I want you to get your Bibles,
and if you don't have a Bible with you, there's a few Bibles. And I want you to turn to Acts
chapter 8 with me, the 8th chapter of the book of Acts. I want to begin reading in verse
26 and read the remainder of that chapter. Acts chapter 8 and verse 26.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and
go towards the south, and to the way that goeth down from
Jerusalem to Gaza, which is deserted. And Philip arose and went, and
behold, a man of Ethiopia, of great authority, under Cantus,
queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure
and had come to Jerusalem for to worship. And he was returning
and sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the
Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandest
thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except
some man should guide me? And he desired Philip, that he
should come up and sit with him. And the place of the scripture
which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer, so opened
he not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his
life was taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip
and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of
himself or of some other man? Then Philip began, he opened
his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him
Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came into a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here
is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the
chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water. both Philip and the eunuch, and
he baptized him. And when they were come up out
of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that
the eunuch saw him no more. And the eunuch went on his way
rejoicing." Now, I want to address this portion of Scripture with
you this morning. And I want to begin by saying
this. Sometimes when you and I read
the Bible, all of us are guilty of reading over so lightly and
getting to the portion that we are more interested in. I know
when I read this portion of Scripture concerning the conversion of
this man, usually I want to get down to the part where it says
what hinders me to be baptized, especially on this occasion.
But you know, all of this Scripture is so important. All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God, and every word of God is pure. All of this should be interesting
to us. The Lord Jesus talked about the jots and tittles. You
remember that? There shall not one jot or one
tittle pass from the law. Well, in the Hebrew writings,
a jot is the smallest alphabet. in their language. And tittle,
if you ever looked at Hebrew, I can't read one word of Hebrew,
but it's got all of these little tiny marks connected to those
Hebrew words. And they said if you remove one
single little mark, it could change the whole meaning of that
word. And the Jews used to say when they were putting all these
little tittles on their words, be sure and don't leave out a
tittle. They said it could destroy the
world. So that's how serious they took
reading their Bibles in the Hebrew. And I think it would be good
for us, brothers and sisters, if we looked at our English Bibles
the same way. If we took our time and read
words instead of chapters, we'd learn so much. And I want to
do that this morning because I want to just get involved in
what happened to this man and see why the Holy Spirit would
say some of the things that He said even right at the beginning
of this narrative. What does this teach us? As we
begin to read this, what does this passage teach us? The first
thing it teaches us is this, that God in His providence, and
when I say providence, I mean God as His superintendence, this
universe. He's the superintendent. He runs
and rules and controls and guides everything that goes on in this
world, even the falling of the birds from the air and their
death. So we see here that God is involved
in His providence in the salvation of a sinner. When God takes in
hand to save one of His elect, one of His chosen people, There's
nothing that is not available to him. He'll move heaven itself. He'll move mountains if he's
pleased to save one poor sinner. We have that here in this passage
here. You'll notice here an angel was
involved in the conversion of this man. That angel spoke to
Philip. and told him to go down and join
himself to this charity. Notice something else. The Holy
Spirit was involved. The Spirit spoke to Philip and
said, go join yourself to this charity. And then Philip was
involved in this man's conversion. And then the very place that
they met at and the very Scripture that he was reading. See here
how God involves everything? Everything is available to him
in the salvation of a sinner. Now you and I don't see that
in our day, do we? Because we don't see behind the
scenes. What all took place when the
Lord took His hand to save you? Well, you don't know, do you?
But we go to this Scripture here and this teaches us what goes
on behind the scenes. God uses everything that He's
pleased. Angels are subject to God to
be used in man's conversion. And I bet you, though you can't
discern it, I bet you some angels were involved in your conversion.
And I bet you the very passage of Scripture that you heard was
ordained beforehand for your conversion. The very man, maybe,
or men that you heard the Gospel from, all of these men and These
things were being moved of God to save your poor soul. I don't know what all was involved
in my conversion, but I do know this. Whatever God was pleased
to use then, it was involved in it. I can't discern it, but
this chapter here teaches this. This Ethiopian being in Gaza
was no accident, was it? And you being here this morning,
I don't care who you are, what position you hold in life, you're
here this morning by the providence of God. It may be if you're here
this morning and unconverted, He's arranged for you to be here
to convert you this very day. It was no accident that this
man was here in Gaza. This angel speaking to Philip,
wasn't that a heavenly thing? An angel from heaven, one of
God's choice creatures, spake to this man. The Holy Spirit
speaking to Philip, the eternal God, spoke and said, go join
yourself to this chariot. That's amazing to me, is it not?
