I want you to turn in your Bible
to the New Testament, to the book of 2nd Corinthians, 2nd
Corinthians chapter 13. We begin our reading with verse
1. This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of
two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I told you before, and foretell
you, as if I were present the second time, and being absent
now, I write to them which hithertofore have sinned, and to all other,
that if I come again, I will not spare. Since ye seek proof
of Christ speaking in me, which to you word is not weak, but
is mighty in you. For though he was crucified through
weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are
weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God
toward you. Examine yourselves whether you
be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye
not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
ye be reprobates? But I trust that ye shall know
that we are not reprobates. Now I pray to God that ye do
no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that ye should
do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. For we can
do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are
glad when we are weak, and ye are strong, and this also we
wish, even your perfection. Therefore I write these things,
being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness according
to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not
to destruction. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, Mature, that word
is, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and
the God of love and peace shall be with you. Greet one another
with a holy kiss. All the saints salute you. The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion
of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. May the Lord add his
blessing to the reading this morning of his word. It is good to have each one of
you here this morning, and we're thankful to have a little warmer
place this morning to meet than what we had the past Sunday. We're thankful for the mercy
of God that never fails his people. The Lord does give strength to
bear the trials of this life. Our Lord Jesus Christ hung on
a cross, suffered the vengeance and wrath of Almighty God. He
endured all the wrath of God on the behalf of his people.
The poet said, with strength enough, but none to spare, but
none to spare. And you and I were told in the
book of 2 Corinthians chapter 13, by the way, turn back there,
we're told that our lord was crucified in weakness uh... yet he lives by the power of
god our lord jesus was raised from the dead after he was crucified
he was buried was in the tomb three days and three nights and
the lord raised him from the dead and then paul makes this
astonishing statement he says for we also are weak in him and
those of us that uh... know the Lord Jesus Christ, have
been led in the way of the Lord, we recognize and feel somewhat
of that weakness. We know that our weapons, the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly,
but they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
Ours is a spiritual warfare And I recall preaching recently the
sermon on loyalty to Christ about the 600 men that were loyal to
David. And one of the points I made
in that sermon was that they took on David's condition. Those
600 men took on his condition. He was at that time deprived
of the throne and deprived of the comforts of the palace in
Jerusalem. And he was out there in the wilderness,
trotting the mountainside, and barefooted, weeping. And I told
you that those that are in Christ and know Christ, we take on his
condition in this world. Is he despised? So are we. Is
the Lord Jesus Christ, is he still and yet slandered and spat
upon in this world? Then so are his followers. Was Christ weak when he was crucified? Yes. Then you and I are weak
through him. And we don't have the physical.
God is not pleased to give us all the physical power. But we
do have that power that resides in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we're thankful this morning to be on the resurrected side of
the grave in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I invite you, if you have
turned back, to 2 Corinthians chapter 13 I want you to look
at verse 5 and verse 6 Paul says examine yourselves Paul was writing
to the church at Corinth and he says I want you to examine
yourselves I'm recommending that you examine yourselves not somebody
else but yourselves whether you be in the faith prove your own
selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you. Know ye not your own selves how
that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. But
I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. Let us pray. Father, we're grateful
this morning that you have spared us. another week and we feel
somewhat our unworthiness to stand here before your people
this morning and to open our mouths and to preach your precious
and blessed word. But we do ask this morning that
you will enable us through your grace, seeing that you have had
mercy upon us, seeing that you've not cast us away seeing that
you are yet our Father leading and directing and guiding, seeing
that you have yet promised your church that you would be with
them when they meet together, we ask that you'll meet with
us today and we ask that you'll give the preacher a word today
whereby these that are under the sound of our voice, that
are strangers to Christ, that they might be brought to know
him today. I pray that we might have words to edify the saints,
