I would like for you to keep
in mind this text of scripture that we read to you this morning,
here out of 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I want you to turn with me
to the book of Romans chapter 5. I'd like to read two verses
here in the 5th chapter, verse 20 and verse 21. Verse 20 and
verse 21. Iím sure that after weíve spoken
for a while youíll see the connections in these verses that weíve read
today. Verse 20 of Romans 5 says, ìMoreover
the law entered, that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded
Grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life. by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now if you would turn with me
to the second chapter of the book of Ephesians and notice
with me verse 5. Verse 5 of Ephesians chapter
2. Even when we were dead in sins
hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved. that phrase, by grace ye are
saved. Now the Apostle Paul addresses
certain people to whom he is able to say, where he is pleased
to say, ye are saved. He says, by grace ye are saved. Now, there are two things that
stand out to me in this statement here that Paul made in Ephesians
2, verse 5. We are told in Romans 5 that
grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, that grace
is a REIGNING grace the grace of god rain were sent about it
grace did much more about by grace you're saved it says two
things to me number one and that is that those who have experienced
the grace of god that they have a present salvation a present
salvation now beloved there is no other uh... religion in the
world except that which speaks and proclaims the grace of God,
that can offer a present salvation or teach a present salvation. Now this salvation that we have,
when Paul says, by grace ye are saved, he did not imply that
we're going to have this just when we die. In other words,
that we'll be saved when we die. That wasn't what he was saying.
He says you have a present salvation, not in some future state. But
you've got it right now. If you are saved by grace, you're
saved now. It is a present salvation. Not salvation in prospect, but
it's a salvation that we presently enjoy. Now in John chapter 5
verse 24, we're told that he that believeth has passed from
death into life and that there's no condemnation awaiting them. They've passed from death into
life through believing. They have a present Salvation
they are right now the children of God having been born into
the family of God Having experienced the regeneration of God's Holy
Spirit in their soul They're right now saved by grace ye are
saved Now grace reigns unto eternal life. It's grace that saves the
soul Now there's another thing And I just want to say a word
or two about this. We know that in the religious
world there's a great deal of heresy. And we know that this
heresy will not allow men to preach a present salvation. The only people who can preach
it are those who believe in the grace of God and those who preach
grace. You ask the Pope. Does your people
enjoy a present salvation? You ask the religious world.
Ask those who are leaders in the religious world. Do your
people have a present salvation? You can ask the Armenians. Do
you preach that people have a present salvation and that they can now
enjoy salvation? Well, of course they'll tell
you, no, you can't know now. There's no way until you die
and until your good is weighed against your bad. There's no
way that you can possibly know now whether you're saved or not. Well, the Apostle Paul said,
by grace ye are saved. It's not a question as to whether
or not you're saved. These to whom he was speaking,
they were saved. They were saved right now. They
had present salvation. And then there's another thing
I see here. For Paul to be able to make this
statement, they must have had a perfect salvation. The moment
a man believes, he's not put into a savable state. No, he
now has a perfect salvation. a perfect salvation. He is complete
in Christ. His salvation is not something
he's perfecting day by day as he lives out his life, as he
travels on this journey in this pilgrim world. It's not something
that he's attempting to perfect. It is something that's already
perfect because of the grace of God. His sins are forgiven
as much as they ever will be forgiven. It's not a matter that
we're going to be more forgiven later on than what we are now.
Are you waiting to rejoice in sins forgiven until sometime
later when you feel that your sins are going to be more forgiven
than they are now? My friend, there's no need to
wait. You rejoice now. We have a perfect
salvation right now. Our sins are for as much forgiven
as they ever will be. We are as much accepted today
as we ever will be. Say, Preacher, I want to work
on my case a little bit. I believe that if I can perfect
a few more things in my life, if I can come across some more
of the spiritual characteristics and traits in my life, that I
will be more perfect and that I'll be more accepted of God.
My friends, you cannot be more accepted of God than you are
in the Beloved. God considers nothing else in
the accepting of men and women unto himself except the Beloved
One. And the Beloved One, my friend,
is Jesus Christ. And we know that this includes
the imputation of righteousness, that God's people are righteous
as they stand in the Lord Jesus. They cannot be any more righteous.
