Now I want you to turn again
to the book of Galatians, and let me read my text one more
time. Galatians chapter 3, verse 24, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ. that we might be justified by
faith. Now when God brings a sinner
to saving faith in Jesus Christ, there is usually, I want to say
always, but I must say usually, because I'm going to give you
some examples in a few moments when this preparatory work is
not present as we're talking about it tonight. But when God
brings a sinner to saving faith, there is usually a preparatory
work of the law in conviction, in convincing a man of his guilt
and inability, And we call that preparatory work Holy Spirit
Conviction. That's typified in the ministry
of John the Baptist. Turn with me to the book of Mark.
In Mark chapter 1, now before the Lord Jesus was manifested
or revealed on this earth in the flesh as our Savior, there
came one before him called John the Baptist. miraculously born,
miraculously sent. It says in Mark 1, verse 1, the
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it
is written in the Prophets, and this is taken from Isaiah 40,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare
thy way before thee. Talking about John the Baptist
coming before Christ to prepare the way. John said, every hill
shall be brought low, every valley shall be exalted, the rough places
shall be made smooth to prepare the way of the Lord. And that's
what I'm saying in this message tonight, that before God comes
in saving faith to the heart of the sinner, in comforting
there is always the messenger, there's usually the messenger
that comes before to disturb and to convict and to trouble
and to bring that sinner to see his knees. Now the reason for
that is this, the foundations of sin upon which we by nature
will build must be exposed before a man will seek the rock, Christ
Jesus. He has to see that he is building
on a false foundation before he'll seek the real foundation. The rags of our self-righteousness
have got to be revealed, have got to be exposed before a man
will cry for the robe of Christ's righteousness. We must be emptied
of self before we'll be filled with Christ. We must be made
naked before the searchlight of God's law, before we'll see
our need of a covering before our God. And the rubbish of religious
form and ceremony must be cleared away before a new temple to the
glory of Jesus Christ can be erected. The sinfulness of sin
has got to be revealed. Before the guilty will cry, O
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. There will be no faith in Jesus
Christ unless there's repentance toward God. It can't be. A man will never cry, I thank
God for the victory in Christ Jesus, until he first learns
to cry, O wretched man that I am. It's just an impossibility. The
foundations of sin have got to be exposed in order for us to
discover the rock. The rags of self-righteousness,
like Adam's leaf, have got to go. Christ said, we're not going
to put patches on the old garment. We're not going to put new wine
in old bottles. It's got to be a new bottle and
new wine. It's got to be a new garment.
The rags have got to be revealed. The rubbish has got to be cleared
away. before the new temple that's
all Christ and to His glory is built. And there can be no faith,
no saving faith, unless there's repentance toward God. Now, however, as I said in the
beginning, we cannot confine God to a pattern. That's been
one of the failings of all organized religion. That's the reason we
have churches with names out front. Baptistic, fundamental,
premillennial, Calvinistic, missionary. We have to identify ourselves
on every point. We've got God in a mold. We've
got God in a pattern. He must fit our pattern. He must
work our way. He must be in our mold. And the Baptists aren't the only
ones guilty. The Presbyterians and the Reformed churches are
as deadly in this issue as anybody else. God will not be confined to a
mold. God will not fit your pattern.
Now, I said this, I said, usually there's a preparatory work of
the Spirit of God in convicting of sin before Christ is revealed. But this is not always the case,
because God won't fit your pattern. Now you can form the mold and
form the pattern and say, God works this way, and God has to
work this way, and you're not saved if you didn't come this
way, and God will just push you off there in the corner and pass
you by, and let you sit over there through the years with
your sign out front telling who you are and what you are and
what you believe, and God goes on and raises up somebody else
and uses them. John the Baptist was filled with
the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. He never went through any preparatory
work of the law. He never went through any Holy
Spirit conviction. He was a special messenger, it
says in Luke 1 15, that he was filled with the Spirit from his
mother's womb, and that just, that keeps me from saying there
always is a preparatory work before God's Spirit in dwells. Jeremiah was another one. God
said, Jeremiah 1, verse 5, "...before I formed you in the belly, I
knew you. Before you came out of your mother's
womb, I sanctified you and ordained you a prophet to the nation."