to build them up in the holy faith. May it please you, our
Father, to yet raise up in our midst fresh believers in the
grace of God. May it please you to lay hold
of some of these young people here and to teach them your grace
and to distinguish them and separate them, our Father, and anoint
them with the power of the Holy Spirit to go forth in this world
and preach the gospel of your free grace. We ask that you will
do a great work in the midst of this poor, afflicted people
and that you will mightily work to the saving of sinners and
to the building up of those that are now believers. Lord, we ask
that you will solve our problems. Thou knowest, our Father, what
those problems are this morning, and we commit them into your
hand. We thank you that there's nothing that is hidden from thee,
that you know all things, and you know the problems that are
at hand. We ask that you would direct
this church, give wisdom and understanding, our Father, to
each member, and we do pray that We may be led in regards to what
to do about a meeting place, what to do, whether we should
make some move at this time, direct this assembly, direct
this body, show us thy will, open the way before us, go before
us. We seek no will but thine. We
desire no will, Lord, but thy will, and we ask that you will
lead us in the way. Thank you again for this time
of fellowship. We thank you for the love of
your people, how we praise you for this assembly of believers,
what you have done in raising up this precious, precious body. We thank you for each member
here today, and we ask for your encouragement to be given to
their lives. In Jesus' name, amen. I hope this morning that You'll
be able to give me your attention for a little while. I want to
speak this morning from verse 5 and 6, primarily from verse
5. I do hope that the Lord will
give you a hearing ear today, that you'll hear for eternity. The subject is examine yourself. Examine yourself. Now there's
a great many people in hell today who while they lived upon earth,
they presumed with great confidence that they were God's children.
Now Paul makes it clear here that he was no reprobate. Paul
was no reprobate. But Paul says that if Jesus Christ
is not living in you, except he be in you, then you are a
reprobate. If you're a religious person,
If you're someone here this morning and you have great confidence
in your religiosity and you're just dead certain that because
of your morality, dead certain because of your standing in the
community, because of the fact that you've never been caught
in any big scandal in this world, that you are going to heaven,
my friend, I want you to know this morning, Paul says, you're
a reprobate. You're one of those that God
Almighty's rejected and gonna pass up. God's gonna go right
by you. The purpose of God, the river
of the purpose of God's gonna flow right by your feet and go
right by you and you're gonna be left to yourself and left
to eternal judgment. Now, there are many that have
lived and died under the delusion that all was well with them when
nothing was well with them. There wasn't anything that was
well with them. But they were under the delusion
that everything was well, and now they're suffering the horrible
wrath of God in hellfire. Now there are also many, I think,
who live in peace today. Many living in this world that
are alive today, breathing the breath of life, who are confident
that they're born of God. But yet they're strangers. They're
strangers to the true grace of God. They may feel sometime that
they're saved, but they're really strangers to the true grace of
God. They're religious, yes. They're
zealous, yes. They're self-righteous, no question
about that. But they're without Christ. The
Bible says that it's Christ in you that is the hope of glory. Know ye not that Jesus Christ,
how he is in you, except you be a reprobate. Jesus Christ,
he must live in you, he must be formed in you by the power
of the Holy Spirit, or you have been passed by by God to this
good hour. Now listen, the wrath of God
is upon all of those who are outside the Lord Jesus Christ.
The wrath of God abides on the children of disobedience. The
wrath of God abides upon all of those who have been separated
from God by their sin. And if they die in their sin,
they must for all eternity be separated from God. Nothing changes. They'll be separated from God
just like they are now. They'll be separated from God
for all eternity. Separated from all those that
are holy and all those that know God. All of those that were truly
in Christ. They'll be separated for all
eternity. Does this concern you? Does this
concern you, I ask? Well, my friend, you have an
ever-dying soul, and you're going to live somewhere for all eternity. It ought to concern you mightily. Well, does it concern this church? It ought to concern this church
that there may be people that are sitting right here with us
today who are under a delusion. There may be people here today
that are reprobates. There may be people here today
that are strangers to the true grace of God, headed for a certain
hell, and it ought to concern this church. We ought to have
a burden. We ought to have a desire, as
Paul did long ago. He said, My heart's desire and
prayer to God for all Israel is that they might be saved.
I'd be willing to forego my part in it all if my brethren and
my kinsmen after the flesh if they could taste of what I've
tasted of. If they could just experience
the freedom and deliverance in Christ that I've experienced.
