Amazing Grace

It has been my privilege during the years that God has
given me a ministry in the gospel to meet some most unusual men. In 1954, in the spring of 1954,
I met Brother A.D. who pastored Harts Harbor Tabernacle
in Louisville, Kentucky for many years and traveled all over this
country preaching the gospel of God's grace. His path had crossed the path
of men in the last century, men like T.T. Martin, M.T. Martin,
and others. And we became dear, dear friends. He was 64 years of age. and I
was 28. But we became such friends that
one time he invited me to come to Louisville and work and minister
with him in his ministry there, which was quite an honor that
he should even invite me. But he once said this to me when
we were talking. He said, Brother Henry, It's
not amazing to me that the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
church of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true believers, has survived and continued through
persecution, trials, and the hatred of this world. He said
that doesn't surprise me because God's people in days of trial
have their faith proved and they grow stronger. But he said, what
has surprised me is this, what amazes me is this, that the church
of our Lord Jesus Christ even exists today, even exists and
has survived in spite of such bad, bad preaching. He said it's not the avowed enemies
of the gospel, the enemies of the gospel out yonder shooting
at the word of God. It's not those people who've
done the most damage. It is those who claim to be God's
friends. They are the ones who have done
the damage. Our Lord said in Zechariah, I
was wounded in the house of my friends. wounded in the house
of my friend. And I'll tell you this, the Lord's
Church, the Lord's true Church, His elect, His sheep, His people,
His brethren, whoever they are and wherever they are, they have
survived all these many centuries and millenniums of era, religious
era. They've survived Arminianism,
they've survived Calvinism, God's Church has survived fundamentalism. It has survived dispensationalism. It has survived denominationalism. It has survived landmarkism and
extremism. It has. And it will survive today's
Pentecostalism. And the Lord's Church still exists.
It still exists in spite of all the battles over church history
and prophecy and premillennialism, postmillennialism and all-millennialism. It still survives. Men meet and
battle. They do battle. They fight over
these things. And the Lord's church has faced legalism. It has faced antinomianism. And
it has faced ritualism and today so much intellectualism. But
it has survived. And it will survive television.
It will. We may not think so. You may
think the picture is so black, so dark. You say, how much further
can they go? They can go a lot further. But
his people will survive. And I'll tell you this, in these
local churches, thank God we've been spared thus far. But in
spite of our constitutions, and man, we can sit around and write
constitutions, rules and bylaws. A preacher asked me one time what
I thought he ought to do with his church constitution. He handed
it to me to read. They had spent six months writing
a constitution and bylaws for that congregation of ten people. It was almost thick as this Bible,
and they'd worked hard on it. And I stood and held it in my
hand beside his desk. He said, now, you think we ought
to adopt that or what? I said, or what? And I dropped
it in the waste can. I said, that's the place for
that. Here's our only rule of faith and practice. The Church
has survived our constitutions and bylaws. The Church has survived
all of our rules and regulations, our ways in and our ways out.
And the Church has survived, believe it or not, our committees
and monthly business meetings. It has survived. God's Church
has. And God's people still meet.
The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, scattered here, there,
and yonder, still meets. and worship God. Like Paul said in Philippians
3, he said there are three marks of the true circumcision of the
true people of God. Three marks. Do you know what
they are? There are three marks of the true circumcision, true
Israel. Number one, they worship God
in spirit. They do not depend upon buildings,
farms, ceremonies, and visual aids, they worship God in the
spirit. They worship God in spirit and
truth from the heart. They worship God. They don't
follow men, they follow God. They worship God in spirit. Secondly,
they rejoice only in Christ Jesus. They don't rejoice in programs,
promotions, accomplishments, denominations, human victories,
or flesh. They rejoice in Jesus Christ.
They found in Him all they need. They rest in Him, trust in Him,
look to Him, believe in Him, and rejoice only in Him. And
thirdly, nothing of this earth, in this earth, or from this earth
can move them because they never had any confidence in the flesh
anyway. They have no confidence in the flesh, none whatsoever,
not in theirs or anybody else's. And God's church has and will
survive. And I'll give you the reasons.
I'll give you four reasons why the church of the firstborn,
whose names are written in heaven and written on the breastplate
of our great high priest and written in his hands, I'll tell
you why that church has and will always shall survive. First of
all, because it's his church. It's his church. It's not my
church. It's his church. He said to Peter, Peter said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. He said, blessed
are you, blessed are you. On this rock, I'll build my church.
