Let's look at Matthew chapter
11. We'll begin reading with verse
25. Matthew chapter 11, verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things, thou hast hid these things from
the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seem
good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him. Come unto me. Come unto me. the sun, all ye that labor, and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light." The issue is Christ. The issue is not a denomination,
the issue is Christ. The issue is not even a system
of theology, the issue is Jesus Christ. Who is the Lord Jesus
Christ? And being enabled of the grace
of God to find a saving interest in Christ Jesus, to close with
Jesus Christ. Now, the Word of God plainly
declares that Jesus Christ is the way to God. Now, remember,
I didn't say He is a way to God or He made a way to God. I said
He is the way to God. There's a difference. Without
Him, men are totally and helplessly lost, lost in a wilderness of
sin. He did not make a way. He is
the way. He himself is the way. When Abraham
and Isaac started up that mountain, the Mount Moriah, to offer the
sacrifice, and Isaac turned to his father and he said, Father,
here's the wood and here's the fire. Where is the lamb? And
Abraham spoke these words. He said, My son, God will provide. God will provide. himself a lamb. That is, Abraham is saying God
will provide for us a sin offering, an atonement, a lamb. God will
provide for himself and for his righteousness and justice a lamb,
which is required, the blood. But Abraham is saying God will
provide himself as a lamb. You see what I'm saying? And
this is a critical issue and a critical area. The Lord Jesus
Christ is not a way. He did not make a way. Though
He did open for us into the presence of God a new and living way,
but He's the way. He's the way. And then Jesus
Christ is the truth. He is the truth. Without Him,
lies are our portion, lies are our refuge. He is the truth. We just don't learn a system
of truth involving Christ, but He Himself is that truth. And you cannot, I don't care
if you have a Bachelor of Theology or a Master of Theology or a
Doctor of Divinity. If you do not know Christ, you
do not know the truth. Christ is the wisdom of God.
Take my yoke upon me, he said, and learn of me. Learn of me. Study Christ. He is the truth. The more you know of Christ,
the more truth you know, and the truth shall set you free.
And then Christ is the life. And this is a statement I've
made so often from this pulpit. But I think it's a critical issue,
and I think it's quite important. I hear people all the time say,
our God is a God of mercy, our God is a God of love. I heard
a preacher, a friend of mine, in fact I was in the meeting
and he was speaking. And when he finished speaking,
he started praying. And he said this, and these statements disturb
me. And I realize that we're taken
up with cliches that we've heard and learned, but we need to examine
these things. This is what he prayed. He said,
Oh God, we know you're still in the miracle working business. And what troubles me, and what
you say, well, you're splitting hairs, preacher, when it comes
to the character of God, it's pretty important to split some
hairs. God is not a God of mercy. God is mercy. Mercy is the attribute
of God, and it's found nowhere else but in God. He is mercy. God is not a God of love, in
the sense that we set up love over here as a standard which
God comes up to. He doesn't come up to the standard.
He is the standard. He is love. Apart from God, there
is no love. People who do not know God needn't
talk about loving each other. They don't love. They love themselves.
It's impossible to love without knowing Christ. He that loveth
not knoweth not God. He that knoweth not God loveth
not. And God is not numerical work in business. Everything
about God is miraculous. We kind of lose sight of the
fact that this old earth turning on its, as the colored preacher
said, its axle, that's a miracle. The very fact there's enough
oxygen in there for you to breathe is a miracle. The fact that the
sun comes up and has certain influences upon growth of vegetables
is a miracle. The moon with its influence upon
tides is a miracle. God is a miracle. I don't need Almighty God to
straighten a leg to prove to me that He's God. The very fact
that He even created a leg, crooked or not, is a miracle. The eye itself is a miracle whether
it sees or not. The lid that closes over it and
the moisture that keeps it from drying up is a miracle, sightless
or not. God's still in the miracle working
business. You see what it troubles me that
our conversation is not seasoned with grace. our conversation,
and too often, I'm afraid, out of the heart, the mouth speaking.
