Now we're on the threshold of our 32nd annual Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference. We have had 31 of these conferences
and beginning tomorrow night we'll enjoy the Lord willing
number 32. I'd like to ask you a question.
beginning over here on this side, this section right over here.
I want the folks to stand that were there at the first Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference in 1954. Would you stand up? I want to
see you over on that side. All right, thank you. Now here
in the middle, how many of you were... You're telling your age,
I realize that. But I was there too. Of course,
I was just a kid. But how many of you in here were
there 32 years ago, 31 years ago, at that first Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference? What did you think? Most of these
folks are charter members of this congregation. So I want
to thank you. Now, over here on this side,
how many of you were in that first one, 1954, the Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference? Well, I just appreciate all of
you. And I know who came the farthest. He came all the way
from California. That's right, isn't it? He and
about two other fellows with him. And I'll tell you a little
bit about that in a moment. But he was so excited to find
out we were going to have a Sovereign Grace Bible Conference in the
United States that he drove four days and nights here and four
days back to enjoy that conference. Really, thirty-five years ago,
thirty-five years ago, I was serving as pastor of a little
Baptist church down in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Like Saul of Tarsus, I was a
religionist, a legalist, an Armenian, a Southern Baptist. I knew nothing
about the gospel of God's grace. I'd read the Book of Romans,
I'd studied it in class. But like I told Doris one night
when we were reading our devotions that came to the Book of Romans,
I said, let's just skip this book. I don't understand anything
in it. And that's the way you can do it. You can skip it. You
can give Matthew to the Jews and Hebrews to the Jews and Revelation
to the kingdom, and you can get rid of most of the Bible, parts
you don't like. And so in God's good providence,
in the Lord's good providence, The pastor up here in Ashland
invited me to come up here in April 1950 and be the assistant
pastor of this congregation. And like the woman at the well,
the woman who came to the well, we studied in our Sunday school
lesson this morning, she came to the well according to her
own designs. She came at noon hoping she'd
meet no one. a woman of no reputation, and
she came to the well hoping that no one would be there. She came
to the well, but by God's providence, to meet Christ. And I came up
here in 1950, April 1950, and the very day I got here, on a
Monday, the Lord sent a John the Baptist, a lone voice in
a religious wilderness. He sent a true preacher of the
gospel of his grace who had quit playing the games of religious
tradition, Brother Ralph Barney. And in that month, April 1950, when Barney got in the pulpit
to preach and I, the young 24-year-old assistant pastor of the church,
heard him, I heard something that I'd never heard before.
I heard a message I'd never heard before. I heard a gospel of the
free grace of God, which I'd never heard before. You say,
what was the sum of his message? Well, the sum of his message
was this, salvation is of the Lord. That the whole of the work,
the whole of the work, from Alpha to Omega, from beginning to end
and all in between, the whole of the work whereby a corrupt,
dead, depraved son of Adam, a sinner by birth, by nature, by choice,
the whole of the work whereby a corrupt, dead, depraved son
of Adam is lifted from the dunghill and washed and made clean and
made whole and raised to sit with the Lord Jesus Christ in
realms of glory, the whole of that work, from its planning
and execution and application and in its sustaining power and
in its ultimate perfection, the whole of that work is of the
Lord and of him only. That was the sum of his message.
I'd always heard that God had done all he could do and that
was up to him. I'd always heard that, you know,
the Lord did this and that and he was waiting on me to do something
else to make what he did effectual. But this man came along preaching
that the banquet of mercy, the banquet of mercy, is not only
purposed and prepared, but served by the Lord of hosts. And then in our text this morning,
the Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 1.9 that the Lord had saved us. The Lord had saved us and the
Lord called us. Sure, I called on him, but I
called on him because he called me. Sure, I choose Christ deliberately,
willingly, intelligently, lovingly, I choose Christ because he chose
me. I call on him, whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And a man's not
going to be saved who never calls on the Lord. But I call on him
because he called me. I love Christ, not like I ought
to, not like I want to, not like I expect to, but God knows I
love him. Peter said that, Lord, you know
all that, you know I love you. But I love him because he first
loved me. And he saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not because of what he saw in us or not because
of what we did, not according to our works. And brother, you
can make repentance and faith a work there, not according to
that. Not because I repented, not because I believed, not because
I prayed, not according to our works in any shape or fashion. He saved us and called us only
according to his own purpose. his own purpose. God, I thank
thee, Christ said, I thank thee, Lord of heaven and earth, supreme
Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent and revealed them to vain, even so far as
it seemed good in thy sight, according to his purpose, according
to his own purpose and his own grace which was given to us.