On what rock? On Christ. On Christ the rock. Christ, Peter said, you are the
Christ, you are the Son of God, and he said, that's the rock
on which I'll build my church, that's the chief cornerstone,
Christ. And the gates of hell will never prevail against it.
However hell comes upon it, and however hell comes against it,
hell shall not prevail. Even the very gates of hell won't
do it, not his true church. And I'll tell you another reason
why it has and shall survive. is because he purchased it with
his own blood. He bought it. The Heavenly Father
gave him, I make no apologies, and I'm not embarrassed to declare
this, in anyone's presence or company, the Father gave him
this church, and their names were written in the Lamb's Book
of Life before the foundation of the world. And he purchased
that church with his own blood. Turn to Ephesians 5, and let's
read this, Ephesians chapter 5. In verse 25 of Ephesians 5,
the Apostle writes, Husbands, love your wives, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the Church. Loved the Church, and gave himself
for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."
Our Lord Jesus Christ bought this church with his blood. It
will survive. I read to you a while ago, all
that my Father giveth me shall come to me. In our generation,
if it's 50 or 100 or 5,000 or 5 million, they shall come to
him. In every generation, in every day, in every century,
his people will come to him, because he purchased them with
his blood. And I tell you, not only that, but thirdly, he has
taken upon himself, not only to redeem that church, but he
has taken upon himself as the surety of that church to intercede
for them and personally present them. before his heavenly Father,
faultless and with a great joy. Turn, if you will, to the book
of Jude and listen to this. Jude, verse 24. There's just
one chapter. Verse 24 of Jude, verse 24 and
25. Listen. Now unto him that is
able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless.
Unblameable, unreprovable, faultless. Think about it, faultless. Within,
without, faultless. Before the presence of his very
glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. But fourthly, getting to
where I'm I want to get in this message. The church of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the church of the firstborn, the church whose names
are written in heaven, our Lord's church, the church that he loved,
the church that he purchased with his own blood, the church
for which he intercedes, the church that he will present faultless
before the presence of God very globally. Unreprovable, unblamable,
has survived and will survive forcefully because God has been pleased
to raise up in every generation faithful preachers who have seen
the Lord and who have the grace and the courage and the love
for Christ and the boldness to preach his words. uncompromisingly
to this present day. Our Lord has never left himself
without a witness. He's raised up men. And these
bond slaves of Christ, and that's all they are, these bond slaves
of Christ speak where God speaks, and they're silent where God's
silent. And these bond slaves of Jesus Christ are not concerned
about being consistent with themselves or consistent with the system.
They want to be consistent with the Word of God. Charles Spurgeon
once said, and I guess he's one of the greatest preachers of
the past century, but he once said this, I don't try to be
consistent with myself. People come to me and say, you're
not consistent, you're not consistent. He said, I don't try to be consistent
with myself. He said, if I try to be consistent
with myself, in the end, I'll find I've been consistent with
a fool. My concern is to be consistent
with the Word of God. A thing is not true because I
believe it, it's true because God says it. It's not true because
our church has adopted it, it's true because God declares it.
And God doesn't call upon me or you or anyone else to understand
him. He calls on us to believe him.
The last thing in the world I need is a God I can understand. The
last thing in the world I need is a God I can comprehend with
this silly finite mind. I want a vast incomprehensible
God, don't you? An almighty, sovereign, eternal
Lord of heaven and earth. whom I can trust, in whom I can
rest. And I'll tell you this, these
clay vessels, they're nothing. Paul said, I'm not one whit behind
the chief apostle, but I'm nothing. He said, who is Paul? Who is
Apollos? Who is Cephas? Why, they're just servants by
whom you believe the gospel. They're just messenger boys. They're just laborers in God's
vineyard. God give it the increase. But
these men are not concerned with consistency with himself, they're
concerned with the word of God, and they've been trusted with
a glorious gospel of God's grace, which they know enables God to
be just and justifier of those who believe. And Paul summed
it up in Romans 1, if you'd like to turn over there, Romans chapter
1. He summed it up here in the first chapter of Romans, the
first three or four verses. Now listen to it. I'm telling
you this, these men, and the woods are not full of them, the
woods are full of preachers, but the woods are not full of
prophets. There are a lot of men who say they speak for God,
who do not speak for God, because they do not speak of God. And
these men who are bond slaves of Christ, called of God, are
committed to the gospel, and their message is Christ. Their
message is the Eternal Christ, the Covenant Christ, the Incarnate
Christ, the Obedient Christ, the Righteous Christ, the Crucified
Christ, the Risen Christ, the Reigning Christ, and the Coming
King. He's their message. It's not so much the cross of
Christ that they preach as the Christ of the cross, my It's not so much the finished
work of Christ that they preach. They preach the Christ who finished
the work. There's a difference. And God
help a man that can't see the difference. You can preach a
finished work and never preach the Christ who finished it. It's not so much the doctrines
of grace. I hear people say, I've come
to the doctrines of grace, then turn around and go back. We're not preaching the doctrines
of grace, we're preaching the Christ of grace. You don't arrive
at Christ through doctrine, you arrive at doctrine through Christ.