If we entertain greater thoughts of God, maybe we would speak
of God in greater terms. And that's what I'm here for,
to teach you, and to instruct you, and to read the Word of
God, and call your attention to these things, and don't ever
feel that I'm straining a point, or I'm trying to deliver us from
a perverted religious generation. I want to know God, the living
God, the God of creation, the God of election, the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who is the judge of all
men, the God with whom we have to do. And Jesus Christ is the
life. He is the life. He is the life
and life of men. If you have spiritual life, that
life is Christ. If you have physical life, that
life he gave you. God breathed into man the breath
of life, and he became a living soul. There's no life apart from
God. Christ is our life. He's not
just the way of life, or the way to life, or the way to get
life. When you have life, you have
Christ. He that hath the Son of God hath life. And he that
hath not the Son of God hath not life. Christ is life. He is life. He says, I and my
Father will take up our abode in you. I'm crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Salvation is not just to decide
you're going to get religion and turn over a new leaf and
quit your swearing and drinking and gambling and go to heaven
when you die. Salvation is a new birth. It's
a resurrection from the dead. It's someone living who never
lived before. And that someone living who never
lived before is inhabited by the Son of God. That's right. He is my life. He is my life. And people who get religion and
lose it, who accept Jesus and desert Him, they have a religious
profession. They don't have life. They don't
have life. And then Christ is the light.
Without Him, we walk in darkness. And Christ is the rock. He is
the rock. He is that rock. And without
Him, we build our house on sinking sand. I don't care what our foundation
is. It doesn't matter upon what or
whom we're trusting. We're building on sand if we're
not built on Christ alone. And then Christ is the only atonement.
Without Him, there's no remission of sin. There's no pardon. There's
no forgiveness. He said, if you believe not that
I am He, you'll die in your sins. He is our atonement. And He made
an effectual atonement. And I know when I was talking
about that song a moment ago, you said, what's wrong with that?
Jesus died for all mankind and Jesus died for me. It's a denial
of the atonement. You see the atonement, A-T-O-N-E-M-E-N-T,
we can divide that into three words, atonement. Atonement is
reconciliation. It's bringing together two who
were separated, reconciling them. God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto himself. Atonement. And that was accomplished
not by my religious decision, that was accomplished by Christ.
Christ is in whom we have the atonement. In whom we have the
atonement. In whom we have the reconciliation. He brought us to God. And all
for whom he's the atonement and the reconciliation, they are
at one with God. And if he did that for the whole
world, the whole world's at one with God. I was preaching in Ireland many
years ago, 1972. Herbert Carson was, his church,
the Hamilton Rhodes Baptist Church, was entertaining the Northern,
North Ireland Baptist Association, which is made up of 50 churches.
And he invited me to speak. I went over there and spoke Monday
night and Tuesday night to the North Ireland Baptist Association. There were 50 churches represented
there. And on Monday night, I chose
as my topic, my subject, for whom did Christ die. I felt led
of God to preach an effectual atonement, an atonement that
atoned, a salvation that saved. A redemption that redeemed. A
ransom that ransomed. And I said that Christ redeemed
his people. And I made this quote. I said,
John Owen, many years ago, gave us something that's unanswerable.
And they were as quiet as you are. And I said, here it is. I said,
John Owen said, if Jesus Christ died for all the sins of all
men, then all men are saved. If Jesus Christ died, if he's
the atonement, if he's the reconciliation, now listen, for all men, in an
effectual manner, and he never did anything that wasn't effectual,
he shall not fail, that's what scripture says, he shall not
be discouraged nor fail. And if he made an atonement for
all the sins of all men, then all men are saved. But, someone
said, well, he died for all sin, but sin of unbelief. Well, if
he died only for some of the sins of all men, then nobody's
saved. If he left one sin, you're damned. If it's unbelief or whatever
it is. If he left one spot, one stain,
to offend in one part is to be guilty of the whole lot. To come
short of the glory of God means just to come short. So if he
only died for some of the sins of all men, then nobody will
be saved. But, I said, if Jesus Christ died in his effectual
death, in his atonement, If he died for all the sins, and the
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, all the sins
of some men, who they are, I don't know, God knows, the Lord knoweth
them that are his, then some men are saved. I finished my
message, and an elderly little gentleman in his seventies, a
brother Jackson, came forward, Jackson or Johnson, I forgot
which. He told me, shook hands with me, said, I'm affiliated
with a certain missionary society and have been for many years.
And he said, I heard you mention Spurgeon. And he said, my time
dates back to Spurgeon's son, who was here in Ireland. He said,
I knew many of the preachers whom Spurgeon trained personally,
graduated from his school in London. And he said, I can tell
you this. I never thought I'd ever hear
that statement by John Owen made from a Baptist pulpit in Ireland.
