the sheep of Christ. I'm on their trail,
and I've got a message for them, and that message is that everything
that God demands of a sinner, he provides for him. And that
a sinner who is out of fellowship with God can be reconciled to
God through the death of his son. And that God's not asking
anything of a sinner. He's not asking a sinner to bring
something in his own hand, but he comes and provides all. that
He demands of the sinner. He provides it in His Son, the
person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I say it's not
only an encouragement to the preacher, but it is so to the
hearer. What a wonderful thing it is
that you're able to hear the grace of God preached. that the
preacher doesn't get up and say to you, do the best you can.
You've never done the best you can. You've never done all that
you ought to have done. And the rest of your life, when
it comes down to your dying day, you'll still feel within yourself
that you were a failure in many, many areas of your life. You'll
still feel it. And so isn't it wonderful that
the preacher's not telling you this morning that you ought to
do something for God. The preacher is here telling
you this morning that God has done something for sinners. And
that through the grace of God, men and women can be reconciled
to God and they can be given an eternal hope. And their life
can be turned around and changed. And they can have a hope within
them that will endure whatever this life brings them. And so,
beloved, the people of God, and we sang that little song this
morning. I'm happy to be a member of the
family of God, to pray and sing and have a living hope how wonderful
it is. And it's due to the grace of
God. I'm telling you, it's an encouragement to anybody here
this morning. God saves by grace. It is by grace that we're saved. It's not of ourself. It's not
of our works. It's by grace through faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, beloved, this is a
statement of doctrine here. Somebody said, oh, doctrine.
I'm afraid of doctrine. I really don't want to hear anybody
preach doctrine. I'd rather hear them preach experience. Well, we do some of both. But
each one who is a believer in the Lord Jesus, both the weak
and the strong, can take this sentence as his creed I am what
I am by the grace of God. I'm not what I ought to be. I'm
not what I long to be. I'm not what I shall be. But
by the grace of God, I am not what I once was. I am not hollow
on the inside. I do have somebody living in
me that is high and holy. I have one living in me that
is without sin. I have one living in me that
gives me the desire to be all I can be in this world for his
glory and his praise. And while we're not what we would
like to be, we are not what we once was. There was a time when
I was as hollow as I could be. I had no hope within. I had no
desire, no aspiration toward God. No desire. I was not bent
toward God. I was bent away from God. My
back was toward God. And God came to me and visited
me by His grace and brought me unto Himself and gave me a living
hope by His grace. I'm not what I am today as a
result of something good which God foresaw would be in me. No,
beloved, there's a deeper cause for the love that God has toward
His children, and that deeper cause is His grace. Now, the grace of God inscribed
our names in God's eternal book before we were born. The Bible
teaches that all of those whose names finally wind up in the
Book of Life, and in that great day when the books are opened,
and our name, if it be found there, that book, I would say,
from the human standpoint, would be stained with yellow. And the
names faded, yes, maybe faded, but they're there. and they were
put there before the foundation of the world inscribed there
by our sovereign God when he purposed our salvation in his
son and gave us to the Lord Jesus. Before I was born, I say, and
not when I was born again, as some people say. I tell you,
we're talking about the grace of God. I'm not what I am in
the redeemed state as a result of any creature strength. Sometimes
we think once we're converted that we got the strength now
and we can just live the Christian life uh... in and of ourself
and that we've got the ability to do whatever we need to do
well beloved that's not so the lord jesus said without me you
could do nothing paul said i can do all things through christ
that strengthens me beloved listen we do not have any creature strength
that's going to help us in the things of god you will find that
whatever your strengths are in the flesh will lead you contrary
to God, and they'll lead you, you'll have to repent of them.
