Peter, chapter 2. But it is a delight to be here
with the Lord's people and feel the same way about Todd and his
family as he did about me. description of a believer. I
believe it describes every child of God, every person who's been
converted, God's elect, and the manifestation of His election.
But as a preacher, the call of God set apart to preaching. And it's the most glorious, highest
calling that a man can have on the face of this earth. And God
does that. He trusts us with His word. All I want to call in that is
to be entrusted with it. But as a preacher, preaching
to publicly and preaching to congregations like yourself and
where I'm at, in our pulpit ministries, there are several things that
we have to watch out for, preaching to do, and have to be very careful
about. Have to be very careful about them. And we try to be
careful about them, and I know Todd will agree with this, One
of the things that we have to really watch out for is that
we don't make salvation or eternal life any harder and difficult
than our Lord Jesus made it. We don't want to make it any
harder. Don't make the way no more narrow
than our Lord Jesus made it. We don't want to do that. Because
if we do, we'll rob the sheep that our Lord laid his life down
for their confidence and assurance in him. You see, God intends
for his people to have assurance. intends for them to have confidence
in him, to come holy to the throne of grace, to have faith in his
blessed son, to rest their souls in the Lord Jesus Christ, find
great rest for the souls in him. And if we make the way too narrow,
too hard, then we'll dishonor our master for his people. Another
thing we have to be very careful about in preaching is that we
don't want to ever give the impression that our works Our duties will
ever prevail with anything with God at all for our forgiveness
of sins. You know, you ought to be faithful to the services.
You ought to be faithful to read the scriptures. You ought to
do that. But none of those things prevail
with God for the forgiveness of sins. Not one of them does.
You know, we're saved by grace through faith, and that's not
of ourselves. It's the gift of God. Not of worse, lest any man
should boast. God has saved us. God is not
according to our works of righteousness, but according to his own mercy,
which was given us in Christ. So we don't want to preach that
our works is going to prevail anything with God. We just don't
want to do that. What we say is salvation is of
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. It's never, ever in my works. never in our duties, never in
our prayer, never in our faithfulness, never in anything that we attribute
to it. We don't do anything to get a
reward. God ain't going to bless you and give you a special blessing
because you came to the service tonight. He's not going to do
that. If you're here expecting that, other than just in the
preaching of the gospel, your motive is altogether wrong. And
that's what we got to fight against. You know, all of our righteousnesses
are as a filthy wreck. Paul said, I know that in me,
in my flesh, what did he say? Well, no good thing. He didn't
say sometimes there's something good in me. Every once in a while
there's something good in me. Every once in a while I do something
good with it. He said, there dwells in me my
flesh nothing good. Ain't that what he said? Nothing
good. Nothing good. And another thing, and I've been
guilty of this over the years, been guilty of not only doing
it, creating this in people, and when preaching. That's why
I say preachers. We have got a task, so we've
got a glorious calling. But in dealing with people, you
know, we, in preaching, we don't want to preach in such a way
that we'll create a generation of Pharisees. And preachers can
do that. Preachers can do that. We can
preach separation, preach all the duties that we need to be
doing. We can preach law and morality. so strongly that you'll
end up creating a people who trust in themselves that they
are righteous more than anybody else. And I mean even Calvinists
can do this. They can get to thinking that
they've got their doctrine so straight and so pure, and we're
so different, so separated from everybody else, that we'll become
a Pharisee and look down on everything and anybody else that's not like
us. When the fact was we've all been out there in religion, been
as far out as you can get, And whether you was ever lost in
religion or just lost, you lost. Is that not right? And so you
see, and that's what I've done that before. I used to preach
on things, against things so hard that, you know, I preached
against women wearing pants and lots of makeup and boy, you know,
and all kinds of things. And boy, the next thing you know,
you got a bunch of Pharisees looking down on everybody. questioning their motives. And
whenever you find a Pharisee, you find somebody all the time
sitting in the judgment of other believers. Sitting in judgment
on them, questioning their motives. We don't know what a person's
motive is. Only God knows what's in a man's heart. We don't know. We question their actions. Why
did they do this? Why did they do that? We question
their word. We question their loyalty. We
question their faithfulness. And I know this, that when we
cease to examine ourselves, we'll examine others. And the scripture
said, who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient? And
another thing, Todd, and I know you watch us and you're preaching.
