Now, the Word of God places a high priority on preaching. It gives preaching a most elevated
place. The scriptures do. Noah, man
of God, man of faith, builder of the ark, was called a preacher. a preacher of righteousness,
Noah, a preacher of righteousness. That's how he's identified in
the book of Peter. And then Solomon. I want you
to turn in your Bibles to this scripture in Ecclesiastes. Solomon,
man of great wisdom, Ecclesiastes 12, man of great wisdom, power, accomplishments, Queen of the
South came for many miles just to see his kingdom, the things
that Solomon had done. He was king over Israel. You
know what he called himself? He called himself the preacher.
He didn't say, I, the king, was a preacher. He said, I, the preacher, was
a king. That's what he said, I, the preacher, was king over
Israel. In Ecclesiastes 12, verse 9,
talking about himself, verse 8, he said, Vanity of vanity
saith the preacher, all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher
was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. He gave good
heed and sought out and set in order many proverbs, and the
preacher sought to find acceptable words. The preacher studied,
prepared, diligently searched the scriptures, sought the Lord
to find acceptable words, acceptable words that would be acceptable
to men? Oh no, acceptable to God. And that which was written
was upright, even words of truth. And then John the Baptist, our
Lord called him the greatest man ever born of woman. And the Bible identifies him
as a preacher. Preacher. Preaching in the wilderness. Prepare you the way of the Lord.
Our Lord Jesus Christ. If you'd like to, find Mark chapter
1, verse 14. Listen how it describes our Lord's
public work. In Mark chapter 1, Verse 14,
I believe it is. Mark 1, 14. Now, after that John
was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee. Came doing what? Preaching. Preaching. Preaching the gospel of the kingdom
of God. And Paul had this to say. He
said, God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching.
Now, he didn't say by the preaching of foolishness. entertaining
sinners and carrying on foolishness, but by this thing that the world
calls foolishness. See, the preaching of the gospel
is to them who are perishing foolishness. And Paul said it
pleased God by this foolishness of preaching. What those folks
out there say is foolishness. It pleased God by that very thing
to save them that believe. The foolishness of preaching.
And then Paul said this. Whosoever shall call out of a
need on the name, the power, the character, the greatness
of God, the right God, the living God, call on the name. His name
identifies him. Whosoever shall call on that
name shall be saved. But how shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how are they going to believe
in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear
what? Without a preacher. One other scripture I want you
to look at is 1 Corinthians 15. How shall you live without a
preacher? I tell you, the responsibility is great upon the preacher. I know there are many today who
take it lightly. It's no burden at all. One old-timer
said, if it's not a burden now, it will be later. If the Word of God, like Habakkuk
said, is not a burden, he said, Oh, the burden of the Word of
God. If it's not a burden, now it will be. And I know there
are many who are not doing much preaching, they're doing a lot
of singing, a lot of entertaining, a lot of promoting, a lot of
money raising, a lot of organizing, a lot of building, a lot of promoting.
They're not doing much preaching. It would astound you, I went
to Africa two years ago, And I was scheduled to preach on
Sunday morning at 8.30 to the International Missionary Fellowship
Church in the capital of Ivory Coast. There are a lot of missionaries
over there. There are a lot of people from
the States, from England, from Holland, from all places who
are over there in Africa as missionaries. There's thousands of them. And
this church is located in the capital city on a missionary
compound where there are hundreds of missionaries, hundreds of
them doing radio work, doing literature work, educational
work, medical work, hundreds of them. This is a huge building,
bigger than this building, a huge building, open air building,
gorgeous building that they built, the missionaries had built, a
huge It'll seat four or five hundred. They were in their compound
that Sunday morning. They weren't in the house of
God. I went there that morning and preached to about forty,
sitting right down here in that huge outfit. Missionaries, they're sleeping
in. They got no time for God. They're too busy serving him.
I'm not being facetious. I'm being truthful. And I came
there that Sunday morning all the way from the United States
of America to preach there. And I had my message, and some
young squirt met me. And I said, well, how long do
I have to preach? He said, oh, about 15 minutes. I said, you don't preach for
15 minutes, he said? He said, usually 15, 20 minutes.