in Christ Jesus. Christ is the elect, we're chosen
in him. Christ is the heir, we're heirs
in him. Christ is the King, we're made
priests and kings in Christ, under God. The Father will honor
the Son, and he'll honor those who honor the Son. But the Son
is the object of the Father's honor and glory. He hath given
all things into the hands of his Son. I am what I am by the
grace of God." I never heard those things. I never heard those
things. But by the grace of our Sovereign
Lord, I was enabled to hear them. God Almighty opened my eyes. God Almighty opened my ears. God Almighty opened my heart. to see and to receive the redemptive
glory of God in the person and face of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I saw Christ in his glory. I think I saw for the first time
what old man Noah saw. Can't you just imagine? I thought
about this yesterday. Can't you just imagine when Noah
stepped off that ark? That thing came down and settled,
the Bible says on dry land. I read that over, it says dry
land. It says it over and over again, dry land. It rained for
so long the water had been up over the tops of the hills and
the trees and everything was dead. Swept away, washed away. That old ark settled down on
dry land. Noah and his wife and three sons
and their wife stepped out on dry land and they stood there
and they surveyed all the It wasn't a voice There wasn't an
animal there wasn't a person and only Noah had found grace
in the eyes of the Lord And I just know that old man lifted his
eyes to heaven He said salvations of the Lord It wasn't a single
Armenian stepped off that boat. Not a one. I guarantee you not
a one. Not a one! Every one of them was convinced
of one blessed thing. God chose them. God provided
an ark. And God kept them safe in that
ark through the raging flood. And God settled it down on dry
land. And they said, salvation is of the Lord. And that's what
I saw. I think I saw what Moses and
Israel saw. You can read about it over here
in Exodus 15, when they were standing there before the Red
Sea, and there that vast body of water, impassable. They looked behind
them at the charging Egyptians with all their armies and arms
and hatred. And they saw the mountains on
either side, and old Moses stood before them, lifted his rod,
and he said, Stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord. Oh, I wish we could get our generation
to stand still and shut up and see the salvation of the Lord.
Wait on God. Moses brought that rod down,
and the Scripture said that seed divided, And the wall of water
stood up on each side, and he said, Let's go across. And they
went across on dry land. And they got to the other side,
and when they did, they turned around. And the Egyptians were
charging through that wall of water also, and God Almighty
took his hand and just closed it over the top of it. And it says here in Exodus 15,
Then sang Moses, And the children of Israel, this song unto the
Lord, Exodus 15, verse 1, and spake, saying, I will sing unto
the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. He
is my God, and I will prepare him a habitation, my Father's
God, and I will exalt him. Old Moses and all those people
saw foundations of the Lord. I believe I saw what Jonah saw. Over there in the book of Jonah,
it says here, he said in Jonah chapter 2, he said, the waters
compassed me about even to the soul. The depths closed round
about and the weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to
the bottom, to the bottom. Have you ever been there, to
the bottom? To the bottom of the mountain.
The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought
up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul painted
within me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto me
into thine holy temple. They that observe lying banditess
forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with a voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that which I have
vowed." Salvation of the Lord. And that fish spit him out on
dry land. I'll tell you, Jonah was convinced
of one basic truth. Salvation of the Lord. Salvation
of the Lord. The whole of the work from its
beginning. Back yonder before the morning
stars sang together, back yonder before the sons of God shouted
for joy, back yonder before one leaf waved in the breeze, back
yonder before God made heaven and earth, God's purpose to have
a new heaven and a new earth inhabited by a redeemed people,
purchased by His Son, and He gave them to Christ. And the
whole of that work, all the way down through God's revelations
and prophecies and dispensations and promises and patterns and
pictures and tithes to the coming of Christ, to the death of Christ,
to the resurrection of Christ, to the ascension of Christ, to
the birth of his people, to the calling out of his people, to
the granting of repentance and praise to the preservation and
perseverance to the time that he'll say, come forth and the
graves will be lifted and they shall all be brought together
in the air to meet the Lord and made like Christ, the whole of
that work, and by his grace and by his power
and for his glory. And that's what I'm saying. Well,
I heard that. I heard that. I heard it. I didn't
just hear it with these ears. And like so many preachers say,
well, this is what the old Puritans preached. And this is what the
old Baptists believed. This is what somebody else...
