From Death to Life

Q: What does the Bible say about the nature of sin?

The Bible teaches that all humans are born in sin, shaped in iniquity, and are morally corrupt due to the Fall. Scripture clearly states that we are born with a sinful nature. David articulates this in Psalm 51:5, declaring, 'Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' This original sin means that from our very conception, we inherit a corrupt nature from Adam. Romans 5:12 further affirms this by indicating that through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, thus death spread to all men because all sinned.

Q: How do we know God's love is unconditional?

God's love is unconditional as illustrated in Scripture, demonstrating His grace towards us despite our sinful state. In Ezekiel 16:6-8, we see a powerful picture of God's love toward a helpless and polluted Israel. Despite their abominable condition, God declared, 'When I passed by you and saw you, I said to you, 'Live!' This act of grace reflects God's sovereign love that isn't based on our merit but on His will. The emphasis is that God loved us while we were still unlovable, emphasizing His unconditional and initiating love.

Q: Why is understanding election important for Christians?

Understanding election is vital because it assures Christians that their salvation is rooted in God's sovereign choice rather than human effort. Election is a profound doctrine that underscores God's sovereignty in salvation. As presented in Ezekiel 16, God's initiative in forming a covenant with His people showcases that it is He who chooses. This doctrine reminds believers that their acceptance and redemption come from God's grace and purpose, not from anything they have done. Ephesians 1:4-5 encapsulates this truth, stating we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, emphasizing that our salvation was determined by God's will.

Q: What does regeneration mean in Christian theology?

Regeneration refers to the act of God giving new life to a believer, making them spiritually alive through the Holy Spirit. In Christian theology, regeneration is a crucial concept that signifies the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in giving new life to an individual. This is articulated in John 3:3, where Jesus states, 'Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Regeneration is essential because it transforms a person from death in sin to life in Christ, illustrating the necessity of divine intervention for salvation. Without this profound change, no one can genuinely respond to God or have faith.

Q: Why is it significant that salvation is by grace?

Salvation by grace emphasizes that it is unearned and wholly dependent on God's mercy, ensuring that all glory goes to Him. The significance of grace in salvation cannot be overstated; it highlights that our salvation is purely a gift from God, not a result of our works. Ephesians 2:8-9 states, 'For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.' This doctrine assures believers that they cannot contribute to their salvation and prompts them to live in gratitude and acknowledgment of God’s unmerited favor, as demonstrated in Ezekiel 16, where God’s actions are solely rooted in His mercy and love.