How long do you preach? I said, minimum of 30, son. I
said, what do you do? Oh, he said, we sing and share,
testify. And I told them, there wasn't
many to tell, but I told the few that were there, you've relegated
preaching to the scrapheap. And that's the reason you're
in the mess you're in. God has chosen by the foolishness of
preaching to save them from the lead. Preaching has a high priority
in the Word of God. And you cannot, you just cannot,
you cannot cast away preaching and substitute some entertainment. God's not going to bless you.
He says here in 1 Corinthians 15, moreover brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached to you. How did you hear it?
I preached it to you. Which also you received. Where
did you receive it? From a preacher. And wherein
you stand, by the which also you're saved. You're saved by
that gospel if you keep in memory what I preached to you. That
is, unless she believed in vain, unless she got a false faith. That's pretty serious, isn't
it? Oh, the responsibility upon those
who preach. Let me tell you this. Oh, the
responsibility upon those who hear. If Paul could say, woe
is unto me if I preach not the gospel, then I could also say,
woe is unto me if I hear not the gospel preached. Well, it's said by some that
there are several types of preaching. A friend of mine wrote me from
England and said he was going to the Southwestern Baptist Seminary
in Fort Worth, Texas in February to bring four lectures. And here the subject of his four
lectures is the subject The first one will be on experimental preaching. This is something that's been
around a long time, types of preaching, the types of preaching.
We studied this in the preacher's school, types of preaching. His
fourth subject will be experimental preaching, expository preaching. Experimental
preaching is heart-to-heart, it's heart preaching, it's experimental,
just what it's saying. It's experiencing what you're
hearing and saying. It has to do with the emotions,
has to do with faith, has to do with the heart, experimental
preaching. And then there's expository preaching.
That's really what I was doing a little while ago, going down
verse by verse. Expository preaching is expounding
the scriptures verse by verse, phrase by phrase, word by word. That's expository preaching.
And then there's what they call extemporaneous preaching. That'll
be the third lecture. Extemporaneous preaching. That's
inspirational preaching. You look it up in the dictionary,
it says without preparation. without preparation. Not without
preparing the heart, not without preparing the mind through the
years, but at that moment you say what the Holy Spirit led
you to say or lead you to say without having that particular
thought prepared or written down. That's extemporaneously. I spoke
extemporaneously. I was called on, I spoke extemporaneously. And then fourthly, there's evangelistic
preaching, that is an effort to spread the gospel, to make
Christ known, to bring men to Christ. But my contention is
this, and in May I'll be over in England preaching in a Bible
conference under the auspices of some men over there or an
organization that's interested in getting this message, gospel
Calvinism on fire to people. But this is what I contend, this
is what I contend. Should not every sermon we preach
contain all of these types of preaching? Huh? Should not this
message, I'm preaching this morning now, I'll preach again tonight,
I'll preach Thursday night down in Pikeville. Experimental preaching,
heart to heart. What good is preaching if it
doesn't come from the heart to the heart? It's dead and dry,
isn't it, John? I don't want to hear anybody
preaching in my head. I want a heart message. It's the heart
that believes. It's the heart that repents.
It's the heart that loves God. You can't tell what you don't
know any more than you can come back to
where you hadn't been. I got to know Christ in here to tell
you about Him. And you've got to have your heart
operated on by the Holy Spirit to receive this message. So,
every message ought to be experimental. And expository, my soul, that's
what got us in the mess we're in, leaving the Word of God.
We need to preach the Word. That's what Paul said, Timothy,
preach the Word, preach the Word. I'm not sure that textual or
topical preaching is effective at all. It may be in some cases.
But the best preaching in the world is to take a text and stay
with it. That's the best preaching in
the world. Verse by verse. Let the Word of God say what
it will. Don't you see? So you've been around a long
time. That's the best preaching in the world. It's expository
preaching. It's preaching the Word of God. Letting the Word of God speak
for itself. And then extemporaneous inspiration. I tell you, if God doesn't speak,
it'll do me no good to speak. If my voice is the only voice
you hear, no good will be accomplished. You've got to hear him speak,
who speaks from heaven. I'm just a mouthpiece. I'll say
a lot of things this morning that I didn't prepare to say.
It's not on this paper. Not at all, but if I'm his preacher,
And if he has designed and purposed for you to hear something, he'll
say it through me, extemporaneously, inspirationally, without my writing
it down. And then evangelistic, my soul. God may be pleased just through
the reading of the scripture to bring some center to Christ
this morning. I think when we read the scripture, we ought
to read it with enthusiasm, and read it with love, and read it
with rejoicing, and read it with expectation. It's the Word of God. Why not?