Never forget that. I'm not married to a doctrine,
I'm married to a person. I don't rest in a doctrine, I
rest in a person. I didn't come to the doctrines
of grace, I came to the Christ of grace. There's a difference. It impressed it upon me. And
I know folks that are just so diligent for the church of Christ,
the church, church truth. Brethren, I'm more interested
in the Christ of the church, the head of the church. And I'll tell you this, they
don't preach a doormat named Jesus. They preach a sovereign
Lord, a victorious Lord. And their message is not sinner
save thyself. Their message is salvation of
the Lord. not only in its origination,
in its execution, in its application, in its sustaining power, but
in its ultimate perfection. And their message is not accept
Jesus as your personal Savior. No, that's not their message.
Jesus Christ is not now, never has been, up for your acceptance
or rejection. Their message is what? Bow down. Bow down. Bow down to the crown
rites of King Jesus. The door to the Kingdom of God
is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I'm telling the truth. We don't
preach a salvation that's possible. We preach a salvation that's
dead certain. A salvation that has been altered,
purposed, and accomplished, and will be applied. Is that right? Somebody said one time, you make
man a puppet. They make God a puppet. that
we move on the string. I'll tell you this, if somebody's
got to be a puppet, I want it to be me, not him. Romans 1, listen to it. Paul,
and bless your heart, God's servants are not fond of titles. They
don't take unto themselves titles and they don't seek it. Like
Dr. John Gill, when they gave him
a DD, he said, I never thought it, sought it, or bought it. a servant, a bond-slave of Jesus
Christ. I'm nobody. I'm nobody telling
everybody about somebody who can save anybody. Called to be
an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, dedicated, obsessed
with it. We're not sideline servants.
We're mainline servants. You don't ever put God's gospel
on the sideline and on track number two. A lot of so-called churches that
have done that, they've sidetracked the gospel. Their main line is
entertainment. Their main line is youth activities. Their main line is politics.
That's right. Their main line is raising money.
You don't ever put God's engine on the sideline. Paul, it's on
the main line, and it's got green lights all the way, and don't
slow up for nobody. That's exactly right. I'm separated
to the gospel. Don't try to preach it if you're
not separated to it. Don't try to preach it if it's
not your life. Don't try to preach it unless you'll die for it.
And I mean right now, not tomorrow, not whether you get everything
in order. I mean right now. Don't preach it. I'm obsessed with
it, I'm dedicated to it, I'm separated to it, it's my life,
he said. And as he said this in verse
2, he said this is the same gospel which he promised to afford by
his prophets in the Holy Scripture. My gospel is Abraham's gospel. I feel sorry for the fool preacher
that's got two Bibles, an old Bible and a new Bible. I feel
sorry for the fool preacher who talks about salvation by grace
and salvation by works and salvation under grace and salvation under
law and salvation under this dispensation, John, and some
other dispensation. Paul said, my gospel to which
I'm separated and with which I'm obsessed and which I preach
is the gospel of God Almighty. It's God's gospel. It's the same
gospel Abraham saw and rejoiced in and of which Moses wrote and
Isaiah preached about. Isaiah saw his glory and spake
of him. And I'll tell you this, if a
preacher ever sees his glory, he'll speak of him. Whatever
subject he chooses, it'll just take him to the cross, that's
all. And this gospel, verse 3, watch it, is concerning his son. This gospel of God, he said,
Paul, a bond slave, a servant of Jesus Christ, called by God
to be an apostle, and dedicated, separated to that gospel of God. That gospel of God is concerning
his son. It's not concerning what you'll
do with Christ, it's concerning what Christ did for us. That's
what the gospel concerns. And I tell you, we've taken that
word and abused it and misused it and confused it. They got
gospel quartets. There's no such thing as a gospel
quartet. There's no gospel in a quartet.
