The title of my message this
morning is, We Belong to God. We who believe, we who are redeemed
by the blood of Christ, we belong to God. I am speaking specifically
to you who are believers. I trust that you who do not know
our God will hear what I'm saying. that God the Holy Spirit may
be pleased affectionately to apply the gospel to your heart
and cause you to come to faith in Christ. But I'm addressing
you who are believers, you who are robed in the righteousness
of Christ and born by His Spirit, washed in His blood and accepted
in Him. We belong to God. Now I'm calling
for us, you and I who believe, to give ourselves up entirely
to the cause of Christ. I'm calling for us to live on
this earth for the glory of God and to walk before men and before
God in godliness, in righteousness, and in truth. I want us to avoid
the passions of the flesh. I want us to avoid the lust of
our hearts I want us to cut off the corruptions of our decadent
society. I want to do what I can today
to promote godliness among the people of God. For the grace
of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching
us The grace of God by which you are saved. The grace of God
by which we have been redeemed and made accepted in the beloved.
That grace in our hearts teaches us that denying ungodliness and
we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present evil
world. Now that's what the grace of
God teaches us. We know that. We don't need anyone
to exhort us to that. We recognize that grace teaches
men to be godly. Grace teaches men to deny the
lust of the flesh. I want us now to somehow be motivated
to live for the glory of God. I wonder what it will take. What
will best motivate the people of God to godliness? How can I best motivate you to
live for God? To give yourself to God. I'll
tell you this, I will not take you back to Mount Sinai. I will
not threaten you with the terror of the law and the fear of punishment. And I will not try to motivate
you with promises of reward, either in this world or in the
world to come. And you can mark this down. If
the fear of punishment or the promise of reward will get you
to do what the love of Christ will not constrain you to do.
You don't know God. You don't know God. I hear preachers
say all the time, I preach tithing because if I didn't, our folks
would go, let our church go broke. Then the church needs to go broke.
I hear folks say all the time, I preach this thing concerning
legal obedience, this thing concerning rewards in heaven and degrees
of suffering lost in heaven, because if I didn't, nobody would
do anything. Well, it's just as well they
didn't do it. If the fear of punishment or the promise of
reward will get you to do what the love of Christ does not constrain
you to do, I'm afraid you simply do not know God. You don't belong
to God. And the works that you would
perform would only be the works of self-righteous morality. Now,
my friends, as popular as it is to do so, I'm not interested
in promoting morality among ungodly people. I'm not interested in
promoting morality among people in this world who do not know
our God. I'll leave them into God's hands. I am trying to promote
godliness among truly regenerate men and women. And I'll use no
argument but this. Here's a reason. Here's a reason
why you ought to love God. And you ought to walk before
him and God says, buddy, you belong to God. You belong to
God. I've got no other argument. You
belong to God. That's reason enough, isn't it?
I'm appealing to you on the basis of God's mercy in Christ. I beseech
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service. But my argument will have no
power with those who haven't experienced mercy. I'm reasoning
with you on the basis of divine forgiveness. Our Lord said, be
ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. But that argument will have
no appeal to men who haven't experienced forgiveness. I'm
calling for godliness, righteousness, and consecration of heart and
life for the glory of God. On the basis of this appeal,
the love of Christ constraineth us. that appeal will have no
power over men and women who do not know the love of Christ.
Mary, we are told, sat at Jesus' feet and heard His words. I'll
tell you why. She gladly sat down at His feet
and anxiously heard His words, because she had been forgiven
much, and Bobby she loved much. Therefore she gladly sat at the
feet of Him whom she loved, anxious to hear the words of His mouth.
I'm asking you, how about you? Will you be motivated by law
or will you be motivated by grace? Would you do more? Would you
give more? Would you be more for Christ
if you thought that in doing so you would be turning away
God's wrath from you or that you would be gaining something
from God as the reward of your labor? Not long after I started
preaching A deacon came to me after our service one morning
and made a shocking statement. I had been preaching along this
very line, urging people to give themselves up in dedication of
heart and life to Christ. And I used the illustration of
the Russellites and Mormon missionaries. You've all had Russellites come
by your houses every Saturday morning about nine o'clock. Here
comes somebody knocking at the door. They won't pass out their
literature. Are you ladies who are at home during the day? Somebody's
knocked at your door sometime or another and tried to persuade
you to let them come into your home and have a Bible study.