Why not? Oh, let me tell you a story.
One time Charles Spurgeon was invited to speak in a huge auditorium. I don't know whether this was
the That palace hall he spoke in or where it was, but he was
invited to speak and they were putting up some temporary seats.
They were building some new seats in the balcony. They didn't have
these microphones then. He didn't have a loud speaker
system. But he had a powerful voice that
could be heard for long, long ways. But he came over to look
at the building before he came to the service the next day or
two. And he wanted to have a pulpit
built there, and it seated 17, 18,000, something like that.
And he came up to the pulpit just to try it out. And in that
voice of his, and he couldn't When Spurgeon even read the scripture,
it melted the hearts of men. And he stood there in that big
auditorium and he said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. Behold the Lamb of God. And he
turned to the man with him and said, Acoustics are fine. And
they left. And there was a carpenter. This
is a true story. I read Spurgeon's account. There
was a carpenter. up in the balcony who couldn't
be seen. He was down working. And when
that voice came across that balcony, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world. God had prepared that man's heart.
He was struggling and troubled over his sin. needing a savior,
and the man later told Spurgeon, he said, when that word came
into my ears and consequently into my heart, he said, I just
sprawled on my face and wept my way to God. I was waiting
to hear, Behold the Lamb of God. Oh, experimentally, expository,
extemporaneous, evangelistic, or whatever, it's preaching. It's preaching, God bless us.
And I want you this morning to go with me, go with me to Romans
3. Romans chapter 3. Oh, I pray
God will give me the gift to preach. A love for preaching. Someone to hear me preach. Some heart to respond to the
preaching of his gospel. In Romans chapter 3, I was reading
this and came down to verse 23 is where I want to begin. Do
I have to stay on this this morning? Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. My wife and I were driving
along the other day going to a meeting where I was preaching
and a young man sent me a tape of two messages which he was
preaching. And I plugged the first one in
and listened to it a good while, and then on the way back I plugged
the second one in and listened to it. And I said to Doris, I
said, I think, I really believe that we're spending too much
time on what's wrong and not enough time on what's right.
I really do. I believe we're spending too
much time on sin and not enough time on the Savior. I believe we're painting the
black picture of men's hearts and spending a whole lot more
paint and brush and elbow effort instead of painting the countenance
of him who is the Glorious Redeemer. You reckon that's what was wrong
with that message? Too much sin, not enough Christ?
Now how do I stay on this? Is anybody in here not fully
convinced and persuaded you're a sinner? The scripture says all are under
sin, under the curse of sin, under the dominion of sin, under
the guilt of sin. Is that not true? Here's a question
David posed in Psalm 130. If thou, O Lord, shouldest mark
iniquity, If thou, O Lord, shouldst single out sin, and mark sin,
and charge sin, and judge sin, and deal with sin, sin of the
heart, sin of the mind, sin of the mouth, sin of the tongue,
sin of the hand, sin of the feet, sin of the imagination, if thou
shouldst, sin of the attitude, sin of the motive, sin of the
spirit, if thou shouldst charge sin, who's going to stand? Who's
going to stand? Let every mouth be stopped, and
all the world become guilty. Actually, the man who doesn't
know he's a sinner is not going to pay attention to the rest
of the message anyway. And then this, you're not going to convince
him he's a sinner anyway. Now you can stand up here and
talk about sin the rest of the service. You're not going to
convince him, only God's going to do it. So let's leave all
of sin, all right? Go to the next verse. Now here's
the good news. Being justified, being forgiven. That's what I'm interested in,
here's good news, being justified. What does that word justified
mean? Not guilty. Not guilty, not guilty, which
I'm guilty. You are in the flesh, you are
in your spirit, you are in your nature, you are before God in
yourself, but there's a place you can be where you're not guilty,
in Christ. There's a refuge. There's a hiding
place. There's an atonement. There's
a redeemer. That's the good news of the gospel.
Being justified. Justified. Sin not charged. The Lord God fully satisfied.
Justice of God fully right. Being justified. Now what's the...