You know, if I continue as pastor here until
the month of September, and I will see no reason why I shall not,
I will have been here 34 years. And I was sitting there a moment
ago doing a little multiplying, Just with Sunday morning, Sunday
night and Wednesday night, not counting conferences and special
meetings and Bible conferences and other services we've had
here, Missionary Week, that's 6,304 services. And you say, well, why did you
do that? Well, I'll tell you. I've had such a good time here
tonight, I've enjoyed this so much, and I thought to myself,
that must be a good evidence of your love for Christ and your
relationship with Christ, if after 6,304 services you can
sing the same songs and enjoy them and hear the same scripture
and enjoy it. And Ronnie, you've been in all
6,304 of those services. But that's an evidence, that's
a blessing, isn't it? I can still, I've had as much
enjoyment and blessing tonight as I believe I've ever had in
a service. Just listening to you read and comment on those
verses and pray and Bridget and Mike sing. It's such a blessing. And I tell
you, I don't know why, but Saturday night, I just don't know whether
God's going to be here at all, and I just lie awake and wake
up and have butterflies in my stomach. Came to this service
tonight as empty as a fired shotgun. And yet the Lord is pleased to
bless. He meets our need if we wait on him, if we wait on him. Let's turn to the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 16. Ezekiel 16. Now I'm going to
read some scripture here, about 14 verses, and it's an
unusual scripture, it's an unusual picture. Ezekiel 16. Again the word of the Lord came
unto me saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations."
Abominations is a strong word for sinfulness, transgressions,
trespasses, iniquity, abominable. How much more abominable, he
said, is man that drinks iniquity like the water. Just a strong
word for what we are. And thus saith the Lord God unto
Jerusalem. Thy birth and thy nativity is
of the land of Canaan, heathen, pagan land. Thy father was an
Amorite, a pagan, thy mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity,
your birth, your nature, in the day that you were born your navel
was not cut, wasn't tied, dressed, neither
were you washed in water. to supple thee. You were not
salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitted thee to
do any of these things unto thee, little newborn baby, to have
compassion upon thee. But you were cast out into an
open field, unwanted, unloved, just thrown out into the field
to the loathing of thy person in the day that you were born.
There's that baby lying out there just come forth from the womb,
and just like it was, just cast out into the thick, covered with
its blood, helplessness. And when I passed by thee, and
I saw you trodden underfoot, polluted in your blood, I said
to thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. I said to thee, when thou wast
in thy blood, live. And I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breast are fashioned,
thy hair is grown long, whereas when I found you, you were naked
and bare. Now when I passed by you and
looked upon you, Behold, the time was a time of love. Love,
whose love for whom? His love for the baby. The baby
was incapable of loving anybody. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and I covered your nakedness. And I swam to thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and you became
mine. And I washed you with water, Yea, I thoroughly washed away
thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. And I clothed
thee also with bordered work, and shod thee with badger skin.
And I girded thee about with fine linen, and covered you with
silk. And I decked thee also with ornaments,
and I put bracelets upon your hands, and a chain around your
neck. I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ear, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus was thou decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was as of fine linen, and silk and
watered work. And thou didst eat fine flour
and honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful. beautiful,
and thou didst prosper in thy kingdom. And thy renown went
forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for thy beauty was perfect
through my beauty, my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith
the Lord God." Now, what's the meaning of all this? Why has the Lord God written
carefully and preserved Well, one thing I know beyond a shadow
of a doubt, this has something to do with the person and work
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm confident of that. This scripture
has something to do with Christ, his person and his work in reference
to his people. It's got to. He said, I saw you
in your blood, I passed by you. I sat under you, Leo. I spread
my skirt upon you. I covered your nakedness. I washed
you with water. I anointed you with oil. I made
you beautiful, put a gold chain about your neck, earrings in
your ear, a gold emblem on your forehead and a crown on your
head. I did all these things. It's
got something to do with Christ, just like all the scriptures.
Brethren, we haven't learned to preach until we've learned
to preach Christ from all the scriptures. We haven't learned
to preach. And our congregation is not familiar
