I don't have to give Donny Bell
any introduction. Everybody here knows him. And
I don't have a dear friend. And you've been a dear friend
of this congregation for many, many years, even though you stole
one of our church members. And she was a great blessing
to us for many years. And I was always impressed with
how she would not have anything to do with anybody by way of
dating if they didn't believe the gospel. And that was always
such an encouragement to me to see that. But we're just tickled
your ear and you come preach to us. Well, nobody here but me, you
and the kids, so see what happens. Is it too high for me? Can you
all see me? I hope you can hear me. I hope
you really hear me instead of just seeing me. I'd rather be
It is a delight to be here, always, always. Todd and Lynn, my word,
I've had more enjoyment with those two. It's just something the Lord
does. Open with me, if you will, to
Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. The title of my message this
evening is Three Great Gospel Words. Three Great Gospel Words. And we'll start reading in verse
seven down to verse 10. That in the ages to come, he
might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. Now they say that there's, you
read in Revelation, there's gonna be 30 minutes of silence in heaven. This is just my opinion, I'm
not preaching that, I'm gonna tell you what I think. That that's
when the saints, when Christ gathers all of his saints in,
and they all stand before him, and the angels stand in wonder
and astonishment that the Lord of glory himself would come to
this earth And they'll say, for them, for them. And they'll stand astonished.
And then we all gather around the marriage supper of the lamb,
and we'll eat, and we'll enjoy Christ forever and ever. That's
my opinion. It may not be nothing. But you
know how when we had that wedding the other day, everybody stood
up? It was quiet. Angels gonna stand up as Christ
unveils us to the universe. And all them angels gonna say,
ah, how could this possibly be that the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Lord, our master, our creator, our sustainer, go down there
for such a worthless bunch? But then he goes on to say this.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained,
that we should walk in them. Now God has a purpose in this
world. And He works all things after
the counsel of His own will. And He has a purpose. This is
His world. It is His world, and the worlds
to come and the worlds before this world is all His. And He's
working out His will and His purpose in this world. And some
it's a purpose of grace, and others it's a purpose of justice. But He's working out His purpose.
And he's working out his purpose through the gospel and through
his word for his elect. And he gave us his words and
words are vehicles of thought. I won't know what you're thinking
unless you tell me what you think. Well, God gave us his word as
words to tell us what his will is, what his thoughts are, what
his purpose is. And so we use words. God gave
us words. And he told us what the meanings
of these words are. He revealed them to us, made
us to know. And I hope that the words that I use tonight will
convey what God said. You know, and words are wonderful
if you know the meaning. Back up there in verse five,
it says this, even when you were dead in trespasses and sins,
very few people understand what spiritual death is. We know what
physical death is. Life leaves the body. But spiritual
death is, means you got a body, but you don't have the life of
God. You don't have the life of Christ. You're naturally alive,
but you're spiritually dead. Why are you dead? Because of
sin. Sin entered the world and death
passed upon all men for that all have sinned. And then quickening. So if you're dead, how you gonna
get life? You have to be quickened. You
have to have life given to you. You can't give yourself life.
You couldn't give yourself life when you come into this world.
Your mother and daddy's the one that produced the life. So who's
gonna produce the life in us? Who's gonna quicken us? And then
look at this word together. There in verse six, hath raised
us up together, made us set together in heavenly places. Oh my. Together. Who's all together
with? Christ. Together. Everything God did, He did it
together. We did it together in Christ. God, what does He say? He raised
us up together. When Christ raised us, we got
to go with Him. When He made Him sit down in
heaven, we got to sit down right there with Him. It says together. What a wonderful word, together.
Let's get together. Well, we already have in Christ. And then God. Oh, what a word,
God. God. To know what God means. Big G. God. God who's absolute. God who is
infinite. God who is immutable. God who
reigns. God who never had a thought.
God who never had to make one decree and everything and then
that one decree, He declared the end from the beginning and
everything from the start is going toward that end and everything
between is according to His will. He's working it out. Right now,
I'm in the will of God. And if I get up tomorrow, I'll
be in the will of God. I'll be where God wills me to
be, doing what God wills me to be, and I'll live as long as
He wills me to be, and I'll die when He wills me to be. I'm in
God's hands to do with me as He pleases. Is that not right? I like that. I like that. Oh, and then riches. And He talks
about the riches of His grace. There's a lot of rich people
in this world. There's a lot of rich people in this world,
and I'm not one of them. There's a lot of rich people
in this world. There's men that cannot count their money. They
got a whole lot more people than we got in this room today that
do nothing but keep track of somebody else's money. But they ain't a drop in the
bucket to the wealth and riches we have in Christ. Which would
you rather have? Money or Christ? Which riches
do you want? The wealth that's in Christ?