This is what I believed. This is the message God taught
me. And it wasn't a message only for the study, and only for a
cup of coffee in a restaurant, and only to discuss in the quietness
of the home. It was a message for the pulpit. is a message to be believed,
and a message to be proclaimed, and a message to divine. It's
God's message. And I began to study the scriptures,
I began to study the writings and sermons of faithful men of
God of the past, and I found that this gospel of the free
grace of God, this gospel of the glory of the blessed God,
this gospel of sovereign mercy, I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. I'll be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, God said in response to Moses, please, show me your
glory. Well, I saw that this gospel
of the grace of God and sovereign mercy was what was preached by
everybody that believed God. And all the men whom God used,
I went back in the past, and those men of God, Owen, Latimer,
Whitefield, Spurgeon, Hux, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Toplady, Watts,
Newton, Kaufer, Joseph Hart, all of them! The men who wrote
the hymns, the men who wrote the commentaries, Cary, Johnson,
the missionaries, they all believed at times. I saw that what we call Arminianism
didn't even have a decent song, let alone a commentary. They didn't have a decent missionary,
they didn't have a champion, not one, and they didn't have
any martyrs either. You don't die for dead work,
you die for the glory of God. And in the early spring of 1954,
I was reading an old 1861 volume, this is before Bob Ross printed
the new BMTP. I got a hold of some of the old
ones. Grandfather was a preacher, left these books, and he and
Doris's mother gave them to me. And I was reading this 1861 volume
of Spurgeon, and I saw how that great mighty man of God, that
man who preached the gospel so powerfully, when he opened his
new Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, 1861, And he opened that tabernacle
with a Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. He sure did. A Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. See, people back then knew what
that meant. Sovereign Grace. Somebody said, think I'll name
a church the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. I said, nobody
knows what you're talking about. This generation doesn't know
anything about that, you see. But back then, they all understood
what Sovereign Grace was. And he opened his tabernacle
with five services, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday,
and each night, Monday night, a man preached on the total depravity
of man. He told how none good, none righteous,
none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. All we
like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to his
own way. From the sole of our feet to the top of our heads,
there's no soundness, no goodness, In us, no truth, no holiness,
in the flesh, no man can please God. He showed the utter, total,
complete, all of men. And on Tuesday night, a man preached
on election, glorious, blessed election. Wonderful election. Election is not a door that shuts
men out of the kingdom of God, it's a door by which men enter
the kingdom of God. Election is not bad news, it's
good news. If God had not elected a people, nobody would be saved.
If God had not chosen you, you wouldn't have chosen him. And
this man preached on glorious, wonderful election. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who hath chosen
us in Christ before the foundation of the world, blessed us with
all spiritual blessing in heavenly places, according as he chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy, and without blame before him, in love, having predestinated
us to the adoption of children, according to the good pleasure
of his own will." Salvation is by somebody's will,
by God's will. It's not of him that willeth
or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. We are
born of God, not of fleshly blood, not of the will of the flesh,
not of the will of man. We are born of God. And then somebody
preached on Christ's effectual atonement. I lay down my life
for my sheep, Christ said. Jesus Christ the Lord died for
his people and redeemed them, effectually redeemed them by
his blood. And one fellow preached on the
Holy Spirit's regenerating call, the Holy Spirit's awakening,
quickening call, the Holy Spirit doing what the Father purposed
to do and what the Son purchased the Holy Spirit applying. And
then one man preached the last night on the perseverance and
preservation of all God's elect. I tell you, I just rejoiced,
and I thought, oh, I'd love to have been present at that conference.