Well, how am I going to buy that? You're not. It's free. Being
justified freely. Well, what am I to do? It's done. Christ did it. It's not something
you do. You see back here, look at verse
21. But now the holiness, the righteousness,
the acceptance of God without the law, without your obedience
to the law, is manifested, it's revealed, it's there. It's for
sinners. being justified freely, putting
no merit, no work, no effort on my part. Now, if you want
to work for something, the wages of sin is death. Now, let's go
to work. We've earned it. But the gift
of God is eternal life. Christ is God's gift, unspeakable
gift. So justified freely, and I'll
tell you this, if I'm justified, it'll have to be freely. I've
got nothing to pay. And we're justified freely by
His grace. By His grace. It's grace that
purposed to save sinners. It's grace that chose sinners.
It's grace that sent Christ. It's grace that loved us while
we rebelled. It's grace that called us. It's
grace that keeps us. And it's grace that conforms
us to Christ. His grace. By His grace. What's this now? Through the
redemption. What does the word redemption
mean? Deliverance? to buy back, full satisfaction. He was made sin for us, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus Christ suffered the just for the unjust that He might
bring us to God. I want you to turn to Hebrews
chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9. I want you to look at this scripture
right here. I think it's so descriptive and such a blessing. It's one of those high points
in my own personal experience and my relationship with Christ
when I actually came upon this and realized it. Here in Hebrews
9, there are three appearances of Christ for his people. In Hebrews 9.26, now look at
it, Hebrews 9.26, For then must he often have suffered since
the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. Christ hath appeared, he took
on himself, our God took on himself the likeness of sinful flesh
and became obedient, obedient to the law, obedient to death,
even the death of the cross. He became obedient. He appeared
on this earth to put away, sin is hard to put away. It takes
the blood of God to put sin away. It takes the death of the Son
of God to put sin away. The Jewish sacrifices couldn't
do it. All of the washings and baptisms couldn't do it. Repentance
can't put sin away. It can mourn over it, but it
can't cleanse it. It takes the blood of Christ. Do you see what
I'm saying? Or here's the second appearance, back here in verse
24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy place made with hands, which are figures of the true,
but into heaven itself. In other words, he's not like
the high priest of old who goes into a holy place made with hands.
He's in heaven, the right hand of God, doing what? Now to appear
in the presence of God for us. He appeared on this earth to
fulfill the law, to put away sin, to die as our substitute. Now at the right hand of God,
he appears there as our forerunner, as our mediator, as our intercessor. He appears there, and somebody
says, well, he prays for us. He does. He ever lives to make
intercession for us. But let me tell you something.
His very presence at God's right hand is sufficient without a
word spoken. It's something that's very difficult
to preach. And to explain is the mystery
of the union of Christ and his church. From all eternity they
are one and have been one. God made them one. Christ is
the head, we're the body. Where the head is, the body ain't
far behind. You understand what I'm saying?
And what the head has, the body has. When the body suffers, the
head suffers. You follow me? They won. I've said this often to this
congregation. I have a lot of pictures in my
study. Every one of them is a picture of a head. I don't have a foot. I don't have any feet. Remind
me of going there, there's a picture of a big foot sticking up there.
I don't have any. Or hands. I don't have a picture of hands.
I have heads. Why? Because the head is the
person. When you're looking at the face,
you're looking at the person. When you're looking at the head,
you're looking at the person. And Christ is my head. You understand
what I'm saying? And he appears at the right hand
of God. That means I'm there. My head's there. Now look at
the third appearance, verse 28. But Christ, verse 28, was once
offered to bear the sin of many. To them that look for him shall
he appear the second time without sin. Where are my sins? He bore them. He died for them. He was buried in rows without
them. His cross have any sin on him? Any sin in him? Any sin
about him? He did one time. The Father turned
his back on him on that cross because he had our sin. We have
no sin now. And when he comes back again
he'll have no sin. And therefore I have no sin. Isn't that beautiful? That's the appearance of Christ.
So look back at Romans 3.24. Being justified, not guilty,
sin put away freely, without charge, by his grace. Not by
my works. Through the redemption, accomplished. The redemption that our Lord
Jesus Christ took on himself to perform, in which he performed.
He shall not fail. And that redemption is in Christ
Jesus. in Christ Jesus. Now, watch this. I preached on
this the other night at Brother Gary's. I brought it here some
time ago. I'm just going to touch it. Verse 25. Whom God hath set
forth. Now, the whom, that's Christ,
being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus, whom God. No man takes this honor
upon himself. Even Aaron, who was the high
priest, He didn't take that honor upon himself, but God ordained
him to be a high priest in things pertaining to God for Israel. And Aaron represented God to
Israel and Israel to God. That's right, isn't that right?