I said, you mean these fellows don't believe that? He said,
no way. I do," he said, but they don't. Well, I'll tell you this,
whether you believe it or not, Christ is the only atonement.
And without Christ, you have no atonement. You have no remission
of sin. And not only that, he's the only
mediator. He's the only mediator between
men and God. It says that over here in 1 Timothy.
Turn over there just a moment. It's as clear as anything can
be made. in the book of 1 Timothy chapter
2 verse 5. Now look at it. For there is
one God. You say, I'll buy that. You have
to. And there's one Mediator. One Mediator between God and
men. God and men. And that is men,
that's not man. Don't misquote that. Don't say
there's one Mediator between God and man, that is mankind.
There's not a Mediator between God and mankind. There's a Mediator
between God and men. Individual men. And that Mediator
is the man Jesus Christ. Alright, now those things are
true. According to the Scripture, those
things are true. Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life, the
Light, the Rock, the Atonement, and the Mediator. Then why do
not men come to Christ? If the Bible is our only rule
and guide, then why do not men come to the Savior? Why don't
they come to Him? Well, I'll give you four reasons.
Four reasons why they do not come, and then I'm going to give
you four reasons why men who come to Christ do come. Now here's the four reasons why
men do not come. And this is an accumulation of
years of thinking about this and studying it and looking into
it and preaching the gospel. Things of which I am unchangeably
convinced, the Bible being the Word of God. Number one, men
do not come to Christ. Now, I don't say they, they don't
come to the, they'll come to the church. They'll come to the
front. They'll come to the morning's
bench. They'll come to the pool. They'll come to the preacher.
They'll come to the priest. They'll come to the altar. They'll
come to anything, but they will not come to Christ. And I'll
tell you why. Number one, because men are spiritually
blind. They're blind. And they neither
see their need of Christ, they don't see their need of Christ,
and they don't see the beauty of Christ. Now these things that
I've talked about, Christ the way, the truth, and the life,
some of you have just said, I can see smiles on your faces and
nodding and rejoicing, but men by nature do not see those things.
And you one time didn't see them, but God revealed them to you.
There was one time that Jesus Christ was nothing but a name
to you, and yet, yet, what a name! But you didn't see it. Jesus
Christ was nothing but a historical character. Oh, but what a character! But you didn't see it. You didn't
see it. He's not very far from any of
us. The word of faith is on your lips and on your tongue. And
it was a time when you used that there name and knew nothing of
the glory of it and the beauty of it and the power of it. You
had no eyes to see and no ears to hear. Turn, if you will, to
Matthew 13. I want to read two verses along this line. Matthew 13, verse 13, and then
another over in the book of Isaiah. In Matthew 13, 13, listen. Therefore
speak I to them in parables." Because they're seeing, but they
don't see. And they're hearing, but they
don't hear. They don't hear. And they don't
understand. It's as if you were speaking
in a foreign language. They see, but they don't see.
And they hear but they don't hear. And they have hearts but
they don't understand. Now look at Isaiah 64. And you
know I've read Isaiah 64 6, I guess a thousand times. I don't know
why I miss Isaiah 64 4. I've read it. I've got verse
1 mark, verse 6 mark, verse 8 mark. But Isaiah 64 verse 4, listen
to this. For since the beginning of the
world, men have not heard. nor perceived by the ear, neither
hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee what he hath prepared for
him that waited for him." Since the beginning of the world,
since the day that Adam fell, men have not heard. You say they've
heard. Sure, they've heard, but they
haven't heard. And they haven't seen. Oh, you say they've seen. No, they haven't seen. They see,
but they don't see. They don't see what God hath
prepared for him that waiteth for Christ. They're blind. That's
the reason men do not come to Christ, do not embrace Christ,
do not rush to Christ, do not flee to Christ. They do not see
their need. They do not conceive of their
guilt and sin, nor do they see his sufficiency nor his beauty. They just don't see. And then
secondly, men do not come to Christ, secondly, Because, now
watch this, being dead in sins, men by nature actually love their
deadness. They actually love sin, they
love darkness, and they hate the God of holiness. They really
do, they love their sins and they hate the God of holiness.
