I want you to turn back, if you
will, to the fourth chapter of the book of Ephesians, Ephesians
4. Steve was so kind to read to
us the chapter, I will begin my reading with verse 11 and
read down through the 15th verse. Verse 11 through verse 15. And he gave some apostles and
some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to
and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the
slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ." On August 11, 1856, or 58 it
was, 1858, one of my great uncles, which
I had several, was born into this world. And he was converted about the
age of 17, and about 1890, He began to preach the gospel
of God's grace and was a primitive Baptist preacher for a number
of years and preached the doctrines that I hold dear and precious. And he knew nothing in the matter
of salvation but Christ and him crucified. Now that was 133 years
ago that he was born. I got to thinking a little bit
about this gospel that I preach and about my descendants, whether
or not any of them, a hundred years from now, will be preaching
this gospel. And it's a very serious business.
I wonder if anybody is hearing what we're saying. I wonder if
anybody will be saying what we're saying a hundred 125, 130 years
from now. It is a miracle that the gospel
of God's free sovereign grace is still being preached in America.
It's a miracle. It is indeed. And so I'm praying
for my descendants. I suppose that my great uncle
Tom prayed maybe for me. He didn't know anything about
me, but I'm sure that he prayed for his descendants. and I'm
praying for mine that down the road a hundred years that God
will be pleased to yet reveal his truth to their hearts and
that that truth will have been passed down from these that are
hearing it now to those that will come after us and that they
will be able to preach the joyful sound of God's amazing free grace. Now this morning I want to preach
a message that I believe is timely and it's one that I believe that
will be glorifying to God. We certainly believe that the
end of our preaching must be the glory of God. It must be
the glory of our sovereign God. Now the subject that I want to
tackle this morning is this, four questions for thoughtful
people. Four questions for thoughtful
people. Now this is a message that divides. You will probably say that preacher
is divisive. You will probably say that preacher
is warning us to choose upsides. You'll probably say that, well,
I don't know how we can have peace with the religious folks
of our day and believe what this preacher is asking us to believe. But I hope this morning that
the Lord will be pleased to give us all a heart to hear this message
and that we will hear it. And that not only will we hear
it, but that it'll remain with us. that it will stick with us. Now, there have been messages
that I've heard in my lifetime, several messages, but just a
few that have really stuck with me that I've never forgotten.
And one of these messages that I've heard, I heard an old preacher
preach this message, and this particular preacher, he's a little
older than I am, but he's still alive, Brother Henry Mahan, And
then later he told me that he heard an old preacher preach
this sermon when he was a young man. And this sermon was titled,
Six Stubborn Statements. Six Stubborn Statements. Now, these six statements that
this preacher made, I've never forgotten, and I hope this morning
that what I have to say you won't forget, but here is those statements
that this old preacher, Brother Barnard, preached a number of
years ago. He said that God is absolutely
sovereign or he is not. He said that man is totally depraved
or he is not. He said that God elected, God
chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world and
gave them to Christ, or he didn't. There is no middle ground. He
said Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, redeemed his people
affectionately, eternally, completely without any help from anyone
else, or he didn't save anybody. And the fifth thing he said was
the Holy Spirit effectually, invincibly, irresistibly calls
God's people and gives them life, brings them to Christ, or he
doesn't save anybody. And the sixth thing that he said
was, and the last point, he said every one of God's children chosen
redeemed, called, quickened, will persevere unto the end,
or none of them will. Now those are six stubborn statements
that I've never forgotten. Now this morning what I hope
is that these things that I have to say today, that you'll remember
them, and down through the years of your life, you'll say, I remember
hearing a preacher Ask four questions, four questions one time, and
I'll remember them and they have stuck with me. Now you look back,