Now there is a departure from your rule. You set down rules,
you say a man's got to go through a certain amount of agony and
a certain amount of Holy Spirit conviction and certain years
of striving and wrestling and weeping and moaning before he
comes to Christ, and the Lord will just throw a John the Baptist
right up in front of you and say he was filled with the Holy
Ghost from his mother's womb. Then turn to 2 Timothy 3, and
here you have another young gentleman who knew the way of salvation
and who knew the redemption of God from his childhood. Paul writing to Timothy in 2
Timothy 3.15 says, that from a child thou hast known the Holy
Scriptures from the time you were a kid. I have no doubt that
Timothy was preserved from some of the things in which you participated
and which I participated. Timothy was a protected child.
He was brought up in a home. He was surrounded with the people
of God and the prophets of God and the apostles of Christ, and
he was surrounded with Christians and And I'm sure that Timothy
was brought up in a way that was differently from the way
many of us were brought up. And Paul says of Timothy, from
the time you were a little child, you have known the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith
which is in Christ Jesus. So Timothy didn't go through
these agonies and hours of moaning and conviction. And then, some
are called in a sovereign way. Some are called from the womb.
Some are called in a sovereign way, such as Timothy, or rather
from a child. But some are called in a sovereign
way, like Matthew. Now, he was sitting there at
the receipt of customs, and the master walked by and said, Matthew,
and as far as we know, this is the first time Matthew ever met
the Lord. He said, Matthew, follow me.
And the Scripture said, he arose, left all, and followed the Lord.
James and John were down by the seashore, mending their nets.
The master came by and he said, James and John, follow me, I'll
make you fishers of men. And they laid the nets down and
walked behind them. Zacchaeus was up a tree, never
had seen the Lord. He climbed that tree so he could
see the Lord. And when the master walked under
the tree, he looked up in the tree and called him by name.
And he said, Zacchaeus, you come down. I'm going to your house
today." Now that's a sovereign call, and that's a departure
from this preparatory work, and this Holy Spirit revelation,
and Holy Spirit conviction, and the revelation of inability,
and the breaking down of our self-righteousness. That's a
sovereign call. You cannot deny it because it's
there in the Word of God. But we can go even beyond that. God will not fit a pattern, not
a human pattern. God will not fit a denominational
mold, He just won't do it. And when you set one up, and
that's the reason I don't care for these charts that people
come along with, and they've got all of the return of Christ
and the Advents and the events all charted out, and I know God
won't fit that pattern, He just will not do it. And when we say
that a sinner, in order to be saved, has got to go through
certain months or weeks or years of conviction, the Lord comes
along and raises up a John the Baptist or a Jeremiah or a Timothy
from a child, or sovereignly walks by and says, Matthew, follow
me. And we stand there with our eyes bugging out, you know, watching
Matthew walk right along behind the Lord. And then there was
the thief on the cross. Here was a man in the hour of
death. Here was a man who had gone through some sort of trial,
anyway, and he had been found guilty of a crime severe enough
to merit death. They had hanged him to a tree
outside the city wall, and Christ was crucified beside him, and
the Scripture says he started out cursing the Lord. It says
the thieves railed on him. That's what Scripture said. Both
of them, not just one of them, both of them cursed him. The
one who died in sin and the one who was converted, both started
railing on Christ and saying, if you be the Christ, save thyself
and us. But after a while, one of them
quit cursing and started crying. And he owned his guilt, he owned
his sin, He justified God in his death, and then he prayed
for mercy, and the Lord, right there, in a moment, saved his
soul. But now even these who are called
from the womb, who are called from childhood, who are called
in a sovereign way, who are called in the hour of death, even these
are taught by the Holy Spirit the sinfulness of flesh and the
preeminence of Christ. For John the Baptist said, He
must increase, I must decrease. I must decrease. There's one
coming after me whose shoes I'm not worthy to unloose. He must
increase, I must decrease. The Apostle Peter, who was sovereignly
called, finally came to this position, Lord, depart from me,
I am a sinful man. The thief on the cross said,
I'm getting what I deserve. But now in the matter of people
who are here and people who are our friends and acquaintances,
the ordinary and usual way that a sinner is brought to Christ
is by a clear and discernible preparatory work of the law in
the hands of the Holy Spirit. And Paul describes this in Romans
chapter 7. Will you turn over there with
me? That's the reason that our friend, Brother Shelton, used
to say, if you miss Holy Spirit conviction, this is usually the
case, you'll miss repentance. And if you miss repentance, you'll
miss faith. And if you miss faith, you'll
miss Christ. And if you miss Christ, you'll
miss salvation. There must be Holy Spirit conviction. This is usually the way that
a sinner is brought to Christ. Paul describes it here. He says
in Romans 7, verse 7, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I have not known
sin, but by the law. That's how I came to know the
sinfulness of sin. I had not even known sin. But
by revelation of the Lord. What does Paul mean by that?
