I amen that. It's been a wonderful
meeting. And aren't y'all glad that the
Lord called Donnie out of Pentecostalism? Gave him to us to preach the
gospel. What a blessing that message was. Been alright if
Todd had just closed out the service after that. But since
he didn't, I hope the Lord will enable us to see Christ in this
hour. If you'd like to turn with me
in your Bibles, we're going to begin in 2 Peter chapter 1. And while you do that, I want
to say, sincerely as I can, that Trish and I are so appreciative
for you. We're humbled in that you all
always treat us like we're somebody, and we feel so much at home here.
And we're thankful for that. Todd opened up this meeting on
Friday night by reading from Acts chapter 10, where Peter
goes and preaches the gospel at Cornelius's house, you all
remember? And Cornelius says to the apostle Peter, we are
all here to hear all the words that the Lord has commanded you.
And I've been thinking, how do I know if I've heard, if I've
really heard? The most often verse, this is
very humbling and very sobering, the most often Old Testament
passage quoted in the New Testament, I think about seven times, is
found in Isaiah chapter 6 where the Lord told the prophet Isaiah
to preach the gospel and they will have ears but they will
not hear, eyes they will have but they will not see. And Isaiah
responded by saying, ìLord, how long do I do that?î And the Lord
said, ìUntil the cities be wasted without inhabitants and the land
be utterly desolate, theyíll come and theyíll listen, but
they wonít really hear.î And then there was another time when
our Lordís mother and brethren came requesting an audience with
Him. They couldn't get in because
of the press, and they said to the Lord, your mother and your
brethren are here to see you. And the Lord said, who is my
mother and who are my brethren? Them that hear my words and do
them. Oh, hearing. Hearing. It's a miracle of grace. I don't
want to fall short. As Donnie reminded us of what
Job said, I had heard of thee by the hearing of mine ear, but
now mine eyes have seen thee, and I repent in dust and ashes.
Lord, don't leave me short of hearing thy voice. My sheep hear
my voice, and they follow me. The disciples once asked the
Lord, why do you speak to them in parables? And the Lord said,
because it's not for them to know. the mysteries of the kingdom
of God. It's for you to know. Lord, give
me a hearing ear. How do I know if I've heard? And I want to answer that question
by saying that I know that I've heard when I value things like
God values them. Now, here in the South, we use
the word precious oftentimes to speak of a small child, and
usually we mean by that they're cute or adorable. The Lord uses
the word precious in the scriptures to mean that it is without price. Now, we say oftentimes that something
is priceless. People talk about a priceless
antique. There is no such thing. Everything's got a value. But
when God says that it's precious, that it's priceless, that means
it cannot be bought. That means you can't negotiate
for it. That means there's nothing you can do to earn it or merit
it. If you're going to get it, God's going to have to give it
to you. Come and buy me without money and without price. Now,
what are the six things that God calls precious, that God
calls priceless? Because if the Lord has put into
my heart His estimation of the value of those things, in other
words, if I agree that those things are without price, I can't
earn them, I can't pay for them, I can't buy them, and they mean
everything to me, then that's a pretty good indication that
I've heard the voice of God. The first thing that He calls
precious is His Word. It's right here. In Job chapter 28, verse 10,
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks, and His eyes seeth every
precious thing. So our God's eyes are fixed on
those things which He calls precious. Oh Lord, fix our eyes on the
things that You call precious and put it in our hearts to estimate
the value of those things to be without price. I hope that our Lord will cause
us to have some assurance that we've heard His voice. You have
your Bibles open to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. Verse 2, Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Our Lord,
according as His divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him
that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby, how are
we going to get this knowledge of God? How is He going to give
to us those things that are necessary for this life and for the life
to come, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature
having escaped the corruption that is in this world? God calls
His Word priceless. Is the Word of God priceless
to you? It is if you know it to be the
means by which the Lord has saved your soul. Of His own will begat
He us with the Word of Truth. As Todd just reminded us, faith
comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. And
this is the Word. This is the Word. It's not just
the Bible and verses in the Bible. This is the Word which by the
Gospel is preached unto you. So the Lord blesses with His
Holy Spirit, His Word, in order to open the eyes of our understanding
and enable us to see Christ and hear the voice of the Lord Jesus
Christ calling us out. There's no salvation apart from
the Word of God. There's no salvation apart from
the preaching of the gospel. And if that's your experience,
if you've heard God's voice, then you'll say with me, oh,
God's word is so precious to me. He calls it precious, and
I agree. I've heard his voice. I consider
the word of God to be my life. my life and as we were reminded
the other night we don't separate the living word from the written
word they are one in the same the Lord Jesus Christ is the
word of God he became flesh he dwelt among us we beheld his
glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father full of
grace and full of truth and he's given us his word in the volume
of the book it is written of me what the Lord say to those
religious Pharisees he said you search the scriptures Because
you think in them you have eternal life, but these are they which
testify of me." When God speaks and you hear, and for the first
time in your life, you see Christ in the Scriptures. That's what
they're there for. They're there to reveal Him.
