Here in the 2nd book of Corinthians
chapter 4, we read it this morning for our scripture reading. There's
a verse here that I want you to look at in verse 13. 2nd Corinthians
4 and verse 13. It says this, we have the same
spirit of faith. Wonderful when a man can say
that he has faith. faith in the living God, when
he can say, I have the same spirit of faith as others who've written
in the word of God, others who have had something to say that
was important, something that was written down, something that
was engraved in order that we might have the account. And he
says, we have the same spirit of faith according as it is written. Well, where is it written? Well,
in the 116th Psalm, in verse 10, the psalmist said, I believed,
and therefore have I spoken. And so Paul says, we have that
same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed,
and therefore have I spoken. Paul says, we also believe, and
therefore we speak. We believe something, therefore
we speak that which we believe. Now, we're living in a time when
there's many, many uncertain sounds being made on the trumpet. I read this scripture out of
the book of I Corinthians, chapter 14, in verse 7, and it says,
And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or
harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be
known what is piped or harped? In verse 8 it says, For if the
trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to
the battle? If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, then who shall prepare himself for the battle? Now,
beloved, to speak what I do not believe would be hypocrisy for
a man to get up and preach a sermon that he doesn't believe. That
would be absolute hypocrisy. Not to speak what I do believe
would be cowardly. It would be cowardly. Now, there
are many people that claim to have convictions. They say, well,
I believe so and so and thus and thus. You're speaking to
them privately. And they assure you that they
have genuine, sound convictions on different and sundry subjects. And then you hear them say something
like this. Oh, I believe it. I believe it. But I cannot preach it. I believe
it, but my situation is such that I'm unable to preach it. Well, to speak what I, listen,
not to speak what I do believe is cowardly. It's cowardly for
a man to believe something and then he won't preach it. He won't
speak it. And then to speak what I believe
only, only when and where I know it will be received is deceitful. I had a fellow tell me, here
a while back, said, now I am a Calvinist. But he said, I won't
tell nobody I'm a Calvinist. I won't tell them. In other words,
I preach what the Calvinists stand for, but I won't tell anybody
I'm a Calvinist. Well, beloved, I ask the question,
what are you trying to do? Are you trying to slip somebody
a pill that's so slick that they'll swallow it without knowing it? What are you trying to do? And
here's what I'm saying, to speak what I believe only, when and
where I know that somebody will receive it and where everybody
will say amen. Everybody say, I agree with that
preacher. Go on and say it. That's deceitful. You've got
to be willing if you believe something and Paul said, I've
got faith and I've got the same spirit of faith that says that
I have believed and therefore have a spoken. And Paul says,
we also believe, and therefore we speak. Now beloved, if we're
going to make a certain sound on the trumpet in our day and
time, it's a time for preachers to find out what they believe,
find out what the Word of God teaches, and for them to know
what the Word of God teaches, and to get up and make a certain
sound upon the trumpet. We must speak in plain English.
And tell men and women the truth. Now, beloved, if we're going
to make this certain sound so that men will know where they
stand before God. You know, we've attempted and
it is our effort here to preach God as He is to men as they are. Now, we want to be very careful
when we're preaching about God because we don't want to be found
lying on God. We don't want to be found saying
some things about God the Bible doesn't say. And we want to be
careful when we're talking about men, and telling people what
condition they are, in what condition they are before God. We want
to be honest with them, and we want to tell them the truth.
We want them to prepare themselves for what is coming. Man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Men are
going to die. Men are dying around us, and
they're going to die, and they must be prepared. Prepare yourself
to meet the Lord. That's what the language of the
Word of God says. And so, beloved, we must speak
a clear message. Now, in order to do this, There
are three things, three questions that I think that must be asked
and must be answered according to what the Word of God says.
You're not going to be able to approach this business of your
never-dying soul, where it's going to spend eternity, and
know the facts and the truth unless somebody tells you the
truth, unless somebody asks these questions and answers them for
you. And I want to do that in just
the short time that I have here this morning. The first question
is this, and if the gospel is to be preached, if it is to be
understood by men, then this question must be asked and answered.
And here it is. Number one, what happened in
the Garden of Eden? Now all of us have heard about
the Garden of Eden. Every one of us here have heard
that there was a garden one time. A beautiful garden in which God
made a man. And then God took out of the
man ribs and made a woman. And he put them in this garden.