with the scriptures until they see Christ in all the scriptures.
Like the Passover lamb, that's Christ our Passover. The serpent
lifted up in the wilderness, that's Christ lifted up. That rock which was smitten and
gave forth the refreshing water, that's Christ, the rock that
followed them. That tabernacle out yonder in
the wilderness, with its plainness outwardly and the glory of God
inwardly, with all of its furniture and its sacrifices and ceremonies,
from the eight-foot white linen fence, yea, even to the atonement
upon the mercy seat covering the earth, it's every bit Christ
in Him crucified. But now the first application
of this scripture is to Israel, the nation Israel, the first
application, as many scriptures are. These things took place
And in taking place, they were to be types and pictures of God's
mercy to sinners. It's bifocal. It's bifocal, the
scriptures are bifocal. There is the immediate application. He's talking about Israel. He
said your birth was a heathen birth, and it was. You know,
when God called Abraham, Abraham was in the land of idolatry.
Abraham was seventy five years old. And he had been reared in
idolatry. His father was a heathen and
his mother was a heathen. They didn't worship God, didn't
know God. And the Lord came to Abraham
in idolatry, in paganism, in idol worship and called him.
And brought Abraham out and made a covenant with Abraham that
he would bless Israel And through God's own hand and by God's own
purpose and providence, Israel became a great nation, a mighty
nation, became a great and beautiful nation, especially under David
and Solomon. And there was no nation on earth
like Israel. And like he said over here, that
your renown went forth among the heathen. The Queen of Sheba
came all the way from the far country to see the glory of Israel
under Solomon, and to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And the Queen
of Sheba said, the Haggai had never been told. That's what
that's talking about, the first application. And in verse 15
you see what happened to Israel. Verse 15, the first phrase, but
you trusted in your own beauty. You trusted in your own beauty
and played the harlot. And you backslid. And God placed
that beautiful nation under judgment, under judgment. But then here in this scripture,
as I said before, though Israel is the first application, this
scripture is given to picture the grace of our God to the guilty
and the mercy of God to the miserable through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what this is all about. And instead of reading it and
applying it to Israel now, let's just read it and apply it to
ourselves. In the first place, in verse
3, God says, Thus saith the Lord God to Jerusalem, and we are
spiritual Israel. All Israel shall be saved. We
are spiritual Israel. Paul said he is not a Jew which
is one outwardly. He is a Jew which is one inwardly.
And circumcision is not of the flesh, it's in the heart. And
he said again in Philippians, we are the true circumcision.
who worship God in the Spirit and who rejoice in Jesus Christ
and who have no confidence in heritage and ancestry and tradition
and the flesh. So God says to you and to me,
your birth, verse 3, and your nativity, your birth and your
nature by birth is of the land of Canaan, heathenism, paganism. Your father was an Amorite and
your mother was a Hittite. Turn back to the scripture which
David read a moment ago, Romans chapter 5. Now, the psalmist
David said, in talking about our conception and our birth,
he said, in sin my mother conceived me. In sin my mother conceived
me. I was born of a sinful father.
And the seed which was planted in my mother's womb was a polluted
seed, was an evil seed, was a sinful seed. And as that baby developed
in the womb and was shapen, it was shapen in iniquity. And David
said in Psalm 58, I was brought forth a liar. I was brought forth
speaking lies. Now that's what Scripture says.
And David read for us in verse 12. Now, I know men today resent
this, and I know they reject what we call original sin. And
I know they cry out against representation and imputed guilt. But my friends,
if we're going to go by the scriptures, if we're going to follow the
Word of God, we've got to accept what God says about our beginning.
He said, you were born in sin. You were shapen in iniquity,
you were conceived in sin, you were bought for speaking lies.
He said there's none good, there's none righteous, there's none
that understand it, there's none that seek after God. He said
from the sole of your feet to the top of your head, you're
full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. He said at
your best state, you're altogether vanity. He said you all do fade
as the leaf. And your iniquities have driven
you away, and even your righteousness, even your righteousness is a
filthy rag, like you prayed while ago. Forgive me of the sin of
this prayer. I tell you, my friend, if we
don't see where we came from and what we are by nature, we're
not going to realize or understand or lay hold upon the grace of
God in Christ Jesus. Romans 5, verse 12, by one man. Sin, sin entered into this world. It came by Adam's fall. It came
by Adam's rebellion. It came by Adam's sin. And death by sin, spiritual death. Dead! You had to quicken who
were what? Dead! In trespasses and sin. And death by sin, and so that