You do, Dan, you other brethren here that preach. We don't want
to make salvation in a relationship with Christ an easy believism.
An easy, easy believism that ends up making salvation an isolated
act. An isolated act of faith and
repentance. where you know you can, when
you're preaching, tell folks, you know, that all you've got
to do is raise your hand, come to the front, shake my hand,
make your decision. And it promises life and heaven
to a rebel. And oh my, how much of that goes
on? How much of that easy to say? In fact, let me ask you
this. How many of you sitting here tonight, that when you're
preaching, preaching gets close to you, you go back to something
that happened way back yonder? Some isolated act that you did,
the time that you repented, the time that you believed. You got
to go back to a particular time and place. Instead of trusting Christ right
now, how many has to do that? Oh my, God help us never to cry
peace, peace when there is no peace. And you know, I tell you
what, we certainly don't need to give men material to build
false refuges. to hide themselves in. They got
enough material, they'll build, they got enough material of their
own thinking, they'll build in one way. And also, let me take
you here in 1 Peter 2, look in verse 4. So you see, this business
of preaching, and that's why I want to give you a three word
description, talking about salvation, talking about life in Christ,
a three word description of a child of God, three word description
of a person who is a believer. 1 Peter 2 and 4, to whom cometh. Three words that describes it. That describes a Christian. That
describes a believer. To whom cometh. Huh? Unto a living stone. Now, everybody
don't come to him. They're disallowed indeed of
men. Men say there's nothing about him but chosen of God and
precious. Chosen of God and precious. You
see, when we look at this three words here, I believe this will
tell us Everything we need to know about salvation and coming
to Christ and what salvation is. You see, salvation and life
is coming to Christ. That's the way it begins. It
begins by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's continuing
by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's going to be perfected
that way by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. No other way. At
no time, at no time is the Christian profession, my profession, your
profession, this preacher's profession, that no time is the Christian
profession, the Christian experience anything more than coming to
Christ. Never at any time. At the beginning,
give me that psalm book right there, what you talking about? At the beginning, Isaiah starts
at the beginning, our salvation starts with coming to Christ.
At the very beginning, I came to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
an old hymn in page 242. Let me just read a line out of
it. Out of my bondage, sorrow and
sight, night, Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come. Into thy freedom,
gladness and light, Jesus, I come to thee. Out of my sickness,
into thy health. Out of my want, into thy will.
Out of my sin, into thyself, Jesus, I come. That's what salvation
is. That's how it starts. That's
how it begins. You come out of yourself, out of your womb, out
of your sin, out of your poverty, you come to him. And then while
we go through our journey in this world, while we're passing
through this world, while we're living in this world, our journey
throughout it is coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, never doing
anything more than that. When the apostle began to rebuke
the Galatians, he said, having begun in the spirit, Are you
now made perfect by the flesh? And he says if the Spirit quickens
you, you're so dead and so lost and so helpless and so unable
to do anything that the Holy Spirit had to come and quicken
you, had to come and give you life, had to come and make you
see Christ, and make you believe on Christ, and give you the ability
to believe on Christ, and if the Spirit regenerates you, The
Spirit gave you eyes to see. The Spirit gave you ears to hear.