And Philip preaching, joining himself to this chariot, all
so precisely arranged and controlled for this man's salvation. Well, somebody may be here this
morning and say, Bruce, I remember when I was baptized, and I remember
when I joined the church, but can't you go back farther than
that? And I bet if you went back farther than that, if you can,
you may be able to discern the providence of God in bringing
you where He brought you to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God moved me from Tennessee,
way down in the hills of Tennessee, and brought me to Indiana. to
save me. That's amazing. Little did I
know when I was driving that old 1957 Chevy and then an old
Ford pickup to Indiana that God was in it and He had arranged
it to save my soul. And I bet you when this eunuch
left Jerusalem and going back to Ethiopia, he had no idea that
God had arranged all of these things and was working in it
to the salvation of his soul. Brothers and sisters, salvation
is a miracle of God. And He uses His providence as
well as His grace and mercy in saving a soul. So that's the
first thing we see, the providence of God in saving a sinner. But here in verse 26 is something
else that's very interesting. And I think the Holy Spirit put
this here on purpose as well. Here in verse 26, And the angel
of the Lord said unto Philip, Arise and go towards the south,
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which
is deserted." This very place going down from Jerusalem to
Gaza. Why would he even mention this
like this? Why didn't he say he just left
Jerusalem and he was going home? Because when you read this in
other places in the Scriptures, you realize what it means to
leave Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a place where God
had revealed Himself. It was the city of the King.
It was the place where God was worshipped. And when anybody
left Jerusalem, they went down. They always went down. Remember
the man that the Lord Jesus told us about that was at Jerusalem? And the Lord Jesus said he left
Jerusalem and went down to Jericho? Does He put that in there for
a reason? What happened to that man who left Jerusalem and went
down to Jericho? Well, Jerusalem was the blessed
city. Jericho was the cursed city.
And He said when he left Jerusalem going down to Jericho that he
fell among thieves. and they robbed him and stripped
him and left him wounded and half dead. That's what the Holy
Spirit meant to teach us here when He said He left Jerusalem
and went down. Doesn't that teach us something
about ourselves? Doesn't that teach us that we
left the worship of God? Brother Wayne told us in our
Sunday school class this morning what happened back there in the
Garden of Eden. We were in Adam and things were
so wonderful. Adam worshipped God. He loved
God. He knew God. But what happened?
He left Him, didn't He? He disobeyed Him and was turned
out of the garden. And that's the same thing that
happened to every one of us. The Bible says all we, like sheep,
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. We've left God. We've left His
Word. We've left the love that we had
in the garden for God and we've left Him and where have we gone? We've gone down to this old cursed
earth, haven't we? When the Bible sends out these
wonderful invitations and commands to the ungodly to forsake His
way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, What does he always
say? Return. Return. What's the problem with
us? We've left God, haven't we? We've
left Him. That's our problem. I used to
have a friend of mine, he said he used to think when he was
before the Lord saved him that him and the Lord was walking
parallel with each other. And all he had to do at some
point in time, just to step over, and he was walking with the Lord.
until the Lord showed him that they were going in opposite directions. That he had left God. He had
left the worship of God. He had no love for God. And he
had to be brought back up to Jerusalem, the holy Jerusalem.
Spurgeon told a little story I thought was somewhat amusing.
He talked about this philosopher, he loved to go up on this high
building to study. And he'd go up there and sit
and study for hours. And one day this deranged man
came out of the door and he had a huge whip in his hand. And
he demanded the philosopher jump off to his death. And he had
the whip drawn back. And the philosopher, being a
quick-witted man, he said, why, any fool could jump off. Any
fool could jump off and kill himself. He said the miracle
would be to go down and jump up. So they both went down to jump
up, and he escaped for his life. It's easy to keep going the way
we're going because we're going down. But for us to be stopped
in that downward grade to hell, God has to intervene. And we can't jump back up. We
can go down, but go down and jump back up. We've left God
and we're going down, but we can't stop and jump back up.