death, that spiritual death, which results in physical death.
which brings eternal death, hath upon how many? All men. All men. And you read it right. It didn't say, for all have sinned. That little have don't belong
in there. It's all sinned. When Adam sinned, we sinned.
When Adam fell, we fell. When Adam died, we died. And
my friends, we can buck it, we can fight it, we can curse We
can call it hyper-Calvinism or hyper-whatever you want to, but
it still stands as the truth of God and the Word of God. Your
birth was wrong. We are born in sin, conceived
in sin, shaped in iniquity, and brought forth speaking lies.
Read on Romans 5. For until the law, sin was in
this world, until Moses received the law from Mount Sinai, sin
was in this world, wasn't it? In the days of Noah, God destroyed
the world. He said he looked down from heaven
upon the sons of men, and every imagination of their heart was
evil continually, continually. God said, I'll destroy men. But
sin is not imputed where there is no law. That's what the argument
is. But the law wasn't given until
Sinai. There's 2,000 years there without
law. Oh, no, not without law. Where there's God, there's law.
You spoke the truth. There's law where there's God.
Nevertheless, will you say there was no law? Nevertheless, death
reigned from Adam to Moses from the time from the Garden of Eden
until Moses received the law. People died, didn't they? And
not only did people die, but babies died, even over those. Now watch this. You folks that
think that you have to reach an age of accountability to become
a sinner, you watch this. You watch this. And death reigned
even over those, even over infants, that had not transgressed openly,
aggressively in the manner in which Adam transgressed. That's
right, babies die, don't they? And I'll tell you this, if they
weren't sinners, they wouldn't die. If they weren't sinners,
they wouldn't die. If we become a sinner at 12 years
of age, everybody under 12 would be living right now. Anybody
would be able to die. But they die because of sin. See, sin brings forth death.
So that's what he says over here in Ezekiel. He said, when you
were born, and you were born, you were born of heathen parents.
He said, don't talk about my mother and daddy that way. Well,
I'm tired of you talking about them like you do. I'm so tired
of hearing people say, My mother was a good woman. My daddy was
a good man. I'm just tired of that, when
God says there's none good. None good! Well, you know what
I mean, preacher? I'm afraid I do. I wonder if
you know what you're saying. Just this past week, a preacher
said to me, he said, Now, my boy's not a believer, but he's
a fine, outstanding good boy. I'm so weary of that. This young
man came to our Lord, and I know your boy makes good grades, and
I know he minds his daddy, and I know he cuts the grass, and
I know he doesn't hang out late at night, but he's a rebel, and
in his heart he hates God. And he'd tear him off his throne
if he could. And you tell him to do something
he doesn't want to do, and you'll find out he's a rebel against
you, too. And if he weighed 200 pounds, he'd whip you. That's
exactly right. You got old snakes in his heart
and hurt the little girls the same thing. I know we say they
made our sugar and spice and everything nice, but don't you
believe it. Don't you believe it. That's a fairy tale, too.
They're made out of sin. That's what they're made out
of. Made out of sin. He said, when you were born,
verse 4, your birth, your nativity, In the day you were born, your
navel wasn't cut, you weren't washed in water, you weren't
supple, salted or swaddled, nobody felt sorry for you. They just
cast you out in the field, out in this old wicked world. There
you are, you weren't washed, no one did these things for you,
cast out into the world in your pollution, in your shame, left
alone. That's the result of a sinful
birth, to the loathing of your person. in the day that you were
born." My friend, that man came to Christ, and he said to him,
Good Master, and the Lord stopped him right there. He said, Why
do you call me good? Why do you use that word in reference
to a human being? Because that's all this man thought
Christ was. He thought he was a good teacher,
a good preacher, and a good man. He didn't believe he was God,
or he would have But he came to him and said, good master,
and the master said, there is none good but God. And I wish
we could just get that written on our hearts and written in
such a way on our hearts that we would speak in accordance
with that belief. I know that there are people
here who are commendable people in reference to other people.
But a worm compared with a worm is still a worm. One lump of coal may be white
as another, but it's still a lump of coal. And one man or woman
may be better than the creatures in the pit, but they're still
creatures in the pit. We may be on a higher plane or
elevation from people beneath us, but we're all beneath God.
And we've sinned and come short of the glory of God. We don't
love like God loves. You see what I'm talking about?
We're not gracious as God's gracious, and that's the standard which
we must meet. I don't have to meet a church
standard, I have to meet God's standard. And I've come short
of His glory. So that's my birth. Now look
at verse 6, when I pass by you. Now, my friends, there's no time