if you will, here at Ephesians 4 And I want us to look primarily
at verse 14 where it says that we henceforth be no more children
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine
by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in
wait to deceive. Now, this morning, as we've read
and thought a little bit about the context to verse 14, we see
that our Lord has been pleased to raise up and call and gift
men for the work of the ministry. And it was to the end that the
body of Christ would be edified and that we would all come into
the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God into
a perfect man unto the measure, the stature, and the fullness
of Jesus Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to
and fro. Now, beloved, we recognize that
when men and women are born of the Spirit of God, born into
the family of God, that they are new creatures in Christ Jesus
and that they are babes in Christ. And we know that they are to
receive the sincere milk of the word of God, that they may grow
thereby, and that they may make progress, that there will be
a growth in the grace of God, and that they will progress in
the things of God, and have a firm foundation under them. Now then we see though that Paul
says that we ought not to be children and that we ought not
remain children, those that would be tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine. Now, beloved, in our day we know
people that are tossed about, and we know that every wind of
doctrine is being today heard, and it is in the churches, every
wind of doctrine. Now, the professing people of
God, they have no foundation. They have no rock. They do not
know what they believe. And the scripture here says that
they are, it says, by the slight of men. That means that these
cunning, crafty individuals, they're con men, and they're
preachers, and they're in the churches, and they're spreading
their false doctrine, and telling men and women they're lying on
God, and they're preaching doctrines that are not to be found in the
Word of God. Now listen, as we think on this,
these men, these con artists, They're butchering the souls
of men, they're preying on people, they're stealing from them, and
they're not, as it were, they have no life, and they're leading
the people, as they're blind, they're leading the people into
the ditch. And there are many in our day
and time that's absolutely confused. Many of the religious professors
of our day, even in Baptist churches, have never heard one sound message
on the grace of God in all of their lives. Now, beloved, listen,
I'm not angry with anybody this morning, but I want you to understand
this morning that as the Scripture goes on to say, and this is my
prayer as I begin this message today in verse 15, it says, But
speaking the truth in love, I want to speak the truth in love. I
don't want necessarily to be divisive, but I believe that
our message will divide. I believe it will. But I want
you to know that we walk, we pray, that we might speak the
truth in love, that men and women might grow up in the Lord Jesus
Christ that one which is the head of the church, that one
which is the head of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
they'll grow up in him and that they'll understand his truth,
his doctrine, and his person and work. But that's what we
want to do is speak the truth and love in a right way. It's
love to Christ and love for his word and love to the people that
we preach to. And I want to see this morning
if we can do that in this message. Now, like I say it may seem at
times, and I've been accused of this, people say, well, you're
angry. And if you were not angry, you
wouldn't have anything to say. It's because you're upset with
people that you preach like you do. And beloved, this is not
true. This is not true. I'm not angry
with anybody. I'm burdened and I'm sorrowful
that men and women are being tossed to and fro by every wind
of doctrine. And I'm sorry that there's con
artists out here in the pulpit that are deceiving men and women
and butchering their souls. I'm sorry about that. And I have
a zeal to set things right. If I can, I have a desire to
see men and women come to the knowledge of the truth and to
see error exposed and to see Christ exalted and lifted up
that men and women might be established in grace and established in his
truth. I recognize that people don't
want to be disturbed. I know that most preachers I
mean, they've been, you know, most of the preachers that I
know, they've been in the ministry several years, and they were
taught what they believe in maybe the seminary or maybe in some
Bible school someplace, and they really don't want to be disturbed.