If you got a real strong mind after the flesh, you'll find
that you're leaning always intellectually toward your mind and toward the
things suggested in your mind. Whatever your strength is, beware
of it! That's not what's gonna help
you on to God. It's the grace of God that'll help you on to
Him. I did not choose to be what I
am. If I'd been what I chose to be,
I'd still just be an out-and-out rank sinner. As filthy-mouthed
as anybody else around, I'd still be turned away from God. It's
because of God and His sovereign grace that I've been turned toward
Him. Listen, if there is anything
good in us, He put it there. If there's a jewel around your
neck, it is because of the grace of God. If there's anything about
your life that's attractive and becoming, As a Christian, if
there's anything about you that make you stand out, if there's
any graciousness about you, if you have the ability, if you
have a gift to be among believers, something that is outstanding,
it's all due to the grace of God. It's all due to God's goodness
toward you, his unmerited favor. He taught our souls to pray. You say, I'm a praying man, preacher.
Well, bless God, but who was it that taught you to pray? Listen,
any prayer that we find in us that is of God had to be breathed
by God in us. And true prayer is the breath
of God in a man returning from whence it came. Don't ever lay
claim to your prayer life being of your own strength and your
own energy. It's due to the grace of God.
It's due to the Holy Spirit working affectionately and mightily in
you. He made us to feel our need of
grace. Somebody said, well, you know,
when I heard the gospel, I knew it was a good thing and I reached
out there and grabbed it. That's just the way I am. I'm
always looking for a bargain, you know. Well, beloved, listen,
when we were turned toward the grace of God, if you had the
eye to see it, and the ability to see it, and God give you the
faith to accept it, whether you can believe it or not, or whether
you can understand it or not, I should say, listen, God give
you the grace to accept the fact that it was His grace that taught
you to want grace and to long for His grace. He stripped us
of our pride. He delivered us from our refuge
of lies. He put the first ray of hope
in our soul. He opened our sin-blinded eyes
to see the beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ. There was no beauty
about Him that we should desire Him, but when God opened our
eyes, oh, when the Lord revealed Him to us, Oh, he's the altogether
lovely one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is all God demands, and he
is the one that God has sent to meet the demands that he had
made already in his holy law. And the Lord Jesus, oh, how beautiful
are the feet of the Lord Jesus, and how beautiful in his life
is because he provides all, he meets all the need. He is the
Savior, the Son of God, the beloved of God, He is our own personal
Redeemer and Lord. Now then, also, He gave us faith. He gave us faith. You know, Paul
said the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceedingly abundant
with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. You know, Paul
found in the grace of God faith to believe. Have you ever tried
to believe? Have you ever tried to believe?
Now, here you are. You're a believer. You say, well, I'm a believer
preacher. I've got to believe. Well, you know, I wish it was
that easy, don't you? I wish it was that easy. You
know, there's many, many times as Christians in this world,
we struggle with this thing of believing. We struggle with it.
And we come to the conclusion that the only time when we're
able to really believe This grace is bestowed upon us when God
gives us a measure of faith and how joyous and wondrous it is
when we're able to lay hold of a verse of scripture, a promise
of God, and faith just latches hold of that and we're able to
believe it until fulfillment. And then I'd like to say that
the grace of God has kept me alive into this day and will
not let me go. I'm immoral to the work that
God has given me to do is done. Somebody said, aren't you afraid
you're going to get killed out here on the highway? People do
every day. They do indeed. And I may tomorrow. I may today.