Oh, I'd love to have sat there and listened to those men. Spurgeon's
introductions were better than most of the sermons. But he'd
introduce the man, he'd say, this man's going to put you on
the President, and he'd tell what it was, you know. And it was such
a glad... And I thought then, why can't
we have something like that today? This was 1954. Why can't we have something like
that here? Why can't we have a Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference in 1954? Why not indeed? I'll tell you,
I didn't know many men who preached this message. I didn't know many. I'd gotten in touch with old
brother I.C. Herringbean, who printed most of Pink's work.
He was in charge of the Bible Truth Depot in Swingle, Pennsylvania,
and he had reprinted Pink's studies in the scriptures and the Gospel
of John, Sovereignty of God, and books like that. He had been
down here to Ashland to visit us, and so I got on the phone
and I called him. And I said, Brother Herring Dean,
I said, I've been reading. I told him about the reading
about the conference, and I said, I'd love to have one of those.
He said, well, why not? Try it. He said, I'll send you
my mailing list. I got the names of most everybody's
grace in this country. He said, everybody's pink, I
know who they are, and I'll send you their name and address and
you can invite them. So I got to work and I wrote
to all of his mailing lists. You got a letter, didn't you?
You got a brochure. And I sent him a brochure and
I said, we're going to have in Ashland, Kentucky in May of 1954
a Sovereign Grace Bible Conference emphasizing, and I wasn't embarrassed
about it, the five points of Calvinism. Not four, five. Not four and a half, five. T-U-L-I-P. Like I told the boys
in our preachers' workshop, it's two-lip or termination. Ain't
no compromise. No compromise. And so I tell
you this, they came. Like Brother J.B. Flanagan came from California.
We had people from 17 states. You remember that, Paul? They
filled that downstairs auditorium over there. Seat 700 people.
They came from 17 states. We had the five speakers. All
of them, old men. We had Brother Ralph Barnard,
A.D. Mews, George Fletcher, B.B. Caldwell, and Clarence Walker.
And you know the amazing thing, I was thinking about this the
other day when I thought about this message, the amazing thing,
that was such a momentum, eventful, happening, that I can remember
all the messages they preached. I can't remember all the messages
I've ever heard by any stretch of the imagination. I can't remember
what I preached last Sunday very distinctly, but I remember what
those men preached. Fletcher preached from Ephesians
1 on the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A.D. Muse preached from 1 Thessalonians,
remember, on the engaged church, the elect church, the expected
church, and the church which was an example and the church
which evangelized. But the two messages, there were
two messages that were, that were just the messages God sent
for that gathering. Turn to Romans 8, if you will,
Romans 8, verse 29. Clarence Walker, who was pastor
of the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky,
he preached on my spiritual biography, my spiritual biography. And this
is what he preached. in verse 28 of Romans chapter
8, and we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose,
for whom he did foreknow." He said, God knew me. I didn't know
him. He chose me. I didn't choose
him. Foreknew there is God Almighty foreordained. That's what that
word is. He foreknew. Now, I know something. after it happens. God knows it
before it happens because he brings it to pass. And whom he
foreknew, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of
his Son, verse 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
he called, and whom he called, he justified through the person
and work of his Son, and whom he justified, he glorified. He
said, That's my spiritual biography. That's the story of my life.
God foreordained God predestinated the means whereby I would come
to faith, trust, belief, resurrection and glory. God predestinated,
predetermined, determined beforehand all these means and workings
that would bring me to love Christ and be made like him. And those
whom he foreordained and whom he predestinated to be like Christ,
he called them. Now, there is a sense in which
God calls everybody. There's an old-timers used to
talk about a general call, a general call. General call, God calls
men by nature. You can look at nature, Paul
said in Romans, and know there's a God. He calls by conscience. Every man's got a conscience.
There's a light that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world. God calls men by providence. He said in Amos, he said, I've
withheld rain for just a few days to the harvest, and you
didn't return to me. He said, I've smitten your country
with mildew, and you didn't return. He said, I've killed your young
men with a sword, and you didn't return. And I've done this, that,
and the other, and you didn't repent and didn't return, and
therefore prepare to meet God. This is a call of providence,
judgment. God warns men. Men are warned.