What happened in that garden? There's various theories as to
what happened there. But my friend, you cannot know
where you stand today before God unless you know exactly what
happened in that garden. Well, the Word of God teaches
us that man, when he was in that garden, that he was by his own
action, by his sin, in the garden, when he rebelled against God,
and his was a total rebellion against God, that when he rebelled
against God, he was totally ruined at the fall. He was utterly and
totally ruined. and that his heart became corrupted,
and that he died and fell there spiritually. He was dead when
he sinned there in the Garden of Eden, and he was so dead that
he could not be recovered. He could not be recovered by
any of his own actions. He could do nothing to recover
himself. He was totally and utterly ruined
at the fall. You say, well what happened at
the fall? Was a man totally ruined or was he partially handicapped?
I'm telling you he was totally and utterly ruined at the fall. I'm telling you that man in his
best state is altogether vanity. I'm telling you that when Adam
did what he did, and Adam deliberately sinned against God, he deliberately
revolted there in the garden, he took of that forbidden fruit,
he ate of that fruit, he died spiritually, and when he did
what he did, you did too. And every one of you are dead
in sin until you are quickened to life by the life-giving Spirit
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are dead in sin and you're
spiritually cut off, alienated from the life that is in God.
The sin of Adam brought about the total ruin and spiritual
death of our race so that the natural man has no ability, and
it goes further than that, no ability or desire to bring himself
back in to fellowship with God. He has no ability, that means
you can't save yourself. That means you're shut up. to
being saved by the Lord Jesus Christ or else you'll perish
forever. Not only do you not have the
ability, you don't have any desire either to be saved until God
puts that desire in your heart. Spiritually, you're without a
desire to be better than what you are. And your own nature
is not in any way, shape, or form going to assist you in having
a true spiritual hunger and desire after the Lord Jesus Christ.
Your nature is against a relationship with God. Your nature is against
you drawing near the Lord. It's against you loving Christ,
loving God. It's against you being holy.
Your nature is against everything that's right and everything that's
holy. You fell in sin in the Garden
of Eden and you were utterly ruined and there is no hope for
you apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit of God.
No hope! Okay, that's what happened in
the Garden. Now there's all kinds of theories about what happened
there but that's what the Bible teaches happened in the Garden
of Eden. Now there's this theory that
is advanced by some that men were partially disabled. and that if they get the right
kind of preacher, or if they get the right kind of... if they're
raised right, if they're... get in the right environment,
if their parents have enough money, if their parents love
them enough, then they can be recovered. And there's a spark
in them, and if you fan that spark vigorously, they'll come
to life. It's a bitter truth to that.
That's fantasy. Man is dead in sin. And only the life-giving Spirit
of God can revive them and quicken them and bring them like those
dry bones in Ezekiel. The Spirit had to come upon them
in the form of the wind and blow and they were brought to life. And that's the only way that
a dead sinner can come to life. That's the first question, what
happened in the garden? And we gave you the answer. Man,
he died spiritually when Adam sent in the garden. By one man,
death came upon the world. By one man. One man. Who is that
one man? Adam. Your representative. The representative of all flesh. Adam. When he died, when he did
what he did, you did too. You did too. Now you say, I'd
like to get away from that person. You can't get away from him.
You can't get away from him. He's your daddy. And he's your
representative. And he acted for you. And when
he died, you did. And you can't get away from that.
You can't escape that. Before God, you either stand
in him, Adam, or you stand in Christ. And as long as you stand
in Adam, you're dead. And only when you get in Christ
will you live. Will you be alive. Only when
you're in him. Now then, the second question
is this, what happened at Calvary? What happened at Calvary? We've
all heard of Calvary. That's that place outside of
Jerusalem where Jesus Christ was nailed to the old rugged
cross. He was nailed on that cross outside
of Jerusalem. Well, what happened there when
he died? What happened? Did Christ, by
his substitutionary, and we believe that his death was a substitutionary
sacrifice and atonement, did it make redemption a possibility
or did he actually accomplish the redemption of his people
on that cross? Now let me explain. Did the Lord
Jesus, when he died, make it possible that if you would agree
to it, if you could somehow or other bring yourself to where
you would say yes to Christ, then he has fixed it so it is
possible that you could be saved? Does that mean that? Well, it
does not mean that at all. He actually, when he died on
that cross, he actually accomplished the redemption of his people.