Do you think that it took the Spirit to do all that? That you're
going to add something to what He did and be made perfect by
His flesh? No, no. All the way through our
Christian journey, it's coming to Christ. Huh? Did you begin with Christ and
now it's your duty? It's going to make your relationship
with Him better? Huh? It's not Christ. Now listen to me. It's not Christ
and me at any time. It's just Him. He's my wisdom. How am I going to know God except
through the Lord Jesus Christ? How am I going to understand
the Bible except through the Lord Jesus Christ? How am I going
to understand anything about myself unless I see Him in His
glory? How am I going to be holy unless
He's my sanctification? How am I going to have a righteousness
if God will accept me unless He's my righteousness? And all
that right now. It was this morning. If you let
me live tomorrow, I'll be the same. You see, I'm the same sinner,
saved by grace, who came to the Lord Jesus Christ in the beginning.
Came at the beginning. I haven't changed that much.
That's why I got to keep coming. I just got to keep coming. I'm not got any better. In fact,
I got worse. There's an old man, before he died, Died December
the 18th. Today is December 18th, ain't
it? Died five years ago today. Dear brother, he came to me when
he was up in his seventies, and he said, Brother Donnie, how
in the world can a man be so sinful after he's known Christ
so long? All coming to Him, that's what
it is. And in the end, when we get to
the end of it, we started out coming to Christ. We're going
through this life, we're coming to Christ. We get to the end.
What are we going to do? We're going to just do what we've
been doing. We're just going to keep coming.
We're going to keep coming. You see, He's the author of our
faith. He's the beginning of it, and
he's the finisher. That means he's the one that's
got to complete it. He's the alpha and the omega. He's the
beginning and the end. And, oh, beloved, we're going
to see him like he is in one of these days. We'll be just
like him. That'll be the end of coming. And the song in glory is unto
him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Look over here in Philippians
with me just a moment. Look over in Philippians chapter
one. Let me show you something, just a minute. This is, you know,
the apostle. He said, I finished my course.
I've kept the faith. He finished his course. He kept
the faith. He preached the gospel. Wrote almost all of the New Testament. He established churches all over. Ordained preachers. And yet,
when it come time to leave this world, what did he say in verse
23? Philippians 1, for I'm in a strait
betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ,
which is far better. Oh, my. When he talks about heaven,
what does he say? I want to go where the walls
are made of jasper, where the streets are made of gold, where
the gates are made of pearl? No, no, he said, I want to depart
and do what? Be with Christ. He knows if you've
ever been with Him, you'll always want to be with Him. If you ever
come to Him, you're always coming to Him. And there'll be a day
when you'll depart and be with Him forever. And oh, when He
describes heaven and eternal glory, He describes it being
with Christ. So there's a three-word picture
of a believer, to whom coming, in the beginning, in the continuing
of it, in the ending of it. No wonder, no wonder the redeemed
will never, ever cease coming to Christ. until they're perfectly
conformed to his image. David said, I'll be satisfied
when I awaken thy light. But now let me just say that.
Let me ask you some questions. Let me ask you some questions.
Did you one day come down a church aisle, made a profession, and
then stop? Huh? Did you run for a while? Didn't
lose your interest? Just lose your interest? Was there a time that you met
a great zeal for the church, and attending the services, and
reading the Bible, and praying, and then just laid it all aside?
Huh? Did that ever happen to you?
Did that ever happen to you? Well, if it did, if it did, then
you're not coming to Christ. You've never come to Christ.
And I hope someday you will. But our Lord Jesus, in giving
the parable of the sowing, he said, a man went out sowing seeds.
And he said, that seed was the word of God. And it fell on four
different types of ground. And he said, as he sowed the
seed, some fell on hard ground. Some fell by the wayside. Some
fell among stones. Some fell on good ground. Good ground. And oh, that's the
way so many people is in this business of coming to Christ.
They see it falls on that hard ground and don't do anything
for it. It doesn't touch it. It never moves it. It has no
effect on it. And then there's another that
falls by the wayside. And they say, oh, I heard that.
Yeah, that sounds good to me. And he ain't no sooner out of
the service than the devil comes and snatches it away. And then
the other, it falls among the thorns. And oh boy, it looks
a little hopeful, but after a while, the cares of life, making money,
making excuses, other fish to fry, it chokes it out. But thank
God, there is one that falls on good ground and brings forth
good. And oh my, I hope that's you.