You know, here's how wealthy our Lord is. This world and everything
in it. He made the world and He'll oppose
it by the word of His power. Who's got all the wealth? I've got the riches of Christ. I'm the wealthiest human being
on the face of the earth with the rest of the Lord's people.
I was standing outside a fella's store one day, years ago, a country
store way over in another county. And I looked at these beautiful
mountains up there and I seen all them beautiful mountains
and I said, boy, I said, man, my father owns every one of them.
And he looked at me and he said, wait a minute, I know who owns
them things over there, I know the fella that owns them. I said,
he may have a deed to him here, but my father owns him. He just let him keep track of
them for a while. That'd be unusual. They belong
to him. They belong to him. And then
not only are we wealthy now, but we gonna have wealth, the
riches of his grace in all the ages to come. We just got a little
taste of it here. All the ages to come. All right,
and when we look for a motive in God for doing anything for
us, anything for us, and using all those words, there's only
one answer. Look back up there in verse four.
We were by nature the children of our thieves as others, but
God, but God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love were
with he loved us. That's the only reason you can
find, according to the good pleasure of His will. Now I told you,
I have here in Ephesians 2.8, I've got three blessed, wonderful
gospel words. And look what it says. Ephesians
2.8, everybody here could quote it. For by grace are you saved
through faith. Here's the first word, saved,
saved. Second word, grace. Third word,
faith. So let's look at this business
of saved. Saved. Lots of people use these
words. They use saved, they use grace,
they use faith. When's the last time somebody
walked up to you and told you? And it's probably not been too
long ago that somebody said, so-and-so got saved last week.
Did you hear about so-and-so getting saved? Somebody walked
up to you and said, I got saved last week. Well, it don't talk
about getting saved here, it talks about saved. a past tense,
something that's done. Now, if we're dead in trespasses
and sins, how in the world can a man be saved? But I do know
this, that if a man's saved, what are you gonna be saved from?
What are you gonna be saved from? Most folks don't understand what
being saved is according to the Bible. And what salvation is,
is something that God does for us. But what does he save us
from? What does He save us from? Well, before a person wants salvation,
before a person wants to be saved, they've got to be in trouble.
They've got to be in some kind of a danger. They've got to be
needing rescued. And that's what has to happen.
I mean, a man won't be needing to be, you know, you find a fella
that's in trouble in a fire or something, somebody's got to
go in there and get him out. If he's in water and he's drowning,
somebody's got to get him out. He has to be in danger, he has
to be in trouble, and he needs rescuing. And I tell you, you
know what men are in danger of? First of all, they're in danger
with God. I heard a fella, he uses it on
the radio down home all the time, he says, God loves you, and remember
this, God loves you, and we do too. Them people have never been
in trouble. If God loves you, you'll never
be in trouble. But if God does not, you know,
here's the thing, even those he loves, he puts them in trouble.
And I'll tell you, He brings us into trouble. He brings us
into trouble with Himself. He makes us understand that He's
the one that's got all the power, He's the one that's got all the
strength, He's the one that's got all the ability. And if we
don't, and we're in trouble not only with God, but with His law. Have any of y'all got the Ten
Commandments in your house? Or in your yard? You know why you don't? Because
they've been broken. I don't need the Ten Commandments
to tell me that I don't need to look at them to find out what
God says about me. Don't need to do that. I don't
need to do that. I know what I've done. A preacher
called me one time. He wanted to come to service
the next day, and he's a Reformed Baptist. And this is what he
told me, he said, well, how do you discipline the folks in your
church? I said, what do you mean? He said, you know, adulterers
and liars and fornicators and drunkards and all that. And I
said, well, I said, I don't know what in the world you're talking
about. He said, I know that. Well, those things was wrong
before I ever got converted, before I ever got saved. I know
that all those things was wrong. And then, beloved, when God gets
you in trouble, you know that it's not what you do outwardly,
but it's what you are inwardly. It's your nature. It's your heart. It's your thoughts. A man don't have to do anything.