Paul said I'd be willing to step aside and to forgo all of it
for myself if they could experience something. And beloved, my heart's
desire and prayer for you today is that you will not go on in
your delusion, but that you will come to know the truth as to
whether Christ is in you or not. Because if He be not in you,
you are lost and you are a reprobate before God. Now listen. I want
you to think with me a little bit. The old hymn writer John
Newton who wrote the song we just sang, Amazing Grace, says,
"'Tis a point I long to know. Oft it causes anxious thought.
Do I love the Lord, or no, am I His? Or am I not? Do you ever have that question
come up in your mind, in your heart? Do I belong to the Lord? Am I His or am I not? Am I saved or am I lost? Where do I stand? Now no one
can settle this issue for me or for you, my friend. Only God
can settle this issue in the soul. And he can do it through
the word that he has given to us. This Bible. Do you read this
Bible? I wonder sometimes how much that
the people I preach to read the Bible. Do you read the scriptures? My friend, you ought to read
every day of your life, even if it be just one or two verses,
you ought to read some of the Word of God every day of your
life. Now I urge you this morning to
do what Paul here has told us to do, and that is examine yourself
and not, as we said earlier, not each other. Not necessary
that you pass judgment today upon the person that's sitting
beside you. It's not necessary that you pass
judgment on your neighbor. It's not necessary that you say,
well, I wonder about brother so-and-so, sister so-and-so,
whether they're really saved or not. But my friend, this is
the point of examination. Whether ye be in the faith. Whether you are in the faith. That is the point of examination. It doesn't matter when you got
in the faith. It doesn't matter where you were
at when you came in the faith. Or even who was preaching when
you believed the gospel. That's not the issue. The issue
is, does Christ live in you? Are you in the faith? That is
the issue that Paul is talking about. It only matters. That's
the point that matters. That's the serious matter this
morning. Are you or are you not now in
the faith? This is the issue of examination. Now, if you're in the faith,
you're saved. You're saved if you're in Christ.
If Christ is in you, then you are saved. You are born again. You are accepted of God. God
has accepted you in His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You are
saved, as much saved as you will ever be saved. You are saved,
saved to eternity, if Christ is in you. dwells in your heart. Now if he's not in you this morning,
as we've tried to point out, you are lost. Now the only way
to know whether you be in the faith is to bring your faith
to the Word of God. To bring it to God's Word. Whatever
faith you have. Now I said that there's some
people that are under a delusion. They have some kind of faith. Now, my friend, we need to bring
our faith to the Word of God. In 2 Thessalonians 2 and 16,
I'd like to read here this scripture to you. 2 Thessalonians 2 and
16. It says, Now our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath
given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
comfort your hearts, establish you in every good word and work. Now my friend, here in this verse
of scripture, we're told that God hath given, God has given
as a free gift, He has given a good hope. and that good hope
he has given through grace. Now let me try, if I can, to
answer this morning what a good hope, biblically speaking, is. What is a good hope? Well, first
of all, being that we're conceived, every one of us, in sin, Were
every one of us conceived in sin? David said we were shaken
in iniquity. We were brought forth from the
womb speaking lies. This is Psalm chapter 51. It
is the hope. Listen, my hope is this. that
I shall be born again by the Spirit of God and the Word of
God and be given the very life of God through faith in Jesus
Christ. Now, when we talk about hope,
that's what we're talking about. We're talking about that we be
born again by the Spirit and Word of God and that we be given
the very life of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, beloved, being a sinner,
What does it mean to have a good hope being a sinner by choice
and by practice? And every one of us here are
a sinner by choice and practice. Every one of us choose to sin
and every one of us practice sin. And a man lost, a man dead
in sin, his will is bent towards sin, his will is biased towards
sin, and he sins all the time. Well, seeing that that is the
case, having offended God as we have in thought and in word
and in deed, It is the hope, listen, this is the hope, this
is the hope of the gospel, and that is that my sins, all my
sins, shall be forgiven by the mercy of God and blotted out
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That all of my sins will
be forgiven. That they'll all be put away.