Look over here at John 6 with me just a minute. Let's look
at a couple of things here. To whom coming? To who coming? John 6, 44. You know, the believers continually
come into Christ. If you can wither away, you will. If you quit, you will. If something
can choke out what you've got now, one of these days, it will. It really will. They really will. I hope that doesn't happen. But
look here at John 6, 44. Our Lord said, No man can come
to me except the Father, which hath sent me God. And I'll raise
him up at the last day. Now here, it tells us that no
man can come to Christ. He said, No man can come to me.
But yet we continually come into Christ. We're going to start
and continue. What's this tell us? But it tells
us this, that our first coming to Christ was by an act of the
grace of God himself. That's the way we've come. We
just didn't one day decide, I'm going to, like my neighbor, you
know, he's dead and gone now. Found out he was real sick and
he said, went and joined the church and got baptized and said,
I've been meaning to make a change. He said, that's all I call it,
making a change. So if a man comes to Christ,
he comes because it was an act of the grace of God. He says,
no man can come to me. It's a miracle. It's a work of
God for a man to come to Christ. Our first coming to Christ was
what God did for us. He came, he come to us, and by
an act of his powerful, almighty, supernatural grace brought us
to his blessed Son. He said, no man can come to me.
Now, you hear what I'm saying. God doesn't prevent them from
coming. God's full of grace. We preach that God is full of
grace. He's plenteous in mercy, delights
to show mercy. He's rich in mercy. Our Lord
Jesus stood and said, come unto me. Call you that labor, and
I'll give you rest. He stood over Jerusalem with
tears in his eyes. And he said, how often would
I have bettered you, Jerusalem, as a hen doeth gather her chicks.
But here's the thing. You would not. Our Lord says,
you will not come to me that you might have lies. You will
not. And the church doesn't prevent them from coming. Here you've
got this beautiful building. Add it on to it. Keep the lights
paid. Pay the preacher. Put out a bulletin. Make CDs. Make tapes. Do everything in your power to
get men to come to Christ. Make it just as comfortable as
you possibly can. Preach three times a week. Pass
out tapes. Give out bulletins. Try on your
dead level best to encourage men to come to Christ. The church
doesn't prevent them The loved ones does. Is there a woman in
here that would keep her husband from coming to Christ? Is there
a husband in here that'd keep his wife from coming to Christ? Is there a mother and father
that would keep their children from coming to Christ? No. No. So why is it, then, that
men can't come to Christ? What is it about us? Well, I'll
tell you, they don't see any need to come. They don't have
a need. They don't see any need to come.
They don't have any sin. They may have some faults. They
may have made some mistakes. They may have stumbled a little
along the way. But after all, I'm a pretty good
person. That's this whole generation's message is, is that feel good
about yourselves. And oh, the only person who ever,
ever, have any idea of what they really are. It's those that God
in divine grace comes to and does something for them. And,
oh, my, every psychologist and psychiatrist and preacher and
every TV pop-up psychologist will tell you to feel good about
yourself, but it's what Christ says about us that we're going
to have to deal with. And, oh, they don't see any need
to come. And, oh, this is what's sad. They don't see anything
in Christ worth coming for. Oh, my, they don't see any beauty
about him that they should desire him. He says he comes down from heaven.
Why, how in the world could that be? We know his mother. We know
his brothers. And we know his sisters. He's
just a man. There's nothing special about
him. He's no different than Allah. He's no different than Buddha.