with God. God speaks sometimes as men speak. He said it repented the Lord
that he made man. Well, God's never repented, God's
never changed. Repentance is a change. But God's
never changed. He's speaking in our language.
He said to Adam, where are you? God knew where Adam was. God
declares the end from the beginning. There's no time with God. Everything's
an eternal present. He declares the end from the
beginning and from ancient times are things that are not yet done,
saying, my counsel shall stand. Christ was the Lamb slain, not
just at Calvary, but in the purpose of God before the foundation
of the world. God to look upon even Moses as already redeemed
because Christ in his purpose had already died. God looked
upon Abraham as being already redeemed by the blood of Christ
because the Lamb was already slain. But the Lamb still had
to be slain. So when God uses this phrase
here, I pass by thee, you can say this, I pass by thee in eternity. I pass by thee in the beginning.
God does not wait to be told anything. God does not wait to
be informed. God in his glory knows all things,
because he's predestined all things, because he's foreordained
all things. Now that's the God of the Bible.
He never learns anything. He never acquires any information.
He never waits for anything to happen to see if it will. It
will. It will. He doeth according to
his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
this earth. He worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. And his will is done and shall be done and always has
been done, either his directive will or permissive will, but
always his will. That's right. He said, I passed
by you. I passed by you. And he said,
I saw you. I saw you like you were. I know
all about you. Do you know that I don't know
my sin like God knows it? And I don't realize my sin like
God realizes it. I don't have the capacity to
attain or acquire such information. My heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked. Only God can know it. I hear
people say, well, if I know my heart, well, that's one thing
you don't know. Not like God knows it. And God said, I passed
by you and I saw you as you were. I saw you. I saw you polluted, polluted,
abomination, corrupt. Those are the words we use. I
saw you in your blood. And when I pass by you, not in
time, not in time, but when I pass
by you in eternity, when I pass by you in the fulfillment of
my eternal purpose, he said, I saw you, I fully knew you,
I comprehended all about you. I don't know why we try to impress
God. I really don't. I wish we could get a lot of
this out of our system. I know we'll never get it all
out of our system. But we have ways of trying to
look holy. I see people holding hands, praying,
you know, like, does that impress God? What if we went to see President
Reagan, a committee of his next week, we all held hands around
his desk, if that impressed him? Wouldn't it work? I don't think
it would. I think you'd think it was loony. But now, that's real religious. I notice people a lot of times
doing things that I know it's for show. I know it's for show. I know it's to try to impress
somebody. If it's trying to impress God,
they're fools. If they're trying to impress
me, they're hypocrites. That's so. If they're trying to impress
God, they're foolish, because He knows. He knows. He said, I passed by you, and
I saw you. Whoo! I saw you. I saw all that
you were. I saw all that you thought. I saw all that you imagined.
I saw you in your blood. I saw you in your blood. That's how I saw you. I didn't
see you in your feigned righteousness. I didn't see you all dressed
up in your Sunday go-to meeting. I saw you in your blood. I saw
you in your worst condition. And by my grace and mercy, I
said to you when you were in that shape, I said, live. And don't you ever forget, that's
when he said it. And if he said it then, he's
saying it now. But, oh, preacher, sometimes
I think I'm so wretched." You are! Paul said, Oh, wretched
man that I am! Don't change your attitude. You
are wretched. But I'm such a sinner. You're
right. You don't know how bad you are in God's sight. He said,
I saw you in your blood, and I loved you then, and if I loved
you then, I love you now. Because you haven't changed,
and I haven't changed. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. And I said to you, and he's the
only one that can say that a sinner lived, because he's the only
one that's got life. I'll tell you, Lazarus died. Those daughters, those sisters
loved him, but their love couldn't bring him back. His neighbors
respected him, but their respect couldn't bring him back. Those
disciples missed him, but their affection couldn't bring him
back. And they put him in a tomb and rolled a stone over him,
and everybody stood around helpless, totally helpless, no matter how
much they prayed, their prayers couldn't bring him back. No matter
how much they loved him, their love couldn't bring him back.
No matter how much they sang and carried on, he was dead,
dead, dead, dead, dead. But life walked up outside that
tomb in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. The only one
who has life in him is life. He is life. He is the source
of life. And death can't continue in his
presence. Man can't die in the presence
of Christ. He walked up there alive and he stood before that
tomb and he cried out, Let me tell you something. That fellow walked out of that