Well, even so, the scripture says in Hebrews 5, Christ took
not upon himself the honor of being our representative and
high priest, but God who said unto him, Thy my son, this day
have I begotten thee. He's the one that made him. So
God set him forth. Now listen to me. Set him forth. It means to foreordain. What
God sets forth now, God has always set forth. Because God's works
are the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Known unto God are
all his works from the beginning. Somebody said, when man fell,
God began to look through heaven for a savior. What kind of God
is that? You mean he slipped up on him?
Caught him asleep? Caught him not watching? Caught
him unprepared? Did Adam's fall catch God unprepared?
I wouldn't give you a nickel for that, God. I'd be afraid
that I'd catch him unprepared and die sometime. And he wouldn't
be ready for me. Wouldn't have my house finished.
I'd sure hate to catch God when you catch him unprepared. No,
sir. When Adam fell, there was a lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. God chose us in Christ
before the world began. Don't preach a peanut God to
me. I don't want anything to do with
him. The God that I yearn for and my soul panteth after like
the thirsty deer is the living God, the almighty God, the eternal
God, the God who is God, the God who is God, God in every
sense of the word, God in every sense of the word. He cannot
fail. If he sets out to save you, he'll save you. He'll save
you. And God set him forth, but now
watch this. God set him forth, that is, he
exhibited him in a conspicuous manner to be a propitiation.
He's publicly declared him. He said the seed of woman will
bruise the serpents here. He set him forth in the Passover,
the rock, the brazen serpent, the tabernacle, for decades. He set him forth all the way
through the Old Testament. One day he hung a star over a
place in Bethlehem, that little town, and said to the angels,
and the angels said to the shepherds, under you is born this day in
the city of David a Savior. God set him forth. God set him
forth. God brought him into the world,
and God set him forth. Paul said to that old ruler,
this wasn't done in a corner, fella. This wasn't done in a
corner. Don't tell me you don't know
about Jesus Christ. I wasn't done in the corner.
God sent him to the capital of religion and they nailed him
to a cross. But God raised him from the dead.
And God has declared to the whole world that he hath appointed
a day in which he'll judge the world in righteousness by that
man Jesus Christ. And he gave to this world this
evidence. He raised him from the dead.
So he set him forth. Now look, to be a what? of propitiation. That word, my friend, is Mercy
Seat. You say, I don't know anything about the Mercy Seat. Well, I
hate to be hard, but you mean you've been in church all your
life, you've been listening to preachers, you've had a Bible
in your home, and you don't know anything about the most important
place in all the world, the Mercy Seat? That's where God says,
My glory will dwell on the Mercy Seat. You know what, John? Am
I exaggerating it? God said, I will dwell between
the cherubims on the mercy seat. God dwells there. Well, I thought he's in the baptismal
pool. No, he never said that. I thought he's in our beautiful
church building. We put a steeple on it, reach
higher than anybody else's in town. We've got these beautiful
windows, all these pagan pictures on the windows. I thought God
dwells in places like that. No, God doesn't dwell. He said
to David, how are you going to build a house for me when the
heavens won't contain me? God doesn't dwell in your silly
houses of worship. That's right. That ain't too
hard, that's just so. It says that right over here
in the book of Acts. He said God does not dwell in
houses made with hands. God dwells between the chair
of man over the mercy seat. That's where his glory, his Chicago
glory is. And preachers don't know anything
about it. Consequently, their poor, befuddled people don't
know either. That mercy seed is that beaten
gold lid that covered that Ark of the Covenant wherein lay the
broken laws. That's right, the broken laws. And over that mercy seat, the
cherubims, the winged creatures, their wings folded out like this,
and the very glory of God was between, the very cloud of God,
the glory of God. That right in its easel, dwelt
on that mercy seat. That's where God met men, and
men met God, right there at the mercy seat, when the atonement,
once a year, the blood was sprinkled on that mercy seat, and God forgave
sin. Where is our mercy seat? God
set him forth to be a mercy seat. Our mercy seat is Jesus Christ.
