word this morning excuse me to
the third chapter of the book of Ephesians Ephesians chapter
3 let me read verses 6 through
8 or 6 through 9 let's read 6 through 9 that the Gentiles should be fellow
heirs unto the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ
by the gospel. Whereof I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by
the effectual working of his power. Unto me who am less than
the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make
all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the
beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things
by Jesus Christ. I was thinking about this, verse
7 and 8 primarily, and about the subject of the unsearchable
riches of Christ. The unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul says, whereof I was made
a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto
me by the effectual working of his power unto me who am less. than the least of all saints
is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ." Now the Apostle Paul felt it
to be a great privilege to be allowed to preach the gospel. He felt it a great privilege
that he was allowed of God to know the mysteries that God had
been pleased to hide in himself from other generations to make
him an apostle to the Gentiles and to reveal the fact to him
and it was by revelation as Paul explains here this morning in
our reading he said in verse 5 which in other ages was not
made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles
should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of
his promise in Christ by the gospel. Paul was accounted worthy
of God to be put into trust, into trust of the gospel, and
in that gospel we find where that God is pleased in Christ
not only to give Jews right standing before him for faith, but also
to give believing Gentiles right standing before him through the
merit and imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then Paul says, whereof I was made a minister according to
the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual
working of his power. The apostle Paul had been given
the gift of the grace of God. He had been given this ministry
by the effectual working of God's power. Paul's father before him
was no apostle. Paul's uncles was not. preachers were not preachers
of the gospel paul did not come by the ministry naturally it
was not that he just chose this profession and got up one day
and said i just think i'll be a minister i think i'll be a
preacher no we know something about how that the grace of god
selected and chose the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, and how
that the Lord saved him and delivered him out of his sin and brought
him to where that he could be a witness of the gospel, the
things which God revealed to him and showed him, and this
was the Apostle unto the Gentiles. Now, he did not look upon his
calling as being drudgery or servitude, but he entered upon
it, I think, with intense delight. He knew that God had given him
grace, that God had blessed him through grace, and had enabled
him to do that which he could not have naturally did. Now, I think also that all of
God's true saints that are called to preachers, all God's truly
sent servants have experienced, I think, much the same delight
in the declaration of the gospel of Christ. I think true preachers
love to preach Christ. I think they love to preach the
gospel. Now, you know, we're not like
heralds that are sent out by an army that's besieged a city. And this herald is sent to the
gates of the city to say, there's no hope. Every one of you in
this city is doomed. There's nobody here that's going
to escape. Everybody here is going to perish
by the sword. There's no hope for any of you.
We will not offer any pardon. We're going to destroy this city. Can you imagine such a great
burden that would be upon a herald that would have to proclaim such
a message as that? Well, a gospel preacher is not
that kind of a herald. The gospel preacher, he has a
message of mercy, a message of grace, he has a message of salvation,
a message of deliverance, a message of pardon to lost men. And so when we preach the gospel,
we preach the only message that will deliver sinners. The only message wherein a sinner
can find some rest and where he can find some hope. where
he can find, what we might say, a hiding place from the impending
judgment of God. And so, beloved, I think that
all those that are truly sent of God, they delight in the privilege
of preaching a message that will be to the salvation of some,
and the deliverance of some, and will keep some, will rescue
some from everlasting burning. Whitfield called his pulpit his
throne. And when Dr. Carey was preaching
in India, his son, he had a son named Felix, who was also a preacher,
and Felix accepted the office of ambassador to the King of
Burma. And Carey said, Felix has dribbled
into an ambassador. In other words, he's went down
in life to the point where he's an ambassador to the king of
Burma. He was a preacher. He was an
ambassador of God Almighty. And so you see, most of those
who have been called to God to preach the gospel, they delight
in the privilege of preaching. And so Paul blesses God that
his great grace was given to him. I'd like to read a passage
to you out of 1 Timothy, chapter 1, where this is very clearly
brought out. Paul says in verse 11 of 1 Timothy
1, he says, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed
God which was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful
putting me into the ministry who was before a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy because I did
it ignorantly in unbelief." And so the Apostle Paul was thankful
that God had so blessed him and had given him the gift of grace
and enabled him to be a preacher of the gospel. I don't have the
ability to put into words what a tremendous, what a tremendous
privilege it is to be entrusted of God with such truths as we
find in the Word of God in the gospel of Christ to preach unto
men. Now I want you to notice a few
things here. While Paul was thankful for his
office, his success in the ministry Greatly humbled him. I believe
that the Apostle Paul was greatly humbled In the fact that God
used him in the fact that he was used of God I take note here
in the third chapter of Ephesians in verse 8 Paul says unto me
who am less than the least of all Saints is this grace given