He don't have to get out of his house. He don't have to get out
of his bed. And he'll have enough sin in him to damn him and his
whole family and another thousand families like him, because that's
the kind of trouble a man's in over his sin. Sin's an awful powerful thing.
Sin's a damning thing. Sin's a deadly thing. Sin's like
a serpent in a man's heart, and I'm telling you, and he says
he's got the poison of asthma under his tongue. So if we're
in trouble, how in the world are we going to get out of this
trouble? How are we going to get out of this trouble of sin?
How are we going to get out of this stage of offending God through
his love? And that's what He said, dead
in trespasses is His. And listen, when I found that
out and you find that out, you find out real quick that there
ain't a thing in the world you can do to get yourself out of
that situation. You can't save yourself. You
cannot put away your own sin. You can't change your nature.
But I want to show you something. Look over here in 2 Corinthians
chapter 1. And there's three tenses talking about being saved.
Three tenses of being saved. Three tenses. And this is the
thing. I love this. I love it. You know, Paul said our salvation's
nearer than when we believe. But look what he says down here
in verse eight. 2 Corinthians 1.8. We would not have you ignorant,
brethren. Now listen to this, of our trouble. Our trouble. which came to us
in Asia. And this trouble was so great
that we were pressed out of measure. We could not do anything to save
ourselves. This trouble we had was above
any strength that we had. And we even said, this is it,
we're gonna die. We're gonna die. But you know
what he said? He said, we just said, well,
we put the sentence of death in ourselves. Because look what
he said. that we should not trust in ourselves. That's what getting in trouble
will cause you to do. That's what getting in trouble will
cause you to do. You don't trust in yourselves. And he said, oh,
we don't trust in ourselves. Well, who you gonna trust in,
Paul? But in God. But in God, which raises the
dead. And listen to this, who delivered
us or saved us from so great a death. The first death he's
talking about here is the death of sin. He saved us from this
great death. And then he goes on, says, and
yet he does save us. And whom he trusted, he will
yet save us. He has, he is, and he shall. And what a blessed day it is
when we shall, shall be saved. We are being saved. Paul said
in Ephesians 10 38, he said, we are not of them who draw back
unto perdition, but believe to the saving of the soul. You take
a man, he goes out in the boat and his
boat turns over and he's way out there in the middle of nowhere
and he's in a shipwreck and he's floundering around in the water.
Lifeboat comes out there. Finds him and picks him up and
puts him in the boat. The minute he's in that boat,
he's saved. He's saved. He may still have
fears. He ain't gotten to land yet.
He may not feel perfectly safe yet. But the closer and closer
they get to that shore and they're brought to land, And then when
he sets his feet on dry ground, his rescues complete, but he
was saved the minute he got in that boat. And the minute, the
second, a person trusts Christ. Saved just like that. Just like
that. Now here's the second word, save.
Here's grace. Look what he says again over
here. For by grace are you saved. Grace. Tis a charming sound. Ain't grace a charming sound? The scriptures are full of this
word, grace. Full of it. 115 times in the New Testament. 38 times in the Old Testament.
You read the first time it was ever mentioned in the Old Testament
tonight. 115 times grace is mentioned. You reckon grace has anything
to do with what God does for a man? 38 times in the Old Testament. And
almost a hundred of those times is by the Apostle Paul. And we
know, and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you again,
you know, it's not grievous to repeat the same thing, but grace
is God's undeserved favor, His unmerited love. And what it amounts
to is You find favor with someone that's superior to you, that's
greater than you, and you find grace in their sight, and you
have favorable treatment from them, and you have no right to
that treatment, that favorable treatment from them. And so grace
is God taking men and women, sinners, and giving them grace,
and they don't deserve anything at all. And He gives it to them
anyway. Gives it to them anyway. And
you'll say, well, if you know, people say, well, God's got to,
you know, give everybody a chance. But if someone doesn't receive
grace, what can you say about it? Does anybody deserve it? Does anybody deserve grace? Did
I deserve grace? Did you deserve grace? Do we
deserve grace right now? If God dealt with us according
to the way we are at any given time of any minute of any day, and gave us anything but grace,
what would happen? And oh, listen, in every word
you find, Noah found, he read that, the wickedness of man was
only evil continually. Everybody on the earth was this
miserable, wretched, awful, oh, unbelievable kind of people.