Does he mean he wasn't a sinner? No. He means this. Sin was present. Sin was in his heart. Sin was
in his mind. Sin was in his imagination. But
sin was unrecognized. Now you can go into a dark room,
open the door and walk into a dark room. No light. And the room
is full of cobwebs. And the room is full of dust.
The room is full of crawling insects. But you don't see them
because of the absence of light. You don't see them at all. And
you feel no abhorrence. You feel comfortable, you're
standing in this room and it's full of cobwebs and crawling
insects and dust and filth, but you're standing there without
the aid of light, without the revelation of light, and you
don't see these things. And this is the way Paul was.
He could not see his evil nature, his evil thoughts, his evil attitude,
his evil motive. He couldn't see his sins because
the light of the Holy Ghost and the light of the Word of God
was absent. Now when someone comes in and
turns the light on in that room, and you look around you, you've
been in that room all the time, and you haven't been unhappy
at all, but just soon as they turn the light on, you see these
insects, and you see these cobwebs, and you see the dust and the
dirt, and the room becomes stifling, and you want to get out of there.
And that's the way it is when the Spirit of God turns the light
on in the human heart. He reveals what's been there
all the time. And we're made to cry, O wretched
man that I am. Paul, who said, concerning the
law, I was blameless, later had to say, I'm the chief of sinners.
Look at verse 8. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, it was there. For without the
law, sin was unrevealed, it was dead, it was unrecognized. I didn't see it, I didn't know
it, but look at verse 9, I was alive without the light, without
the law, but when the commandment came, when the light came, sin
was revealed, and I died, I saw myself. I saw my envy, I saw
my pride, I saw my jealousy, I saw my covetousness, I saw
my I saw myself righteousness, and I fell prostrate in the dust
at the feet of Christ, and I cried, O God, how evil and wicked I
am." Men are lost, but they don't know it. Men are ungodly, but
they don't know it. Men are enemies of God, but they
don't know it. You know, I heard a story years
ago. I've used it before. I don't
imagine all of you remember it, but some of you might. There
was a little boy playing out in the backyard one day. He was
about five years old. He lived on the outskirts of
town, and he was out in the backyard playing, and from his backyard
out there were no houses, nothing but wood. He was out there playing
around. He saw a beautiful butterfly,
and he began to chase that butterfly. And the butterfly would flip
to a leaf and then to a flower and then to somewhere else and
in the grass and little Billy just kept chasing that butterfly
and kept running and after a while he was in the woods. But he didn't
realize that he was in the woods, his mind was on that butterfly
and he kept chasing the butterfly and it went deeper and deeper
into the woods. After a while he gave up the
chase and he thought to himself, well I'll just go home now. But
he had gone all these different directions in the woods. And
he was lost, but he didn't know he was lost. And so he turned
around and looked in different directions and he said, well,
home must be that way. So he begins to walk and he walks
and walks and walks, but as he walks he gets deeper into the
woods and he realizes that home's not that way. Now he's totally
lost, he's completely lost, but he doesn't know it. He's still
got three directions to try. So he said, well, home must be
that way. So he starts walking that way. And he walks and he
walks and he walks. But the longer he walks, it seems
like the deeper the woods get and the darker. And so he thinks,
well, now, home must be that way. He tries that way and he
doesn't find home. He tries this way. He's tried
every way. Now he's getting scared. And
he sits down on a stump and he looks around. And it's getting
darker. And he feels helpless, and he
feels hopeless, and he feels lost. And he begins to weep. He begins to cry. In a moment
he begins to call, Daddy, I'm lost. I'm lost. Daddy, I'm lost. Daddy, I'm lost. And in a few moments he hears
his father's voice, Billy, where are you? Really? Well, I'm here, but I'm lost!"
And the father comes and puts his arm around him and takes
him home. Now a man will never, believe
me, a man will never cry out, Daddy, I'm lost, until he's tried
all these different ways of saving himself. He's got to try his
good works, and he's got to try his church membership, he's got
to try rededication, he's got to try decisionism. And he's
got to try working for the Lord, and he's got to try serving the
Lord, and he's got to try all these things. And when he realizes
these things do not lead home, and they do not lead to peace,
and they do not lead to rest, and after a while he just sits
down on a stump and realizes what an awful, lost, helpless,
hopeless condition he's in. The Bible says, without hope,
without help, without God, without Christ, and our roots end. Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, and he comes and saves them. But a man's got to
be in trouble before you'll call. And that's what I'm saying. The
law, the sin is there. It's there, it's just not seen.