tent. And I say to every evangelist and preacher and every pastor
and every soul winner, you can sing and love and preach and
You can plead and persuade, you can drag them down the aisle,
you can talk them into professions and decisions and church membership
and baptism. You can have them pray the sinner's
prayer and start tithing, start a family altar and be good to
their neighbor. But there's only one who can
give them life. And unless he speaks, everything
we say and do is to no avail. You can embalm Lazarus, you can
put spices on him, you can dress him up, you can make him like
the funeral directors now, everybody walks by the casket and says,
don't he look natural? He is. That's as natural as he's
ever been. But I'm telling you this, Christ
can make them live. I passed by you, and I saw you
like you were, and I said by my own prerogative, According
to my own will, being gracious to whom I will, in the direction
that I'll send the command, I said, Live. And somebody said, and
I believe they're right, when he stood in that cemetery and
said, Lazarus, come forth, if he hadn't have said Lazarus,
they'd have all come out. And I believe that's right. If
he just stood there in that cemetery and said, Come forth! Evergrave
would have But our Lord, in his sovereign, particular, foreordained
mercy, said last night, Matthew, follow me. Zacchaeus, come down. I said, live. Well, that wasn't
all. He said over here in verse 8,
and he said, When I passed by you and looked at you, it was
a time of love. Who loved whom? I tell you, lying
there in my blood, that's an awful sight. There's that little
baby, unwanted, uncared for, just born and dumped in the weeds,
and the caravan went home. And there it lay, the flies on
it and the buzzards waiting for it, helpless, hopeless, lying
in the weeds. And God said, I came by and I
saw you, you little heathen offspring, polluted in your blood, worthless,
hopeless, helpless, unwanted. And it was a time of love. I
loved you, you didn't love me. I didn't seek him, he sought
me. It's not that we love God, he
loved us. Herein is love, not that we love
It was a time of love, but God is love. Man is not love. Man
loves himself. That's the reason God tells you
to love your neighbors as yourself, because he knows you love yourself.
We don't love God. I wish I did. But he said, I
love you. And not only that, but he said,
I spread my skirt over you, and I covered your nakedness. That's
the righteousness of Christ. covered our awful nakedness,
and he said, I swear unto you, and I entered a covenant with
you, and he said, you became mine. That's sanctification. Set him apart. The Lord set his
love upon that which is common and unclean, and he said, I'll
have it, all that my Father giveth me. Christ said, it'll come to
me, and him that cometh out of no wise cast out. Call it what
you will. That's election, that's predestination,
that's foreordination, that's particular grace. I'm not afraid
of terms. I hear people say, don't use
terms. Why not? People understand terms, don't
they? They understand terms. I'll tell
you what they're trying to do. They're trying to preach the
gospel without calling it the gospel. And they're trying to
preach in such a way that men won't know what to say. Well,
if men don't know what you're saying, they can't believe what
you say. But God said, I set my love on you and entered a
covenant with you, and I washed you. I washed you with water. I cleansed you, and I purified
you, and I throughly, throughly, all over, inside, and I don't
know where maybe throughly is a more descriptive term than
thoroughly. But through the inside and out,
from top to bottom, I washed you, cleansed you, purified you,
and anointed you with oil of the Holy Spirit. Boy, I tell
you, and I did all this, you didn't do it. Now, come on, you
didn't do it. Oh, how the religious folks like
to brag on what they've done for Jesus. But you know, I did
the sin and he did the saving. I like what that old black fella
said, the man asked him, he said, what did you do in your salutation?
He said, I did the running, God did the catching. But he did
it all. He said, and I decked you with
ornaments, I put bracelets, that's adorning, you see, that's adorning
this person. This beautiful girl, her hair
grew long and she grew tall and beautiful, and God said, I put
a crown on her head. We've been made kings and priests
under our God. And I put ornaments on you, I
made you beautiful, put beautiful earrings on you and a gold chain
around your neck and bracelets. Man, she was a beauty. Just a
beauty. And I believe these things is
God giving us faith and love and kindness and generosity and
meekness and temperance and love and all these fruits of the Spirit.
He sheds abroad his love in our hearts. Let me tell you something.
There's nothing about us or in us or proceeds from us except
that which comes from God. That's right. You say, you know, I believe
I love people more than I used to. Then thank God. You know,
I believe I'm a little more patient with my wife and children than
they used to be. Then thank God he did it, you
didn't. That's right. I believe that I'm a little more,
I have more faith than I used to. It's a gift of God. It's
not I, it's Christ that dwelleth in me. Some of you men have some
gift to teach and preach. And you stand up here and you