Kind of like today. And then there's one man. God
said, I'm going to give that man grace. Out of all the people
down here, I'm going to give that man right there grace. I'm
going to give him grace. And it's like Mephibosheth. Here's the thing, why we're talking
about some superior person. Mephibosheth David sent and fetched
him, and you know he could not walk, and David sent and fetched
him. And old Mephibosheth said, oh, this is it. King David's
gonna kill me, he's gonna bring me over there, and he's gonna
kill me. And the first thing he said to King David when he
got down in front of him, he said, why would you look upon
such a dead dog as I am? And you know what David said
to him? Fear not. Because I loved your father. I had a covenant. Oh my. It's like that Canaanite woman.
She came to Christ and she just kept bothering him. He said,
it's not right that I give the children's bread unto dogs. And
she said, yes Lord, I'm a dog. I'm a dog. but even dogs get
the crumbs from the master's table. God, just give me some crumbs.
I heard Scott Richardson say one time, if God just give me
a crumb every once in a while, I can go a long, long way on
a crumb. And I'll tell you what, and if
anybody didn't, you look at a man that is on his way, to come in
a place like we're in our meeting tonight, with a bunch of people
with him, and warrants in his pocket, like the sheriff coming
after you, with warrants in his pocket. And he's gonna come in
a place like this, and he's gonna start taking men, and women,
and children, and taking them out of there, with people with
him, and taking and putting them in prison, because they confessed
Christ. That's the way, that's his only
way to do. But guess what happened? A light above the brightness
of the sun. You know the only thing in the
scriptures that's got a light above the brightness of the sun?
Is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Boy, he got down in the dust
and he was blind as a bat. He'd always been blind, but he
didn't know it. down in the dust, and he said,
oh Lord, what would you have me do? And oh my, that's the
kind of people find grace. Amazing grace. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. That saved,
saved, saved, what? What? A wretch. like you, like me. And we never get over it. I've been pastor of the same
church 39 years and I still ain't got over the grace of God. Grace has brought me safe thus
far and grace is going to lead me home. And when we've been
there 10,000 years, Bright as the sun, we no longer
have... No less days to sing His praise
than when we first begun. Oh my, grace, grace, grace. Moses
asked God this. He had just done all these wonderful
things. God had used him. And you know
what he asked him? He said, have I found grace in
your sight? Moses had brought children of Israel up out there,
and they was fixed to go up through there, and he said, Lord, have
I found grace in your sight? Moses said, have I found grace
in your sight? Have I? If I have, if I have, I ain't taking a step without
you. I'm not going without you. And all this in God's grace is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives it to us in that blessed
rock, the Lord Jesus. Here's a verse of scripture.
I'm sure I've told you what this, 2 Timothy 1.9. I could quote
it to you. I could quote it to you. I use
it all the time. But this is a verse of scripture
that God taught me the gospel with. This one verse of scripture
right here. It answered every question that I had. 2 Timothy
1.9. Answered every single script,
every question that I had, this verse of scripture. And I was
squirrel huntin' when it happened. Sittin' on a stump. Now that's
an experience. But I'd heard the gospel. I'd
met some men, bless God, that men confronted me with the gospel
and I went to the word of God to see if these things were really
so. Really so. And I was sittin' there and God
turned on the light while I was sittin' there, readin' the Bible,
sittin' behind our house, way up on this great big hill up
there. Got my Bible out and I said, old paperback Bible. And I read
it and the light come on. The light come on. I mean, not
a light shine from heaven on. I'm not talkin' about that. But
it's like being in the dark. Light comes on, you can see everything.
Well, that's what happened. God pulled the light switch. And look what he said. Who hath
saved us? You notice everything about our
salvations in the past ten. Who hath saved us? It's the first
thing. God saves us. Salvations of the
Lord. And called us with a holy calling. We do not make ourselves
holy. No way, shape, form, or fashion.
He calls us with a holy calling. Calls us to holiness. And look
at this here, not according to our works. Not according to our
works. Our works had nothing to do with
it. But according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world ever began. You can't find a, you can't get
any clearer than that. And I'll come down off that hill
that day. I tell you what, it just got bigger
and bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more and more and
more. And it's free. It's what I love
about grace. I love the word free grace, free
grace. Everybody talks about grace,
but free grace, free grace. That means it's free, free, free. God's not obligated to give it.
He said, I'll show mercy unto whom I will show mercy. And grace
is entirely dependent on God's will. It's never, ever deserved. He said, if it's of grace, then
it's not of works. If it's of works, it's not of
grace. It can't be mixed. And I tell you what, beloved,
men in the Word were overwhelmed by God's grace. God's grace. And it says it must come to us. Because we can't come to it.