But I'm immortal until the purpose of God is done in my life. God's
purpose will determine, God's purpose of grace will determine
what he does with each and every one of us. And we're in the Lord's
hands. Our times are in the Lord's hand,
and it is the grace of God that keeps us. Now then, the grace
of God begins this work. The Lord maintains. the work
in his people. The Lord keeps his people, preserves
them. The Bible says he's the preserver
of all men, but especially he preserves his own. So grace begins
the work and grace must carry it out. Without him, we can do
nothing. The living child of God is powerless. as powerless as the dead sinner,
apart from the constant indwelling Holy Spirit and the constant
inflowing of the divine life into our very soul. By the grace
of God, we're not only what we are, but by the grace of God,
we remain what we are. We would have long ago ruined
ourselves and damned ourselves if Christ had not kept us by
his almighty grace. Not one hour in all our Christian
experience have we kept ourselves by our undivided or our unaided
power and wisdom. We never go forward in strength. Never do we go forward without
the aid and blessing of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of God's
grace. David said, in the Psalms, all
my springs are in thee. And the poet said, oh to grace,
how great a debtor daily I am constrained to be. Not only am
I a debtor to the grace of God once for all, But each day, is
it not true, believer? You older believers, is it not
true? But each day, we're more and
more in debt to the grace of God. We're more and more in debt
to it, that God doesn't just cut us off. In long-suffering
patience, God deals with every one of us, of His children. God
is pitiful toward His children. He pities us, as a father would
pity his son. And He bears with us His long-suffering
grace. And so every day adds to the
debt. I'm a greater debtor now this
morning at this hour than I was yesterday at this hour to the
grace of God. And oh, it's wonderful to feel
that. It's wonderful to feel it. It just don't bother me to
be in debt to the grace of God. Does it bother you? Some people
say, well, I just don't like hardly being in debt. Well, I
don't like being in debt either. But I don't mind being in debt
to the grace of God, because that's the way it ought to be
as a believer, and we ought to feel that indebtedness. So doctrinally, I state the truth.
By the grace of God, I am what I am. And so you can go out of
here and somebody says, what does that preacher down there,
what's he say on Sunday morning? You can say, well, I'll tell
you what his creed is. I'll tell you what he's about.
I'll tell you what he's apt to say. If you go and listen to
him, he'll tell you that he is what he is by the grace of God. If he's anything at all, it's
by the grace of God. That's what he'll tell you. Now
then, that's the kind of church I want to be a member of. I'm
elect, my election is of grace. I'm redeemed, how I love to proclaim
it, I'm redeemed by the grace of God. My redemption is of grace. I'm called affectionately by
His grace. And I'm preserved, I'm kept preserved
by His grace. And so that is my doctrine. So
we go forth with this motto as our banner, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. Well, now let's look at the text
experientially a little bit. I mean, there are times in our
experience when we're driven to believe this. There's no getting
around it. There's times when we're going
to have to believe it. Now some of you people here never,
never have you learned anything about original sin. There's some
of you folks here don't know anything about depravity. You
don't know anything about it. Your eyes have been blinded to
the truth about yourself. You never did see your righteousness
as God sees it. Some of you here entertain the
idea that there's something about you that is meritorious toward
god there's something about you that god don't look at before
he'll look at other people and what is in them that there's
something outstanding about you when your depravity when the
depravity of your heart in nature is revealed to you when god as
it were it's the veil from your eyes and when the eyesalve of
truth comes upon your eyes and you see what you are in here
And you understand when the filthy rags are rolled out, the filthy
rags of your righteousness is rolled out in front of you and
you see what an obscene sinner you are before God. Listen, when
you begin to hear the chattering of the unclean birds in the cage
of your heart, and you understand something about what you are
in a state of nature. Listen, when your secret sins
are set in the light of God's countenance and you begin to
see what you really are. Then, my friend, you'll be glad
to get a hold of this text, and there won't be anybody be able
to wrest it out of your hands. You'll say, I am what I am by
the grace of God. I look to God and to his grace.
I look to what God's provided. I look away from myself. I don't
want to look anymore in there, in that den of iniquity. I don't
want anything more to do with trusting in flesh. I turn away
from the arm of the flesh. I look toward God. and toward
his grace. I say that experientially, we're
going to be driven to it. Well, if you've looked at your
heart, if there was anything good there, you now are going
to be forced to say, it was not there by nature. It didn't grow
in that soil, the soil of the old nature. It's there by the
grace of God. Spurgeon said, flimsy views of
human depravity lead to very indistinct ideas of the grace
of God. There is nothing but deep sub-soil
plowing that ever makes a mound sound in the doctrine of grace,
and I'll defy any man who has had a deep experience of his
own depravity to believe in any other doctrine but the doctrines
of grace which are commonly called Calvinism. And I believe he's
right. I believe he's right. Listen,
people who know what they are and who they are have but one,
have but one thing to look to, and that's what old Paul looked
to. And that's the grace of God. He said, I'm just what I am by
that grace. And then, you know, there are
many times when we're under strong temptation. Nobody would believe
this. But there are times when we're strongly tempted just to
give it up. Give it up. Throw it all away.