do such an excellent job back in those classes. Thank God,
it's not you. God could make those stones cry
out. It's God, it's not you. We have nothing. Who made you
to differ? What do you have you didn't receive?
Now if you received it, why do you boast? You got no reason
to boast. God gave it to you. Everything
I have, am, know, or ever hope to be is by the free, unmerited,
unearned, undeserved grace of God. I neither sought it, nor
thought it, nor bought it. He did it all. He thought it,
Christ bought it, and the Holy Spirit sought it. Brought it
to me. And he said, there I put a crown
on your head, and you were decked with silver and gold and fine
raiment and linen and silk. And look here, I love this. Boy,
you talk about what we were. You know, if you passed a sight
like that, that baby lying in those bushes in that dried blood
and pollution, oh, you'd have turned your head in disgust.
And that's what we were. But because of what he's done
through Christ, he said in the middle of verse 13, you were
exceeding beautiful. And listen, when God says that,
that's something else. Let me tell you something. You
say, Preacher, I'm getting old and wrinkled and gray. You're
beautiful. In Christ, you're beautiful.
Oh, I'm such an ugly duckling, my brothers are so strong and
handsome, and I'm just the black sheep of the family. You're beautiful,
exceeding beautiful. Because wrapped in his righteousness
and adorned with his grace, you're beautiful. You're beautiful,
that's what he said. And he said, watch this, verse
14, And your renown went forth among the heathen. He's going
to show the riches of his grace toward us to the whole world
someday, to the whole universe. We're going to be trophies of
his grace. trophies of his grace, and your beauty was perfect through
my comeliness." You are beautiful, but you are beautiful in Christ. All right, conclusion. Now, we
can't deny our fault and our guilt. We can't deny our inability,
that's what we are. We can't deny the Lord's power
and choice. He'll save whom he will. Yes,
he will. He'll save whom he will. He's
God. Beside him, there's none else. We can't deny that it's
all of grace. We can't deny that our Lord gets
all the glory. Well, what can a sinner do? Well,
a sinner can do what Bartimaeus did. That's what a sinner can
do. He can accept things as they
are. Don't fight them. Bartimaeus would have still been
blind if he had not denied it. Bartimaeus would have still been
a beggar if he had denied it. His denial wouldn't change his
condition. And we can deny all we want to,
the shape we're in as a result of the fall is still so. We're
still sitting by the wayside begging. helpless, blind beggars
in darkness, so accepted as it is. And on his majesty and power,
he said, What's the commotion? They said, Jesus of Nazareth
is passing by. Oh, he said, I know who that
is. I know his power. I know his glory. I know his
ability. And thirdly, supermercy, crown
to the Lord. Cry out of your darkness, Lord
give me light. Cry out of your misery, God give
me mercy. Cry out of your guilt, God give
me grace. Jesus, our son of David, have
mercy on me." And you know what? The Lord stopped again. When
he passed by, he passed by and he stopped. And he turned to
Bartimaeus and said, Tell him to come to me. And, boy, Bartimaeus
threw off that old dirty rag he had around him and somehow
got to Christ. He said, What do you want? He
said, I want to see. And he said, Thy faith hath made
thee whole. I can't explain all this. I just believe. God passed
by and eternity and chose. He passed by in our birth in
guilt and loveless, and he passed by in his glorious gospel that
I preach tonight. He is passing by. Is there a
needy sinner out yonder in the weeds? Then I say to you, accept
things as they are. Recognize his power and might.
There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved, and supermercy He that whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I'm calling. I'm going
to get in line. The Lord is going to show mercy,
and I'm going to get in line. Are you? The Lord is going to
be gracious to some, and I'm going to be there when he gives
it out. It's like a beggar at the back door of mercy, with
my empty hands out waiting, because there's none other name and there's
nowhere else to go. for this picture, so loathsome
and abominable in its beginning, but so beautiful in its conclusion. For we are made perfect through
your comeliness, and our exceeding duty is the beauty of Christ,
his perfect righteousness, and his cleansing blood. Make the
message personal and real, for your glory and our good to each
one. Give us eyes to see. For Christ's sake we pray, amen.

From Death to Life

What does the Bible say about the nature of sin?

How do we know God's love is unconditional?

Why is understanding election important for Christians?

What does regeneration mean in Christian theology?

Why is it significant that salvation is by grace?

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From Death to Life

What does the Bible say about the nature of sin?

How do we know God's love is unconditional?

Why is understanding election important for Christians?

What does regeneration mean in Christian theology?

Why is it significant that salvation is by grace?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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