That's my hope. That's my hope. That I'll never
have to face one of my sins in the judgment. That anything that
has been done, anything that is being done or will be done
by this sinner, that I'll never have to face it again. that God
cast it behind his back as far as the east is from the west,
never to remember it again, and that God has buried it in the
depths of the sea, and we'll never see that sin, we'll never
be charged with it, and we'll never have to face it. Now that's
the hope of a saved man. Do you have that hope this morning?
Do you have that hope? Well, the third thing is this,
the having no righteousness nor merit of my own. Because the
Bible says even my righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight
of God. Listen, my hope is that I have
been clothed in the beauty that humbleness, the humbleness of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that I've been clothed in that garment
of salvation and that I stand this morning holy and without
blame before Him, that I stand in Him this morning and that
God looks upon Him and He sees me only as I stand in Him and
there's no sin in Him. He is perfectly righteous. And
listen to me, everything that he accomplished in this world,
in his obedience to God the Father, all the merit of the Lord Jesus
Christ has been put to my account. That is the hope of a believer. That's a good hope! My friend,
if you're righteous in Christ, then you are accepted of God.
You're righteous. You cannot have any righteousness
any other way. My friend, I don't know what
you're counting upon. You know, God demands perfection.
He demands it. You say, He's got no right to
demand perfection of me. My friend, we are not set in
judgment on what God has a right to do. I'm here to tell you this
morning, God demands perfection of you. And you must be, listen
to me, you must be as righteous as Jesus Christ or you cannot
go to heaven. You've got to be as righteous
as Christ. I want to read you a scripture found over in the
book of Hebrews chapter 7. Chapter 7 and we want to read
verse 19. Listen to what this verse says.
There are many who feel that they somewhat are maybe protected. from the judgment of God by their
own personal righteousness or obedience, their having kept
the moral law, their having adhered to, in some measure, to the Ten
Commandments. And that is their righteousness.
They believe that they are protected from the judgment of God by their
outward deeds done in their body. The Bible says in the 19th verse
of Hebrews chapter 7, listen to what this says, For the law
made nothing perfect. For the law made nothing perfect. You that would ascribe to the
law and say, well, I'll just keep the moral law, I'll just
keep the Ten Commandments, I'll just try to adhere to the Mosaic
law, the law makes nothing perfect. And the reason it can make nothing
perfect is because of your weakness. The law doesn't have any ability
to change you. It can't change you. It can't
do anything in you to change you. The law just can command. It cannot make perfect. It cannot
make you perfect. But I want you to listen to the
rest of this verse. But the bringing in of a better
hope did. Did you get that? The law can
make nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope
did. It did, by the which we draw
nigh unto God. Isn't that a wonderful verse?
We can draw nigh to God through the perfection that we have through
this better hope, through the Lord Jesus Christ, Him having
died on our behalf. Him having rendered perfect obedience
unto God the Father, and then imputing that obedience to me. Him making me as righteous as
He is before the Father, and with His holy garments on, I
am as holy as the Holy One. That, my friend, is the Gospel,
and if you never come to see it, you will die on your sin.