God has to bring us back to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's what this man was doing. He was going down. And
you know what he'd have kept doing? Just what every man does.
He'd have kept that downward grade until he wound up in the
lowest hell. Man can go down, can't he? But
he can't come back up until God brings him. He was going down from Jerusalem.
I think the Holy Spirit intends for us to teach us a lesson here. Thirdly, there's another lesson
here. The place where the Lord saved this man is very interesting. It's called Gaza. Gaza. You may remember Gaza in the
Old Testament. Remember the city of the giants? Remember Goliath that was fighting
with David? And David got five stones out
of that brook. You remember that? Some people
have suggested, and I think this is very interesting, that the
reason David got five stones was because Goliath had four
brothers. They were five of those fellows,
and all of them had these huge cities. I wrote them down here
so I won't forget them. But listen, Ashkelon, Ashdod,
Ekron, and Gaza. And Goliath was from the city
of Gath. And Gaza, its name means strong. It was a beautiful city,
just a mile or so from the Mediterranean Sea. But the Scripture had predicted
that this place would be left forsaken and desolate. And Alexander the Great, before
the Lord Jesus came to this earth, he went in there and invaded
that place. And when he was finished, that
place was forsaken. It was desolate. That strong,
beautiful city was a place of desolation. That's where this
man went to. Now what does this tell us? From
the very fact that physically the Lord met this man here at
this place. that used to be strong, used
to be beautiful, but now it was a deserted and barren place. What does that tell us? Doesn't
this teach us a spiritual lesson? When the Lord is going to save
a man, where does He meet him? What kind of state is that man
in his heart when the Lord takes a hand to save him? Why, he becomes
desolate, doesn't he? He is in a forsaken place. You may have every temple advantage
this morning in this world. This man had a lot of advantages,
didn't he? We are told here in verse 27
that he was a man of great authority. He had prestige. He knew people
in high places. He was obviously rich. He was
over the queen of Sheba, her treasure. Man, can you imagine
the people that he had access to? He could go into the queen
at any time. People that recognized him and
knew him. But his heart was like this place
where Philip found him. It was desolate and barren and
he had missed it. When Philip asked him here, do
you understand what you're reading? And he said, I don't understand
the thing this is telling me. I don't understand who this is
talking about. He said, concerning that interest
in the world to come, he said, I don't have one. In knowledge,
I'm barren. I'm forsaken. That's the way
he felt in his heart. Philip asked Him here in verse
32 and verse 34. He said, Of whom does this man
speak? He asked Philip this. He said,
I am so ignorant. I am so barren as far as knowledge
is concerned. I do not know what this is talking
about. I do not know who it is talking about. You and I know who that is talking
about, don't we? That is the Lord Jesus Christ and His sufferings
for sin upon the cross. But wasn't there a time in your
life when you didn't understand that? You didn't know who that
was talking about. I ask people sometimes about
what Philip asked them. Do you understand the Scriptures?
You know what lost people are always telling you? I don't read
the Scriptures because I don't understand the Scriptures. I
don't understand the Scriptures. And you know there was a time
when you didn't and I didn't either. I didn't understand the
Scriptures. But listen to this. When you know the Bible contains
the only message of salvation and eternal life, and you're
utterly barren of that message, you don't understand it, you
don't know it, what will you do if God is seeking you? I tell you, you'll become desperate.
You'll recognize it. He said, you're in verse 31 and
verse 32. He said, how can I? How can I? I don't have the ability
to understand this. How can I except some man teach
me? And he said, Oh, Philip, would
you please, would you please come up in this chariot and explain
to me this word. When a man sees himself to be
barren within his own heart, I don't know God. I don't know
the Son of God. I don't know this message. I
know it's the only message, but I can't understand it." And he
begins to cry out for help. That tells us something, that
God has brought him to the place where he wants something other
than this world's riches, other than this world's fame and fortune. It didn't do him a bit of good,
did it? I remember when the Lord first began to deal with me,
I got so miserable. I wasn't in debt. You know, I
had a good job. I had my beautiful wife and three
children. In the things of this world,
I had no complaints. But I'm telling you, I was desolate
in my heart. I didn't know the Lord. I didn't
know the way of salvation. I got desperate. You know what
I did? I went and bought me a Bible.