They're dedicated to the proposition that the truth of God, if they
don't already have it, that it shall never enter into their
pulpit. They hate the truth. Now, this is nothing new. This
is nothing new. Charles Spurgeon, back in 1887,
wrote in the little paper that he put out, The Sword and Trial,
and he said, If anything is hated bitterly, it is the out-and-out
gospel of the grace of God, especially if that hateful word, sovereignty,
is mentioned with it. Dare to say that he will have
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on
whom he will have compassion, and the furious critics will
revile you. He said further, the modern religionist
not only hates the doctrine of sovereign grace, but he raves
and rages at the mention of it. He would sooner hear you blaspheme
than preach election by the Father, atonement by the Son, or regeneration
by the Spirit. If you want to see a man worked
up till the satanic is clearly uppermost, let some of these
new divines, these new preachers, hear you preach a free grace
sermon." Spurgeon said in one of the Metropolitan Tabernacle
pulpits, I believe it was 1891, where he said that he didn't
deny, neither did he affirm, that the demon spirits dwelt
in men's bodies. But he said, the closest thing
that I've ever seen to prove it is whenever the old gospel
of God's free grace is preached and they get stirred up and their
hatred is vented toward this free grace gospel. Now, then,
beloved, listen, I know that men don't want to change, and
I don't want anybody to think that I believe that I can change
the world, but I want to do what I can. And I know that people
don't want to be disturbed, they don't want to be bothered, they'd
just rather you leave them alone and let them go on and believe
whatever they want to believe. They're kind of like that old
woman down south that had 15 or 16 children, and one of them,
one of the little boys, one day wandered off. And as he wandered
off, I mean, she looked for him for quite a while, and she found
that he'd crawled into a barrel of tar, into a barrel of roofing
tar, and he had it all over him, from the crown of his head to
the sole of his feet. And she grabbed him by the nap
of the neck and pulled him out and looked him over and dropped
him on in the grass and said, why, it'd be easier to have another
one than to clean you up. And a lot of these people, they're
not interested in having their doctrine changed. They're not
interested in believing the truth. They don't want to go to the
trouble. They just leave, forget it, and go on and believe a lie
and go to hell rather than to be disturbed and to change what
they believe. Now then, let's see if we can
do this this morning. Now, I want to ask these questions,
but first of all, I'll get to them in a minute. I want this
morning, if I can, to just state, declare to you what I believe
that churches Preachers, 99% of them, are declaring they're
sane in the city of Great Falls. Today's religious leaders and
churches, they positively declare full of faith. And I don't want
to misrepresent what they're saying, but I want you to listen
to me this morning. Is this true or not? Have I misunderstood
what preachers are saying from their pulpits in this day? Now,
I'm not as smart as some of these preachers, but I'm not as dumb
as some of them either. And I read and I listen to what
people say. And in almost every church in
Great Falls, there are four things that are declared. There are
four lies, religious lies, that are being taught and preached
week after week. And I want to expose these to
you before I ask the four questions that I told you I was going to
ask. Number one, listen to what they say. They say that God Almighty
loves everybody without exception. They tell you they preach from
their pulpits. I mean that which their people
support, that which their people have as a steady diet from their
pulpit is that God loves everybody without exception. They say that
God loved Mary and that he loved Jezebel. They say that he loved
Peter and that he loved Judas. And they say that God loved Israel
and that he loved the Amalekites. And they say that he loved Jerusalem
and he loved Sodom and Gomorrah with the same love. Now they'll
not say there's one thing they won't touch and that is that
God loved Jacob and Esau. They'll never say that because
the word of God says plainly that God loved Jacob and he hated
Esau. Now that's one thing they're
saying. The second thing is this, is that God will He wills the
salvation of every human being. Now, beloved, I'm not overstating
this. I'm trying to be as honest as
I can be. What they're saying is that God
wants to save everybody. And this is what they preach.
God wants, God wills, God desires the salvation of all men without
exception. Now that's what they're saying.
Now then thirdly, they preach that Jesus Christ died on the
cross for everyone without exception and that when he died, he paid
for every sin of every person of every generation in all the
world. Now this is what I'm hearing.