We're as righteous as Christ is because our standing is in
Him. Paul said, by grace ye are saved. You're saved with a perfect salvation. Now there's no other system on
earth wherein you will find a perfect salvation preached. to men and
women that are still alive in the flesh. No other religion
will dare preach a perfect salvation, a present salvation, a perfect
salvation. Only where grace reigns will
you hear it preached. Only where the grace of God is
exalted, and where men and women are told that where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound, and that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal salvation. Only where grace reigns can you
have a present and a perfect salvation. Now, beloved, if grace
is believed, by people. If grace is believed by a preacher,
then the grace of God, where it is believed, it dominates. It dominates. Now this is something
that I want you to see. I'm no authority on preaching. I'm no authority on pastoring
or anything connected with this high calling, with this noble
calling of preaching the gospel, but I'm not an office. I've been
around a good while, and I've been involved in this business
of preaching, and I've observed some things over the years. And
I want to make this statement that wherever the gospel of God's
grace is preached, wherever the gospel of God's sovereign grace
in Jesus Christ is preached and believed, this grace dominates
everything in that place. The grace of God dominates everything
in that place. Now I'm not going to be a judge,
or I'm not going to condemn any man in regards to his ministry,
and I'm not one to judge churches that I don't know anything about.
But where people profess to believe and preach the gospel of God's
grace, I will be lenient, I'll be charitable, and as far as
I can, I'll leave them alone, and I'll say, God bless you,
and God prosper you as He sees fit. But there's one thing that
I know, And having said what I have, I assure you this morning
of this, that wherever the grace of God reigns, it radically alters
at least five things that I want to mention to you. The grace
of God radically, it radically alters at least five things. Number one, let me set it forth
to you this morning like this. Number one, the messenger in
that church. that preaches the grace of God,
that messenger, the grace of God, dominates him and it causes
him to be what he is. A pastor or preacher who has
been saved by the grace of God, who knows and believes and preaches
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ, does
not dilly-dally around in the pulpit playing with men's souls. He does not waste his time defending
some theological position, or promoting programs, or in spinning
righteous morality, or working up a frenzied fit of emotionalism
in people. The man who has seen And the
man who has experienced the glory of God in the face of our Lord
Jesus Christ is both humbled and emboldened, and the burden
of his soul is that those that hear him preach, that they come
to know, that they come to love, that they come to trust, and
that they come to follow none but the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is exalted and preached to those people. That preacher knows what
he's about and the people that hear him will be preached to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not be dilly-dallying
around with them and leading them off here and there and somewhere
else. The messenger will be dominated
by the grace of God. Now number two, the motive. The
motive both of the pastor and of the church. The pastor and
the church that are convinced and committed to the gospel are
no longer motivated by numbers or by appearance and success. This is not what motivates preachers
that are dominated by the grace of God. They no longer crave
recognition. Instead, they are motivated by
and they crave the glory of God. There's only one thing that a
church that is dominated by grace Believes they believe that they're
there that God has placed them there that God has put them in
the position that they are To glorify his name. I asked you
to turn back with me to the book of first Kings chapter 18 There's
a great verse here that I'd like for you to see this morning first
Kings chapter 18 and I want to read verse 36 and verse 37 and And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that
I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy
word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou
hast turned their heart back again. We see where that Elijah,
that he was very zealous for the glory of God, for the honor
of God. that men might know the Almighty
God. And so the motive of this church
and the motive of the preacher that believes in the grace of
God, his motive is the glory of God. Their motive is, the
name of the Lord be exalted, God be preached up, the sinner
be preached down, God be glorified. Now the next thing that I know
that is radically altered by the grace of God when it is believed
is the message of a preacher and the message of the church.