And without them, we would have no revelation of truth. We would
have no light. And for that reason, the Word
of God is precious to us. We don't look to creeds. We don't
look to confessions. We don't look to dead theologians.
We don't justify anything by anything other than the precious
Word of God. What did Paul say? What saith
the Scriptures? That's the only thing that matters.
What does God say? And when we hear God's voice,
oh, we know. We know that these scriptures
are true. Listen to what the Lord said
in Isaiah chapter 34 verse 16. Seek ye out of the book of the
Lord and read for not one of these shall fail. Seek ye out
of the word. Check the book. Not one of his
precious promises shall fail, and all the promises of God are
yea and amen in Christ. He came to fulfill God's word. How precious is the word of God
to those who have heard the voice of God. No place else to go. It's our only source of authority.
It's the only place where we're going to hear the voice of God. Secondly, the second thing that
God says is precious in His sight, and if we've heard His voice,
it will be precious in our sight, is the redemption of the soul. Listen to Psalm 49, verse 7.
None of these can by any means redeem his brother, nor give
to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of the soul is
priceless. It's precious. God says you can't
redeem yourself. The older I get, the more convinced
I am of how men by nature spend their whole lives trying to atone
for their own sins. They know that there is a God
with whom they must do. Even those who confess themselves
to be atheists, they know there's a God. And they spend their whole
lives trying to redeem themselves, trying to atone for their own
sins. God says you can't do it. The
redemption of the soul is precious. It's priceless. You can't pay
for it. You can't buy it. You can't atone
for yourselves. Romans chapter 10 says men, because
they're ignorant of the righteousness of God, go about trying to establish
their own righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. The men won't
come to Christ. They'll get religion, they'll
do everything in their power in order to try to atone for
themselves and to redeem themselves. What do you think? What do you
think about the redemption of your own soul? Is it precious? I mean priceless, nothing you
were able to do, nothing you could make, no contribution you
could make, no amount of sorrow, no amount
of sadness. People say, well, you know, if
you repent and believe, bring your faith to the altar and be
really sorry for your sins, then God will save you. Is that the
price that you're bringing? If it is, then the redemption
of your soul is not precious. It's not precious. You're not
estimating the value of redemption by the same scale by which God
estimates the value of redemption. He says it's without price. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
53. I say this to our shame. To my shame, I'll admit that
there have been often times in my life where I have jested over
things that I should have been ashamed of. I think we've all
done it, made light of sin. If you take one of those things
that you are able to jest about in public and not be ashamed
of, if you could see that sin, that sin, the way God sees it,
you would crawl under a rock and never show your face in public
again. Now what does that say about
the things that you really are ashamed of? The things you don't
want people to know about. The point that I'm trying to
make is that David said, I was like a beast before thee. I had
no capacity within myself to experience the shame and the
guilt of sin as it really is. And that's what God requires
for the redemption of our soul. Look what it says in Isaiah chapter
53, verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord. Prior
to that, he bore our iniquities. He bore all the sins of all of
God's people in His body upon that tree. He suffered the full
wrath of God's justice in order to put away our sins once and
for all. And the Scripture says in verse 10, Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed
and shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He, God the Father, shall see
the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied, for by his
knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." Now what
is the knowledge that Christ had that you and I can't have? The knowledge of sin. He felt the full shame, the full
burden. He saw sin for what it really
is. You and I can't do that. We're
not capable. We're so accustomed to our sin,
we joke about it. The Lord Jesus Christ felt the
full power of God's wrath and the full shame of your sin, my
sin, God's people's sin. Look what he says. For he shall
bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with
the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. The redemption of the soul is
precious in God's sight because of what it required for it to
be accomplished. We cannot atone for our sins.