John chapter 3 says this, this is condemnation. That light is
coming to the world, but men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds are evil. Someone asked Brother Milton
Howard. He was preaching at a church while he was up here this summer,
and the pastor said, Are the people in Mexico hungry for the
gospel? Milton said, Are the people in
the United States hungry for the gospel? He said, No. He said,
Well, they're the same kind of folks down in Mexico. They just speak
Spanish, and up here they speak English. Men are the same. They hate light
and they love darkness. The natural man is enmity. Turn to Romans chapter 2, verse
32. Romans 2, 32. They don't come
to Christ because they don't want to come to Christ. They
love darkness. They love darkness. Just last
week someone said, well, what are you going to do with whosoever
will? I said, I don't have any trouble with whosoever will.
It's the whosoever wants that we have trouble with. The people who will, will. It's
the people who won't. Christ said you will not, you
won't come to me that you might have life. If you will come to
Christ, you will. And he made you willing. But
the problem is, they won't. In Romans 2, 32, listen to this.
In Romans chapter 2, yes, it's chapter 1. It's chapter 1, verse
32. Listen, Romans 1, 32. People,
and he's named all these sins, these reprobate They're talking
about unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
envy, murder, haters of God. Listen, verse 32, "...who, knowing
the judgment of God, that they who commit such things, and walk
in such evil, are worthy of death." They know that. They not only
do it, but they have pleasure in them to do it. That's human
nature. I'm telling you why, men, you
wonder why people, you read these things, Christ is the ransom,
Christ is the Redeemer, Christ is the Savior, Christ is the
Lord, there's life in Christ. Well, why don't men come to Christ?
Why don't they embrace Him? Why don't they receive Him? They
don't see Him. They're blind. They don't see
in Him what you see in Him. They don't see it. And secondly,
they don't want Him. They love where they are. They
actually enjoy seeing. We, by nature, enjoy seeing. Now, that's just it. It's like
trying to get a child to come off a merry-go-round when he's
having a good time. You say, but the merry-go-round
is going to wreck. What does he care about what's wrecking?
He's having a good time. But it's getting dark. We've
got to get home. What does he know about darkness? He's having
a good time. But mothers got separated. I'm
not hungry. I like it where I am. Now, he's
going to stay where he is, too, unless you drag him off. And
natural men are going to stay where they are. It's like Brother
Barnard told a story one time. Some of you may remember this.
But he pastored in Borger, Texas, for a number of years. He was
the only preacher in Borger, Texas. There were 50,000 people
there. It was an oil boom town that
just sprang up overnight. And he was the only preacher
there. He said one day he had seven funerals. Only preacher
in town. And had a fight down at one of
the 19 saloons. He had said 19 saloons, dance
halls, and houses of prostitution. And there was a girl in town
named Dixie. She was the flower of the town.
She was the one everybody knew. She was the celebrated singer
and dancer and all this sort of thing. And he knew Dixie and
all the people knew Dixie. Well, somebody called him one
day and said, get down to this picnic saloon. Dixie's been shot.
Somebody had come in there with a gun after some fella and shot
at him and missed him and hit Dixie. And Barnard said they'd
taken her back in the back room and laid her on a cot. And he
said, she asked for the preacher. That's the first thing people
do when they get themselves in, for the preacher. So Barnard said,
I went down there and I sat down. I pulled up a stool and the doctor
had been there helping her and they were going to take her somewhere,
but she wanted to talk to the preacher. So the doctor moved
aside and he looked at Barnard and kind of shook his head. So
Barnard took her by the hand. And he talked to her about Christ,
talked to her about repentance toward God and faith in Christ
Jesus, to receive Christ as a death and judgment and eternal hell
and the wrath of God and all these things. And he said she
just wept, tears ran down her face here. And then she turned
her face to the wall and said in a minute she turned her face
back to him and her eyes just crackled. And she said, There's not any use in me lying
to you or lying to God. When I get well, I'm going to
come right back here and live the same kind of life I'm living
right now." And he said, she died. Well,
you say, that just seems impossible. Well, not when men tell the truth. Now, there are a lot of folks
who get religion on the deathbed, but that's what they're getting.
They're not turning to Christ. And when they get well, they
go right back to where they were. They go right back. But a man
who bows to Christ has nowhere to go. That's what Peter said,
to whom shall we go? He's already come to Christ.
He's got no choice. He's where he wants to be. But
the reason men do not come to Christ is they love sin. And
when the right God is presented to them, they hate that God.
They hate that total commitment. And the third reason why men
do not come to Christ is this. Men do not come to Christ because
many of them have established religious refuges in which they're
content. That's the reason they don't.