Now the message of God's servant and of God's church is crystal
clear. There can be absolutely no question
what God has sent us to declare. We read out of the book of II
Corinthians, chapter 4, where Paul said that we preach not
ourself, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and we're your servants
for Jesus' sake. We preach Christ and Him crucified. Christ is all to us. Christ is all in all to a church
that believes in the grace of God. We don't have any other
message. We got nothing to say about each
other except we will say that we're sinners saved by grace
and that's as far as it goes. We have nothing else. We will
not spend our time lifting up or in any way, shape, or form,
trying to in any way eulogize flesh. We won't do that. Our
message is Christ and Him crucified. The gospel of salvation by God's
free and sovereign grace through the merits of Christ, substitutionary
obedience, is the revelation, as far as we're concerned, of
the whole counsel of God. That is the counsel of God, the
gospel. This is not an occasional theme
of ours. This is not an occasional theme,
as it is with some preachers, but it is the constant theme
of the ministry in God's house. We read in 1 Peter chapter 1,
There's two or three verses that I'd like to read to you out of
this chapter, 1 Peter 1, verses 23 through 25. Being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as
grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass, and
the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away,
But the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you." So I'm telling you
this morning, beloved, that the word of God is not preached.
except as the gospel is preached. And if the gospel be not preached,
let a man, let a church say what they will, the gospel has not
been preached. Any church that believes the
gospel demands that the gospel will be preached incessantly,
and any preacher who believes the gospel, he preaches it incessantly. The preacher will preach it,
and the church will demand that they hear the gospel, that they'll
hear grace preached and set forth to the people that come in to
their meetings. Now the fourth thing that I see
is, the first was the messenger, the second was the motive, and
the third was the message. Now the fourth thing is the methods. which a church that is dominated
by the grace of God and believes the grace of God, their methods.
While grace is believed, the methods or where grace is believed,
the methods that of the Arminian free will works religionist,
they're abandoned. they're abandoned. Somebody said,
well, why can't we be more like some of the other churches? How
come it is that we can't use some of the methods that other
people use? If we were just to use, if we
were just to get rid of that hard-headed preacher, and if
we were to just break down and get busy and start using some
of the methods that other churches use, the results would be the
same as theirs. and we would prosper and it wouldn't
be long before you would have the building full and you would
have the means to do whatever it is that you wanted to do.
But I'm telling you that where grace is believed, the methods
of the Armenians are abandoned. The church ceases to be a social
club and it becomes a preaching center, it becomes a house of
worship, it becomes a banqueting hall for hungry souls where they
can come to hear the Word of God. Gospel churches are built
on gospel preaching and they're built upon the preacher preaching
the grace of God and the almighty spirit of God coming and making
application of that message and building up the church of the
living God as they listen and as they hear the grace of God
extolled and preached. Now the next thing that I believe
is radically altered and you will agree with me where grace
dominates, and that is the music. The music that is found in the
church. Now where the gospel is believed
and preached, the music reflects the doctrine of grace. In the
house of God, there is no place for man-centered music, music
that focuses on human works, emotion, and rhythm gospel music
focuses on the real gospel music, the songs that that glorify God,
that exalt the Lord, that speak of the grace of God in true saving
work of redemption are songs that will praise God. They praise God. They exalt God. They exalt His
glorious person. They exalt His gracious provision. They exalt His good providence
and His great promises. True gospel music, beloved, is
the music of a sovereign grace church. I think these things
are so important for us to understand. Many, many times, we just absolutely,
there are those that will come in, they'll be with us once in
a while, and they cannot understand what it is that drives a little
group of people like this. What it is that sets them apart.
Why are they like they are? Well, beloved, we are dominated
by the message of God's free grace in Jesus Christ, and this
message has radically, radically changed us, and this message
is that one that we have learned and been taught of God. Now you
may wonder about how in the world could anybody ever come to the
place where they would get so wrapped up in the grace of God. Why would anybody ever come to
a place where they would be so dominated by thoughts of grace
that they would behave like we have explained to you this morning
or that they would be so radically affected and so different from
the religions of the world. Why? What is it that those people
know that other people don't know? Well, I invite you to turn
with me back to the 64th chapter of the book of Isaiah. Turn back
with me to the 64th chapter of the book of Isaiah. And when
we're done, Here this morning, if you don't believe in the grace
of God, and if you're not dominated by the grace of God, then my
friend, then there's no hope for you. There's no hope for
you unless God is pleased to take you off somewhere and teach
you these things. These are the things that the
Lord has taught this preacher and has taught many of you here
that you confess, that we all confess, and We are driven to
believe in salvation by grace and we're dominated by the grace
of God. Number one, here in the 64th
chapter of the book of Isaiah, I want to use verse 6 through
8. Verse 6 through 8, and there's
seven things that the Lord has taught every man that he's brought
to himself that causes that individual to believe wholeheartedly in
the grace of God. We read verse 6 through 8. But
we're all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities
like the wind have taken us away. and there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee,
for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our
Father, we are the clay, and thou art our powder, and we all
are the work of thy hand." There are seven things that I learned
from these verses that I believe that God has taught every one
of his true people or are in the process of teaching all the
Lord's true people. Now, I've had a cold for a week
or two, and I have kind of stomped up and plugged up, and it's kind
of hard for me to talk as freely and as fast as I do sometimes.