We're lost, but we just don't know it. We're trying all these
things. The inability's there, but we
haven't discovered it. And it takes the messenger of
God, the spirit of God, using the word of God to strip us,
and to humiliate us, and to knock our false foundations out from
under us, and to show us how helpless we are. And when he
does that, then the sinner cries to the Lord in his trouble. And
that's when God gets all the glory in saving a sinner. All
the glory. Now the second thing, the law
of God, first of all, the law of God reveals sin. It reveals
our lost state. Secondly, the law of God, in
order to reveal our lost state, most of us, it's got to be revealed
to us in its inward perfection, in its inward requirements. Now
listen to these to these laws. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image. Now that's not sufficient to
close too many mouths, is it? Most folks feel like they never
have made a graven image. Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain. Well, now that may close some
mouths, but not all of them. Thou shalt not kill. Well, that
may close some mouths, but not many. Thou shalt not commit adultery,
that may close some mouths, but not many. Thou shalt not steal,
that may be sufficient to close some mouths, but not all of them.
Thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, that may
be sufficient to close some mouths, but not all of them, for most
of us take refuge in the fact that we abide by these laws,
don't we? Paul did. He read those laws
over and over again, and the more he looked at them, the more
self-righteous he became, the more pious and holy he became.
But the law doesn't stop with those commandments. The law goes
to the heart, the law goes to the imagination, the law reaches
to the inward person that you are. And this is how the Holy
Spirit slays the sinner. It's not just these outward laws
that he takes. Turn with me to Matthew 5. Let's
listen to the Master here. Here's Christ Jesus speaking
in Matthew 5. Now, this is what Paul didn't
see. He had these laws, but these
laws were not sufficient to shut his mouth. The Holy Spirit had
to take God's law in its inward perfection. in its inward requirements,
in its spotless, immaculate, holy requirements. And that's
what shut him up. Christ said in Matthew 5, verse
21, you've heard that it was said by them of old times, thou
shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger
of the judgment. That's the commandment, isn't it? But I say unto you,
that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall
be in danger of the judgment." Oh! In other words, I don't have
to take someone's life to be guilty of breaking God's law. And then the Master said in verse
27, Matthew 5, you've heard that it was said by them of old times,
thou shalt not commit adultery. That's what the Bible says, that
thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever
looketh on a woman, or a person, to lust after them, hath committed
adultery already in his heart." Oh, I don't have to actually
engage in the act of adultery to break the law, do I? And then
verse 33, you've heard it said by them of old times, I shall
not forswear thyself, but perform unto the Lord thy oath. But verse
37, the Lord said, Let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay. Anything more than that cometh
of evil. Dangerously, so many of us say,
I swear that this is true. That's evil. Someone asks us a question, we
say, so help me, that's so, that's a sin. Christ said anything more
than yes is a sin. It comes of evil. And then verse
38, you've heard it said, by them of old, an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth. Well, a fellow does this, he
deserves chastisement, but I say unto you, resist not evil. Anybody
that smites you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek.
A fellow takes you to law and sues you and takes away your
coat, let him have your cloak. In verse 43, you've heard it
said by them of old, I shall love thy neighbor and hate thine
enemy. I say, love your enemies and bless them that curse you,
and do good to them that hate you. This is the law of God. Here it is. Here it is. The man who's in prison up there
for murder, I'm just guilty of him. The thief who's condemned
by man's law, I'm the thief that's condemned by God's law. You see
that? Our Master said in Matthew 15,
turn over there a moment, this is the law that strips. This
is the law you don't hear preached. This is the preparatory work.
The Holy Spirit comes, the law reveals sin. But the law of God
is not just a blanket that just covers everything and touches
nothing. The law of God reaches in and digs out the thoughts
and the imaginations and the motives and all these things
that lurk in the corners of man's heart and mind and affections
and will. Matthew 15, look, verse 17. Do you not understand that whatsoever
entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out
into the draft? It's those things which proceed
out of the heart, out of the mouth. They come from the heart.