That's a general call. But there is an effectual, invincible, irresistible, effectually irresistible,
we may kick for a while, but you won't kick long, call of
the Holy Spirit whereby all he, all whom he chose and for whom
Christ died, they're going to come. You say, I'll never come.
You want to hear it, you will. I'll never be a Christian. You
will if you want to hear it. My sheep will hear my voice.
And I'll tell you, those sheep have been found in a lot of places.
They've been found in the pulpit, just as lost as a goose. They've
been found in the choir. They've been found sitting at
the instrument. They've been found singing specials, Mike.
Lots of them have. They've been found on the deacon's
board. They've been found in the dens of iniquity. They've
been found in the lounges and booze halls. They've been found
everywhere. He finds them where they are,
but they are all equally lost, whether in the pulpit or the
world, whether in the pew or the pits of iniquity. God calls
them, and they will persevere. They will persevere. But you
know, the message, the message that I believe was the message
of the conference, the one that the young ministers went away
talking about, the one, I still hear points, The one I still
hear people talking about. Could you, some of you, guess
what it was that was there? That six poems. Barnard preached
it. Six stubborn statements. I never
will forget that. Six stubborn statements. He said,
let me tell you something. If you meet a truth in the middle
of the road, you either got to bow to it or run from it. Ain't no way around it. Over
and under. If you meet a truth, let me tell
you something, they won't face you with it right now. Most of
you have already faced it. But when you meet a truth, the
truth of God in the middle of the road, you either bow to it,
believe it, receive it, or run from it and fight it. And he
gave six stubborn statements that every one of us are going
to have to face and deal with. Number one. Now, come on. Number
one. is either unchangeably, infinitely,
absolutely sovereign, almighty in all things pertaining to his
creation and his universe, not only in creating it and preserving
it and in his good providence continuing it, but in salvation,
which is his chief glory. He's either infinitely, unchangeably
sovereign, or he's not. Now, which are you going to have?
Come on, face it. You're going to have all God
or all chance, all God or all fate. Which will it be? You can't
have both. You can't say God wills to do
anything that he can't do. Huh? He said, I have purposed
it, I'll bring it to pass. A God who wills and can't is
no God. He's a peanut God. He's a ten-cent
store God. I wouldn't waste time worshiping
him if I was you. What I'm saying is this, the
God we preach here is immutably, infinitely, absolutely, unquestionably
sovereign in what he does. And if he kills your firstborn
son, you say it's the Lord, let him do what he wills. If he saves
him, it's the Lord, let him do what he wills. If he lets him
go on in rebellion like Absalom and David's son, it's still the
Lord. Huh? The second point in Barnett's
message, man is either totally dead, totally dead in trespasses
and sin, totally without spiritual life, totally without any ability
or power to writhe or wiggle, to lift one little pinky, even
look to God, or call on God, or even want to look to God.
He's either plumb dead and plumb lost, or he's not. There's no
middle ground. Dead is dead. And if a fellow
is not dead, he's not dead. I don't care if he's just got
one breath every 20 seconds, he's not dead. A man is dead
who has no breath. A man's dead who has no pulse,
a man's dead who has no heartbeat, a man's dead who has no soul
left in his body. And that's us by nature. We're
dead. No life, no truth, no light,
no good, no God without hope in this world. Just a lifeless brain. with it, it will burn. God Almighty comes along, picks
it up, grafts it into the tree, and the life comes from him. And then thirdly, he said, God
either elected a people to life and salvation or he didn't. You
can't hold an election. You just can't touch it. You
can't even come within spitting distance of it. You can't get
anywhere near it without embasing all of it. God either elected
a people or he didn't elect anybody. Somebody said, well, he saw who
would believe and he elected them. That ain't an election.