Paul says I'm less than the least of of all saints. Now I know
that the Apostle Paul was not given just simply to use words
to fill up space. I believe he was truly humbled
by the fact that God had selected him and had revealed the truth
of the gospel to him. how that God was putting both
Gentile and Jew into the same body, that they were all selected
by God in eternal election, all those that He had chosen, and
they would all be brought together into one fold, they would all
have one shepherd, and He, God, would be their God. Now let me
say this, that I believe that true humility, that true religion
in the heart, let me say that a true experience of the grace
of God in the heart will produce self-abasing thoughts. I know
this is not popular in our generation. Most preachers wouldn't get up
and say, I'm less than the least of all saints. Most of them,
especially there are some who have acquired the doctor degree
who would want you not to speak of them in public without addressing
them or speaking of them as being doctor so and so. But the apostle
Paul says, I am less than the least of all saints. And when
a man or woman, boy or girl, has a true experience of the
grace of God in their heart, in conviction, the day of conviction
is a day of self-annihilation. It's a day when an individual
comes down in their thoughts. It's a day when they come to
self-abasement, when they come to realize who they are and what
they are. They come to see themselves as
sinners, lost sinners. Paul said, I was ignorant. He said, I was in unbelief. I
was injurious to the church. I was a persecutor of the church.
I was a blasphemer. Paul didn't try to hide what
he was. He came to see what he was by
the workings of God's Spirit in his heart. He admitted that
he was, he said, I'm less than the least of all saints. In another
place, he said, I'm the chief of sinners. I'm the chief of
sinners, and Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
of whom I am chief. Now I believe that if there's
one word that will comprehend more than another the substance
of true Christianity, of vital Christianity in the heart, I
think it will be found to be humility. That is the word. that
an individual is humble before God. Now, beloved, you cannot
talk about this text without speaking of Paul's humility.
He was humbled indeed. He was humbled indeed that this
grace had been given to him, that God had given it to him.
It was a gift from God. Now, Luther, when he was asked,
what is the first step in religion, he replied, humility. And somebody
said to him, what is the second and third step? And he quoted
this scripture, Be ye clothed with humility, for God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Now all throughout
the Bible, the characters of scripture that amounted to anything
that had power with God that was useful in the purpose and
program of God Almighty were humble men. Abraham said, I am
but dust and ashes. Jacob said, I'm not worthy of
the least of all thy mercies. And Job said, behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? He
said to God. And Isaiah said, Woe is me, for
I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips. And Peter said,
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. O Lord, John the Baptist
said, Whose shoes latcheth, speaking of Christ, I'm not worthy to
stoop down. and to unloose. And he said,
without any degree of hesitation, he said, he must increase and
I must decrease. You see in all of these, you
see in all of these humility. You see that the characters of
Scripture were humble men. You see that they had no, they
were not wrapped up in themselves and they did not feel it necessary
to always be pumping themselves up by lying to themselves about
who they were and what they were before God. One of the things
that is most necessary if we ever are going to get on a solid
foundation Spiritually is that we come to the place where we
know who we are and what we are. And if we are exalted, we know
that we are so by the grace of God. And if we are exalted to
eternal salvation, We know it's all of God's grace from the beginning
to the end, that salvation is entirely wrapped up in the Lord
Jesus, and that if we have it, it's because God chose us in
Him in old time, and has looked upon us from eternity just like
He looked upon His Son. And He's favored us because of
who Jesus is. And it's not because of who we
are, or what we are, because we're sinners. where sinners
were lost and condemned to go to hell. And somebody said, well,
I just think that man is a little bit, he should be given a little
bit more, a little bit more place in this thing. Well, my friend,
you know, David, I was thinking of him the other day and a statement
he made on his deathbed. He said, concerning the covenant
of God, he said, it's an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
insure. But he went on to say, it's not
so with my house. Beloved David said it's not so
with my house. Now he meant by that, that things
were not in his house as he would have them to be. Not only were
they not so in his house, they were not so in his kingdom as
he would have them to be. As he knew before God that they
ought to be. That he would like for them to
be. And also, he knew that things were not so in his flesh. in his body of flesh as they
ought to be, that they were not sold before God as they ought
to be. Now if there's anybody here today
that feels that in the little kingdom of their life that things
are exactly as they ought to be before God, then I feel that
there's a real need for you to examine yourself in the light
of the Word of God. Every one of us would like for
things to be a little different. for things to be better, for
us to be more righteous and holy, for us to be more sanctified
and set apart unto God outwardly than what we are. But you say,
well, but preacher, you mean to tell me that man cannot that
he cannot be all that he'd like to be before God? Well, my friend,
I've never saw anybody, or I've never met anybody, and I don't
know anything about any character of Scripture that was ever perfectly
satisfied with what they were and who they are, or who they
were, as far as their lives were concerned. And Paul, over and
over again, we read where he says, I've not reached the apex. I haven't apprehended that for
which the Lord laid hold of me. But I'm pressing on. I'm pressing
on. And that's what a believer is.