He's no different than Muhammad. He's no different than that guy
that started up the Mormons. He's no different than any of
the rest of them. They don't see any difference, but oh my,
if they saw in Him what the believer sees in Him, if they saw in the
Lord Jesus Christ, that glory of His deity, that glory of His
Godhead, that glory of His sinless humanity, that glory that God
delights in him, that glory that God looks on him with such favor,
that glory that dwells with him, that he alone can forgive us
of sin, that he alone can make us acceptable to God. And oh,
if we could see, if they could see the peace of heart, if they
could see the rest of soul that they'd have in coming to him,
they'd be running to get to him. Oh, my. But their hearts. or
sit on other things that's more important to them, and they have
no room for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, our Lord spoke this
parable. He said a man made a great supper,
and that's what we do every time we preach to God. We set the
table, set it with the Lord Jesus Christ, His grace, His righteousness,
His justification, His forgiveness, His redemption, His priesthood,
His intercession, His deity, His sinless humanity, His perfection,
and everything that we can think of to say about Him, and everything
that we forget, we say, oh, I wish I'd have thought of it after
you get to the house. We set the table with Him, and oh my,
and we, and it sends out a message saying, oh, them that have been,
tell them to come, the feast is ready. And oh, what a feast
it is. And they all, with one consent,
began to make excuses. One fellow said, well, I've lost
the plane. He'd go look at it. Another fellow
said, well, I've lost five yoke of oxen. I need to go hook them
up. He said, go ahead and do it. The fellow stayed in the
harness. Another fellow said, I married a wife. I married a
wife. And they all went away. And they
all began to make excuses. But all night, No man can come
to me except the Father which sent me to draw him. And when
it says here, ain't that what it says? No man can come except
the Father which sent me to draw him. Now, when it talks about
being drawn, except the Father which sent us to draw him, when
he talks about being drawn, this is not a physical force. Now,
down home, they accuse us, and I don't know if they do you all
around here, but they find out what you believe, and they, you
know, people you work with, and if they find out really, really,
truly what you believe, and they get an understanding of it, First
thing they say is, is you don't believe that God gets you by
the neck and drags you. Well, that's pretty much right. Because you ain't going to come
if he don't. If he don't get a hold of you,
you ain't coming. He says, like puppets, I wish
I was a puppet. I wish he could have such control
of me that I could not do anything but what he made me do. But all
this is not a physical force when it talks about him drawing
us. It's not voices. It's not visions. What it is
is the spiritual work that he does in our heart. It's an act
that he performs in our heart. In the day of his power, his
people are made willing. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee. And what happens in
the day of his power? First thing he does is he gives
you a new nature and regeneration. That's the first thing. He regenerates
you, and in that regeneration, he brings into existence a man
who never existed before. What he does in regeneration,
he gives life to a dead sinner, and he brings into existence
a spiritual man. And I have eyes that I see with,
ears that I hear with, hands that I feel with, feet that I
walk with, heart that I love with, emotions and affections
and understandings. Well, when God regenerates a
man in the day of His power, He has all of those things spiritually.
He becomes a spiritual man with sin eyes, ears, hands, a heart
to love, affection, feet to go, and all of these come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. This new man does. And then,
beloved, in this regeneration, in the day of His power, He comes
and gives a knowledge of sin and Holy Ghost conviction. He
brings conviction upon you and convinces you that you sin. Not
only that it's what you've done, but it is what you are yourself. It's an attitude, it's a nature,
it's a principle that's in your very heart and soul. And in this
regeneration, beloved, the damaged power, he comes and gives you
a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by revelation. One day
you sin, one day you don't sin, the next day you do. One minute
you don't believe, the next day you do. How does it happen? From
you going to assess services, come to services week after week,
and all of a sudden, you don't see nothing, don't hear nothing,
not interested in nothing. And then you're seeing, and you hear,
and you understand, and you believe. You never knew. How long did
you live that you lived in sin and never was conscious of your
sinfulness? And then one day, you was conscious
of it? Oh, my. And what I'm saying is,
in the day of His power, He makes us willing to come to Christ.
No man can come to me except the Father which sent me, God.