Throw it all down. Walk away from it. Turn our backs
and walk away. Strongly tempted. Brother, it
is a time like that that we find ourselves in the middle of the
night looking up to God and to his
grace to come and to revive our hearts again. Revive our hearts. Revive us again. Revive us again. Pour out your grace upon us.
Revive us. We're ready to quit. We're ready
to throw in the towel. Revive us. And the Lord does
come. And He comes and He raises us
up on the third day. He raises us up. The Lord is
merciful to raise up His people. And He does it in His grace.
If it wasn't for His grace, He'd just say, just go ahead on, throw
it out. Just go ahead and throw up your hand. Just go ahead and
give it away. Walk away. But the Lord won't do that. The
Lord is merciful to His people. and he comes by grace and strengthens
our heart. And then there are times when
we witness the fall of others around us in our experience.
John Newton said, when any turn from Zion's way, alas, what numbers
do? Methinks I hear my Savior say,
wilt thou forsake me too? Ah, Lord, with such a heart as
mine, unless thou hold me fast, I feel I must. I shall decline
and prove like them at last. That's exactly right. Old John
Newton knew what he was talking about. You say, well, I won't
ever do that. Don't say that. By the grace
of God, you won't ever do that. By the grace of God, you won't.
Then there's another season when we learn this lesson. And I think
that it's in times like maybe some of us are experiencing here
today, times of dullness and deadness in spiritual matters,
a time when we're just barely alive, when we just don't have
much about us that speaks very pointedly for Christ. and very
much for the glory of God. If our salvation depended upon
our soul's vigor and fervency, then beloved, we'd get lost all
over again, wouldn't we? We would indeed. In prayer, we
have words, but we don't have any heart. Words, but no heart. We go to church with an empty
cup, and we come home with an empty cup, blaming somebody else
because we didn't get anything. Our cup, we just didn't get anything
in our cup. And when you read your Bible,
though you know it is a precious book, it just somehow or other
didn't seem precious to you. It just didn't mean anything
to you much. You got to thinking about something else before you
got two verses read. Your mind began to drift away
and you didn't even remember what you read in the first verse
that you started out to read. My friend, it's times like these
when we've lost our spiritual appetite. that we need to look
back to this verse of scripture. Paul said, I labored more abundantly
than they all, but it was not I, it was the grace of God in
me. And beloved, listen, we must pray for the grace of God. Paul said, it was bestowed upon
me, and he said it wasn't in vain. It was effectual. It accomplished in me. Now, beloved,
if there's anything I hate, it's death. I don't want to die physically. My flesh knows nothing about
death physically, and I certainly don't want to be dead while I'm
living. I don't want to be dead while I'm living. I want to be
alive. And if there's some reason why
I can't live toward God and be useful and fruitful in the knowledge
of God, then beloved, I want it removed and I want to go on
to be fruitful and to be very much alive in the things of the
kingdom of God. I want to be useful in God's
kingdom until the day I breathe my last breath in this world.
I want to be useful. And I don't want to sit around,
you know, without any spiritual backbone, and without any...
I don't want to be like... There was a church one time I
heard about, and there was a fella, a big church, had lots of rows
and pews, and the place was full, but it was a dead church, and
somebody actually did die in one of the back rows. And as
the story is, they called the 911 number, and they came in,
and they carried out the last five rows before they found the
fellow that was dead. That's how dead that church was.
I don't want to be that way. I don't want to be that way.
I'd like to be alive unto the Lord. Well, if there's any hope
for that, you know it's our natural state to be cold and dull toward
spiritual things. That's your natural state, to
be cold and dull, almost dead. That's your natural state, toward
spiritual things. And if you were fully in the
old nature, you would be dead spiritually. But beloved, only
the grace of God can revive us out of that. If I have zeal,
if I have a warm heart, if I have a good spiritual appetite, if
I have a heart that's set on things above, where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God, then beloved, if I'm minded in
the things of the Spirit of God, surely this is by the grace of
God. So doctrinally, by experience,
I prove my text. I proved it. We are what we are
by the grace of God. Now, I think this text gives
us a suggestion for self-examination. I'm trying to use my time wisely.