They have a refuge. They have a refuge. The reason
men do not come to Christ is they have established a religious
refuge in which they're content, and they have established a righteousness with
which they're satisfied. I'm as good as anybody down at
your church, they'll tell you that. I'll have a righteousness. I don't need Christ. There's
two scriptures, now look at Isaiah 28. We have a refuge, listen
to this. They say this in Isaiah 28, verse
15, they say, we have a covenant with Isaiah 28, 15, you said, we have
a covenant. We have a profession. We're not
afraid to die. We have a covenant with death.
We're not afraid of hell. With hell are we at agreement.
And when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it won't
come unto us. Sure, I believe God's going to
judge the world, but not me. Sure, I believe people are going
to hell, but not me. Sure, I believe there's eternal
condemnation, but not for me. I'm not afraid of death. I'm not afraid of hell. I've
got a covenant. It won't come unto us. We have
made lies our refuge. We have a refuge. And under falsehood
have we hid ourselves. And God said, thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I lay in Zion, they're talking about Christ
here, in Zion, the church, in the kingdom. for a foundation. I lay in Zion for a foundation,
a stone, only one stone, a rock, an immovable rock. It's a tried
stone, tried by the law, tried by Satan, tried by men, and tried
by God. He's a tried stone and he didn't
fail. He's a precious cornerstone. To them that believe he's precious,
to the Heavenly Father he's precious, he said, this is my son in whom
I'm well pleased. He's a sure foundation. He's
a sure hiding place. He's a sure refuge. And he that
believeth on him shall not make haste, he shall not be ashamed,
he shall not be confounded. There's your refuge. But men
won't come to that refuge. And God says in verse 17, judgment
I lay to the lion. My judgment is a straight and
fixed and righteous judgment. No deviation. Do you know there's
no mercy in the law? People say, well, I don't believe
a just God. Now wait a minute, that's the
God you don't want to fool is that just God. The only way justice
can be tempered with mercy is for Jesus Christ to satisfy justice
and establish mercy. That's the truth. Because justice
and judgment is laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.
Unvarying, just a straight line. Deviate one inch or one particle
of an inch and you're out. Men do not come, turn to Romans
10, and this is the other scripture that I want to read on this point.
Men do not come to Christ because they have a refuge. I'm satisfied. I've heard people
tell me that. Now, you preach the gospel of
grace to them. Now, don't cloud up my mind and
clutter up my mind. I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. I've been going to this church
for years. My mother and father went to
this church. I made a profession, and I'm satisfied. I'm not afraid
to die. I'm not afraid of hell. When
God judges sinners, He won't judge me. In Romans 10, verse
1, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. I bear them record. They have
a zeal of God. Most religious men do. They have
a zeal of God. They call Him God. They talk
about God. They have an enthusiasm for God.
They say they worship God. They sing about God. They serve
God. They give their gifts to God.
They worship all these know-not-what-you-know, but they've got a zeal. But Paul
said it's not according to knowledge, for they're really ignorant.
Ignorant. And they're ignorant of what?
The one essential thing, God's righteousness, God's holiness,
God's justice. That's what they're ignorant
of. And being ignorant of God's holiness, they go about to establish
through their religion, through their profession, through their
good deeds, through their works, some kind of righteousness of
their own, hoping that God will accept it, hoping that God will
be satisfied with it, and they will not! They will not! Submit themselves to the righteousness
of God, for Christ is the righteousness of God. Why won't they submit
to the righteousness of God? They already have one. Isn't
that it? You see it? They already have
one. And when you present Christ to them, to your friends and
to your relatives and to your neighbors and to the people you
work with, they already have a religion. They don't need God's
refuge, God's tried stone, sure foundation corner. They have
a refuge. They don't need God's hiding
place, the cleft in which Moses hid. They have a hiding place. They don't need Christ, the righteousness
of God. They have a righteousness. That's
the reason they don't come. They just don't come. And then
fourthly, Men do not come to Christ because the flesh, the
flesh, proud, proud flesh, objects to free grace. We will not be
beggars. We're just not coming that way. When we call men sinners, preach
to them that they're sinners undone. And I know it. I know
a lot of people say, well, you grace preachers talk too much
about sin. When you get up and pray, you
talk about your unworthiness and your guilt and your shame.
Let me tell you something. If you ever see the holiness
of God, you'll talk about your unworthiness too. Isaiah did. He said, I saw the
Lord. And what was his immediate response?
Woe is me. I'm undone. I'm cut off. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. What was Job's
immediate response when he saw the Lord? Just right there, his
immediate reaction. He said, I've heard of you by
the hearing of the ear. Now, man, I see a thing, comma, wherefore
I despise myself. I repent and sackcloth and ashes."