He makes us willing to come to Christ, because that's the day
of His power. And then men come to Christ first
because they see the need of Him. Oh, when you see the need
of Him. Like one of the men quoted back
there in the study of Indigo. My sin, not my children's, not
my wife's, not my husband's. Mine. Mine. We see ourselves
sin. Sin. Not something that we do,
something we actually are. We breathe it. We contaminate
the air with it. We're evil, we're rebel, we're
guilty, and we see ourselves that way. But oh my, and seeing
ourselves that way, we see something in the Lord Jesus Christ was
coming for us. Oh, we see something in Him. We see that compassion,
that love, that power, that willingness. We see Him bearing our sins in
His own body on the tree. Unworthy, wretched sinners that
we are, and there He is with our sin on Him. There He is with
those sins that trouble the soul. You see Him bearing them in His
own body. You see him bearing them under
the wrath of God. And we see in him that glory
and beauty of forgiveness and grace and mercy that's only in
him. We're like that woman at the
well. She threw her water pot away and she went running. I
said, come see a man. Come see a man. Oh, we're like
Simon Peter, Lord. To whom shall we go? You see,
God persuaded us and convinced us that nothing else Lord Jesus Christ, nothing, absolutely
nothing. And our coming to Christ was
not of our own will, not of our own power. Our Lord said, no
man can come to me except the Father which sent the Gods. Lord
of mine, we were born, not of the will of flesh, not of the
will of man, not of blood, but of God. All that the Father gives
me, what are they going to do? They're going to come to me.
If God gave you to Christ, you'd come. You may not come tonight,
but you'd come, and I'd encourage you to come. It's like old Stuyvesant
said, come without moving a muscle. Come to Christ. And so a believer,
they have this description of a believer. Our first coming
to Christ was by His grace. We can't take any credit for
it. We can't even receive any praise
for it. We can't claim any merit for it. Why? Because He caused
us. He drew us. He brought us. He
did it. You see, He drew us, and this
is spiritual drawing. Let me ask you, why do you feel,
why would you feel such an acute awareness of sin and other people
don't? How can you feel such an acute
awareness of sin if somebody else doesn't? Can't explain it. God revealed
it, made it so. Why do people who claim to be
Christians talk about the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ? And
people of God's religion talk about their works. Why do people
who have come to Christ talk about Him instead of coming to
the church? Oh, my. Why do you all talk about
the beauties of Christ, the glories of Christ? We accepted him a
long time ago. We've moved on to bigger, better
things. Is there anything bigger, higher, more glorious than the
Lord Jesus? Why have you believers, why have
you Christians lost interest in the things of this world?
Why are you more interested in gathering together, praying,
singing hymns, hearing the gospel? But you know, God knows her heart.
We got folks that's driving from Nashville, and we've got people
that come from down on the other side of Crookville, almost 50
miles every Sunday. Got another people that drive
an hour and a half from another direction. And so one of the ladies said
to him the other day, she said, ain't there a church closer for
you to go to? Oh, we have plenty of buildings. of the grace of God as a preacher,
where men are encouraged to come to Christ, not to avenge, not
to a place, not to a doctrinal position, but persuaded to come
to Christ and close with Christ and see the Lord Jesus and embrace
him and bow to him and submit to him, that we watch the hymns
that we sing and if they don't honor him, we don't sing them.
And we watch what we, who we turn loose in the pulpit to read
the scriptures because we don't want them reading and saying
anything that won't bring glory to His holy name. Oh my. We can't explain these
things. It's just so. And I'll tell you
something, beloved. This coming to Christ is a complete
coming. It's a complete coming. There's
no holding back. I know your preachers told you
plenty of times what Caleb means. The scripture says in Numbers
14, 24, Caleb followed the Lord fully. Fully. Caleb is a faithful dog. Is that
not what it means? A faithful dog. I got an old
dog. I had him since he was a little
pup. Golden Retriever. He was about eight weeks old
when I got him. He's like me now. He's old and
gray. Death is a poke if he can't hear
a word. You've got to walk up on him
and kick him to get his attention. You walk up on him and if he
sees you, he jumps. He starts. But that old dog you're
talking about, I should have called him Caleb. Because when
he sees me, when he sees me, he follows me every step I go.