This is what they say. Fourthly, they say that the Holy
Spirit strives with all men. They say that God, sooner or
later, knocks on everybody's heart's door. They say that the
Holy Spirit calls. They say the Holy Spirit tries. They say the Holy Spirit strives
to save everybody, but He just simply cannot do it. Now, beloved,
if these four things are true, as these preachers and as these
religious leaders and as these churches preach them, now listen
to me, this is what is propagated, and if these things are true,
then that God loves everybody, that God wills the salvation
of everybody, that Christ died for everybody, that the Holy
Spirit calls everybody without exception. If these things are
true, I ask you these questions. Number one, here's the number
one question. What does the love of God have
to do with my salvation? If it is so that God loves everybody
the same, what does the love of God have to do with my salvation? Now then, my answer would be,
of course, nothing. Absolutely nothing. If one man
is in heaven and the other man is in hell, and God loved them
both, then the love of God had nothing to do with eternal salvation. God's love has no power. God's
love has no distinction. If God's love, if God loves you
and I, And I still go to hell, then that's not love. This makes
the love of God powerless and impotent to save. Now the second
question would be this. If God wills the salvation of
all men and God wants to save everybody, God desires to save
everybody, what does the will of God have to do with my salvation? What does God's will have to
do with my salvation? And the answer is absolutely
nothing. Absolutely nothing. If God wills
for me to go to heaven and I go to hell, then the will of God
is useless. The will of God is impotent,
the will of God is thwarted. If they are right, the will of
God has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul. Number three, the third question,
if Christ's blood was shed, to save all men, then what does
the blood of Jesus Christ has to do with our salvation? What
does it have to do with our salvation? Now the Bible tells me that the
song of heaven, it's recorded in the book of Revelation, is
unto him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Well, if the Lord loves everybody
the same, and if he loves everybody that's in hell, and if he's washed
them too, then that song has absolutely no meaning. It has
no meaning. You're talking about atonement
that does not atone. You're talking about a redemption
that does not redeem. You have a sin offering that
does not satisfy. You have a perpetuation that
does not propitiate. If Christ died for everybody
without exception, the people in heaven, they owe nothing to
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark it down. For the people
in hell, if he died for them, too, and they went to hell, then
how do you know you're not going to hell? What is it that's going
to keep you out of hell if the blood of Christ does not keep
you out? Well, fourthly, the last question
is this. What does the Holy Spirit have
to do with us? If He awakens all men, and if
He strives with all men, and if He illuminates all men to
the same degree, what does He have to do with our salvation? And the answer is nothing. No
distinction, no power, no regeneration. He just brings all men up to
the same point and leaves them there to do whatever they will
do. Well, these preachers are inconsistent. They speak out of both sides
of their mouth. They get up in front of people
and tell them, and I've heard them say it, God is almighty.
God is almighty and he wants to save you and you won't let
him. Now to me that's absolute inconsistency
is what that is. Almighty God will send you to
hell, they say, but he loves you, but he loves you. That's
the most inconsistent. That's totally inconsistent. If God loves people in Sodom
and those who perish in the flood in Noah's day, then who of you
here this morning wants this God to love you? Is there anybody
here this morning that wants to line up and say, I'd like
for this God to love me? No, my friend, no. Well, we have
asked these four questions, and these four questions, if God
loves everybody the same, what does the love of God have to
do with our salvation? We answered, we answered, nothing. If God wills the salvation of
all men, what does the will of God have to do with our salvation?
We asked, We answered nothing. If Christ died for all men, then
what does the death of Christ have to do with our salvation?
The answer was nothing. If the Holy Spirit calls all
men, what does the Holy Spirit have to do with our salvation? The answer was nothing. Well
beloved listen to me now and I asked your attention for just
a few more minutes that I'll be speaking to you this morning
the word of the Lord the word of God teaches that salvation
from the beginning to the end in the first part in the middle
part in the last part that the Salvation of the Lord that the
salvation is of the Lord that the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord his love is 1 John 4 and 10, hearing His love,
not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4 and 19, we love
Him because He first loved us. loved us, Ephesians 2, 4, and
5, but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us
together with Christ by grace. You are saved. He loved us, my
friend. He loved us. And I'll tell you
this, and this is the most important thing that you ever heard a preacher
say. You listen to me this morning,
because right here is where these false religionists have missed
it. Here is where these free willers
have missed it. God's love, my friend, is in
Jesus Christ. It is in Christ. Now hear me
out. It is impossible for a holy and
a righteous God to love a sinner outside of Jesus Christ. He cannot do so. Now look at
John 3, and in verse 36 it says, He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath, the wrath of God abideth on him. Is there no wrath with God, I
ask? Is there no wrath with God? Does God love everybody? Then how do you account, my friend,
for the flood? How do you account for Sodom
and Gomorrah? How do you account for the cross? How do you account for the doctrine
of hell if there is no wrath with God? How do you do that?