The only way to be perfect It's not by the law. It's not through
the deeds of the law that the flesh is perfected. It's through
this better hope. The bringing in of a better hope. And that better hope is by the
merits of the Lord Jesus, and that's the way we draw nigh to
God. That's the way we get near to
God. That's the way we can draw up near the Lord, is and be saved. That is by His righteousness,
this better hope. Okay then, this is my hope then,
being frail as we are, flesh in a body of flesh, subject to
temptations, both within and without, from the flesh and the
devil, it is the hope that by the grace of God, listen to me,
It is the hope that by the grace of God that we will continue
in the faith of Christ and hold to the profession that we've
made and persevere to the end being able to say with Paul,
I have kept the faith. Now my friend, that's the hope
that every believer here has this morning, that God will sustain
them, that God will strengthen them, and that God will keep
them, and they'll be able to persevere unto the end. And our only hope of making it
to the end is the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Now hear me,
being a dying man, I'm going to go the way of all flesh very
shortly very shortly we're all going to have to leave this world
we're going to have to make an exodus we will make an exodus
from this world not at a time of our own choosing but we will
make an exodus from this world because the bible says it is
appointed once it is appointed unto men once to die and after
this the judgment so we're going to die and it is the hope of
every believer in Christ that they will have their part in
the first resurrection when God Almighty comes in the person
of the Lord Jesus and speaks those words like he did at the
tomb of Lazarus. Lazarus come forth! When God,
through Jesus Christ, speaks those words, and the graveyard,
suddenly, the dust is fogging everywhere. Bodies are coming
forth out of the graves. It is the hope of every child
of God that we will take part in the first resurrection, and
that this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible
shall put on incorruption. That's my hope. That's the hope
of a believer. That's the hope of a child of
God. That's the hope of somebody who is trusting in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now listen to me, having a desire
to be with Christ, like Paul, and to be like Christ, it's the
hope that I shall live eternally in His presence. and be perfectly
conformed to his blessed image. Like David said over in the Psalms,
he said, I'll be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. When
I wake up and I'm like you, I'll be satisfied. Well, that day's
coming. That's the hope of every believer. We're going to be like
him. We're going to see him as he is. Every believer will see
him as he is and they'll be like him. Listen to the words of the
poet. These eyes shall see him in that
day. the Lord that died for me, and
all my rising bones shall say, Lord, who is like to thee? There shall I bathe my weary
soul in seas of heavenly rest, and not a wave of trouble roll
across my peaceful breast." That, my friend, is the hope, the good
hope of a child of God. Now we're told that this hope
Now you just try to give me your attention if you can, just a
little bit longer. We're told that this hope is
to be had through grace. It's to be had through grace. Did you get that? Now listen,
Paul tells us repeatedly that we're saved that were justified,
that were called, and that were sanctified, were preserved and
glorified by the grace of God without our works. But what is
this grace that Paul is talking about, that God Almighty has
given us everlasting consolation and good hope through? What is
this grace? He says you're saved by grace. He said you're sanctified by
grace, glorified and preserved by grace. What is it? Well, almost
all professing Christians say they believe that salvation is
by grace. Now the Word of God lays such
heavy, such heavy emphasis upon the fact that salvation is by
grace that it is impossible for anyone to claim to believe the
Bible and yet openly deny that God's salvation is by grace. You can't believe the Bible and
deny that this good hope, and what a wonderful hope we described
unto you, it's a precious hope, a blessed hope for any, any sinner,
and it cannot be had except by grace. And you can't deny If
you believe the Bible, it's by grace. Okay, listen to me. But
most people think and speak about grace in such a way that they
frustrate the grace of God. Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, if it came any
other way than through Christ, then Christ is dead in vain. Now the grace most preachers
talk about I have come to this conclusion, and I say it emphatically,
that the grace that most preachers, and I even hear the Roman Catholics
talk about grace. I hear the Pentecostals talk
about grace. Oh, I hear the fundamentalists
talk about grace. But I'll tell you that the grace
they talk about Listen to me. I say it is not the grace of
the Bible. It is not the grace that Paul
talked about. It is so mixed with human merit
and human works that it's no more grace. Romans 11 and verse
6. that looks to the worth of man,
that waits upon the will of man, or depends upon the work of man,
is frustrated grace, and frustrated grace is not the true grace of
God. I'm telling you, this salvation
we talked about, this hope, this better hope, is a hope that a
man can only have by grace. Anything earned by you, anything
merited or deserved by you is not grace. Now that's very important
that you see that. You can't have this hope, this
better hope that brings you nigh to God if you think you have
earned it or merited it or if you deserve it in some way. You
can't have it. You'll never get it. The man
who thinks he deserves God's salvation, that man, I don't
care if he's a bishop, I don't care if he wears robes when he
preaches, I don't care who he is, he doesn't believe in the
grace of God. If he believes that a man can
earn this hope, this good hope, a sinner's hope, He doesn't believe
the grace of God. The person who imagines that
his acceptance with God depends upon his will, his works, or
his worth does not, hear me, he does not believe in grace. He doesn't believe in it. Say,
well, my preacher said he believed in grace. They all say they believe
in grace. But they don't believe what the
Bible teaches about the grace of God. The Bible says a man
who believes that through his will, his worth, and his works
that he earns some part of his salvation or some part of his
standing before God, that man has fallen from grace. He's fallen
from it. Galatians 5, verses 2 through
4. Such people talk about grace,
but grace does not mean to them what it does to this poor, helpless,
guilty, bankrupt, self-condemned sinner standing here before you
this morning who has hope only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to me this morning. A
man can talk about grace all he wants to and make fun of grace
and just frustrated to death, but when he gets desperate and
when he owns his condition before God, hear me, he'll begin to
glory in the grace of Christ. No one will ever honor No one
will ever extol the grace of God until he has, he or she has,
listen to me, experienced it. Until you've experienced it!