We cannot redeem ourselves. God requires what Christ went
through on Calvary's cross, the full shame, the full suffering
of all sin, In order for him, what that passage say we just
read in Isaiah 53, for him to be satisfied. Because God's not
satisfied with your repentance. He's not satisfied with your
faith. We don't bring anything like that to the Lord. The redemption
of the soul is without price. Do you estimate the redemption
of your soul by the same value that God estimates it? If you
have, Be of good cheer, brethren, you've heard the voice of God,
because that's what God says. And it's not natural. The natural man is thinking that
he can bring something. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
1. 1 Peter chapter 1. Verse 18, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, and
everything that we put our hands to is corruptible. Any sorrow
that we've ever felt for our sin is corruptible. Any faith that we've ever drummed
up is corruptible. Any work that we've ever performed
is corruptible. We put our hands to it, it's
corruptible. We're not redeemed with corruptible
things such as silver or gold from your vain conversation. That word conversation, it means
more than just speech, it means your whole life. Man at his very
best state is altogether vanity, is he not? How can vanity redeem? How can that which is empty satisfy
a holy God? It cannot. Received by tradition from your
fathers. Oh, there's so much tradition
in religion, isn't there? Why do you do it? Remember Fiddler
on the Roof? When the daughter asked Papa,
why do we do the things that we do? And he said, I'll tell
you exactly why we do it. Tradition. That's it. That's all we've got. That's
all religion's got. We receive these things by tradition
from our fathers. But with the precious blood of
Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, is the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ precious to you? Because it is to God.
There's no value to it. It's of infinite value. It's
priceless. It's the means by which God redeems
his people. When I see not your repentance,
not your faith, not your works, not your good intentions, not
your religious activity, not your prayers, not your body,
when I see the blood, I will pass by you. It's all God's required
in a Chris. It's all God requires. The precious
blood of the Lamb who laid down His life for the sheep. When
Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father, if there
be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be nevertheless
not my will, but Thine be done. Three times He prayed that. It
was the cup of sin. It was the knowledge of sin. It was the weight and the burden
of the sins of his people that he would bear on Calvary's cross,
and it was the only way God was going to be satisfied. Without the shedding of blood,
There is no remission of sins. Isaiah chapter 33 verse 13 says,
Hear ye that are afar off what I have done. Hear ye. Lord, I want to hear about what
you've done. Well, here's what I've done. I've bore in my body
all the sins of all of God's elect. And I suffered the full
wrath of God. And I felt the full burden of
God. I had the knowledge of sin like they never could have it.
And God was satisfied with me. What's the first words that are
recorded in the Scriptures that came from the lips of our Lord? When He spoke to His mother at
the age of 12 in Jerusalem, isn't it? When He said, did you not
know that I must be about my father's business? And then what
are the last recorded words just before He gave up the ghost?
It is finished. It is finished. That's what's
been done. Hear ye that are afar off. And that's where we are by nature.
We're far off. We're afar off. We can't bring
to God anything that would satisfy Him. Hear ye what I have done. Religion's all about doing, isn't
it? The gospel of God's free grace in the finished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ is all about what's been done. Precious. Precious in God's sight. You
have your Bibles open to 1 Peter chapter 1. Look at Look at verse 7, that the trial
of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth,
though it be tried by fire, with fire might be found unto praise
and honor and glory at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we have a tradition in our home. We watch the Thanksgiving, Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thanksgiving Day. That's just on the TV. So
whatever we're doing, that's playing. And this year I noticed
above the grandstand in huge letters on the side of Macy's
building was the word believe. Maybe you saw it. And I thought,
believe what? Believe what? Men are of the
impression if I just believe. I heard someone say recently
everybody's got their own reality. Reality is what God says reality
is. Everybody may have their own
opinion, but I would remind you that the word opinion is the
same word translated heresy in the scriptures. And God says
it is necessary that there be heresies among you, opinions
of men among you, in order that those which are approved of God
might be made manifest. They're the only ones that can
discern the difference between just a nebulous, general believe
and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing what God has
said. Believing what He has done. Resting
all the weight of your mortal soul on the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's a work of grace. For
by grace are you saved through faith. God calls this faith precious
because you can't buy it. You can't drum it up. You can't
bring it to God. He's got to give it to you. For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. Faith is not the cause of our
salvation, it's the result of it. That is such an important
distinction. Because men in religion will
tell you that God's made an author of salvation, God wants to save
everybody, loves everybody, you do your part. If that's what you believe, then
you do not estimate by the same value the things that God estimates
when he says that it's precious. Precious. Is your faith precious
to you? The faith that God has given
you to hang all the hopes of your soul on the person and work
of Christ, is that the pearl of great price to you? Is that
something you're not willing to give that up? And there was
a time when you could not believe the gospel. You could not believe
that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, unable to make some
contribution to your salvation. You couldn't believe that. You
couldn't believe that God sovereignly chose a particular people according
to his own will and purpose before time ever began and wrote their
names in the land's book of life before Adam was ever created.