What was John's immediate response when he heard the voice of Christ
on the Isle of Patmos? I fell at his feet as a dead
man. What was Daniel's immediate response when he saw the glory
of the Lord? He said, when I saw the glory
of the Lord, my duty melted into corruption. But I'll tell you,
when we preach man's guilt, And I wish folks could understand,
I'm not talking about the fact that you're any worse than anybody
else out there. Man is not as evil as he can
be. And we might compare ourselves with ourselves and compare ourselves
with others, and we're pretty bad about doing that. Well, I
wouldn't do that. You wouldn't only by the grace
of God. Well, I wouldn't go to a place like that. You wouldn't
only by the grace of God. Well, you'll never catch me!
Only by the grace of God. Only by the fence that God's
built around you, and the hedge that he's put around you, and
the restraining hand that he's put on you. We got enough Adolf
Hitlers right here tonight to start another World War III. That's right! Except for the
restraining hand of God. We got a bunch of Charles Mansons
sitting right here, except for the grace of God. What I'm saying
is that when we compare ourselves with ourselves, we come out well.
But when we look at ourselves in the light of God's holiness,
we have to cry, woe is me! I'm the chief of sinners. Have
to. But men hate that. They hate
that. That offends their dignity. And
when you preach salvation as a revelation, it offends their
wisdom. And when you preach this, let me ask you this. Now you
know that I preach pretty strongly, effectual redemption, particular
redemption, the atonement of Christ as redeeming only his
people. Why is that so offensive? Now
you tell me, why do men hate that? Why is that? I'll tell you why.
It's pride. God owes me something. It's not
right, it's not fair. What's not right, what's not
fair? For God to do with his own what he will? It's our pride
that cries out against that. I'll tell you, if we were all
in prison and God came down and delivered two or three and left
the rest in, we'd say with the thief on the cross, we're getting
what we deserve. Would God seem fit to say so?
It's pride. All right, well some men do come
to Christ. Over here in John 1 it says this,
and I'll wind this down, I'll give you four things that are
essential to a man coming to Christ. It says here in John
chapter 1 verse 10, he was in the world, this world that he
made, the world was made by him and the world didn't know him.
The world didn't know him, wouldn't come to him. Secondly, he came
to his own. He came to his own temple, his
own people, his own law, his own ceremonies, his own priesthood,
and his own received him, not but as many as received him. Some people did. And I can tell
you tonight, and some of you can tell me, I have bowed to
Christ. I have submitted to Christ. Christ
is my Lord, my hope, my life, my rock, my foundation. Christ
is all in all. Some of you can say the same
thing, Christ. What made you different? Who made you different? Why'd you come to it? I'll give
you four reasons, I'll tell you why. Very briefly, number one,
the purpose of God brought you to Christ. I preach a sermon
when I go away in meetings sometimes, when is a man saved? When is
a man saved? When is a man saved? I'll tell
you when a man is saved, when he pleases the Lord. That's when
a man is saved, he's saved. Paul said that, when he pleased
God who revealed his Son in me, who separated me from my mother's
womb, but I'm saved when I please the Lord. Our Lord Jesus said,
all that my Father giveth me shall come to me. And he said again in Acts 13,
48, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And
Romans 8, 29 says, Whom he foreknew, he predestinated. Whom he predestinated,
he called. Whom he called, he justified.
Whom he justified, he glorified. The purpose of God brought you
to Christ. You found favor with God. Like Noah, you found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. You were given to Christ before
the world began. this innumerable company out
of every kindred, tribe, nation, and tongue. And when Christ came
down here and took upon himself the work of redeeming them, it
says he shall see his seed, the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. Secondly, the Holy Spirit brings
men to Christ. Preachers don't bring men to
Christ. Soul winners don't bring men to Christ. We ask, how many
souls have you won to Christ? Not any. That's true. I'm not being smart. I'm just,
not any. It's the Holy Spirit that woos
and wins men to Christ. It's the Spirit that quickeneth
the flesh profiteth nothing. The preparation of a heart to
want Christ, to need Christ, To see Christ, to love Christ,
to receive Christ, the preparation of the heart is of the Spirit
of God. Look back at the text that I read in John 1. I said
in verse 12, I read, But as many as received him, to them gave
he the privilege to become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on his name. Now what's the next line? Which
were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not
of the will of man, but they were born of God. He raises the
dead. The Holy Spirit does. You have
to quicken who were dead. He gives life to the sinner.