But what about an unbeliever? What about a lost man? What can
a sinner do? What can a sinner do? A man dead
in sin. A man who is separated from God. I'll tell you what
he can do. He can sin. That's what he can do. He can
rebel against the Holy God. That's what he can do. And he
can go to hell. That's what a sinner can do.
He can do all of that, but he can't save himself. And he can't
rectify all that's wrong with him. He's not able to change
himself and make himself into that which would be pleasing
to God at every turn of the road. He can't do it. Our righteousness
is in Christ. All of our merit is in our substitute. All of our merit, all of our
acceptance is in the Beloved. Now those who lay claim to sinless
perfection, and we have a few of them, they're not like the
Apostle Paul, they're not like the characters of Scripture,
they're not like those who have received genuine Holy Spirit
conviction and conversion, but they're those who believe that
they're sinlessly perfect. or that they have not committed
any sin as of late, or maybe that they, well, you know, if
they said to me that they were sixteen foot high, or if they
were to say to me that their eyes were pure diamond, if they
were to say to me that their hair was spun gold, I would rather
believe that than to believe that they had not sinned as of
recently. I do not believe in sinless perfection. There's only one place where
there is no sin, and that is in Christ Jesus. That's where
there's no sin. There's no sin in Him. No sin
in Him. And if you ever get to the place
where God sees no iniquity in you, it'll be because you are
in him and he cannot discover or find sin that he put away
in laying it on Christ and exacting from Christ full payment for
it and then casting that sin behind his back as far as the
east is from the west never to remember it against his people
anymore. I'll tell you this morning that
Paul was a humble man. He said I'm least than all of
the saints. I'm less than the least of all
saints." That was his wording. He was a humble man. Now we take
note of the fact that the Apostle Paul here, somebody said, let me just say
this because I believe it's so important, that the fuller a
vessel becomes, the deeper it sinks in the water. The fuller
a vessel becomes, the deeper it sinks in the water. The more
water a boat's got in it, the more likely it is to sink. And
beloved, when God empties out a man, and pours in his grace,
and pours in of his spirit, and pours in of his power in a man's
life, the lower that man will go down, the lower he'll become
in his own eyes. The more he'll think of himself
as being absolutely nothing. And then there's something else
too. If you would know your nothingness, try to do something for the glory
of God. Try to do something like God
would have it to be done. Just try to do something that's
God-honoring, that'll glorify God, and I'll tell you what,
you'll be humbled by that, you'll see how weak you are, you'll
see how unworthy you are to be used to any degree in the things
of God. Well, there's a third thing that
I've noticed, that the Apostle Paul was never troubled or perplexed
as to the subject of his ministry. You never find Paul asking the
question, What shall I preach? What shall I preach? What am
I going to preach today? You'll never find him having
any problem coming up with a message. You'll never find him having
any distress in his life saying, what's my subject going to be?
He says, here, he said that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ. You know, he told the Corinthians
one time, he said, I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, we preach not ourself,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and we're your servants for His sake.