When I walk out on the porch, when he sees me, when he knows
I'm out, if I walk to be in the porch, he gets up. If I walk
around the house, he's right behind me. If I go to my truck,
he can't get in the truck anymore. He used to jump right in there.
If I open the door, he's in the cab. He used to jump everywhere
I went. He used to run. When I'd run,
he'd fall in behind me and run. Now he can't run with me. He
just can't take it. Oh, he's been a faithful
dog. I dread the day that he's going
to have to put him down, or he's not. But that's the way we are
with our Lord Jesus Christ. When he gets our attention, that's
the day that he gets it. He walks the other porch, we
go to the other porch. He goes around the house, around
the house we go. Wherever he goes, that's where we go. We
follow him. Oh, our union with Christ, our
coming to Christ, and our relationship with Christ is not a part-time
association, something that we just do on Sunday and on Wednesday. It's our life itself. We're joined
to him. And our union with the Lord Jesus
is such a complete union. And our relationship with Him
is so complete that it puts everything else and everyone else in their
place as it affects that union. And what I mean by that is what
wrongfully affects my union with my Savior. Whatever wrongfully
affects my relationship with Christ, I lay it aside. I lay
it aside. If there's something that keeps
me and hinders my relationship with my Savior, with the Redeemer,
my union with Him, it's got to go. It's got to go. And whatever's good for my relationship
with Christ, whatever's good and encourages and makes me and
my union with Christ more precious and dear to me, and that's what
I want. That's what we've got to have.
That's what we've got to have. That's what we've got to have.
If it's things, if it's people, whatever it is. Well, look back
over here in 1 Peter 2, and I'll be just a few minutes and I'll
be through. I hope I haven't held you too long. 1 Peter 2 again. Look what he says
here. Verse 1, laying aside all malice
and all guile and hypocrisy and envies and all evil speech. Oh,
we've laid aside these things. We don't want malice. We don't
want guile. We don't want to put on. We don't want to deceive
anybody. We've laid aside our hypocrisies.
We don't want to be pretenders. All our evil speakings. That's
newborn babes. Desire. Desire. What do you desire? What do you, as a child of God,
what do you as a believer desire? To hear the world talk, they
desire the gifts and the trinkets and the toys of this world. To
hear religious people talk, they want the knowledge of prophecy.
They want all the gifts they can get. They want to have a
deep understanding of the mysteries of the prophecy and all of that
thing. But oh my, for man knows, understands all mysteries and
has not the love of Christ. He's a sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal. But I tell you about those who come to Christ, I tell
you what they desire. They desire knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They desire that sincere milk
of the Word that they can grow in the knowledge of Christ, grow
in Him. They've tasted that the Lord
is gracious. They've tasted it. And our coming to Christ is a
continual coming to Him. A continual coming. You know,
there's no permanent rest in this world. There's no permanent
rest in this world. You know, I mentioned this, I
preached this a week or two ago at home. And you know a believer
in one of three positions, as far as this world is concerned,
in himself. He's either in trouble, coming
out of trouble, or going into trouble. And I preached that message that
day. A couple of our folks ended up
in the hospital before the day was over. I mean, that's just the way it
is. But the world has all those troubles, but they have no one
to come to. There's no permanent rest for us in this world. And
I thank God they have. Oh, wouldn't it be awful to pitch
a tent here in Sodom? Wouldn't it be horrible to set
up housekeeping here in Sodom? To not be looking for a city
whose builder and maker is God? It'd be awful. There's no permanent
rest in this world. That's why we keep coming to
Christ, until we enter into His eternal rest. There remaineth
the rest, therefore, to the children of God. The old black hymn writer
said, if this world withholds from you its silver and its gold,
and you have this labor and toil, he said, take your burden to
the Lord and leave it there. Take your troubles, take your
burdens, take your fears, take your doubts, take your confusion,
take your heartaches, take your anxieties, take them to the Lord
and leave them there. Take your sickness, take your
body, and that's what you've done, to the Lord and leave it