Well, my friend, we know that God Almighty, we know that He
sent that generation in Noah's day, that He sent them all to
hell. Their swollen bodies was floating
upon the surface of the water of the flood. God, in His judgment,
He sent them to hell, and we know that Sodom and Gomorrah,
that God rain down hell out of heaven on them. And this was
the wrath of God, the judgment of God upon a world of the undaunted,
those that he did not love, those that he was angry with every
day. The Bible says that the Lord
hated all the workers of iniquity and that God is angry with the
wicked every day. Now there is not one of us here
who can claim the love of God, the love of a holy and righteous
God outside the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're
not in Christ, God cannot love you. His love is in Christ and
God can only love you as that sweet smelling perfume The merits
of the Lord Jesus Christ covers you and as God looks upon him
then he sees you not as you are But as you stand in Christ, and
he loves you in his son Now Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8 verse
38 and 39. He said I'm persuaded that neither
death nor life shall nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's where it's at. Now if
you're in Christ, then my friend, God loves you. Listen to Hebrews
12 and six. For whom the Lord loveth, He
chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Now my
friend, the scripture there in Hebrews 12, he goes on to say
that if you receive not this chastening,
from the Lord, then you're an illegitimate child. You're not
a true born child of God. You're a bastard, not a son.
If so be that you're not in Jesus Christ and receiving this nurturing
and this chastening from the hand of the Lord. Every son that
he receives, he chastens. So the Lord loveth his people. He loves his people. He loves
those that are in Christ. The love of God is the foundation,
I say, of our salvation. Now let me pass on secondly to
the next thing, and that is this, that the will of God, the will
of God is the cause of our salvation. Now then, what do I mean by this?
Galatians 1 and 4 Steve preached on it one Sunday here It says
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world according according to the will of God
and our father according to the will of God now my people It
says in the Psalm, shall be willing in the day of thy power. If salvation is left to my will,
then I'll never be saved. If salvation is left to your
will, you will never be saved. If salvation is left, to the
human will. There will be none of the sons
of Adam that will ever people and populate heaven. The human
will is in bondage to sin. The human will is depraved. The
human will is biased to sin and love. They love darkness rather than
light. Man is dead in sin. And you will not come to me,
saith Christ. No man can come to me except
my Father draw him, says the Lord Jesus. It's not our will
that brings us to Christ. It's God's will and all of these
people running around talking about man's will and his free
will and telling us that God wills everybody's salvation and
that God desires that all men, that every man come to life. Well, beloved, this is erroneous
as we see. It is God's will that brings
us to Christ. Now, how many verses can you
think of in the Bible that teaches this truth? How many? I hope
that you people are reading your Bibles, meditating upon the Word
of God, studying the Bible, memorizing Scripture. I hope that you are. Let me just give you some quickly.
Romans 9 and 16. So that it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth. But of God that showeth mercy,
James 1 and 18, of his own will begat he us with the word of
truth. John 1, 12 and 13, but as many
as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believed on his name, which were born.
Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. God willed our salvation, and
we willed it when we were made willing. That's when we willed
it. We willed it when we were beg
willing. If God willed the salvation of all men, then all men would
most surely be saved because God's will is the only free will
in the universe. God's will is free and all men
would be saved if God willed their salvation. Listen to what
the Bible says, Ephesians 1 and verse 5, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ according to
the good pleasure of His will. Verse 11, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will. Sounds to me like the will of
God's got something to do with you and I being in Christ and
us receiving the inheritance. Now on John 6 37 through 40 if
you were to look in your Bibles, you'd find it reads this All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. For I, Jesus said, came down
from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that
sent me. And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. This is the will of him that
sent me, saith Christ. That of all which he's given
me that I should lose nothing, but that I should raise it all
up In the last day now not none of us here beloved at any time
wants to be left to our own will if we have any if we have any
Understanding of the scriptures at all. We do not want to be
left to our own will you remember when David numbered Israel and
the Lord gave him three choices of chastisement and David said
Let me not fall into the hands of the enemy. Let me fall into
the hands of God, because God is merciful. David would have
no, he would be in no hands, but in the hands of God. And
you and I, if we got a lick of sense, our whole life we would
just give up to Him. If He'd put it back into our
hands, we'd put it right back into His, and say, I don't want
it. You take it, your will, your
will, thy will be done. And that one who on earth, who
was without sin, that one who walked this earth, who loved
God and loved God supremely, that one who honored the law,
that one who respected every word that come from his father's
mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ said, lo, in the volume of the
book it is written, I've come to do thy will, O God. And he
said, not my will, but thy will be done. And so, beloved, that
is the example You and I, if we've got any sort of spiritual
sense, we will want only the will of God. It's the will of
God that has brought us into Christ. It's the will of God
that has placed us as children in the eternal covenant. It's
God's will of decree that has put me where I am in the Lord
Jesus Christ under the banner of His love, hoping in the gospel
of His free grace. Now then, let me say a word or
two about the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ, for whom
was it shed? For whom was it shed? I told
you. I asked you this question. If the blood of Christ If it
was shed for all men without exception, then what does it
have to do with our salvation? And I said, nothing. I said nothing. Now the blood of Christ, there
is no truth in all of God's word that is more important, that
is clearer, and for me is easier to lay hold of than the effectual,
complete, particular, redeeming death. of my Lord. This is a precious and precious
truth. I do not know of any doctrine
that we preach that is easier for me to receive than if Christ
died for me, then I am saved. If he died for me, then I'm saved. Now if he paid my debt, then
I'm out of debt. then it's paid. If he paid it,
it's paid. Anybody find any fault with that?