And I tell you what, and it must come. Grace comes. And we never
get over it. I never have got over it. Just
love it, love it, love it. Let me tell you something else
about grace. Back over here in Ephesians 2. Grace is love. Grace is love. God who is rich in mercy. For he's great, not just love,
great love. We're with He who loved us. You know, you hear people talk
about unconditional love in this world. I don't want to upset
nobody's apple cart, but a human being is incapable of unconditional
love. A human being is incapable of
it. If you had unconditional love, you could love everybody
else's children like you loved your children. You could love everybody in this
building like you love yourself if you had unconditional love.
That means that you set no conditions on it. And God is the only being
who can love unconditionally. And he has to love unconditionally
if he loves us. He has to. Unevoked, undeserved,
come thou fount of every blessing. Tune my heart to sing thy grace. Oh, the love of God, how rich
and pure, how measureless and strong. How measureless and strong. And then back over here he says,
by grace are you saved through faith, not of works. Not of works,
not by our weeping, not by our willing, not by our working.
And then look at faith. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And look what it says about all
of them, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. If we
have faith, grace gave it to us. If we have faith, in fact,
everything we've got has been given to us. What do we have
that we didn't receive? We got faith, gave it to us.
We have repentance, given to us. We have love, given to us.
We have salvation, God gave it to us. If we have any sense at
all, any spirituality, God gave it to us. We have nothing of
our own. The only thing that we possess
that actually belongs to us is our sin. That's all we got. But faith, grace gives us faith. And that's why it says it's not
of your sin. Faith is just an instrument. It's an empty hand.
It's an empty hand. And everything, all it does is
it sticks out its hand and takes everything from God. It always,
it takes from God. Everything we have, we come from
God. And here's the thing that God did for us when he gave us,
grace brought faith to us. He gave us grace and faith to
trust him. When grace comes, what it does,
and it gives us this faith, that faith goes outside ourselves. For one time in our lives, we
get outside ourselves. And we think, and we look outside
ourselves, and we look to one person, and we trust that person,
we look to that person, and faith never looks at itself. Faith
is as good as its object. And here's the thing, the Lord
Jesus Christ, everything that happened for me, happened outside
of me. Christ died for me before I ever, before my sin away, before
I ever was. He died for my past, present,
and future sins. So everything, all of my salvation
was accomplished outside of me. I had no part in it whatsoever.
no more than I had any part in my birth coming into this world.
I didn't choose who my parents were. I didn't choose what color
hair. I didn't choose any of those
things. And salvation is everything that God does. And here's the
thing about it, when He saves us by His blessed grace, He gives
us His faith, and He gives us the faith, and then He treats
it like it belongs to us, and then He gives us faith to trust
Him. to look outside ourselves. And
so your faith has to be in something outside yourself. It has to be
in something that somebody else did. Has to be in something that
somebody else accomplished because we can't do anything. He says,
not of works. If it was, we would boast about
that. Oh, it's not by our free will. Not by a decision, not by an
experience we had old. Years ago, Lord Willem, two people,
a husband and a wife, I'm supposed to baptize them next Sunday. And he called and he says, you
know, he said, I've got an old experience. I've got an experience. But that's before I ever heard
the gospel. And he said, I want to do away with that old experience
and I want to confess faith in Christ. And if you got an experience
you can go to and say listen I was saved back there I was
saved this time or saved that time If you got to go back to
a time and a place you're a day late a dollar short The thing
is is right now faith is ever present Hope looks to the future
faith is always present Are you looking to Christ and trust in
Christ right now? I? right this minute. That's why we come to hear the
gospel. Because we know that if we don't hear the gospel,
hear about Christ, that we're so fleshly, and so we keep coming
to hear the gospel, so our eyes will be taken off ourself, off
of this world, and off of our troubles, and off of our vanity,
and off our vexation, and off our aggravations. And so we come
in here and leave things alone for just a little while, so our
eyes can be taken off of this world and the things that's in
it, and we can see Christ for just a little while. Oh, if faith has anything to
look to but Christ, it's the wrong faith. We look to His person. And the person has a character,
it has a personality. And our Lord Jesus Christ is
a person. He's got, he's a character. He
has a personality. If I describe Christ to you,
I can't describe he's five foot 10, 160 pounds, and this way,
that way, when we describe Christ to you, we describe a personality,
we describe a character. This blessed man who walked this
earth, And he saw people was hungry and he fed them. He saw
lepers unclean and he cleansed them. He saw sinners and he saved
them. He saw people in trouble and
he saved them from storms. And he has love. Oh, if you couldn't
be around him and not feel his love, you couldn't be around
him and not enjoy his grace. You couldn't be around him and
not enjoy his voice? You couldn't be around him and
understand that he would love to have men, sinners, the worst
kind of sinners, lay your head on my breast? And mercy? Oh, so merciful. Compassion? And he, you know, he was so comfortable,
he would be so comfortable around a bunch of sinners. And couldn't, didn't even want
to be around Pharisees. But he would be, if he was here,
and really, if all of us are sinners as we say we are, our
Lord Jesus would be comfortable here. I know this, I'm comfortable
in his presence. Cause he's got everything and
I ain't got nothing. Oh, and in his blood cleanses
from all sin. His righteousness that closes
us. The only righteousness that we
ever have and ever will have that God accepts. And his love
that embraces us. His faithfulness. Oh, how faithful
he's been. Has he ever, ever failed you? Has He always been faithful?