The gospel's in Christ. It's concerning his son, Jesus. His son. The second person of
the Blessed Trinity. Jesus. His name of humiliation. Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He's not Jesus. He's the Son
of God whom you call Jesus. His name is not Jesus. His name's Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
You call Him Jesus. You call Him Jesus. That's His
name of humiliation. That's His name of humanity.
That's His name that He took to come down here and walk in
this filthy, wicked, cesspool of iniquity to redeem us. He's
the Lord. And that's another thing about
today's preachers. That's all they ever call him.
They don't call him the Lord Jesus. They don't call him Master.
They don't call him the Son of God. They call him Jesus. That's
all they call him. That's the only character in
which they've ever seen him. That's right. He said, you call
me Lord and Master. That's what he said to the disciples,
didn't he, Paul? You call me Lord and Master, and you say,
well, so I am. You let me listen to a man preach
about Jesus Christ just for a little while, and I'll tell you what
he thinks of him. He'll be awed in his presence
if he knows him. He'll be fearful of his name
if he knows him. He'll be glorifying of his character
if he knows him. He'll speak highly and respectfully
and admirably and reverently and in awe of the Lord Jesus
Christ. His name? Wonderful. His name? Counselor. With whom took he counsel? Who
has been his counselor? That's him, the mighty God. That's what he says here. It's
the gospel concerning his Son, whom you call Jesus, and he's
the Christ. The Christ is not a name, the
Christ is an office. It's an office. When we talk
about Jesus the Christ, we're talking about Jesus, the Lord
Jesus, the Redeemer, the surety, the representative, the head
of the covenant, the prophet, priest, and king. He turned to
the Pharisees one day and says, what think ye of Christ? He didn't
say, what do you think of me? He said, what do you think of
the Christ? Whose son is he? They said, he's the son of David.
Well, he said, how come then David called him Lord if he's
his son? And they couldn't figure that
one out. But you can, can't you? Well, here it is right in this
verse. This gospel, Paul said, to which I'm separated is concerning
his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Lord, our God, which was
made of the seed of David concerning the flesh. Yes, he's David's
son. If you read Matthew and Luke, you'll find the genealogy
of the Lord Jesus Christ traced through Mary and through Joseph,
and it goes right back to David. Concerning the flesh, that young man sitting there
is Luke Coffey. He's the son of Bob Coffey. He's
the son of Becky May, who's my daughter. So there's a sense
in which he's my son. my grandson, and the Lord Jesus
Christ in the flesh, who was born of Mary, he had no earthly
father, God's his father, born of the virgin, but he was born
of Mary, who was the daughter of this man, who was the son
of this man, who was the son of this man, all the way back
to David, and back to Jesse, you see what I'm saying? So concerning
the flesh, Jesus Christ is the son of David. He's the son of
David. But what's this? and declared. He wasn't made the Son of God,
he was declared to be what he already was and is. See what
I'm saying? He was declared to be the Son
of God. Declared to be the Son of God with power according to
the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. That's
this gospel that these servants of God preach. Oh, what a company of bond slaves. who are bold in their God to
preach the gospel as it is, the gospel as it is, to men as they
are, and they have no other ambition than to glorify Christ, no other
ambition than to be true to God, no other ambition than to be
true to those who hear them. But also blessed, now watch this,
blessed is that man, blessed is that man, not only in the
pulpit but in the pew. And this is the thing that Gerald
prayed about a moment ago. Blessed is that man or that woman
who by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit of God has
turned from the natural wisdom and logic of the flesh to the
wisdom of God in Christ Jesus. I hear people say this. Now listen
to this carefully. They say, I believe in the sovereignty
of God. I believe in the sovereignty
of God, but I preach the gospel of mercy. Well, let me tell you
this, my friends, it's not that at all. It's I believe in a God
who is sovereign, therefore I preach a gospel of mercy. Because if God were not sovereign,
there wouldn't be any gospel of mercy. Moses says, Lord, show me your
glory. He said, well, I'll make all
my goodness grace to pass before you. I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before you. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. So don't ever be guilty of setting
one truth of God against another, and say, I believe in the sovereign
God, but I preach a gospel of mercy. If God is not sovereign,
there wouldn't be any gospel of mercy. I hear someone else say this.