I'm a little bit hindered in that way this morning. And so,
bear with me if you will. But nevertheless, I want to set
these things forth to you, and I believe that you'll be able
to say amen to these things. Now, number one, the number one
thing, and we read in John 6, I wanted to bring this verse
in because it's so important that we understand that these
are things that a man cannot teach, that only God can teach
them, and in John 6 and verse 44 down through the 45th verse
it says no man can come to me except the father which has sent
me draw him and I'll raise him up at the last day it is written
in the prophets and They shall be all taught of God Every man
therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the father cometh
Unto me they come to me Jesus said if a man has been taught
of God and and hath heard and hath learned of the Father, he
will come to Christ. He must come to Christ. He will
so because there's nowhere else that he can go. Being awakened
and being the Spirit of God has enlightened his mind, he must
go to Christ or he will become a raving maniac. And the reason
that he must come to Christ is because there's nowhere else
for a person like this individual to go because of these seven
things. that we find here in Isaiah chapter
64. Notice them if you will. Number
one, the sinfulness and the utter depravity of our own hearts before
God. We see it in this expression,
we are all as an unclean thing. We are all as an unclean thing. As the Spirit of God taught you,
that you are unclean in his sight, in God's sight. Now this metaphor
is taken from the Levitical law of the Old Testament. And a person
who was unclean could not go up to the house of God. He was
unfit to worship, he was unfit to make sacrifices, he was unfit
to be in the company of other people that had experienced a
work of grace in their lives. They are unclean. We are all, Isaiah said, but
we are all, in verse 6, as an unclean thing. Now then, everything
that this unclean person touched became unclean. and that's our
condition by nature and all who are taught of god they confess
believers know that their hearts are evil and they confess it
there's no possibility of salvation apart from the honest acknowledgement
and the confession of our sin in first john one and nine it
says that if we confess our sin he is faithful and just to forgive
us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,
but we must acknowledge that we're all as an unclean
thing. And if a man understands this
and knows that if he's been taught in his heart by God that he's
unclean, he's got one place to go and that is to the Lord Jesus
Christ and to that reservoir of blood which has been provided
for the washing of sinners. In the second place, what have
we been taught? We've been taught that even our
righteous deeds are abhorrently evil. The next phrase says, and
all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Now, we're not talking
about your sins anymore. We're talking about your righteous
deeds. being abhorrently evil in God's
sight. I'm talking about your best thoughts. I'm talking about your best side,
the best side that you can put forth. I'm talking about the
best side when the sun is shining on it. I'm talking about your
goodnesses, your noblest aspirations, your most holy deeds in and of
yourselves. Your own merit, Isaiah said,
is nothing but filthy rags, rotting, horribly smelly, corrupt, discarded,
minstrel's cloths, and these things, your righteousnesses,
are no more acceptable to God than those rags are acceptable
unto us. Did you get that? your righteousness
is now beloved listen when everything that you count on everything
you put stock in everything you're trusting in when god says they're
just like a bunch of horrible dirty filthy rags in my sight
then you can see where that you to get garments of salvation
and to get those garments that are white and that Those garments
that God, as our tailor, provides for us, we are driven to go one
place. One place. And that is to the
Lord Jesus Christ, who provides us with all that God demands
of us. So even our righteous deeds are
abhorrently evil. And we have no confidence in
our best thing, in our best day of our lives. We have no confidence
in those before us, and we have no confidence in the flesh, our
own, and no confidence in those that will come after us. Our
confidence, we're driven to it! Our confidence is in one, that
is God's altogether lovely Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our confidence
is in Him. Now the third thing that I point
out to you here is our utter helplessness and spiritual inability. Notice what he said, and we all
do fade as a leaf. We all do fade as a leaf. Now, we have no ability whatsoever
to help ourselves. We're like the dead leaf. Have you ever seen one that was
hanging on a tree on a limb in the wintertime? Just one leaf
hanging there, a dead leaf just hanging there being blown by
the wind. Shortly, it'll be blown off the tree along with all the
rest of them that have been blown away, and we're utterly powerless
to do anything to change ourselves. Can a leopard change his spots?
Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? So then he that
is accustomed to do evil can do good. You cannot do good and
help yourself. You're spiritually, you're utterly
helpless. and you're spiritually unable
to do anything that would please God, that would glorify Him,
and that would build for you a store in heaven that God will
accept on your behalf and let you in the pearly gates because
of what you are or who you are. You're spiritually unable. We
all do fade as a leaf. Now the fourth thing is, and
I must hurry, is our utter alienation from God by nature. Notice what
it says. It says, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away. Now, beloved, by nature
we are far off from God. We're lost, we're undone, and
we're incapable of bringing ourselves back to Him. we read in Ephesians
2 that we are brought nigh by the blood but we can't come back
to God There's a gulf that separates us from God. And our iniquities
have carried us away. Our nature is to keep going away
from God. That's our very nature. You're
born with it. Stay away from God! And go away! And go as far away from God as
you can get! Get away! from any thought of
holiness, any thought of righteousness. Get away! Get away! Get away! Men hate the light, the Bible
says, and will not come to the light because their deeds are
evil. Their hearts are evil. And every
believer also knows that he has no power in himself to resist
temptation. Has no power in himself. You can read that in Romans chapter
7 verses 14 through 24. If you're writing down notes,
you write that down and you read that. A believer has no power
in and of himself to bring himself to God. I'm talking about a believer. He has no power to bring himself
unto God to feel the healing of the power of God in his soul
and to feel the victory of Christ in his heart. It's all up to
God by the Spirit to do that in a man, in a believer. Okay,
that's the fourth thing. Now the fifth thing is our total
inability with regard to all things spiritual. Now this is
enlightening. This will cast you on Christ.
This will bring you to Him. This will cause you to flee to
Him. Your total inability with regard
to all things spiritual. I wish that I could command God. I wish that I could be spiritual
when I want to be spiritual. If I could be spiritual when
I wanted to be, I would have been spiritual last Sunday morning.
I would have been in the power of the Spirit on the Lord's Day.
I'd be in the power of the Spirit every Sunday when I walk into
this place. I'd be anointed of God and I would be speaking as
the mouthpiece of God without any hesitation. My tongue would
be as the pen of a ready writer if I could control my spiritual
life. I cannot do so. I have no ability
to do it. We cannot even pray. Notice what
it says here. There is none, in verse 7, and
there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself
to take hold of thee. There is none. Now I know there
are those of you that go through the motions of praying. There
are those of you that maybe are habitual visitors to the closet,
but have you not noticed that you have no ability to stir up
yourself to make yourself seek God like you know that a believer,
a child of God, that is serious in this world of woe, in this
world of sin and rebellion, in this world where it's pressing
upon us and where we feel like always that there's a wet blanket
being thrown upon our spiritual lives. and you find you have
no ability to stir up yourself to seek the Lord. Just no ability. Well, beloved, that's because
no man by nature can or will call upon the name of God. Not
even true believers can by their own strength stir themselves
up to take hold of God in prayer. True prayer must be put in the
heart by God the Holy Spirit. And we stand in awe of it We
stand in awe of it and we have rebuked ourselves over and over
again and we have been mournful about our deadness and the coldness
of our heart and about our weak nests in things of the Spirit
of God, but nevertheless we come before you this morning and admit
before you that only as the Spirit of God breathes prayer in us
and only as our heart is stirred within us can we find ourselves
stirred up to seek the living God. Duty? Talk about duty all
you want to. Plenty of room to talk about
it here. Sure, it's our duty. I'm talking about your inability. And I'm talking about the fact
that you'd better find yourself going always, leaning upon, pleading
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and leaning upon Him and His
efficacy, the efficacy of His intercession on your behalf in
glory. If it's left up to your intercession,
your prayers, your cry, and the strength of your own natural
heart to get a hold of God, you'll never hear from Him again. You'll
never hear from Him again. I'll tell you, grace dominates
our hearts because of the kind of people we are we are spiritually
unable to do anything spiritually that which is flesh is flesh
and that which is spirit is spirit and you've got to distinguish
between the two you didn't know you was this bad, did you? You