I don't think that you would. If his blood cleanses me, then
I am clean every whit. What a man believes, now you
listen to this statement here. What a man believes that the
death of Christ accomplished will determine what he believes
about the extent of that death. Now did you get that statement?
You get this statement. What a man believes that the
death of Christ accomplished will determine what he believes
about the extent of his death. Now beloved, listen. What did
Christ accomplish on the cross? The purpose of his death And
we could preach a whole sermon and a, well, a whole sermon,
I mean, there's no end to the sermons that you could preach
on what Christ accomplished on the cross. But he certainly on
the cross, he died a death. that enabled God to be just and
the justifier of His people. It was to pay for our sins that
He died on the cross. Our sins were laid on Him. He was made to be sinned for
us and He died Our sins were laid upon him and in the body
he on the tree died just for the unjust. Literally, actually,
he paid for all of our sins in his death on the tree. Our sins
of thought, our sins of imagination, our sins in dreams, our sins
of attitudes and deeds, our sins of walk, our sins of talk, our
sins of acts. He took all of the sins of all
believers of all ages on himself and literally paid for them.
My friend, this is what I believe. I do believe this. I believe
that Christ gave himself for us to deliver us according to
the will of God and our Father. He separated our sins from us. The psalmist said, as far as
the east is from the west. Do you know why? That he did
not say, as far as the north from the south. Have you ever
thought about it? He said he delivered our sins,
he cast them behind his back, that he separated us from our
sins as far as the east is from the west. Now, my friend, it's
because you can reach north, you can start north, and you
reach north and you start south. But you go east, and you go east
as far as you can possibly go, and you'll never get to west.
You'll never get to west. You can go clear to infinity,
and you'll never get to west. And you'll never be headed west.
You never will. And so he put our sins away and
he separated them from us as far as the east is from the west. He put them away. Now if he did
that for everybody then we have a universal salvation. And I
have told you people before that if I ever come to believe in
a general atonement If I come to believe in a universal atonement,
then I will publish universal salvation because that's exactly
what you would have. You just go tell everybody that
they're saved. And if he is a Savior, if he
was a Savior by God's appointment, if he came down here being sent
from heaven by the eternal God to be a Savior, then my friend,
he has saved, he has saved somebody, or he saved everybody. What did
he do? He's a Savior, and he did sure
save somebody. Well, then if salvation is by
the death of Christ, And if it's all together by the death of
Christ, somebody said, no, preacher, we got to do something. We've
got to do something. The death of Christ is not going
to save anybody unless men do something about it and with it. They've got to do something.
Well, my friend, if you've got to do something, even think a
right thought, I've told you this before, then, my friend,
you are hopelessly lost. Nobody here has a shot. at salvation
unless salvation is entirely by the blood of Christ. If you
paid everybody's sin debt, now you hear me, am I just being,
am I off my rocker or what? If you paid everybody's sin debt,
then let's just baptize everybody. Not only should we just baptize
everybody, we ought to invite them all to the Lord's supper
because if he died for everybody, they got as much right to it
as we have. Say, now preacher, you're crowding
me now. You're crowding me. Listen to me now. The Lord Jesus
Christ, when he died, he died on that cross for somebody. He
died for his people. He died to put away their sins.