Russellites and Mormons both give themselves with relentless
dedication and zeal to the cause of their false religion. And
I use the illustration to say this. Those people worshipping
God so often put me to shame, or worshipping a false god, an
idol god, so often put me to shame in my worship and service
to the true and living God." But Deacon said this, he said,
well, if I believed what they believe, I'd be more zealous
too. If I believed that my works were
going to merit me something before God, I'd be more zealous too. If I believed that my devotion
was going to count for something before God, I'd be more zealous
than them too. Oh, I'm fearful of that. I'm
fearful of that. If the fear of punishment or
the promise of reward will get you to do or to be what the love
of Christ will not constrain you to do, you don't know God.
Believers, my friends, are motivated by grace. If the law is more
powerful to motivate you than the gospel, it's because you're
yet in bondage to the law, and yet under its curse. Now I want
us to look at this text in 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 19. 1 Corinthians
6 and verse 19. In this sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians,
Paul is dealing with a body of believers, much like us, in a
society much like ours. The society at Corinth was a
morally decadent society. In the Greek philosophy, which
is the philosophy of our age, every man determined for himself
what was morally right and what was morally wrong. And the consequence
of that is that everybody lives in absolute ungodliness. That's
the way society is today. That's the way it was then. But
Paul is urging these Corinthians to live for God. He's urging
these Corinthians to walk before God with uprightness of heart. He's urging these Corinthians
to give themselves wholly unto the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
does so with just this appeal. Look in verse 19. What? Know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which
is in you, which ye have of God? And ye are not your own, for
ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God." The first thing that
I see in this text is the fact that we who believe belong to
God. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to God. We do not belong
even to one another. We belong to God. We do not belong
to this world. We belong to God. We are not,
therefore, to be the servants of men. We are not to be the
servants of ourselves. We are to be the servants of
the living God. We belong to Him. Look over in
the book of Romans, if you will. Chapter 14. Romans, the 14th
chapter. Verse 7. None of us liveth to
himself and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live
unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord. Do you see that? We belong to
God. The apostle is arguing with these folks over in chapter 7
of 1 Corinthians and verse 23. In the same manner, he says,
you're bought with a price. Be not ye therefore the servants
of men. We belong to God. Now, I know
that there is a sense in which all men and women, like all creatures,
belong to God as the creature belongs to its creator, as the
subject belongs to its ruler, as the property belongs to its
owner. All things and all people were
made by God and for God, and all are ruled by God's sovereign
will according to God's eternal purpose. And all are owned by
God. He's Lord, both of the dead and
of the living. It is therefore right that God
Almighty should do with His own exactly what He will. That's
Paul's whole argument of God's sovereignty in Romans chapter
9. No reasonable man could ever
debate the doctrine of divine sovereignty. A man owns a piece
of property. It's right for him to do with
his own what he will. Now, God owns this world. He
owns everybody in this world. And it's entirely up to Him what
He does with this world. If he is of a mind to do so,
being the potter of all things, he can take a lump of clay and
of the same lump make one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor.
If he is of a mind to do so, he can prepare one vessel for
mercy and another vessel for destruction. He's God. Let no
one argue that. But our relationship with the
eternal God is different from that. Our relationship with God
is an intimate, loving family relationship. We belong to God
like a child belongs to its father, as a wife belongs to her husband,
as a willing bond slave belongs to his master. We belong to God
by the sovereign purpose of His grace. In old eternity, God loved
us and determined to save us. He said, I will be their God
and they shall be my people. I delight in that. There's nothing
to upset anybody about in that. The Lord God says, I will and
you shall. There's not any debate. There's
not any question. There's not any room for any
supposition. God says, I will be their God
and they shall be my people. Were it not for God's electing
grace, No one would ever be saved. Indeed, were it not for God's
election and determination to save some for the glory of His
own great name, the world would never have been created. God
made this world because He chose somebody and determined to save
us. John Blanchard put it this way, God's sovereign election
is the mold into which the whole universe is poured. Take away
the glorious truth of God's unconditional election. And not only would
every Christian fall out of the church, but every star would
fall out of the sky and every page out of the Bible. Let me
tell you some things about God's election. We belong to God by
the sovereign purpose of His grace. And here's what I'm talking
about. Election is a sovereign act of
God's grace. Why did God have mercy on us? of all the people in Danville,
Kentucky, of all the people in this area, why on this earth
has God been pleased to save you? Why on this earth has God
been pleased to reveal Christ to you? Why has God been pleased
to call you and make you His own? There's only one answer.