didn't know you needed the grace of God this bad. You didn't know
why we made so much of the grace of God, did you? This is the
reason right here. All right? That brings us to
the sixth thing. And that is the justice of God
in the judgment of our sin. We're very peculiar people. But
notice what these said here. It says, Thou hast hid thy face
from us. and has consumed us because of
our iniquities. Now, beloved, we remember reading
in Psalm 51 verses 1 through 4 where David said, let me read
that to you. In Psalm 51, if you've got your
Bible there and can turn hastily, then turn it and listen to these
words. David said, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to
Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender
mercies. blot out all my transgressions,
wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from
my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression,
and my sin is ever before me." Notice verse 4, "...against thee,
thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear
when thou judgest." Notice that verse there. He said, in your
sight I've done this evil, that you might be justified when you
speak and be clear when you judge. Meaning this, that God's people,
being the kind of people they are, they do sin, sin every day,
they sin in everything except those things which they are enabled
by the Spirit of God to do for the glory of God and with a single
heart before God. We've said that even our prayers
need to be repented of. They're not as they ought to
be. We feel it. We feel that there's something
wrong with everything we do. We try to love as we ought, and
our self gets in it. There's everything that we attempt
to do, we find that we have shortcomings in connection with it. And there's
one thing that a child of God will do after coming to know
himself is that he will take sides, and this is so important,
he will take sides with God against himself. He'll say, Lord really
and truthfully when i face what i am and who i am when i face
my behavior i could not expect that you would have been as merciful
to me as you have been i could not expect it and lord sometimes
i murmur and i complain but i have no right to Lord, if you would
have just kept track of my sins and dealt with me as justice
demanded, I would not be nearly as well off as I am today. Every
child of God has got to say that. Every child of God has got to
look to Christ and say, I know that only because of Him, my
substitute, have you been merciful toward me. But Father, I take
sides with you. against myself and I judge myself
that I am unworthy and that I deserve the judgment of God. Thou hast
hid thy face from us and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. We deserve God's wrath. We deserve
it. And so we would justify God.
It's like Charles Spurgeon's mother said to him before he
was converted. She said, Charlie, If God sends
you to hell, I'll have to say amen. I'll have to say amen.
If God sends you to hell to suffer his wrath for all eternity, I'll
have to agree with him. Now, beloved, that's something
I've been taught of God. Would you say that about one of your
children? Well, if you're taught of God, you'll have to say it.
Because we know that God has been merciful, merciful toward
us. and the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's the only reason why we're going to miss the judgment of
God, my friend, is because of Christ and because of His death
on our behalf. The last thing, and we'll be
done here, is that we've been taught, after all of this, we've
been taught what it says in verse 8, but now, Lord, Thou art our
Father. We've been taught that salvation
is by God alone. That salvation is by grace alone. Salvation is of the Lord. But
now, O Lord, Thou art our Father. We are the clay. We're the clay. And we've described the clay.
We've described the clay. And so you know what clay is.
You know what it is. We're made of the dust. And dust
Thou art, and into dust Thou shalt return. and thou art the potter thou
art our potter Ephesians 2 and 10 says we're
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus in two good works which
God has before ordained that we should walk in them we're
his workmanship his people are his workmanship he is the potter
we're the clay And it's good to know that the Lord is not
finished with us yet. He's not finished with us yet.
The Lord is still working. There ought to be a sign. We
ought to all carry one. The Lord is not finished yet. The Lord is still working here. The Lord is still working in
our lives. We're not perfect. We're not
perfect. We're not where we ought to be
yet. But God is still working on it. And we all are the work
of thy hand. You know what it says? And beloved,
that's the reason why that old brother Philpott said, J.C. Philpott said, a man or a thing
is nothing more than what God makes it. And that's what it
says here. And we all are the work of thy
hand. Lord, you're making us. You're
fashioning us. I believe that God would have
us to be like his son in finality, and I believe we're
going to be like the Lord Jesus Christ.