He wasn't there fixing it up so there would be a possibility
that somebody would be saved. He was there actually accomplishing
the work of redemption. and he accomplished it. Thank
God on the behalf of his people. The scripture says that he obtained
by his death eternal redemption for us. He obtained it! He died and paid our sin debt. He obtained eternal redemption.
He did not just make it possible for sin to be put away, but he
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. You see why that
I'm saying that a certain sound must be made upon the trumpet.
It must be made. If a man believes it, let him
say so. I tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ
effectually accomplished redemption on the cross. And everybody for
whom he died on that cross and shed his blood, God's gonna save
every one of them. He will save every one of them.
They're all, they're all, they've been put in Christ from before
the foundation of the world and they're all in Christ and Jesus
died for them and his death was effectual on their behalf. Okay,
now the third question is this. First we said what happened in
the garden? We answered that question. Secondly, what happened
at Calvary? Thirdly, how is this salvation
that we talk about that the Bible talks about how is it accomplished? Hebrews talks about so great
a salvation. It is indeed a great salvation. It's a wonderful deliverance.
A deliverance from sin. A deliverance from bondage. A
deliverance, don't you see, from the penalty of sin which is eternal
death. The second death which is hellfire. Now then, how is this salvation
accomplished? Is it the gift of God, or is
it of man? Well, we know the Bible says,
for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. The scripture says the wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Salvation is a gift. not something in any way, shape,
or form that we can get by responding to an invitation. It is a gift
of God. God gives eternal life to those
that believe on His Son. Can you believe this morning
on the Lord Jesus Christ? If you can believe this morning,
then the gift is yours. It's yours. if you can believe
that Jesus died for you on the cross of Calvary. Now the scripture
says the gift of God is eternal life. Is the gospel just a generous
proposal or is it a proclamation? Is the gospel just good advice
or is it good news? Beloved, I say the gospel is
good news, don't you? It's good news. Not good advice. Christ could have stayed up in
heaven and sent us some good advice. But He came down from
heaven and went to the gory tree and died and shed His blood to
make salvation certain for those that believe on Him. So it's
more than just a proposal. It is a proclamation of good
news. Now, the gospel is not... This is something that we are
working on. That's not the gospel. Somebody
said, I've been working at this thing, preacher. I've been at
it for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. I've been working on this
thing. Well, my friend, I don't have any use for a salvation
that people have been working on. I don't have any use for
that. You know what our Lord Jesus said? He said this. He said it is finished. He said
it's finished. That's the work that the Father
gave him to do. He said I finished the work. And do you know it's
a slam on Jesus Christ. It's a belittling of Jesus Christ
to imply that you're working on something. He said he finished. Now the work of salvation is
a completed work. You receive it as a gift and
it's complete. Salvation, it's not something,
it's not a project that we're working on. It's something which
our Lord accomplished. And we give Him all the glory,
we give Him all the praise. We give Him the glory because
He finished the work. Is salvation then, if it isn't
a finished work, is it by choice? Is it just something that we
decide that we're going to do, or by revelation? Well, the Bible
says that salvation is a revelation. You know what the Lord told Peter?
He said, flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you when Peter said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. He said, You're
the Christ, You're the Son of the Living God, and Jesus said
flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my Father which
is in heaven, He revealed it to you. He showed you this truth. What I'm saying is that this
takes the work of the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit of God must be
present. We're living in a day when there's many personal workers
out and about, religious people who are attempting to get people
in, as the saying is, to the kingdom of God and you know their
their idea is that that that if you make the choice you agree
to a proposition they say would you believe you're a sinner and
you say yes you believe Christ died for sinners you say yes
will you accept Christ as your Savior you say yes and whether
God is there or whether he isn't they pronounce you saved But
I'm here to tell you that you'll never understand those things
clearly apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in your soul.