I didn't understand it. But I went and bought me a Bible.
Then I said, I'm going out there somewhere where I can hear somebody
explain this to me. I got sick of this world. I got desolate in my heart. That's
the way this man was. You know God has to bring a man
there. God has to bring a man there. Can you imagine Philip being
a motivational speaker? Wouldn't that have been an awful
travesty? If Philip would have said something
like this with a big smile on his face, God wants to bless
you in your finances. God wants to raise you to higher
heights in the social realm. God wants to open doors for you
and to give you even more influence than you already have. Can you imagine that, brothers
and sisters? Wouldn't that have been devastating? We laugh, but
wouldn't that have been devastating to this man? He had all the authority
he wanted. He didn't need any more money.
He didn't need to be introduced to any greater earthly success. He would have said, man, listen,
I've got all of that I can handle. My soul is destitute. of any
interest in that world that's to come. That's my problem. Can you tell me how God can be
just and justify a sinner like me? You know what people's problem
is today? Let me tell you what people's problem is. They're
content. People are content. They're satisfied. They're satisfied with themselves.
They're satisfied with temporal advantages. They're satisfied
with their bank accounts and their houses and their families. They're satisfied with their
sins. They're satisfied with sucking on a lust. They're satisfied
with some false preacher lying to their souls. They're satisfied. And they will stay satisfied
with that and go on and lost and die that way. Except God
brings them down on the old Gaza road and makes them barren. And they begin to seek outside
themselves and apart from this world and its temple advantages.
That's what the Holy Spirit is telling us here. poor creature
will never find true rest and the true riches for his barren
and burdened soul until he finds them in Jesus Christ the Savior. And I tell you when he'll find
that true rest and the true riches, when he finds himself on the
old Gaza road. Most of us know Donald Trump.
I love to watch him sometimes when he's giving a speech or
an interview to somebody because that's the bragginest man. I
laugh at him. I love to build things, he says.
I love to trade. I've traded with all the nations
of the world. I make money. That's what I love to do. Can
you imagine God bringing Donald Trump here on the Old Gospel? Where he says, I'm barren. I'm
sick of my money. I'm sick of these advantages
I've got. I'm sick of all of this. My soul is sick. I've got to be saved. But you know something? It took
the same grace to bring this man where he was as it would
take for Donald Trump to be brought there. And you know something
just as marvelous? It's going to take the same grace
to bring me and you there as it did this man. I don't care
if we got little or nothing or a lot. He brings us there, doesn't
he? Fourthly, let's consider this.
I think here's the true test of where a man understands his
Bible or not. How can a man know that I've
finally come to understand the Bible? When he finally comes
to see the one the Bible reveals. He told him here about this man
who was humiliated, hanging upon a cross, dying for sinners. And he said, who is this man?
And Philip began at that Scripture and preached unto Him Jesus the
Redeemer, the substitute for sinner, the only Savior. How do we know when we've come
to truly understand our Bibles? When we see Jesus in it. When
we see the redemption that He has accomplished in the days
of His flesh. I remember when I was lost, me
and my sister was talking, both of us were dumb as a box of rocks,
as old Donnie Bell said. Neither one of us had any spiritual
sense. And I was talking to her about
the Bible, and she said, she said, you know, you may be a
preacher someday. And I didn't have a lick of sense.
And that's when I went and bought me a Bible. And the first verse
of Scripture I ever read in the Bible that I understood was Romans
chapter 2. In verse 5, you read this, Wayne.
I thought about this when you went through that. After your
hardness and impending heart, you are heaping up wrath unto
the day of wrath. I thought I was going to buy
me a Bible and sit down and just read it. And boy, my sister is
right. I am something else. And when
I opened that up, man, that word went on to my heart. And I thought,
man, I am a sinner against God. And everything I am doing, just
heaping up, heaping up, heaping up wrath. And God is going to
cut me asunder someday. And man, I slammed that Bible
up and laid it on the table. I knew right where I was sitting
when I read that verse. And you know, I had no rest in
my soul until God showed me in this Bible, His dear Son had
redeemed me. I remember right where I was
when I saw that too. Way in the morning, in the morning.