Our Lord gave it in Matthew 11, verse 26. Even so, Father, For so it seemed good in thy
sight. Now that's all there is to it. If you're a believer,
you're a believer because God in eternity determined that He
would save you according to His own sovereign pleasure. Election
is an eternal, immutable, and irreversible act of God's grace.
He said, I have chosen you. I have ordained you. I have called
you. Now that's irreversible. God
says you shall be mine in that day when I make up my choice.
God's election of his people is the unconditional choice of
discriminating love. We are bound to give thanks all
the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, Because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. I'm saying that God's
choice is not only an act of love, but it's an unconditional
act of love. Turn over to Deuteronomy 7. Let
me show you this. Deuteronomy, the seventh chapter.
The Lord said, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore,
with loving kindness, Have I drawn thee? Now I know what the popular
theological opinions of election are. Most folks don't have any
opinion of it except one of disgust and a desire to get it out of
the Bible. But those who do attempt to acknowledge that the Word
teaches election try to get around it by saying that God in eternity
looked out with His infinite wisdom and He knew who would
believe and who would not. He knew who would choose Him
and who would not. He knew which sinners would have
a good disposition. And by the exercise of their
free will, they would choose the Lord and come to Him. And
therefore, God said in eternity, I'm going to choose Him because
He's going to choose me. And I'm not going to choose Him
because He's not going to choose me. Now, if that's the case,
election's not a grace at all. If that were the case, God's
taking credit for something God didn't do. That's not the case
at all. God did not choose you because
of anything good in you. God did not choose you or me
because He saw that we had some good propensities that other
people did not have. Or because we had something good
to offer Him that someone else did not have. We all had the
same nature. We all were of the same corrupt
seed. We all were fallen, depraved,
guilty sinners. God chose us simply because He
would be gracious to us. This is what He says to Israel.
Deuteronomy 7 verse 7. The Lord did not set His love
upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people. For you were the fewest of all
people. Now let me paraphrase that. Merle, God didn't choose
you because you were better than your neighbor. You're worse than
your neighbor. You don't have anything to offer
God. Bob, you don't have anything to offer God. God didn't choose
you because you're good. God chose you because God would
be gracious to you. That's all. Look at what he said.
But because the Lord loves you and because he would keep you,
the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought
you. I'm sorry, because of the oath
which he had sworn unto his father, your fathers, because he would
keep it, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty arm and
hath redeemed you out of the house of bondman and from the
hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God's election is unconditional. God's election of his people
is in Christ. Christ be my first elect, He
said, and then chose us in our heads. The Lord Jesus Christ
was set up from God, from old eternity as the covenant head
of His people. And God put us in His Son by His decree and
by His purpose. And He loved us in His Son. And
He sees us in His Son. That's the only way God Almighty
ever deals with men, is in His Son. God today looks down upon me, and He loves me, and He accepts me. Yes, He's well pleased with me.
He's delighted with me. Because He sees me today exactly
like He saw me in eternity in His Son. Do you see that? God loves us, accepts us, chose
us in His Son. Now, my friend, the only way
God will ever accept you is in His Son. That's the only way
God accepts you. And our election in Christ guarantees
the salvation of our souls. Election guarantees that those
who are chosen of God shall indeed be saved with God's eternal salvation
and everlasting grace. They shall be with Him in glory.
Our Savior said, all that the Father hath given me shall come
to me, and I will raise Him up at the last day. We also belong
to God by the special purchase of His Son. Turn back to our
text in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. I hear people, preachers especially,
kind of want to hear them in a hall about the doctrine of
particular redemption, and they say, well I can understand how
somebody might not believe this point of the gospel. Well I can
too if they're rebels to God, but God's people believe it.
They believe it. The Word of God plainly and clearly
teaches the doctrine of particular redemption. The whole of the
Gospel is in the doctrine of particular redemption. The whole
of it. Either Christ effectively redeemed His people, or there's
no redemption. One of the two. Now here in this
passage is one of the clearest, plainest statements of particular
redemption to be found in the Bible. He was transmittin' for
our transgression. Our Lord said, but for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And his substitutionary atonement
for us actually accomplished redemption. He hath obtained
eternal redemption for us. Now here's an argument for particular
redemption. You are bought with a price.