That's God taking for credit something he didn't do. He didn't
see what I would do, but he saw what I would do, all right. tear
him off his throne if I could, spit in the face of his son if
he'd let me, send him down here to the earth and I'll nail him
to a cross. That's what I'd do, that's what you'd do. But he,
according to the good pleasure of his own will, in Christ, chose
whom he would, out of every tribe, kindred, nation, and tongue unto
heaven, and there was nothing in that center, or about that
center, or from that center, or on that center, that influenced
God's choice, only his own love and mercy influenced his choice. Can you take that? And it's so. It's so. He chose me. Somebody
said, well, you could preach a lecture and so people wouldn't
know what you're saying. That ain't the way I want to
preach it. I want them to know what I'm
saying. I want them to know if God passes them by, they pass
by. And if God chooses them, they're
chosen. And if God saves them, they're
saved. I want them to know that. I want them and I want us. I
want us all to bow before his sovereign throne. That's the
only place a man will bow. That's the only place a man will
worship, the sovereign throne, giving him all the glory. All
of it. All of it. Not some soul winner,
some preacher, my mother's prayers. God uses those things, don't
misunderstand. He's the God of the end and He's the God of the
means. But I'm telling you, salvation is of the Lord. He uses them. And then the Lord Jesus in His
life and death, that's the first time I ran into Owen's statement.
John Owen said, now listen, If Jesus Christ died for all the
sins of all men, what's your logical conclusion? All men are
saved. Is that correct? It's got to
be. It's got to be. If he died for
all the sins of all men, all men are saved. Under him who
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Christ
died for them. If he died for you, you're saved.
You know, if he paid for your sins, there's nothing left to
pay, is there? But you say he died for every
sin but unbelief. All right, that means this is
bad. If he died for some of the sins of all men, then nobody
is saved. It doesn't take one sin to damage
you. So a man at one point lost the gift of the whole law, isn't
he? I'll tell you, we're absolutely holy, absolutely sanctified,
and absolutely righteous, and absolutely cleansed through the
blood of Christ, and the life of Christ, and the righteousness
of Christ, and we're going to hell. It doesn't take but one
sin, one spot, one stain, for God to damn every one of us.
So if he died for some of the sins of all men, then nobody
is saved. He died for all the sins of some
men. You say, who are they? I don't
know. But he does. All the sins of some men! Then
all of those men are going to be saved. And ladies. All of them. You see, salvation
is in Christ. Salvation is a who, not a what.
Salvation is in the person and work of Christ. He is my substitute. He is my representative. He's
the one who made satisfaction to God. He's the one that met
the law and obeyed it perfectly. He's the one that stood under
the justice and judgment and wrath of God and took it all
in his body that God might be holy and just and righteous and
love and save my soul. Because of Christ, you learn
two words, you learn the gospel. Substitution and satisfaction.
Christ is our substitute. He did all that God demanded
of us, all the law required of us, all that justice expected
of us. He did it all! And in doing it, in our place
instead, he enabled God to be, to be God and set us free. Enabled
God to be holy. And I'll tell you this, God's
not compromising His holiness to you or anybody else. And a
believer doesn't want anything. A believer doesn't want anything.
I believe in particular redemption. I believe in it stronger than
any other doctrine I hold. That's how strong I believe.
You can call it limited atonement, but my Lord's atonement is not
limited. If he were to save one man, he'd have to do everything
he did. If he saved ten billion worlds, he'd have to do the same
thing, no more. It's not how long he hung on that cross, it's
who hung there. It's not how much blood he shed,
it's whose blood was shed. An infinite Christ can satisfy
an infinite God for an infinite number of people if it's his
will and purpose. I don't limit his atonement.
But I'm saying that his atonement is effectual. It is particular. He bought this world. It belongs
to him. There's a sense in which he bought the world. He died
that he might be Lord of the dead and the living. It's his. It's his. And then I'll tell
you this, here, now I think it's so or it's not so. And then fourthly,
the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or fifthly, the Holy Spirit effectually
calls a people to repentance and faith or he doesn't. Now
I despise this doctrine that says a almighty, sovereign God
of will and purpose is standing outside somebody's heart door
trying to get admitted. Somehow I can't figure that.