I was praying. I was so guilty, so miserable
in my heart, and I prayed out, I cried out, I had nothing else
to say, no more tears to shed. And the words just came through
me, Psalms chapter 35 and verse 1, where David said, Plead my
cause, O Lord. Say unto my soul that You are
my salvation. And right then and there, I saw
exactly who David was talking to. He was talking to Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. And he was saying, Lord, I need
a mediator. I need someone to plead my cause
with God and save me. And right there I saw as clearly
as the noonday sun that this was Jesus Christ, the mediator
and Savior. And He had indeed pleaded my
cause. And I saw all my sins washed
away in His blood and for the first time in my life, I began
to understand this Bible reveals a person, Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the only Savior of sinners. You know, when you talk to people,
look, you and I have lived long enough and we watch religion
enough. When people read the Bible, what
all do they read the Bible for? Some read it just to fuss with
it. You've got people that read the Bible for no other motive
than to win an argument or to prove their point. Remember when
the Sadducees who didn't believe in resurrection came to Christ
and they said Moses and the commandments said this. And they used that
to prove their point. There's no resurrection. Boy,
Christ turned them upside down. He said you're so ignorant of
the scriptures and the power of God. And then you got other
people that read the Bible and all they see in it is rules and
commandments to obtain life by. The Pharisees believed that,
didn't they? Moses in the law commanded us, we should stone
this woman to death. So legalistic, judgmental, that's
all they see when they read the Bible. You go to some churches
this morning and I'm sorry to say, All they're going to tell
everybody there is, do, do, do, do, do. Because that's all they
know. You'd be stepping in their doo-doo if you went there this
morning to hear them preach. That's all they know. Do, do,
do, do, do. You've got some more people,
the Armenians, some of them, bless their hearts. When they
read the Scriptures, all they see in it is free will. Free
will determines everything. I heard one man say that man
was sovereign. And I guess he got that out of
the Bible some way or another. Even salvation is determined
by our will, just like the Bible says. Then you've got some Calvinists,
bless their hearts, some of them. And what do they see in the Scripture?
They see a system. They've got a system. And if
you seemingly get outside of their system, man, you've got
a fight on your hands. In other people. When they read
the Bible, here's what they see. They see the Son of God, the
Redeemer, the Savior. Remember those two disciples
of the Lord on the road to Emmaus? And the Lord Jesus was risen
from the dead and He began to walk with them and talk with
them? And the Bible says He opened their understanding that they
could understand the Scriptures. And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, He expounded unto them in the Scriptures everything
concerning Himself. What's the Scriptures about?
The Son of God, the Redeemer, the Reconciler, the Savior for
sinners. And they said, did not our hearts
burn with it? I remember your husband one time, he was talking
about that. And he looked over on that, we'll
forget this, Robin. Robin's husband was a preacher in Sylacauga,
Alabama. And he was preaching on this. And he looked down at
me and he said, did your heart burn in you like my heart burned
in me? Well, he taught with us, by the
way. And man, my heart leaped when he said that to me. My heart
leaped. When you see Christ, oh, when
you see Him in you, don't your heart leap? This man never had
saw Him before. But when Philip began to preach
Jesus, then he saw Him. Christ was revealed. That's why
he went on his way rejoicing. And I tell you, when you open
your Bible and God reveals His Son to you from this Bible, you'll
rejoice. You'll rejoice. Your heart will
leap in you for joy. You know why people are so bored
with this book. You know why some people have made a file
cabinet out of their Bibles? You know why they keep it, go
home and they put it on the shelf and they don't bring it with
them until next Sunday morning or Wednesday evening? You know why this is
a boring book to them? They don't see Him of whom this
book reveals. That's their whole problem. If
they ever see it, they'll say, oh, this is the water of life
to me. This is the milk, my strength. As cold waters to a thirsty soul,
so is this good news from a poor country. If they ever see the
Lord Jesus, any. Consider this, lastly. You're in verses 36 and verse
37. Who is the only proper candidate
for water baptism? Who can we baptize? I'm going
to baptize two people this morning. Should I baptize them? What's the condition? Don't we
see a condition here on baptism? We don't just baptize everybody.