He convinces of sin. Our Lord said when the Holy Spirit
has come, he will convince the world of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment. And he seals us in Christ. So
why do men come to Christ? The purpose of God brings them
to Christ, and the Spirit of God brings them to Christ. And
thirdly, the Word of God brings them to Christ. I'll tell you
this, I was talking to Scott on the phone this morning, and
I told him about this message. And I said, Scott, whatever you
say, there are four definite, decided, inescapable, undeniable
things that must be present if a man comes to Christ. One is
the purpose of God. Two is the Spirit of God. We're born of the spirit of God.
Three is the word of God, the gospel. A man is not saved without
the gospel. Now the heavens declare the glory
of God, the firmament shows his handiwork, but it's only by the
word of God that men have any understanding of God's redemptive
work, only by the gospel. Scripture says in Romans chapter
10, verse 17, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word
of God. Listen to this verse over in
Luke 8. And I know I don't have to prove this to this congregation,
but these things need to be stated. Luke 8, verse 11. Listen. Our
Lord talked about the parable of the sower. He said a sower
went out to sow, and he sowed the seed, and some fell on the
fowler ground, some fell among the thorns, some fell among the
stony ground, and some fell on good ground. And he said the
sower is the son of man, verse 11 of Luke 8. The parable is
this. The seed is what? The Word of God. That's the seed,
without which there's no life. This seed of life is the word
of God. Now, without his word and his
divine law, there's no knowledge of sin, either its origin, its
nature, or its extent. Without his word, there's no
knowledge of covenant mercies in Christ, so there'll be no
calling on Christ. Without his word, there's no
knowledge of the person and work of Christ, either who he is or
what he did or why he did it or where he is now, without his
word. Of his own will beget he us with
the word of truth. These things are written that
you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."
Someone said not long ago, they came out to hear the Bible conference,
the messages, and two of us spoke, and they went away and said,
they used too much scripture. How in the world can you use
too much Scripture? When the Scripture is the seed
of life. The seed is the Word of God.
Being a born of the Spirit and the Word. And I'll tell you,
you say, well I want faith. You'll find it in the Word. I
want life. You'll find it in the Word. And
you say, but that's Christ. The incarnate Word and the written
Word are inseparable. Christ is the truth. And then
last of all, listen to this, saving faith brings men to Christ.
Now those four things are essential to salvation and redemption.
The purpose of God, the spirit of God, the word of God, and
without faith, it's impossible to please God. Our Lord Jesus
Christ had spoken and watched 5,000 people walk away. And he
turned to his disciples. When the 5,000 had gone, he turned
to his disciples and said, Will you also go away? And they said,
To whom shall we go? To whom shall we go? I'll tell
you what keeps us with you. We believe. That's what keeps
us. We believe. And we're sure that
you're the Christ, the Son of the Living God. What kept them
there? Who brought them there? God did.
The Holy Spirit, the Word of Christ. What kept them there?
Faith. Faith. And I say this, when men are
made aware of God's holiness, the perfection of his law, when
men are convinced in the light of that holiness and in the scriptural
sense of their guilt, when men are faced with the curse of the
law, eternal condemnation, death, and no hope, When men see, by
revelation of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, Jesus
Christ as their substitute, their sin offering, their righteousness,
they'll flee to him. And you won't have to give what
people call an invitation. They'll come. You won't have
to exhort and encourage and coerce. They'll come, if they ever see. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your purpose. That
eternal covenant of thy grace, like David of old, God hath made
with me an everlasting covenant. And oh, we thank you for your
blessed, powerful, invincible Holy Spirit that would not let
us go. Our Holy Spirit who crossed our
path, who gave life, who quickened who broke our hearts, who convinced
of sin, who revealed Christ to us. Thank you, Lord, for your
precious Word. Thy Word that reveals sin and
guilt, and thy Word which reveals unto us the perfection of Christ,
the holiness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ. And, Lord, we take
no credit, ask no praise or glory. for that faith that believes,
for that faith is a gift of thine. You enabled us to believe. You
brought us to Christ. But we say we do believe. We believe and are sure that
Christ, the Son of the living move in the hearts of people.
As our brothers already prayed, Lord, open the heart to receive
Christ. Reveal the Savior to everyone
here and to those who shall hear this message at another time. For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.