I'm trying to use your time wisely. Ask yourself this morning, what
am I? What am I? Ask yourself. Paul tells us what
he is, but what are we? What are we? Now, an unregenerate
sinner, an unpardoned sinner, an impotent sinner, an unbelieving
sinner, you know, we can put the label on. But I'd like for
you this morning to put the label on. Just what are you anyway? What are you? You've come here
this morning, and you've been listening. What are you? You
got a label you can put on yourself? You're either condemned, you're
on death row, For you stand in Christ forgiven, in Christ uncondemned,
through Him. Look the truth in the face. How
much do you know? about yourself. How much do you
know about the grace of God? Where are you this morning? What
is your situation this morning? Will you face it? Now you can
make fun of the man who believes in the grace of God if you want
to, but you'll never go to heaven any other way but by the grace
of God. I don't care even if the Pope
is standing beside your bed when you die. You're not going to
heaven except by the grace of God. There isn't any other way
to get there. You have to face it. Paul said, and he was that
apostle, my soul, I don't have time to extol him, but I'm here
to tell you today that there ain't anybody in this building
going to heaven except by the grace of God. That's the only
way you're gonna get there. Won't do any good. Somebody said,
well, I want a lot of flowers at my funeral. I want them banked
up. I want them clear up to the ceiling.
That ain't going to do you a dimes with a good. Somebody said, I
don't want no plastic flowers. I want real flowers. And I want
them put on my grave. Well, what good's that going
to do you? Well, there's something spiritual about them bouquets
and flowers. Bank them up. Bank them up. Bank
them up. Ain't going to do your soul one
dimes with a good, my friend. The grace of God only can get
you in. And that's the only way that
you're going to be in heaven. So what do you know about the
grace of God? You say, well, preacher, I go
to church. I go to church. But what do you know about the
grace of God? You say, well, I've tried to
be honest and truthful and a respectable person. But what do you know
about the grace of God? Do you think you don't need the
grace of God? Do you think that I'm here just filling space with
words this morning? No, no. Salvation must be by
the grace of God because of who you are and because of who God
is. You can't have it any other way,
and God's not in the business of saving anybody any other way. God is the thrice holy God, and
He'll not have fellowship with anybody that's not as righteous
as His Son. And the only way He can make
you as righteous as His Son is to put you in His Son. And that He does by His sovereign
grace. He puts us in His Son. He puts us in Christ. Now then, I think maybe that I probably better
be winding this thing up here. The time is getting away. I wanted
to just, well, I'll just go ahead and pass up some of this, and
I want to just give a word of encouragement quickly here to
you that are lost. You know, I know that a lost
man, if he truly has been brought under the power of the Holy Spirit. Conviction. And if the Lord has
opened his eyes, if the Lord has given some enlightenment,
I know that in that illumination, a man becomes thirsty. He becomes
thirsty. Now, you know what the grace
of God says to a thirsty soul? The grace of God says, come ye
to the waters and drink. If you're thirsty. Come ye to
the waters and drink. And then I know a man gets hungry
when he hears the gospel and he's tried everything, he's tried
to be good, he's tried, he's tried, he's tried. He's hungry. Well, grace says, eat that which
is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness. That's what
it says. Fellow says, well, I'm poor.
I've been brought down to where I'm just very poor. I'm poor
in spirit. I can hardly lift up my, it's
like I'm like that old publican that said he couldn't lift up
his, couldn't lift up his eyes, but smote on his breast saying,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I'm poor. I have nothing to pay. Come ye buy and eat. Yea, come
buy wine and milk without money and without price, says Grace.