They defile, for out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts and murders
and adulteries and fornications and thefts and false witnesses
and blasphemies. These are the things. This is
what Paul didn't say. This is what the law revealed.
And brethren, in the sight of God, these thoughts of sin are
as chargeable and as deservable of God's wrath as the act itself. Now that's so. For James says
to offend in one point of the law is to be guilty of the whole
law. And Matthew 22, let's look at this one a moment, verse 36.
They said, Master, Matthew 22, 36, which is the great commandment
of the law. And Jesus said, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart. I've broken that one. With all thy soul, I've broken
that one. With all thy mind. This is the
great commandment. And the second is likened to
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I've broken that
one. So therefore I'm guilty of the whole law of God. Now turn to Galatians 4. Let
me show you something here. When the Holy Spirit comes in
this preparatory work, he uses the law to strip the sinner. He uses the law to sweep away
these false foundations and these refuges of lies. He uses the
law, but he uses the inward holiness of the law. Now the law, thou
shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not
steal, that may be sufficient to close some mouths and make
some men cry, O God, be merciful, but not most of us. It takes
God's Holy Spirit using the holy perfections of the law in the
heart. And I'll tell you this, that's a greater iniquity. God looks not on the outward
countenance, God looks on the heart. And as the Holy Spirit uses this
law, he reveals not only the offense, but I'll tell you something
else, he shows the sinner he brings to Christ. He shows him
his inability to ever meet the demands of that law. Look at
Galatians 4.21. Galatians 4.21, listen to this. Tell me, you that desire to be
under the law, do you not hear the law? Do you not hear the
law? The law says, Cursed is every
one that continueth not in all things which are written in the
book of the law. To appreciate them? No, to do
them. To agree with them? To do them. To think they're fine laws, to
do them. It's not enough to hear the law.
It's not enough to agree with the law. It's got to be obeyed. It's got to be obeyed. Now the
third thing, closing. The Holy Spirit in this preparatory
work uses the law of God. I wouldn't have known sin but
by the law. I wouldn't have known lust but
by the law. And the Holy Spirit takes the law in its inward requirements,
in its holy perfection. And he does his work not with
the outward flesh, he does his work in the heart. They were
put in their hearts, the scripture says. They were convicted in
their hearts. That's where the Holy Spirit's
work goes on. Repentance is a hard work. Conviction
is a hard work. Faith is a hard work. A relationship
with God is a hard work, with the heart man believes in. Now
the third thing. This knowledge of sin, and this
awareness of my inability, this preparatory work of the messenger
sent of God, this Holy Spirit conviction, not only makes me
aware of my sin, and not only makes me aware of my inability,
but it brings me to look to my Lord. Look at Galatians chapter
4, listen to this. But when the fullness of time
was come, thank God, he sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to do what? To redeem them that were under
the law. And being under the law, they
were lawbreakers. Being under the law, they were
cursed for the law. Being under the law, they were
condemned by the law. But he sent his Son, made of
a woman, made under that same law, in order that his Son might
fully, completely, sufficiently redeem them that were under that
law that we might, through Christ, receive the adoption of sons. Now Christ is ours, and this
redemption is ours by faith. And faith is a threefold revelation. I want to give you this before
I close. Turn to 1 John 5. First of all, faith believes
the record that God had given concerning his son. In 1 John
5, verse 10 through 12. Now this is the first thing about
faith. Faith believes the record that
God had given concerning his son. In 1 John 5, verse 10. He
that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him alive because he believes not the record that God gave
of his Son, and this is the record, that God hath given us eternal
life and this life in his Son." That's the first thing faith
does, being shut up to Christ. being stripped by the law, being
humbled and our inability shown to us. The first thing that faith
does, faith believes the record. It believes what God says, that
eternal life's in Christ, atonement's in Christ, redemption's in Christ,
forgiveness's in Christ, all things are in Christ. That's
what the record says. This life is in His Son. Faith believes that. It's invested
in Christ. It's perfected in Christ. It
is performed in Christ. It's all in him. Now, it's the
second thing faith does. Faith not only believes the record,
but turn to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13. Faith not only believes
the record, but faith trusts the Son. Now, Christ has a threefold
office. He came to reveal God, and faith
believes him, accepts him as prophet. Believes him as prophet. But he came as priest. He came
as the priest to offer a sacrifice. He came as the priest to offer
up a sin offering. And faith trusts him to do what
he says. In Ephesians 1.13 it says, In
whom you trusted after you heard the word of truth. And you not
only heard it, and you believed it, but you trusted it. You trusted
it. Now brethren, I said this this
morning, I want to repeat it again tonight, because I think
it is one of the basic errors of this day. There are people
running up and down this country, Baptists in particular, I know
more about them than I do the others, but they're running up
and down this country saying they're trusting the finished
work of Christ. Now my friend, the finished work
of Christ has no effectual power at all without the person of
Christ. Don't ever forget that. Don't perish and go to hell giving
mental agreement to the finished work of Christ. Don't separate
the work of Christ on the cross from the person of Christ. What
I'm pointing out is you don't receive a work, you receive a
person. You don't believe a work, you
believe a person. You don't trust in and rest a
work, you trust in and rest in a person. You see what I'm saying? It's so important, it's so vital.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Not his work, him. His work on the cross was performed
two thousand years ago. He ever lived it to make intercession. I'm not resting in the finished
work of Christ, I'm resting in Christ! Let others who will praise the
cross of the Christ. The Christ of the cross is my
theme. For while we must cherish the
old rugged cross, it's the Christ of the cross that redeems. The
cross didn't save me, Christ saved me. You see that? Let others who will praise the
cross of the Christ, and they can wear it around their neck,
and they can hang it off their Bible, and they can put it up
over their churches, and they can put it on their steeple.