Read the next words. Therefore, glorify God. Now then. if the Son of God paid
the redemption price for Judas, as well as for Lindsay Campbell,
if the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed Judas, as well as you, Lindsay,
if the difference between you and Judas is not in what Christ
has done for you, but rather in what you have done for Christ,
what argument is there for you to serve Him? Do you see that?
The basis of Paul's argument is this. The Son of God did something
for you. The Son of God loved you and
gave himself for you. Therefore glorify him. Now then,
some preacher comes along and says, yes, the Son of God loved
you just like he loved Judas. And He died for you just like
He died for Judas. And He redeemed you just like
He redeemed Judas. And the difference is that you
exercised your free will and you gave merit to His blood and
you allowed Him to save you for the glory of His name. The argument
then would be, let Him serve me. I suppose I ought not refer so
frequently to my wife, but it's better than referring to yours.
I, uh, I love that lady. Took her out to dinner Thursday,
Friday night. Friday was Valentine's Day. I
took her out to dinner Friday night. And, uh, got her some
flowers, wrote a little note, let her know that I loved her,
said lots of flowery things to her, you know, lots of nice things.
Now suppose, suppose, Charlotte had gotten the same card from
me. And Sally had gotten the same card. And Diane had gotten
the same card. All the ladies in town had gotten
the same card. And I decided to take them all
out to dinner. And I sent them all on a range
with a flower. And I go home at night, and I
say, now, sweetheart, you be sure now you honor me
as your husband, because I've proved my love to you. She'd say, huh, huh. What's special
about me? What did you do for me? After
all, you've done it for everybody. And they have never done for
you what I've done for you. And she would be right. She'd
be right. The argument of Paul was this.
Jesus Christ died for you. The Son of God redeemed you.
The reason you're not in hell and Judas is, is because he redeemed
you. The reason you believe and another
man does not is he redeemed you. The reason your faith and others
perished, he chose you. He redeemed you. Therefore, you
should say, now that's a reasonable argument. That's a reasonable
argument. The blood of Christ was not shed
for the damned. Christ did not die for Judas.
He did not redeem anybody except those who are redeemed. And I'm
here to tell you that if you're a believer, you're a believer
because the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you.
You, particularly. You, believers. You, God's elect. You and no one else are bought
with a price. The Lord Jesus Christ bought
us. Worthless wretches that we are. out from under the curse of God's
holy law. Christ, Paul said in Galatians
3, verse 13, hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that
hangeth on a tree. This is how Christ redeemed us.
He became what we were, that we might be what he is. He became
Himself the object of God's holy law and justice, the object of
God's wrath and anger, and He satisfied it. He became a curse
for us that we might be made the righteous of God. There are
still places on this earth where men can be bought for an offer.
There's still places on this earth where men do business with
human beings and trade as slaves and servants. And you can take that slave in
a society who is most worthless, who can hardly be pawned off
on another person, that slave for whom there is no one willing
to offer a price. That slave that nobody wants,
that slave that nobody will have, that slave that has no strength,
has no talent, has no ability. You can take that worthless slave,
let him murder a man. Now try to buy him. Now try to
buy him. Go to the court. Go to the judge. Go to the mayor. Go to the governor. Go to the king. He's in the hands
of the law. Now you can't buy him for any
price. He who was worthless is now priceless. Now, my friends, you and I were
in the hands of God's holy law. We murdered God's own son. We were worthless, but now what
will it take to redeem us? In the hands of God's law, what
will it take to redeem us? You know that you're not redeemed
as corruptible things, as silver and gold in your vain conversation,
but with the precious The blood of Christ, as of a lamb slain
in the foundation of the world, as of a lamb without stock and
without blemish, verily was foreordained for us, but is manifest in these
last times. Christ gave Himself, and by the
price of His own lifeblood, by giving His life in sacrifice
to God, He redeemed us. Again, we belong to God. by the
saving power of His Spirit. Turn over to John 6, John the
6th chapter. We were dead in trespasses and
in sin. We were in bondage to Satan,
in bondage to sin, in bondage to the law. The law held us as
justly condemned prisoners under its dreadful curse. But the Spirit
of God came And he set us free by the power of his irresistible
grace. Look here in John chapter 6, verse 63. In this matter of salvation,
in this matter of regeneration, in this business of being born
again, it is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth
nothing. Do you see that? It is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing. Ezekiel gives us a picture, a
picture of a valley where a battle had taken place long ago, and
an army had been slain. The picture might well have been
the little bighorn where Custer's army was slain, and the soldiers
were all laying out in the valley. And their bones had been exposed
to the sun, and they were bleached white with the sun's exposure.