Here's water. What hinders me to be baptized? Is there anything? Yes, there's
something that can much hinder you from being baptized. If you believe with all your
heart, you may ask, You believe with all your heart. There is
a condition. Boy, I wonder if Philip just
baptized Simon. Remember that on back up in this
chapter? If you read back up in this chapter, he just baptized
the man that was not saved. And I bet his conscience afflicted
him when he found out this man was still in his sins. And he
is going to be more careful this time. Would you baptize me if
there is a condition? Notice this, how personal it
is. If thou believest. Thou believest. There was other
people around there, but he wasn't talking to them, was he? He was
talking to this man. If you believe. Well, he couldn't
have said, well, my dad and my mom believe. I know a bunch of
neighbors that believe. No. Do you believe? This is so
personal, isn't it? Ramey, do you believe? That's
it. Brad, do you believe Christ?
That's it. It doesn't matter if anybody
else believes or don't believe. This is a personal thing, isn't
it? We have to live for the Lord
ourselves. We'll die for ourselves. We'll
give account to God for ourselves. Do you believe? And listen to this. Do you believe? Do you believe? Not have you
spoken in tongues? Not have you kept the Ten Commandments?
Not have you made restitutions for your sins? Not have you got
your act together? One condition before you can
be baptized. If you don't meet this condition,
then stay away from the baptistry. Do you believe? There was a lady
that brought her infant here one time. I knew the young lady. And she came in and she said,
Will you baptize my baby? And I didn't say a word to her.
I just turned to this passage. And I read it out to her and
I said, Read this. And she said, What hinders me
to be baptized if thou believest? And she looked up at me. I said,
You see why I can't baptize your baby? She said, He can't believe,
can he? You don't baptize infants? What
an awful sin! We have dear brethren. We have
some dear Presbyterian brethren. But I'm telling you, they're
sinning against God when they baptize their infants. They're
not doing their infants any good. They cannot meet the condition
that Philip said was required to be baptized. If you believe,
you must. But until you believe, stay away
from the baptistry. It won't save you. It won't give
you any faith to be saved. It won't wash any sins away.
We'll look at that this afternoon. Fourthly, look what He said here.
If thou believest with all thine heart. Boy, this can't be a divided
heart when you come to the baptistry. When you're talking about salvation,
you can't have any reservations about it. If you say, well, I
believe that Jesus Christ is a great portion of my salvation,
you've got some reservations, and you better get that settled
before you come to the baptistry. You could be in a dangerous place.
This is trusting Jesus Christ and Him alone with all your heart. If you've got a divided heart,
listen, dear brother, this is all the heart, isn't it? Salvation
is trusting Jesus Christ with everything that's in you, all
your heart, without any reservation. You must say with the Apostle
Paul, I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded. Are you persuaded
that Jesus Christ is the only Savior? Are you persuaded that
His righteousness can justify you? Well, Bruce, I've never
heard of such a thing. His righteousness? Brother, stay
away from the baptistry until you believe that you need a righteousness
that you don't have, and you believe in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ to clothe your shame. Do you trust Him with
all your heart? Are you utterly dependent upon
Jesus Christ? If you believe with all your
heart, you may. Remy and Brad have given up this
business of self-salvation. They've given up on that, haven't
you guys? We start out that way, don't we? A lot of us do. The
Lord strips us and shows us that we're nothing. Then we have to
start all over the right way. We give up on self-salvation.
We're dead to our sins and the judgment of God upon our sins.
Dead to this world. Dead to the curse. Dead to guilt. We're dead with Jesus Christ.
That's what this is about. I'm dead and I want to be buried
with Christ. And I want to show that I have
risen with Him and live for God's glory. This ain't going to help
you guys. This ain't going to add nothing
to your salvation. But it's going to show what Christ has already
done for you. That's what it's going to show.
May the Lord bless you too as you seek to live for Him and
glorify Him in your lives. Let's pray.