We preach Christ. Christ is our message. Christ is our message. We point men and women to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now how important, beloved, for
us to see that, that if every preacher, and you may say, well,
I would think that any preacher would know that. Well, you would
think they would, but I'll tell you what there needs to be. There
needs to be a conference held for every preacher in the state
of Montana in which they would all attend And somebody just
get up and preach and talk about what the oneness of the message
of the Bible, and that oneness of the message being Christ and
Him crucified, a man knowing Christ, and preaching him all
the way from old eternity, as he's revealed in the scripture,
all the way clear out through the ages, all of the ages, until
the winding up of eternity. And that, of course, we know
is forever and ever and ever. Now, let me say that the Apostle
Paul mentioned here a glorious person. Now, the Apostle Paul
mentioned, he said, the unsearchable riches of Christ, of Christ. Now, I said that Paul's subject
was Christ, Christ and Him crucified, but to Paul, Christ was a glorious
person, a glorious person. I do not know if you're in love
with Christ or not, but those that love Christ, those who know
what he did, those who understand something about why he came into
this world, why God sent him into this world, and what his
attitude was in coming to this world, those who know something
about that and feel themselves honored of God to have a part
in it because they were in the election of grace from old eternity
Those people love the Lord Jesus, and when His name is mentioned,
immediately they think He is a glorious person. Christ is
indeed a glorious person. The Lord Jesus Christ was the
first promise of God to the sons of men after the fall. That's
found in Genesis 3, 17. The seed of the woman, it is
said, there shall bruise the serpent's head. We know after
that promise was given, it was a long time before Christ actually
came down from heaven. We know there came a day, thanks
be unto God, when Jesus Christ was born in the manger in Bethlehem. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
given a body in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and when he was
born into this world. And then the Lord Jesus lived
for thirty some odd years in this world, tried and tested,
went about doing good, speaking as no other man ever spoke. A
man who blessed those that he visited with and those that his
life touched. And then our Lord Jesus Christ
wound up on the cross. God having bruised him, God hanging
him as it were, God putting him there in order that his people
might be spared. And then the Lord Jesus was raised
from the dead after he was crucified and he was exalted by God. Scripture says he was given a
name that was above every name. And the Lord Jesus was exalted
to the right hand of the Father, there accepted by eternal majesty,
there to appear in the presence of God for us all, those of us
that are in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus is there making
intercession for us. My time is limited. I have a
great deal that I'd like to say about the Lord Jesus. Let me
say a few things that would be, this morning, may be a blessing
to you and that would encourage you to look more away from yourself
and more to the Lord Jesus. Paul speaks of a glorious person,
Christ. He speaks of his unsearchable
riches. Let me say that our Master has
such riches that we cannot count them, we cannot guess about them,
much less we cannot convey their fullness with just mere words. They are unsearchable. That's
the words, the language of Paul. Say what you will, but Christ
is a greater Christ than you think Him to be when your thoughts
are at their highest and when they're at their greatest. The
Lord Jesus is a greater, He's a greater Savior, a greater Redeemer
than you've ever imagined Him to be. Now listen to me, Christ
is more able to pardon than you are to sin. He is more able to
pardon than you are to sin. Christ is more able to forgive
than you are to transgress. And we drank iniquity like water.
We drank iniquity up like a dog lapsed water out of a mud hole.
But our Savior, the Lord Jesus, He is more ready, He is more
ready to supply than you are to ask. I'm talking about the
unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm talking about
this amazing, this wonderful person. Now, he is more ready,
listen, he is 10,000 times more prepared to save than you are
to be saved. He is more able to save you than
you ever imagined. The Bible says in Hebrews 7 and
25 that He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto
God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for
them. He's able to save to the uttermost. Now, never tolerate
low thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ. Never tolerate it. Your highest estimates will dishonor
him. Your highest estimate of him
will dishonor him. You say, Preacher, I've had some
pretty high thoughts of the Lord Jesus, but they're not high enough. You must study more. You must
search out more. You must pray for the Spirit's
revelation of Him more fully to your heart, because your highest
estimate of Christ just will dishonor him. When you put the
crown on his head, you'll only put a crown on him with silver,
out of silver, and he deserves a golden crown. The Lord Jesus
deserves a golden crown. I put a lot of silver crowns
on his head, but the Lord Jesus deserves a golden crown. He deserves
a golden crown. When we sing our best song, about
the Lord Jesus Christ, we only give him poor, discordant music
compared with what he deserves. You know, we sometimes sing and
we're proud of our singing. We say, oh, that was a good song
service today. We really exalted the Lord. We said good things. We had good
things in our hearts as we sang. But, beloved, has there any choir
ever sing a song that was worthy of the lamb that was slain, that
lamb who bought us back from sin, slave market, by the shedding
of his own blood? Has there ever been a course
that's ever been raised to him? that has been worthy of Him?