But I wouldn't have one on a steeple out here. The Christ of the cross is my
theme. For while we must cherish the
old rugged cross, it's the Christ of the cross that redeems. And
faith believes the record that God, and you say you're splitting
hairs. I'm not splitting hairs either. I'm telling you the truth.
The devil believes that Christ died on the cross. He was there
when he died. He believes it. He's convinced
of it. He's persuaded of it. But he
never has received Christ as his Lord. You see what I'm saying? He never has been brought by
the Spirit of God into a living union with Christ. Christ has
never become his life, the beat of his heart, the thrill of his
soul, the desire of his imagination. And he never will. Faith believes
the record, and faith trusts the Son. He trusts the Son. I've committed it to him. And
then the third thing. in John chapter 1. What does
faith do? It has to be John chapter 1 verse
12. We have to be brought by the
Spirit of God to this place where we have nothing, we are nothing,
we know nothing. It's Christ that saves. We believe
the record, we trust the Son, and then we, John chapter 1 verse
12, as many as received him, as many as received him. It doesn't
say as many as receive his doctrines, his doctrines, him. It doesn't say as many as receive
apostolic creed and catechism and the London Confession and
the Westminster Confession and the Heidelberg Confession and
some other confession. It says as many as receive him. You can receive all those things
and never receive him. they're written about him, they're
not him. As many as received his people,
as many as received his preacher, as many as received the proposition
of his preacher, as many as received the invitation of his preacher.
No sir, it says, as many as received him, to them gave he the right,
the privilege, to become sons of God. Now, I can't answer this
for you, you'll have to answer it for yourself. Have you ever
received Christ? Well, I've been in church all
my life. Well, sometimes that's to your disadvantage. Sometimes. People aren't educated into the
kingdom of God, they're born into the kingdom of God. Have you received Christ? Have
you gone through this preparatory work that Did John the Baptist,
the Holy Ghost, come and did he whittle down the high places
of self-righteousness? Did he go down and dig up those
low, lustful thoughts and evil imagination and the cesspool
of iniquity filled with the bats and insects of evil and show
it to you and bubble it up like a well in front of you, like
the lava of a volcano? Oh, my, my! Did he? Did he go over those rough places
of personal vengeance and hatred and pride and jealousy and envy,
and just take the side of God's Spirit and cut them down, and
prepare the way for the King of Kings to come in and sit on
the throne? Because he had slain you. He
had slain you at the feet of Christ. You didn't have anything
to offer, anything to present. He had slain you, but you were
the slain of the Lord, the Bible talks about. And King Jesus came
and took up his abode. If he has, you know it. Our Father
in Heaven, bless the Word. We thank you for the Word, and
we feel that thou hast spoken to us. And we know there are
those who are sovereignly called and those who even in the hour
of death that none may despair, but yet only one that none may
presume. But we know the usual way that
the Spirit of the living God brings sinners to thee is to
shut our mouths. and strip us, and humble us,
and bring us in the dust, and make us cry, O God, be merciful
to me the sinner, and bring us to faith in Christ, to trust
Him, and to confess Him publicly as our Lord and our Savior. In
His name we pray. Amen.