there. Oh my, how many things happen in this world that we
don't know why. We don't know why one person
gets cancer and another don't. We don't know why one baby dies
and somebody else's We don't know why you'll get sick one
day and the next day the other person don't. We don't know any
of these things. But we know that God knows it. God knows
it. And these things are used of
God to bring us to Christ. If that's what keeps us from
coming to Him, let the troubles come. Let the burdens come. Let the sickness come. Let the
darkness come. Let come what must if it keeps
us eating and coming to our blessed Savior. Because you know what
it would happen if he let us get fat? You know what happened
to us? He said, the sin of thy sister
Sodom was pride, fullness of bread, and idleness. Oh, my. How gracious and how merciful
and how loving God must be to keep sending heartaches and troubles
and trials to keep bringing us to Him. How merciful and gracious
He is. And then, oh, beloved, our Lord
Jesus stood that last day of the feast and cried, if any man's
thirsty, let him come to me. Oh, my. Oh, in coming to Christ,
we deny ourselves. We deny ourselves. We turn against ourselves. And it's
a continual denial, continual warfare. It'd be a blessing. Oh, wouldn't it have been wonderful
when we first came to our Lord that he'd just done away with
our old nature? Took us right on to glory. But
that's not the way it is. Our Lord prayed in John 17. He
said, Father, I pray not that you take them out of the world,
but that you keep them from the evil. Oh, and this is what happens to you.
I know this is what happens, especially to young believers.
I've come to Christ, but I still have all these conflicts. in
myself, in my soul. I have conflicts in my home with
my children. I still have doubts. I still
have fears. I have temptations. I have sin. What am I going to
do about it? Come to Christ. Come to Christ. Still have family responsibilities.
Man's got to make a living for his family. Got the cares of
trying to make a living. There's a young couple in our
congregation who's got four little kids. Four little, older than
seven. Three, and two five weeks old.
I don't know what in the world you'd do to make a good enough
living to raise four babies in this world. But he's got to make
a living to do it. A lot of responsibility. A lot
of care is upon him. What in the world can he do about
it? Come to Christ. You'll take care of them kids.
And we're getting old. Getting old. Getting old. Oh my, getting old. Some getting
older than others. And old age is still an illness. My wife looked in the mirror
the other day and said, it just don't seem right. And she's not old, and she is
a very, she's a pretty woman. I married the prettiest woman
I ever met. And I'll tell you this, old age steals the heart
and steals our minds, steals the abilities of our bodies, steals our ability to act and
react the way we'd like to be. This is what we're going to do.
We're going to keep on coming to him until we hear this call
one day. And we'll hear it, and it won't be long. In 1 John 11, 28, when
she had so sad, she went her way and called. Mary, her sister,
secretly sang, The Master is Come, and called it the day. One of these days, he's going
to come and call for us, David. Watch what happens. She was rolling
quickly. And once she did, it came and
I knew it. One of these days, we're going
to hear that mattress calling. We're going to get up and go. Oh, what a day, what a day, what
a day, what a day. Our father, our gracious, gracious
eternal father, how blessed and holy and glorious is your name. How precious, how blessed is
your love, your mercy, your grace. And oh father, we know that there's
many here that have come to you, a blessed son. And we're coming
now, we're coming now. Coming to Lord with the way we
are. No deceit, no hypocrisy, no lies, just as we are. And we come with one thing in
our heart that's designed to know you better, know you more
fully, see you more clearly, love you more powerfully, and
feel greater our need of you. God bless these dear saints here.
Strengthen them, encourage them, and meet all their needs. Bless
their dear pastor and his wife and his family. Lord, you called
them to go through some very deep water in their lives. But
you sustained them and you held them up. And I pray, dear Lord,
that you and your wonder-sovereign mercy continue to bless and strengthen
and encourage, cause his body to be strong. For you can, you can. We come
to you, Lord, with these burdens. Come to you with these desires.
Come to you with these things that we hope and praise, honor
and praise. Father, save your people in this place. Bring your
people to yourself here. For Christ's sake, we pray.