Ah, you know, you're confused now. But whenever you get saved,
when God really does deliver you, and when He really shows
you what you are, my friend, you will honor the grace of God.
You will extol the grace of God. It was only after Paul had experienced
the grace of God that he declared, by the grace of God, I am what
I am. He took no credit for his conversion.
He ascribed the whole of his salvation to God's free grace
alone. He knew that he did not make
himself to differ from other people. Paul knew that there
had been great changes take place in him. He knew the things that
he used to hate that he now loved. He knew that the people that
used to, he went out, you know, to kill Christians, and Paul
knew that the change That wonderful, marvelous change that took place
in his life and soul. He knew it was by the grace of
God. He said, I am what I am by the
grace of God. And beloved, it was after he
experienced it that he was able to say that. Now according to
the scriptures, the grace of God, the true grace of God, Now
this is wonderful and I'm not in a very big building here and
I may be talking too loud. and may be uncomfortable for
some of you, and I don't mean to do that, but I really, listen
to me now, I really want you to understand what I'm saying.
I'll try to tone it down a little bit if I'm talking too loud for
you, but listen to me now. Listen, according to the scriptures,
the grace of God, this true grace of God that brings this better
hope, that brings this night of God, this true grace of God
is effectual, it is unfailing, and it is irresistible. Now there are some sinners in
this old world, thanks be unto God, praise His dear lovely name,
there are some sinners in this old world from whom God will
not take no for an answer. Saul of Tarsus was one of them.
This old sinner standing here before you this morning is another
one of them. God will not take no for an answer. God makes them willing in the
day of his power to believe the gospel and to get a hold on this
hope. through grace. Now, now hear
me. Listen carefully to me. Let's
not move around any more than we have to. Let's just sit still.
Grace is not a feeling of goodwill in God's heart towards sinners.
Grace is not just a feeling of goodwill in God's heart towards
sinners. He does not stand by helplessly
waiting for the sinner to make a wise decision to be saved. Now this It's tough for some
people to take. Grace is the almighty, irresistible
power and operation of God's love by which sinners are saved,
by which those who are spiritually dead are made alive and are given
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Paul means in Ephesians
2, 1-5 and verse 8-9 when he says, By grace ye are saved. God's grace is not an irresistible
physical force. It is not, let me say it again,
it is not an irresistible physical force. Listen to me, it is an
irresistible moral and spiritual power is what it is. It's the
blessed power of God over the hearts of men. Jesus came to
his meditatorial office in John 17 and said, You've given me
power over all flesh that I might give eternal life to as many
as you have given to me. That, my friend, is the power
of the grace of God to give salvation to poor lost sinners. The grace
of God is the sovereign, irresistible operation of His love by which
we are saved. Grace is more than undeserved
mercy. Grace is undeserved, unmerited
salvation freely bestowed upon helpless and hell-bent sinners
by God's sovereign goodness. Praise His name. Someone said
that the religion of the Bible is the religion of grace, or
it is nothing. I have to say amen. That person
was right. The religion of the Bible is
the religion of grace. Of what benefit would grace be
to a spiritually dead, bankrupt sinner, a sinner that the Bible
says is dead in trespasses and sins, if that sinner must do
something, if he must do something himself to make the grace of
God effectual. I tell you, listen, Impotent
grace is useless grace. If the grace of God can't reach
a sinner where he is, in his condition, and lift that sinner
out of his condition, and give him this better hope that brings
him nigh to God, it is impotent grace, and it's no grace at all. And it's not the grace of God.