It ain't some silly altar where you come down here and slobber
and cry and squall and somebody come down and beat you in the
back. The mercy seat is Christ. That's right, it's Christ. Christ
is the mercy seat. You can come down here and get
you a little emotional experience. You can come down here and weep
and cry and get your conscience cleared for a little while. They
say confession is good for the soul. It won't save it. You want to tell everybody about
your sin so you can get it off your conscience. The only one
who can put away sin is Christ by his blood at the mercy seat. That propitiation, that word
is mercy seat. That propitiation is covering. His blood covers my sins. The broken law is there. The
tablets of stone are there. But between that broken law,
those tablets of stone in God, is the blood of Christ. You see
that? It's there. I'm not denying it's
there. The broken law is there. We smashed them, broken them,
violated them, sinned against God. They are there! And God
is there! But there better be something
between that law and God. And the only thing it will do
is not your little works, your tithe. I brought mine tithe.
Well, take it home. Take it home. Well, surely God
will Take notice of something, my dear. He will. Everything
you've done. Everything. He'll take notice.
And your righteousness is a filthy rag. But I want him to take notice
of the mercy seat. Take notice of Christ. See that
man on the cross? God, that's my mercy seat. See
that one going about doing good? That's my mercy seat. That's
my covering. That's my perpetuation. Watch it now. Through faith in
his blood. I believe. God help my unbelief,
but I do believe. I do believe. And why is all
this? Look at this next line. To declare
God's righteousness. Now, my friends, God is righteous.
God is holy. God is just. God is good. And
Jesus Christ came down here in the flesh as our representative
and met God's righteousness and holiness and law and justice
to declare who God is. to declare that God cannot be
justifier without being just. He cannot be good without being
holy. He cannot be loving without being
righteous. He is a loving God, but his love
is a holy love. He is a good God, but his goodness
is a holy goodness. He will not act contrary to that. He will not clear the guilty.
If God clears you, it will be because Christ died for you.
That's right. And what's this? He's declaring
in Christ whom he set forth, ordained, and exhibited before
you to be a perpetuation through faith in his blood to declare
God's righteousness for the remission of sins of the past. That's Abraham's
and Moses' and Isaiah's sins of the past. Sins committed before
Christ came and died. Sins performed before Christ
came into this world. But through the forbearance of
God, through the patience of God, through the wisdom of God,
through the fact that a promise of God is as good as an act.
If Christ was a lamb slain for the foundation of the world,
he's slain in the mind and purpose of God. God didn't have to wait
until Christ died in order to forgive sin. He was forgiving
sin on the basis of the fact that Christ would die. You see
that? And verse 26 is to declare Christ
is our salvation, righteousness, to declare, I say, at this time
His righteousness. It's the same gospel in 1988
as it was in 1988 B.C. There's no new gospel. And I'll tell you this, if there
is a thousand year millennium on this earth, that same gospel
will be preached. If there is a tribulation, if
there is a three-and-a-half and a three-and-a-half and so forth,
it'll be the gospel of Christ. And if any Israelite or beyond
is converted, it'll be the same way you were converted by faith
in Christ, under the same gospel. And it won't be styled to fit
his culture. He'll fit his culture to the
gospel, but he won't come at all. That's right. I'm tired
of people trying to fit the gospel to somebody's culture. You better
change your culture. I tell you, the gospel can change
your culture. It's the only thing that will.
It'll subdue you and subject you to God's way. Sure it will. All right, look at the next line.
That he might be just, God might be holy, just, righteous, and
true, and still justify folks like us through the Redeemer.
Is that as clear as I can make it? That's clear as I can make
it. Now then, the last word. Where is your boasting? Where's
our bragging? Where's any room for glowing
in our works? I tell you this, we got room
for glowing in Christ. Glory to God who loved us, glory
to Christ who redeemed us, and glory to the Holy Spirit who
called us. Therefore, here's my conclusion, Paul said in verse
28, I conclude that a man is justified by faith. Don't give
me anything to do. Well, what about the seventh
day? Christ is my Sabbath. Well, what about the tithe? I
am his and he is mine, and all thine is mine, and mine is thine.
I'm not dividing a portion to God and a portion to me. We're
one. Yeah, well, what about this?
What about nothing? What about nothing? I conclude that a man
is justified before God. by the person and work of Christ,
not by anything he has done, is doing, or will ever do. Whatever
we do is in response to his mercy, because we love him.