The Spirit of God must be there to reveal Christ to you. Make Him real in your heart,
real in your mind, real in your soul. Make Him real to you, to
where you know Him. You know the scripture says this
is life eternal, that you might know Him. the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom he sent. Now that word no there, it's
a word that means that we have this intimate knowledge of Jesus
Christ that only can be conveyed through communion and fellowship
in the Spirit, to where we become one in the Spirit with Jesus
Christ. We become married to Him like
a man and a woman. When they get married, when they're
married to each other, they become one in the flesh. And those that
are in Christ are one with Him in spirit. And the Spirit of
God's got to be there. The Spirit of God, it's, uh,
it'd be just like a man and a woman getting married, and one of them
was here in this country and the other one overseas someplace,
and they'd say, You know, we got married over the telephone.
That don't work that way. It won't work. That doesn't work.
That's not the way it is. And so it is when a personal
worker convinces you that you're saved apart from God being there
present, working in your heart, revealing Christ to you. Christ
must be revealed. This is something... I don't
know if I'm getting to making this clear or not or just muddying
the waters, but there's got to be something go on between you
and Christ. and this in the Spirit, knowing
Christ. Knowing Christ. In the Old Testament,
a man married a woman. It was said he knew the woman. He knew her. When you get saved,
you'll know Christ. There will be an intimate union
formed between you and the Lord Jesus. A lasting union. A union that I'll last for all
eternity between you and Christ. That's this salvation. And then
you remember Paul said, when I please God, He called me by
His grace to reveal His Son in me. When I please God. So this is something that happens
when God is pleased to do it. So salvation is not the result
of man's will, it is the result of God's will. It is accomplished
by God's choice, not by man's choice. The scripture says, it
is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. Are repentance and faith moral
persuasions? You hear a lot of talk about
repentance and faith. Repent and believe the gospel
is the admonition. But does that come forth from
a moral persuasion? That's something you ought to
do? Well, it's something you ought to do. but you can only
do that as God gives you the ability and this sometimes people
say well if the preacher is gifted enough he can get people to repent
that if he has the ability he can accomplish this he can get
people to repent wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if a man
could get you to repent genuinely but I'm telling you what he has
to do before he can get you to repent he'd have to change your
disposition You could stand right here or sit here this morning.
You could come forward in this building here this morning and
you could say, I repent. I repent. And you could just
be lying right through your teeth. I'll tell you the only way that
you can repent is for God to give you the disposition where
you can do it. That's the reason why people
say, well, I'm going to repent right before I die. Right before I
die, I'm going to get saved. Right before I die, I'm going
to get right with the Lord. I'm going to make my peace with
God. Duncan McKenzie made his peace with God the day before,
and he didn't want nothing to do with any religion on, what
was it, on Wednesday, didn't he die on Wednesday, or on Tuesday,
well early on Wednesday morning. So on Monday he made his peace
with God, Tuesday he didn't want nothing to do with religion,
didn't want to talk to anybody about it, he already took care
of that on Monday. Now you see that attitude? That's
religion for you. Let me tell you something, I'm
speaking the truth to you this morning, I'm telling you, I'm
making a certain sound on the trumpet. If God don't give you
a disposition that wherein you are sorry for your sin, genuinely
before God, sorry about your sin, sorry about who your daddy
was, sorry about what your daddy Adam did in the Garden of Eden,
sorry about all of this sin business that plagued you and all of your
family all the way back. If He don't give you a disposition,
you can't repent. You cannot. God has to give you
that disposition. You better start asking him for
it. Lord, help me to feel right about sin. Help me to feel right
about who I am and what I am. Because you see, sin is a whole
lot more than just an act. Sin is what we are. That's our name, sinners. And
we better get to feeling what we are so we can come before
God in our true character and receive the provisions he's made
for real, real sinners. Well, in Romans 2 and 4 it says
that the goodness of God leads a man to repentance, not a gifted
preacher. It's a goodness of God. that
leads a man to repentance. God's goodness. A lot could be
said about that. Time's got away from me. But
I'm thankful this morning to have this opportunity just to
make these few remarks on making a sure sound on the trumpet so
that men can prepare themselves to face God. What happened in
the garden What happened at Calvary? What happens when God saves a
sinner? What happens? These are things you must face.
Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, bless this simple, simple,
plain message. May it be used of the Holy Spirit,
somebody's heart today. May they be saved. Lord, we do
pray that you might remember the prayers that were offered
here today on the behalf of mike johnson and his family on the
behalf of those that are traveling on the behalf of the building
situation remember these prayers and may your name be honored
and glorified and may it please you to hear and answer these
prayers for christ's sake we plead the blood in jesus name
amen