I can't figure that God's weakness or this sinner's strength. I just believe he that tore down
the walls of Jericho can do the same thing to your heart and
mine. The Holy Spirit invincibly, effectually
calls people to faith. And then the last statement was
this, and I've heard it. All the elect will be kept. I like this. It's twofold. We are kept by the power of God
through faith. Preservation. He seals us. He keeps us. He gives his angels
charge over us. He hedges us about. But he doesn't
leave us, and we don't leave him. He doesn't forsake us, and
we don't forsake him. Repentance is not an isolated
act, it's a state of being. Faith is not an isolated act,
it's a state of being. I have believed, I am believing,
I will believe. I have repented, I am repenting.
And I shall repent. And I'm coming to Christ. To
whom? Coming as a living stone. Whose house we are if we continue. And that gospel is a gospel of
our salvation if we continue in that gospel. And I'll tell
you, if one sheep of Christ could fall away. I'd fall a thousand
times a day. But He keeps me. He keeps me. That's right. I give Him the
glory for that. You say, we got to persevere.
I know that. But not without His grace. Lord,
keep me and I'll be kept. Hold me and I'll be held. Stand
by me or I'll fall. Well, the years have come and
gone. Preachers have lived and died. People have come and stayed.
People have come and gone. And some have died in the faith
since that first conference. Some died believing the gospel.
And we've had high points and low points, and we've had trials
and testings, and we've had misunderstandings, and we've had joys and sorrows.
Why? Because we are changeable people.
I'll tell you this, the God we love and the God we preach and
the God we worship is unchangeable. His gospel is still the same. If it's true back down in Luther's
day, it's true today. If it's true back in 1954, it's
true today. And you can't improve on this
method. Preach it. Preach it. Don't you try to protect it or
defend it. You don't have to defend a lion
when he's attacked. You just turn him loose. And
you don't have to defend God's Word either, little peeny, puny
thing like you and me defending God's Word, defending the faith.
Turn it loose. Turn it loose. God's unchangeable. His gospel is the same. His truth
is the same. Go in where you go, where you
work, or teach, or pastor, and let the gospel hang out. That's
the way to do it. You said, I won't slip up on
the blind side. That's all the side they got's
blind. Somebody told Scott, said, don't preach that. You'll confuse
people. He said, it's boring confused. There's just one way to tell
the truth, and that's tell it. Isn't that right? Ten. Preach
it. Swift to its close ebbs out life's
little day. Earth's joys grow dim and its
glories fade away. Change and decay all around our
sheep. O thou that changest not. Abide with me. Turn to Psalm
102. 102. I'm going to wind her up. Psalm 102. From 102, write this down. God never changes. His gospel
never changes. His glory and his grace never
change. He who took not on himself the
nature of angels, but took on himself the seed of Abraham never
changes. Psalm 102, verse 25, "...of old
hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens
are the work of thy hands. They shall perish But thou shalt
endure, yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment. As a
vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But
thou art the same, and thy years have no end." That's my God.
And we'll meet again tomorrow, the Lord willing, for another
conference. We'll meet in a different building than the first one,
but we'll meet at the same feet feet of Christ. He knows no building. We'll hear different voices,
whether Muses' voices, Silent, Walker, Barnard, Caldwell, but
the same message, salvations of the Lord. We'll sing some
new songs. I never heard Oh, How Merciful
it was over the last year. But all the songs will have the
same theme, Christ and Him crucified. We'll meet some new people. There's
some folks here this morning I've never seen before. But all
God's elect are of the same family and they wear the same name.
And we'll have some new trials. There'll be some new trials,
there'll be some new heartaches, but those too will be for his
glory. He not only sends the joys, he sends the disappointments. God not only sends the happy
times, he sends the sad times, and we learn more in those times
than we do on the mountain. And we'll preach the same gospel.
You know what will happen? Turn to Acts 28. I'll tell you
what's going to happen. I'll tell you what's going to
happen. Acts chapter 28. I know exactly
what's going to happen. I'll tell you exactly what's
going to happen. Acts chapter 28, verse 20. And some believe the things that
were spoken and some believe not. That's what's going to happen. Some believe, some don't believe. But I'll tell you what, those
who don't believe, they're going to take all responsibility for
their unbelief. All responsibility. And those
that do believe, they're going to give God all the glory for
the fact they believe.