And if he paid everybody's debt, we ought to stop this foolishness.
We ought to stop this foolishness of gathering together down here
and saying, well, he just died for the elect. Well, I'm telling
you this, that he died for his people. He died for his people
only. And I'm here this morning to
tell you that if you think that the death of Christ has been
effectual on your part because of an act of your free will,
or because you, you just could see in the presentation of the
gospel something that other men did not see, and this was by
your intellect, this was because you got a good heart, or that
you were raised up well, My friend, you've missed the gospel, and
you do not understand that salvation is entirely by the free grace
of God. Now then, let's say a word or
two about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, I say that the
Holy Spirit calls everybody, brings everybody, as it were,
to the same place, to the same degree of enlightenment and illumination,
brings everybody up to that point, and then just leaves them, and
if the Holy Spirit tries to bring everybody over the threshold
into eternal salvation and cannot, then what does the Spirit of
God have to do with our salvation? And the answer would be nothing.
But, my friend, let me say this to you this morning, that the
Holy Spirit quickens. Paul said, and you have he quickened
who were dead. The word quicken means to bring
to life. God brings to life by the Holy
Spirit. Now hear me, I am not born again
because I believe. I believe because I am born again. I am not born again because I
see. I see because I am born again. I am not born again because I
love God. I love God because I am born
again. The divine spirit must born us
from above before we can believe, before we can see, before we
can love God, we must be born again. By the Spirit of God,
the wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof,
thou canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whether it goeth.
So is every one that is born of the Spirit. John 3 and verse
8. The Spirit comes when he will,
where he will, to whom he will, and He makes alive and calls
to Christ God's elect. He makes them hear His voice.
He gives them eyes to see. He gives them a willing heart
and they respond. They respond willingly and rejoicingly. They respond because the Spirit
of God has done an effectual, irresistible work in their soul. Now, there is a birth. from above. There is a birth from above. Oh, Nicodemus, he come to Christ
and Jesus said, well, Nicodemus said, I know you come from God. No man can do what you do, except
he come from God. And Jesus said, well, you must
be born again. You must be born again. And beloved, there is
a birth from above. There is a birth by the Spirit.
There is a birth, there is a quickening by the Spirit of God. And of
God, the Bible says, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
This is of God, a birth from above, a birth from above. how wonderful it is to have experienced
this birth from above. And this morning, if you have
experienced it, you know there's a difference between being dead
and alive, and you know that the Spirit of God has made that
difference, that God's Spirit made the difference. And I remember
hearing a man one time, he was talking about how that when he
first got converted he had problems with some of this. He just couldn't
understand all about the moving of the Spirit of God and he thought
that the Spirit of God, you know, he thought that he moved toward
God and that it was his doing And some fellow preacher, a man
of truth, he said, well, according to your philosophy, he said the
trees start moving and then the wind starts blowing. And he thought
a little bit about that and he said, well, maybe that's... But
he said the truth is the wind starts blowing and the trees
start moving. And the spirit of God must blow
upon the heart of the sinner, my friend. The Spirit of God
must blow the wind, blow forth. You hear the sound? You don't
know where it's coming from or where it's going. So is everyone
that's born of God's Spirit. The Spirit of God must blow upon
your heart. You've got to get God's wind
before you're alive spiritually. Your soul must suck in God's
breath before you're a child of God. It's God's work. I hope
this morning that these things have been helpful and that you'll
remember this message. And like I say, there's a lot
of people that wouldn't have stayed through the message if
they'd been here. There's people in Great Falls that would have
gotten so angry they couldn't have stood to sit here and listen
to what I had to say here this morning. So you people are to
be You're to be admired because you're very tolerant. Some of
you believe what I said. I've never believed that all
of you do. But some of you believe what
I'm saying to you this morning. And some of you heard what I
said this morning. And some of you won't forget
what I said this morning. But there's others of you that
just really wouldn't matter too much about what I did say. I'm
serious. I'm serious. And I hope the Lord
will be pleased to work in every one of your hearts according
to His will and bring you to the knowledge of the truth that
you might glorify Christ and rejoice in Him and hold fast
the form of sound words that have been delivered to you. I
wanted to say this before we have the closing hymn