Just come. Come. Come to Christ. The fellow
says, I'm weary. I'm a heavy laden preacher. Well,
come unto me and I'll give you rest, says Grace. I'm staggering
under the burden, says the traveler on life's highway. Cast thy burden
on the Lord and He will sustain thee, says grace. But I'm guilty,
I'm a sinner. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow, says grace. But I'm bound and
I'm helpless under the power of sin. I cannot free myself
if the Son shall make you free. You shall be free indeed, says
grace. But I'm old and helpless. Life
on earth is nearly done. The sun is sitting for me. Well, in my father's house are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you, says grace. Believe on me. Now, I want to encourage the saint
of God, too. If you're lost, be encouraged. Look to the Lord
Jesus. To the saint of God, let me say
that you may think there's not enough grace to get you by. And you know the thing that really
laid hold of me, my preparation for this message, was this statement
made by Paul, and his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was
not in vain. It was sufficient, it accomplished,
what it must accomplish now beloved it is senseless for you to dwell
on that there may not be enough grace to get you through there
is grace you know uh... paul was told by our lord he
said my grace is sufficient for thee i remember one time reading
a statement by an old preacher and he said commenting on my
grace is sufficient for thee. He said it's like a mouse getting
into a huge granary and there he's in that huge granary, he
sees all of that grain and you think that mouse would say, is
there enough grain here for me? No, he wouldn't say that. And
those that have found the grace of God and the grace of God has
laid hold of and they've experienced God's grace, there's no no question
there's enough to see you through there is enough to see you through
unto eternal glory there was an old preacher in england uh... he knew a poor preacher and uh... so he sent this preacher five
pounds of money to help him out and he did this twenty different
times and every time he sent five pounds He would write a
note saying, there's more to follow, there's more to follow,
there's more to follow. And God would say, I forgive
your sins. but there's more to follow. I
justify you in the righteousness of my son, but there is more
to follow. I adopt you into my family, but
there is more to follow. I educate you for heaven, but
there is more to follow. I've helped you even to old age,
but there's still more to follow. more to follow. I'll bring you
to the brink of Jordan and bid you sit down and sing on the
banks of the black stream, but there is more to follow. In the midst of that river, as
you're passing into the world to come, my mercy shall still
continue with you, and when you land in the world on the other
side, there shall still be more to follow. more to follow. So in closing, let me this morning
say, be encouraged. Be encouraged! Paul said, I am
what I am by the grace of God, and as long as God's grace is
bestowed upon me, and that it's not in vain, I shall, I shall,
and I will say this morning to the enemies of the gospel, to
the enemies of the grace of God, to the devil himself, That if
I be cast down, I shall arise. I will arise by the grace of
God. And I will endure unto the end
by the grace of God. By the grace of God. If there's
any poor sinner here this morning, don't leave this room here saying,
I just know I can't be saved. Don't do it. God saves by grace. And he has an abundant. Paul
said, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding abundant
with faith and love. God loves his people with an
exceeding abundant love. And he gives faith in the same
way. Just step out and believe it.
Believe it in your heart. Believe it. You don't have to
move a muscle to be saved. Just believe it. Lay claim to
it. God loves me and he gave his son for me and I believe
it in my heart. I believe it and I'll rejoice
and believe it as long as I live in this world and then go on
to heaven to enjoy it to the full. May God bless you this
morning. Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, in the altogether lovely one's name, in the name of him
who said, without me you can do nothing, we ask that these
that are helpless poor sinners here, that they may be able to,
in their hearts today, lay claim to salvation in Christ. They
may, in their hearts, take that step of closing with Christ,
and embrace Him with all of their soul, and say, I'll have Him!
I'll have Him unto eternity. My poor soul shall not die in
sin. I will have Him. I will trust
Him. And then for these struggling
believers, oh, for all of our hearts, oh, give us a renewed
ability this morning to see the grace of God and to lay hold
of it and to rejoice in it and be glad in it and help us to
get on our Father in the way that we're to go. Strengthen
us and overcome whatever backwardness and ignorance and indolence our
Father there is in us and enable us to arise and go forth. In the name of Jesus, in the
name of Jesus we pray, amen.