And the Spirit of the Lord says to the prophet, can these bones
live? And Ezekiel said, Lord, thou
knowest. He said, prophesy. And so he began to preach. And
still the bones were still just dead bones. And the Spirit of
God said, now prophesy. He said, come, O wind, and breathe
upon these flames, and they stood up in exceedingly great arms.
Now I am today, as always, preaching to dead, dried bones, slain in
a battle that took place in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. And the only way these dead bones
can live is if God, the Holy Spirit, breathes into you the
breath of life. That's all. That's all. We were
dead, but He gave us life. We were blind, but He gave us
an eye and caused us to see. We did not know Christ, but He
revealed Christ in us. We had no ability to change our
deplorable condition, but He has given us the power to become
the sons of God. We had no will and no inclination
to come to Christ. But he made us willing in the
day of his power. We had no ability to come to
Christ and to be saved by his grace. None. I'm preaching to
sinners. You who do not believe, listen
to this preacher, I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't care
what you hear anywhere else, what you've been taught all your
life. You can not believe. on your own. You must believe.
Yes, you must believe, but you have no ability. You have no
ability. Salvation's not up to you. It's
not up to you. It's not in the power of your
free will. It's not a matter of your decision
for Jesus. No, sir. Salvation is entirely
up to God Almighty. Entirely. Entirely. I say to you who are
dead, Now if you come, you'll have
life everlasting. But I know you can't come. You
can't come. Not only can't you come, you
won't come. There's Lazarus in the tomb. Lazarus! Come home. Lord, he's been dead four days.
He can't come. No, he can't. No, sir, he can't. But he did. He did. How did he come? By the power
of God issued in that call. Lazarus came forth. And the scripture
says he was still bound with the gray clothes when he came
forth. Now, I don't know how he came. I suspect he just kind
of floated out of that tomb. I don't know how he came out,
but he came out of the tomb. The power was not with that dead
man, but with the one who called. And I'm saying to you, the power
is not with you, dead sinners, but with Him who causes the spirit
to quake, the flesh prophet of nothing. We had no power, no
ability to come to Christ and be saved by His grace, but He
said, come forth! And behold, the dead have come
to life in the power of God's Spirit. Children of God, we have
been saved by the grace of God. Our salvation is not in the least
degree to be attributed to our own free will. Not in the least
degree to be attributed to any work performed by us. Our salvation
is by grace. By the grace of God we are what
we are. We belong to God by the sovereign
purpose of his grace in election. We belong to God by the special
purchase of his son in redemption. We belong to God by the saving
power of His Spirit in regeneration. And we belong to God by the solemn
profession of our faith. Turn over to Romans chapter 4,
if you will. Romans, the fourth chapter. Nineteen years ago, I'm sorry,
Romans chapter 6. Nineteen years ago, God saved me by His grace. For me, it was a climactic thing. And I submitted myself to the
ordinance of baptism. I was baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I submitted myself to this ordinance
as a believer in obedience to my master, because he said, Be
baptized. He said, He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. It was a voluntary, a deliberate, and a solemn act of obedience.
And by my baptism, this is what I did. I publicly declared to
all the world that I believe God, that I'm a follower of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. I publicly declared to all the
world that Jesus Christ is my Savior, my Lord, and my Master. That's what I did in baptism.
You see, baptism is the believer's public confession of faith. That's
where it is. Today, it is getting back to
the way it was in apostolic times. In the New Testament era, a man
who was converted from Judaism, when he was baptized, that sealed
it. That was it. Now, he could say,
I believe in Jesus, he could go to church where Jesus was
worshipped, and he could be a follower of Jesus secretly and not make
much of it, but when he was baptized, When he was baptized, he was
cut off. When he was baptized, the world
looked at him and identified him as one of those fanatical
followers of the Son of God. That's how they looked at him.
Same was true with a person converted like these Corinthians. One who
was converted from pagan idolatry. Not only was it true of those
who were converted from pagan Judaism, but from those who were
converted from pagan idolatry as well. It's okay for those
folks at Corinth to go to church down there where believers went.