No, absolutely not. So when you sing your best song,
remember that you're just giving Him a poor discordant music compared
with what He deserves. But oh, beloved, we believe that
He's a great Christ. We believe that He's a mighty
Savior. We believe that great sinners can come to Him And we
believe the best way that sinners can honor Him is by coming to
Him as they are in great need and they're great sinners. He's
a great Savior and the way they could best honor Him is give
up trying to do anything about their case and bring it into
the hands of the great Physician. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
great physician. He dwelt among men so that we
could dwell with God. He walked before men in perfection
so that we could walk before God in righteousness. He laid his glory aside for a
while to guarantee us eternal glory. He was wrapped in swaddling
clothes so that we could be clothed with his royal garments. He humbled himself to exalt us
He was made lowly to lift us up on high. He loved us so that
we would love God. He was made to be sinned so that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He emptied Himself
so that we could receive of His fullness. He faced the wrath
of God so that we could enjoy the mercies of God. He was forsaken
by His Father so that we might dwell in the presence of the
Father and never, never be forsaken of God. He became a worm to raise
up worms from the dunghill of wickedness to set them among
princesses. He was rich, He became poor,
that the poor would become rich. He bore the curse of an offended
covenant so that we could reap the promises of the everlasting
covenant. He grew up as a tender plant
so that we would be as trees planted by the rivers of the
water. He got acquainted with grief
so that we would know real lasting, permanent joy. He was cut off
out of the land of the living so that we would be received
by the Father into everlasting bliss, into everlasting life. He was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter in order that we would be brought as sheep to the shepherd. He was numbered with the transgressors
so that we would be numbered among the righteous. He turned
up the cup of God's wrath and drank it dry so that we could
with joy drink from the cup of salvation. He wore a crown of
thorns for us so that we could wear a crown of life. He who
was the Son of God became sin, so that we who were nothing but
sin might become sons of God. The innocent one became by imputation
the guilty one, so that the guilty ones would become innocent. Christ
died that we might live unto God. He arose and ever lives
to see to it that all for whom he suffered, all that he bled
and died for, might receive the very blessings that he bought
at Calvary. My friend, the Lord Jesus Christ
has unsearchable riches. Now there's another point I want
to make in my last point here this morning to you. and that
is that there must have been a royal intention in the heart
of Christ in sending out Paul to preach of his unsearchable
riches. I say a royal intention because
every man I think must have a motive for what he does and beyond all
question the Lord Jesus had a motive behind sending Paul out to speak
of his unsearchable riches. Did you ever hear of a man, a
wealthy man, a rich man, who employed a number of people just
to go about to proclaim his riches? Did you ever hear of that? Simply
to tell people that so-and-so is very rich, that so-and-so's
got a lot of money, that they've got all of this land and properties,
they have all of this wealth. Well, did you ever hear of anything
like that? Well, I wouldn't be interested
in hearing anybody like that speak. I hear every once in a
while somebody talks on television about there's certain individuals
that struck it rich, certain individuals that just, you know,
fabulously wealthy, got wealthy in business or wealthy some way
or the other. Well, really that's of no interest
to me. But if at the conclusion of what
these people had to say, if at the conclusion the message could
say all these riches which I present to you that this individual owns
and whoever among you will desire to be made rich can now be enriched
by him. In other words, he'll give you
of his riches. Then I would listen a little
bit more intently, wouldn't you? I'd say, well, hey, this is worth
listening to. I'll listen to this fella. This
fella got something to say that, you know, it just kind of more
or less might fit into my situation. I mean, here's this wealthy guy
up here, and he's willing to make others wealthy, and willing
to share his wealth with others. Now I'm talking about the royal
intention of the Lord Jesus Christ to send the Apostle Paul to the
Gentile world to speak of the unsearchable riches of Christ. That's what I'm talking about.