Has He always been there for you? Oh, He's faithful, faithful. We sang that little chorus. Turn
your eyes upon Jesus. Look in His wonderful face. And
if you ever take your eyes and don't have them any place, the
eyes of faith and look to any place but Christ. you'll just
be so discouraged, depressed. So don't do it, just don't do
it. Oh my goodness, I got to hurry.
All right, here let me give you something else real quick if
I can. Down there in verse 10, look at this what it says. For
we are his workmanship. Workmanship, now listen. It'd be hard for me, if I had
to take four boards, tack them four boards together, I'd have
trouble. That thing would go this way and that way and every
way. My workmanship ain't worth it. Boy, his is. And you know who
his workmanship is? We are. And that word workmanship
means poema, poem. We're his poem. And oh, we're
his handiwork. Since salvation is by grace and
not of works, and it's a work of God, we are His workmanship. And when it says His workmanship,
look what else he says. Created in Christ Jesus. Created in Christ Jesus. God
does this workmanship and He creates something. He creates
us into the Lord Jesus Christ. Creates a person. And what He
does in saving a sinner, He creates out of nothing. Oh, his workmanship. It's his
creation. We were dead, he gave us life. We were in darkness, he gave
us light. And his workmanship. And you know, it's his, he makes
the choice of who he creates. He said, hath not Potter power
over the clay? Out of the same lump, same lump,
I'm gonna make this in a vessel of honor. I'm gonna make that
a vessel of dishonor. He got the right to do that.
But he makes the choice of who he creates. He which hath begun
a good work in you shall perform it unto the day of redemption.
I wanna show you this and then I'll wind it up. Psalm 103. Psalm
103. No, excuse me, Psalm 100, verse three. I'm sorry. Look what he says here, talking
about we're his workmanship. Know ye that the Lord, he is
God. It is he that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. Now he's talking about making
us his people, making us his elect, making us his workmanship. And I tell you, beloved, and
then it says under good works. Now let me tell you something
about this. Anybody here say that they've
done a good work today? Would anybody stand up here and
say, boy, I've done a good work today? I done a good work. You know, there's two places
in the scripture where you find people who, where the Lord talked
about works. One bunch said, you know, he
said, oh, we done all those things. Which of them didn't we do? And
then the other bunch said, Lord, when did we ever do such a thing
like that? When did we ever do such a thing
like that? And here's, I know this, that when we do one, we
don't know we done it. If we know we done it, we ruin
it. Ain't that right? But here is a mystery of grace.
Here is a mystery of grace. That a believer claims nothing
good of himself, that he's never done nothing any good, and yet
they're the best people on the face of the earth. The best people
on the face of the earth. They're the salt of the earth
and the light of the world. I'd rather be at the Lord's people
than any place in this world. There's two things that I love
more than anything in this world. Two things. I love hearing the
gospel. I'm the most, when I'm listening
to the gospel, not preaching it, listening to it. And secondly,
I enjoy being with the Lord's people in worship service or
fellowship and with them. More than any of those two things
are the most enjoyable things on this earth for me. I mean, those are the two most
enjoyable things. Ain't they for you? You don't just think of all the
wonderful time we've had this weekend. Well, I love you all and thank
you so much for listening to me and I hope to see you again
soon.