It could never, listen, this impotent grace could never sweep
a house for a lost coin. This impotent grace could never
find a lost sheep. This impotent grace could never
bring home a prodigal son from the far country. No, no, no,
no. But God's grace is not impotent. God's grace is irresistible. Now that brings me to this. And
what time is it? Well, I've got just a few more
minutes. I just want to say a few things to you. 1 Corinthians
chapter 4 and verse 7. If you have your Bible, please
turn there. 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 7. These are the words of the Apostle
Paul. He said, For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why didst thou glory as if you had not received it? Paul talks here in this verse
of scripture about being made to differ from others. And he
asked the question, what do you have you didn't receive? And
he said if you received it, then why do you glory as if you hadn't
received it? Now, brother, sister, I want
you to know that the grace of God, the only difference between
the believer and the unbeliever, the only difference between the
righteous and the wicked, the only difference between the seed
of Christ and the seed of the serpent, is the difference that
is made by the grace of God. And I say that without any question
this morning or without any fear of being successfully contradicted
by any son of Adam. We're all lost in a state of
nature. And if we're ever made, if we're
ever made to differ, if we ever have the hope, that glorious
hope of the gospel, it'll be because God made us to differ. The Lord was pleased to do a
work of grace in us. God's grace is always particular,
distinctive, distinguishing. And those who are saved are distinguished
by God from those who are lost. They're distinguished by God
from those who are lost. by five acts of grace. I'm just going to mention them.
I'm not going to preach on them. I'm just going to mention them to
you. Listen to what I'm saying. The man or the woman that is
in Christ has been distinguished by God by five acts of grace. The first is God's eternal election. If you
can, with the eye of faith, trace every spiritual blessing that
you now enjoy, and those which you hope to enjoy in the future,
back to the place of their original source, the place of their origin
would be spelled E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N. Election. That's where it all
started. That's exactly where it started.
You know the scripture teaches that before the foundation of
the world, God loved his people in Christ. In Christ. He chose us in Christ. God has provided eternal, eternal
life. Eternal. Jesus obtained eternal
life for us. He bought it and paid for it.
It started You know, most people think, well, salvation just starts
here in this world. No, no, my friend. It started
a long time before that. It started back yonder, before
the world began, when the Father chose us in Christ. Chose us in Christ. That's where it started. And
the Spirit does His work in time, drawing us. drawing us irresistibly
by God's grace into himself. We are distinguished by eternal
election. Number two, we're distinguished
by effectual redemption. Effectual redemption, by a redemption
that redeems. When Christ died on the cross,
when his precious blood was poured out in death upon the cross,
the Lord Jesus Christ had but effectually ransomed his own. You know when the children of
Israel, when they were in Egypt, you know they killed the lamb,
the Passover lamb, and they put the blood on the door post and
on the door sill, and the Bible says, God said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. And on the linens of the door,
the Lord passed over them, the death angel, the avenging angel
passed over them. And do you know when they got
out to the Red Sea, the children of Israel, the Red Sea parted
and all of those Israelites who had been spared by the death
angel through the blood of the Lamb, every one of them marched
through on dry land through the Red Sea and out on the other
side, every one of them and the Egyptians are saying to do so,
what happened to them? They all drowned in the flood
of God's wrath right there in the Red Sea. I'm going to tell
you, when Jesus died on that cross, He effectually redeemed,
He ransomed every one of those whom the Father had given to
Him in the eternal covenant of grace. And every one of them
are effectually redeemed from the claims of the justice of
God, they are effectually redeemed to the point where God charged
him with every one of my cursed sins. Every one of my foul sins
was charged to the Lord Jesus Christ and he paid for them before
and satisfied the justice of God. That's right, I'm telling
you. God distinguished His people
by providing a ransom for them. The third act of grace, which
the Lord has distinguished us from the rest of the world, is
His providence, His adorable providence. Do you know that
for a believer, there's just something about the life of a
believer that is different from the ordinary man of the world. When God saves an individual
and when God calls an individual to himself, God takes that individual. God claims the life of that individual. God owns that individual. God
has bought him with a price, the price of his son's blood.