Now listen carefully. I believe in election, but I
preach the gospel to all men. What's wrong with that? I'll
tell you this, if God had not elected a people, there wouldn't
be any reason for you to preach the gospel to anybody. There wouldn't be any use. Who
would believe? The Lord Jesus Christ said, light
is coming to this world, but men love darkness rather than
light because their deeds are evil. He said, you will not come
to me that you might have light. If there's no election, if God
did not choose a people, there's no use preaching the gospel to
anybody, Charlie. They won't hear and they won't
come. So what we say is this, I believe in election and therefore
I preach the gospel. Turn back to my text in John
6. John chapter 6. Now watch this. Let's learn something
here, can we? Let's learn something. John 6,
verse 37, this is the Master speaking himself. All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, but him that cometh to me
I'll in no wise cast out. That's the way I hear people
say it, but that's not what it says. He says, all that my Father
giveth me shall come to me, and therefore, him that cometh to
me, I'll never cast him out, because my Father gave him to
me. All mine are thine, and thine are mine. And I'm glorified in
the end. Listen to this. I hear people
say, well, I believe Christ died effectually for his people. I
believe he redeemed them. Like one preacher said, he redeemed
everybody that might justify the elect. I don't know about
that. But I hear people say, well, I believe Christ died effectually
for his people and redeems them from all sin, but we must preach
the good news to everybody. But I'll tell you this, if his
blood's not effectual, there is no good news. There's no good
news. I'll tell you, this is not good
news. Suppose I came up here tonight and I said to you, well, Christ died for the Apostle Peter,
and he's in heaven, and Christ died for Judas, and he's in hell. It wouldn't be very good news,
would it? You say, well, where am I going to wind up? Well,
I don't have a faintest idea where you'll wind up. But I do
know this. I do know this. If God loved
you and gave you to Christ and Christ died for you, you'll be
in glory. That's good news. That's good news. There's no
but there. I believe Christ died for his
people, but and I preach good news to his people. Good news. There's no conflict. Somebody
asked a Persian one time, he said, how do you reconcile God's
sovereignty and human responsibility? He said, you don't reconcile
friends. They're not enemies. If God's
not sovereign, to whom are we responsible? Pretty good question,
isn't it? Oh, tis not that I did choose
thee. Lord, that could not be. this
heart would still refuse thee, hast thou not chosen me? Thou, from the sin that stained
me, hath cleansed and set me free. Of old thou hast ordained
me, that I should live to thee. For sovereign mercy that called
me, and taught my awakened mind, the world hath else enthralled
me, and the heavenly glories made me blind. My heart owns
none but thee, for thy rich grace I thirst, this knowing, that,
Lord, if I love thee, you must have loved me first." Do you
believe that? I tell you, my generation has
an impotent God. They preach a salvation that
does not save. a ransom that does not ransom,
an atonement that does not atone, and a redemption that does not
redeem. And they've got Almighty God
in the hands of sinners to turn whithersoever they will. And
God said, the very heart of the King is in my hands to turn whithersoever
I will. I want him to turn my heart to
him. I want him to create in me a
new heart. a clean heart and a right spirit. Lord, don't pass me by, while
on others thy calling, don't, Richard, pass me by. That's the
way you say it. Don't pass me by. Salvation is of the Lord.
And I'll give you this in closing. Now, you listen to it. These
things are so. They're not explainable to a natural They're not understandable
to a natural mind, but they're so. The believer's entire spiritual
existence is a paradox. The believer's entire spiritual
existence is as much a mystery as God in human flesh. You explain
to me how a holy God, divine God, deity, can merge with humanity. and have a human and God in one
body. You want to explain that to me?
But that's what happened, wasn't it, Cecil? Well, you don't ask
what you got sitting right there? You're not God, but you're a
son of God. You're not God, but Christ dwells in you. That's
what he said. We've got a new nature, a holy
nature that cannot sin right here in this human body that
can't do right. I'm telling the truth. This is a mystery. It's
a mystery. And my whole life is a mystery.
I hope my very existence is a mystery. And you cut it down to walking
an aisle, shaking a preacher's hand, going into the baptistery,
getting your name on a church roll, and fulfilling some rules
and regulations and duty, and winding up in heaven, you're
a fool. That's just plain. Because this thing, we're created
of God. We're created in Christ Jesus.
We're His workmanship. His workmanship. You hear these
preachers say, he's my convert. Yeah, he looks like one of yours.
He walks like one of yours, talks like one of yours, and smells
like one of yours. I don't want to be any man's
convert. I want to be God's workmanship, don't you? Created in Christ
Jesus. And they're still around. There's
a few of them around. There's a few miracles walking in human
flesh. There's a few sons of God walking right here on this
earth. There's a few prophets of God in these pulpits. Very
few, but there's a few. And they won't swim downstream
either. They won't follow the current. They won't follow the
line of least resistance. They're not looking for a fight,
but they won't run from one, especially where their God's
glory is concerned. They won't run. Because they
know what God, they're preaching what they've seen and heard.