It was okay for those folks at Corinth to say, yeah, I believe
in this man, Jesus. It was okay for them to be associated
with believers in their common dealings in society. But the
moment they were baptized, I cut them off. For what they did,
now this is what they did. When they were baptized, those
Jews said, Judaism is a deadly religion. They said, Judaism's
a deadly religion. Men, women, my brothers, my sisters,
my mother, my father, listen to me. God helped you to hear
me. I'm following the one true and living God. Unless you become
followers of him, as I am, you'll perish in your sins. Now that's
what they were saying. And they were converted from paganism,
from the idolatry of that Gentile world, And they were baptized. Those men and women were saying,
Oh, my friend. You who have for so long worshipped
the goddess Diana. You who have for so long worshipped
this God and that God. You who have for so long walked
in the path of your religious superstition as I did. The living and true God has been
revealed to me, and I'm following Him. I'm following Him. Now,
unless you forsake your gods and come follow God, you're going
to perish in this world. Now that's what it meant, that's
what it meant. Let me tell you this, look here
in Romans 6 verse 4. Therefore, therefore, look at
verse 3, he said, know ye not that so many of us as were or
have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his
death? Therefore, because baptism is
a picture of our death and burial and resurrection with Christ,
therefore, We are buried with him by baptism unto death, that
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing
this, this is what we know as we're being baptized. You see,
those who are baptized are believers. They're not infants. They're
believers. They're not children. They're believers. They know
that our old man is crucified with Christ and that the body
of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin. In our baptism, we who believe
have confessed four things. Let me give them to you quickly. When I was buried in a pool,
like that one, I confessed to the world, to my family, to God
Almighty, I'm dead with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. When Christ died, he died for
me. When Christ died, I died in Him
to the curse of the law. When Christ died, I was crucified,
and God Almighty no longer charges me with sin. I'm dead to the
law. More than that, I now live by the power and grace
of God in Christ. Coming up out of those waters. as Christ came up out of the
grave, though he was dead, yet he came up again. And though
I am crucified with Christ, I live again! God's given me new life. God's made me alive, and I live
today by the power of God. And I confess this thing, thirdly,
to everybody that knew me. Everybody. The people of God,
and the enemies of God, my family and my God, I confess. When I went in to the waters
of Babysitter, following Christ, I said from this day forward,
the allegiance of my heart, the allegiance of my heart, the allegiance
of my heart is Christ and Christ alone. to Christ and Christ alone. Now, that's what you say at Lenten
New Baptism. That's what was said. That's
what it signifies. I am determined by the grace
of God from this day forward to walk before God a new man. I'm determined I'm determined
from this day forward to walk before God, God giving me grace. I'm determined to walk before
God in the newness of life. To walk under a new rule, to
walk with a new purpose, to walk with a new motivation, to walk
with new principles, to walk in this world for the glory of
God. That's what it says. That's what
it says. And I also said this, having
been crucified with Christ and having risen with Christ to live
again and to walk in the newness of life, I now live in hope of
the resurrection. Having made such a profession
of faith, I said to God, to my family and to my friends, I said to the world, and I said
to myself, I'm not my own. Don Fortner,
you no longer belong to yourself. No more. You've been bought with
a price. You belong to God. And my friends, I take that profession
of faith most seriously, most seriously. Like Jester of old, I have opened
my mouth to the Lord. Merle, I can't go back. I cannot
go back. I cannot do that. Now I'm calling you, some of
you are believers God saved you and you've not yet followed Him
in baptism, you've not yet confessed faith in Christ. I'm calling
for you to get in the water. That's what I'm doing. So that's
not important. Oh, Holy Spirit, a stance of a good conscience
to God. I'm calling for you to publicly
declare your allegiance to Jesus Christ. Publicly announce to
the world the religion of this world is damnable heresy! I'm following Christ! I've given
my life and my heart to the Son of God. That's what I'm calling
for. And I'm calling for you who believe, for you who belong to God by
His eternal purpose of grace, and by the special purchase of
His Son, by the saving power of His Spirit, and by the solemn
perfection of your faith. You men and women here, You've
been baptized? This is what you said. You said,
I belong to God. I belong to God. Therefore, glorify
God in your body and in your spirit with your God. Amen. Amen. Lindsey, come listen to him,
will you? you