You couldn't believe that. You could not believe that the
Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for the sheep and satisfied
the demands of God's justice for a particular people, effectually
saving them all by himself. You couldn't believe that. You
could not believe that grace was irresistible, that you had
a choice in this thing. You had a decision to make. You
could say yea or nay. You couldn't believe that God,
according to His own will, would make you willing in the day of
His power and cause you to come unto Him? You couldn't believe
it. You could not believe that He
would keep you from falling and present you faultless before
the throne of God, regardless of whatever happened to you.
You couldn't believe that. And now, if you've heard the
voice of God, you can't not believe it. You can't not believe it, can
you? There was a time I'd tell our folks, I'd say, just try
not believing the gospel. And then I realized, I do that
every day. Every time I take my eyes off
of Christ. Every time I look to the things of this world for
my happiness and for my satisfaction, for my comfort and for my hope,
I'm trying to not believe. But I can't do it. Why? Because my faith is precious.
When God gives you faith, He never takes it back. And, oh, He's made a highway,
Isaiah chapter 35, a highway of holiness. And those that are
foolish shall not err from it. In other words, even God's people,
in all their foolishness, they can't err. Why? Because God's
not going to let them. He finishes everything that He
starts. Is your faith precious to you?
1 Peter chapter 2. Peter likes
this word precious. 1 Peter chapter 2. Verse 1, wherefore, laying aside
all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all
evil speaking, as newborn babes crave after, and if you've heard
the voice of God, you do, you crave after the sincere milk
of the word that you might grow thereby as newborn babes desire
that word, if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious
to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men. He's not esteemed by the natural
man. There was no beauty in him that
we should esteem him. But now, having heard the voice
of God, though there was a time when I disallowed him, now I
know that He's chosen of God and precious, precious. Oh, He is the priceless pearl. How did Paul say it in Colossians? Turn over with me just a few
pages to the book of Colossians. Chapter 3. If ye then be risen
with Christ. Chapter 3, verse 1. Seek those
things which are above. Set your affections on things
above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Colossians
chapter 3, for you are dead and your life is hid in Christ with
God. And when Christ who is our life, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. I've deposited. David, you preached
from that passage the other night. I was talking to David after
I said, kind of like going to the bank. You're going to make
a big deposit. But you think, you know, something might happen
to this bank. I better hold back $5 and keep it in my pocket just
for sake, just in case, just in case. Isn't that what men
do? You know, Christ is the most
important thing in my life. He's not, no, I got all my eggs in
one basket. I'm not keeping a penny in my
pocket. Deposited everything on Christ. When Christ, who is
our life, shall appear, then we also shall appear with
Him in glory. is Christ precious. Precious, you remember what?
Priceless to you. He is to God. And last, Psalm 116, verse 15,
precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. If you've heard the voice of
God, you are anticipating your death. You are. You're looking and longing
for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're waiting for that
day when you shall see Him as He is and be made like Him. And for you to live is Christ,
but to die is gain. Precious in his sight is the
death of his saints, and precious in the sight of his saints is
the death of their brethren. We have great sorrow when God
takes a dear brother, sister, family member, loved one. We
have sorrow because we miss them. We have no sorrow for them. We, your pastor and I have talked,
we're jealous for those who the Lord's taken. No sorrow whatsoever. I've had to deal with some folks
recently at a funeral and I cannot tell you how many of them told
me I'm not afraid to die. And these are folks that I know
have never heard the voice of God, because they're sitting
under a man who's speaking the voice of Satan. And yet they
say, well, I'm not afraid to die. And I thought about Isaiah
chapter 28. You've made a covenant with death. With hell, you're in agreement.
You say that when the overflowing scourge shall come it not overtake
us, but I say unto you I'm going to disannul your covenant I'm
gonna take it away a covenant that you made a Covenant is a
promise if your salvation is Depart is determined in any way
upon a promise that you've made to God That's what these folks
were saying. We've we've made a promise with God. We've made
a deal with God We're not worried about hell God says, I'm going
to disannul it, and when the overthrowing scourge shall come,
you'll be swept away. Why? Because you made that covenant.
What did David say? Although my house be not so with
God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure. God the Father promised to give
to God the Son a bride. God the Son promised to the Father
to redeem that bride and God the Holy Spirit promised in the
covenant of grace to regenerate them and to make them value as
precious the things that God values as precious. Has He done that for you? Is
the hope of your salvation completely dependent on God's promise and
not yours? classroom.