And the life of that individual has the mark of God's love upon
it. God loves His people, He guides
His people, He keeps His people, He sustains His people, He provides
for them, and He leads them by the way. They that are led by
the Spirit of God are the sons of God. There's something about
the life of a believer. Their affairs are governed over
by the hand of God. I talked to you about that last
week. Now the fourth act of grace,
by which we're distinguished from all other men, is God's
work, His sovereign work of regeneration. Regeneration. Don't let that
word, don't let that word in any way scare you. You know regeneration
means that you're born again. That you're made alive. And I'll
tell you, There was a time when I passed out of death into life.
There was a time when I was deader than a doornail in sin. I was
dead. And God came to me by his quickening
spirit and made me alive. And since that day, I've been
alive. I've been alive. That's right. There's a difference
between being alive and dead. And everybody that's lost is
dead in sin. Those that are saved are regenerated.
Now, only God can give life. Only God can give spiritual life.
And He does through His grace. He gives spiritual life. And
this is the thing. Listen. The only thing that makes
me different from any other person on this planet is the fact that I'm born again.
And everybody that's born again is different than other people.
And it's because they're alive in the Lord. And everybody else
is dead in sin. Two kind of people in this world.
Believers and unbelievers. Those who believe God and those
who don't. Regeneration. The fifth act of grace for which
God distinguishes His elect from the unbelieving world is His
merciful preservation. Merciful preservation. The only
thing that keeps us in grace is grace itself. Now you think on that a little
bit. The only thing that keeps you in grace is grace itself. The only thing that holds us
to Christ is Christ himself. You know this hope we got? We
got a hold of that hope through grace, but you know another thing?
That hope's got a hold of us too. It's got a hold of us. And that's what keeps you going.
That's what, see, you know, have you ever, have you ever had,
you know, I've thought a great deal about it, you know, the
older person gets sometimes, they get to the place where they
get a little careless and reckless. And sometimes, you know, we,
we're not as believing as we ought to be. And we ought to
be ashamed of ourselves. We've been in the way a long
time. And sometimes we get down, low, discouraged, depressed. downright just depressed. You
know the wonderful thing is that the Lord, because of his merciful
preservation of his people, he visits us. He does. The Lord
visits us. I mean the Lord visited me yesterday.
The Lord visited me. Of all people that he could have
visited, he visited me. He touched my soul. He gave me
a better day than I ought to have had. So much better day
than I ought to have had. And this morning made the hope
sweet in my soul so I could talk about it. There are times when
I can't hardly talk about hope. Maybe you can sometimes. But
the Lord visited me and enabled me to talk about this hope this
morning. Talk about His grace. Talk about
the effectual grace of God. this morning with Holy Spirit
conviction and vigor of soul. Don't ever chalk it up to the
preachers just the way he is. My friend, it's not the way I
am. It's not the way I am. The Lord give us these visits. This is the life of our souls.
The Lord continue to give them to us, revive our hearts, make
us to appreciate that wonderful provisions that He's made for
us. There's somebody here this morning in you, and you say,
I feel, preacher, that Christ is not in me. I don't feel that
hope. I don't think I've got that hope
that you were talking about. You described that good hope,
that better hope that brings us now to God. I don't know whether
I got that or not. I got a few other things, but
I don't think I got that. You wait before the Lord. Don't
take anything less than a true heart experience in the grace
of God. Wait before the Lord. Cry to God. Ask Him to say to
your soul, I am thy salvation. Ask the Lord to speak to you.
Ask the Lord to deliver you. Beg Him to deliver you. Cry to
Him. Search. Seek the Lord. And you
will find Him. You will find Him. You will find
Him. Father, in the name of our Lord
Jesus, we're thankful for this service today and the privilege
we've had of preaching Your Word. May this message be used of the
Spirit of God to transform somebody's life, to bring somebody nigh
this morning, nigh Your throne, Nigh your salvation. Bring them
near today. Lord, we're grateful that you
have spared us to this hour, and we're just thankful for the
reviving of our hearts. Forgive our sins, and we ask
that we shall all be blessed and shall fellowship around your
throne in eternity. May everyone here experience
that better hope. For Jesus' sake, amen.