They're preaching not what they did, but what God did. Not what
they're doing, but what God's doing. And they're preaching
Christ. The glory of Him. The beauty
of Him. The sufficiency of Him. And here's
the paradox. Now watch this. This is my life
story. It's a paradox. You can't explain it. Everybody
here that knows this will understand it. If there's anybody that doesn't
know it, he won't understand. But the believer obtained mercy. He obtained mercy by the grace
of God. God elected him and God gave
it to him. And yet, he sought the Lord with all his heart.
Is that right? Yes, sir, that's right. He sought
the Lord. God enabled him to seek him.
God made him willing. But he sought the Lord. Secondly,
he was awakened by the Spirit of God. He was awakened mysteriously
and powerfully by the Spirit of God, awakened out of death,
out of a grave, out of spiritual deadness and blindness and darkness. And yet, he would not let him
go without a blessing. Like Jacob of old, I won't let
you go. Christ came to him. Christ came
to him. Christ met him where he was.
Christ came to him in love and power. Christ came to him in
grace. And yet he came to Christ willingly,
lovingly, because he wanted to. This believer mourns over his
sins. He mourns over his infirmities. He claims to be the less, less
than the least of all the saints. He claims to be the chief of
sinners, and yet he knows that he is a new creature in Christ
Jesus, and he has by the grace of God passed from death unto
life, and in the sight of God he has no sin. He has a perfect
holiness. And this believer knows he is
not under the law. He's not under the Levitical
law, the Mosaic law, the moral law, or any other law. He's under
the grace of God. And yet, he loves God's law. He loves every royal command
of the king. He loves it. The law is not his
enemy. He's been delivered from the
curse of it, from the condemnation of it, but he loves God's law. It's not grievous to him, and he claims no merit in his
works, and yet he works in faith. He claims no merit in his devotions,
and yet his labors are labors of love. He knows a man is not
saved by praying, but he knows a man is not saved who doesn't
pray. He knows a man's not saved by forgiving, but he knows a
man's not saved who can't. He knows a man's not saved by
loving, and yet no man's saved who doesn't. He knows that. He puts no stocks in his works
or in his labors or deeds or devotions, and yet he delights
to do thy will, O God. He wrestles with sin, and yet
he rejoices in forgiveness. And he weeps over his dullness
of spirit, and yet he rejoices in the presence of the Lord. Is that right? That's the truth.
He mourns over his trials, and yet he thanks God for every one
of them. He prays to be delivered from
his trials, to be delivered from his afflictions, and yet he thanks
God for every one of them, knowing therefore he is good. but he's empty. He's satisfied, but he's hungry.
He's rich, but he's poor. He's happy, but like Paul said,
I have continual sorrow, heaviness of heart. He's broken, smitten and crushed,
and lying in the dust, and yet he's seated with Christ on the
right hand of God. Say, Preacher, I don't understand
that. You will, if God opens your heart and reveals Christ
to you. That's the mystery of His amazing
grace. Amazing grace. They're free.
They're free. The truth has made them free.
They've thrown off the shackles of tradition and the shackles
of form and ceremony and the clichés, the clichés of religion. And they worship at the throne
of a reigning Christ, don't they? I thank God, thank God, I thank
God. How I praise him and how I give
thanks for you. By his grace he has given us
and through you has sustained a free pulpit, a place to preach
the word, and raised up godly men and women who love that word
and who will have it no other way. And dear beloved friends,
keep it that way. You keep it that way, and I charge
you before God. Like I charge a young man who's
down here marrying a young woman. I charge you. You love her. You
take care of her. You provide for her. You protect
her. You lay down your life for her. But I charge you, you deacons
and elders and you men and women, that you let Satan and his subtlety
and craftiness take this gospel out of this bullpen. I hold you
responsible for God." Isn't that right? You know this gospel,
you recognize it, and don't you tolerate error for one minute.
I mean not in a bitter spirit. Let's keep a kind, forgiving
spirit. But Paul said, if any man preach any other gospel,
let God curse him and damn him. That's too hard, but that's the
way it is. Let the wrath of God fall on
him, because I charge you just like you take care of that girl.
If you mistreat that girl, we're going to work you over. And I
tell you, if you mistreat my Lord's gospel, somebody's going
to work you over too. Now you just don't do it. You
love it. Protect it. Preach it. Contend for it. By the grace of God. Mike, come
sing that song for me.

Amazing Grace

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