And God's motive was, listen, you can get the drift of what
I'm talking about. God's motive was, I want Paul
to go out here and speak of the unsearchable riches of Christ
because Christ has all power in heaven and on earth and he
can give repentance and remission of sin. He can give it. He's
got the ability. He can pardon iniquity and sin. He has power to do it. He has
power on earth to forgive a sinner, and to blot out a sinner's past,
and to give him his merit. And the Lord Jesus has merit.
he has merit. I'll tell you, listen to me,
there are times, and these are precious times, when an individual
can go to prayer, and he can go to prayer, and he doesn't
have a thing on earth he can mention to God, he don't have
a thing on earth to talk about, he's absolutely a blank when
it comes to having a thing to talk about, but he can talk about
the merit of his substitute. He can talk about the Lord Jesus
Christ and he can pray out his heart and he can cry to God. He can cry to God and he can
use the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ to petition God and to
plead with God that God would hear him, that God would undertake
for him, that God would do for him what he would do for Christ. He can plead the merit of the
Lord Jesus. And few people never learn anything
else from this poverty-stricken, destitute sinner standing before
you. It is this that the substitute,
the Lord Jesus Christ, He has merit and He always pleased God. And when we pray, use His name. Use His name. Use His merit. Tell the Father about your substitute,
about His perfection, about His righteousness, the weight of
His work and His merit. Bring it before the Father and
plead it as it is your own, because if you rightly understand representation
and substitution, everything that Jesus did, I did. I have done in Him everything
He is today as He is seated at the right hand of God. I am as
I am in Him. And I can plead that. I can plead
that. The devil can't shut my mouth.
I can plead that. I can plead that. No matter how
destitute I become, I can plead the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can plead His power. He
said, I've got all power in heaven and earth. I've got all power. I can do whatever I purpose to
do. I'm head over all things to the church. just plead my
power plead my power and pray and seek him now he has glory
too he has glory Christ has glory and you know what there's coming
a day when we're going to have that glory that glory that he
had with the Father before the world was. He said, Father, my
will is that they be with me, that they behold my glory, that
they see my glory, that they become heirs with me of eternal
glory. And He's got glory. And I want
in on that. I don't have any other way of
getting it, but in and through my substitute. That's the only
way a poor sinner can have glory. If you want some glory, praise
God, you can have it in the Lord Jesus. I'm talking about this
wealthy one. And I'm talking about Paul and
Christ's intentions when he sent him out, his royal intentions.
Send him out to preach of the unsearchable riches of Christ
that those who hear of it may also have part and a lot in it. Praise God. That's wonderful.
Well, this is the motive then on the Lord's part for bidding
us to preach a full Christ. That's the motive. My dear friend,
you do not need any merit nor strength, nor any goodness in
yourself, for Jesus gives you all of these in himself. You may be sitting here this
morning and you say, I'm destitute, Preacher. I am without. I don't
have grace. I don't have strength. I don't
have faith. I don't have anything, Preacher.
I don't have anything. Listen to me. If you had a friend,
and he was very well off, and that friend said, everything
I got, you're welcome to, everything I got, all you got to do is just
come to me when you have a need. Just come to me. He said, everything I got is
yours. All mine is thine. Come to me. Now, beloved, when
you have a friend like that, a rich friend, Like that, you
don't need to be independent of Him. You don't need to be
independent of Him. You don't need to have a stock
of your own. You don't need to have something yourself. Give it up. Just admit what you
are, admit your condition. And Christ will provide everything
for you. It's in Christ. Just you get
it from Him. You don't need an independent
stock. You don't need an independent. So how rich then must those be
who have Christ for a friend? If it be true that all Christ
has, He has given to His people, then how rich are those that
are in the Lord Jesus. And how foolish, on the other
hand, must these be who will not have Christ when He is to
be had simply for the asking. How foolish must one be not to
ask and receive from the hands of the Lord Jesus. Somebody says,
may I have Him? Well, the language of old John
Bunyan was to sinners, come and welcome sinner. Come and welcome
sinner, come. Come. The songwriter wrote, let
not conscience make you linger, nor fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is
to feel your need of him. This he gives you, tis his spirits
rising, beating. Come with your great sins, your
great cares, and your great wants. Come. He'll not upbraid you. Come. He'll not upbraid you.
He'll not say, well, you should have come before, and you should
have. You ought to come before. You'll only come when you're
able to. You can only come when God enables you to come. you
can only come savingly to Christ when the Holy Spirit draws you
to Him. And the Father will not upbraid
you. The Son will not upbraid you. He'll receive you and give
you right standing before Him and His Son, the Lord Jesus.
I cannot... I can preach Christ to you and
I've tried to do that today, but I cannot preach you to Christ. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
Only God can draw poor sinners unto Himself. But I hope today
that you have had in you just a little hunger created, a hunger
created in your heart for Him, this amazing Savior, the Lord
Jesus, this rich One, who said, Paul said, we know His grace,
and He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich. Well,
I hope that somewhere or another you've been enriched by hearing
something about the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ.