Go back to Ephesians 2 verse
12. At that time, you were without
Christ. Now this short text describes
the condition of these people before they met the Savior, before
they became Christians. But that's not all. It describes
the condition of every person here tonight who has not been
brought by the Spirit of God to a knowledge of Christ Jesus
and his grace. Ye are without Christ. Ye are without Christ. Now, to
be without help is a painful experience. I don't know anything
about that. Some of you do. To be without
friends would be a lonely existence. I'd hate to be without my friends. To be without freedom, to be
in prison, to live in a country where I had no freedom would
be a terribly difficult life. To be without food, clothing,
and shelter would be unfortunate, but it would be better to be
without all of these things, without help, without friends,
without freedom, yea, without food, clothing, or shelter, it
would be better to be without all these things than to be without
Christ. For Christ is the rock, and everything
else is sinking, shifting sand. Christ is divine. Apart from
him were nothing but withered branches fit for burning. Christ is the water of life.
All else is eternal and unquenchable thirst. Christ is the bread of
life. Without him, all else is eternal
hunger. Christ is the door. There's no
other entrance. Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh to the Father but
by him. To be without Christ is the most
horrible experience that a man can possibly have. I want to
answer two questions now from this text, and I think they're
naturally suggested. Just two things. First of all,
what does it mean to be without Christ? What does it mean? Paul says, you were without Christ. What does that mean? And then
the second question that I want to deal with is this, who is
without Christ? Who is without Christ? Now, the
first question, what does it mean to be without Christ? Maybe someone right now is thinking,
well, suppose I am without Christ. I'm getting along all right.
What difference does it make? What's so bad, preacher? about
being without Christ. Well, I'll give you four things.
To be without Christ is to be contrary to what is being preached
today and to what is being taught and contrary to what people think.
To be without Christ is to be absolutely without God. To be
without Christ is to be without God. Now make good on that. Look at the twelfth verse again,
Ephesians 2, verse 12. Paul starts this verse with this
statement, You were without Christ. You were without Christ. Now
listen as he continues. You were aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. You were strangers from the covenant
of promise. You had no hope, and you were
what? You know the signs say, smile,
God loves you. If you don't have Christ, and
I've thought about what I'm about to say. I'm not saying this off
the top of my head because I don't have anything prepared to say.
If you're without Christ, you're not under the love of God. You're
abiding, the scripture says, and are we going by God's word
or are we going by what we've always thought? The scripture
says you're under the wrath of God. To be without Christ, Paul
says, as he closes this twelfth verse, it's to be without God
in this world. Without God in this world. That's what he says. You were
without Christ, and being without Christ, you were without God.
God is not the Father of all men. You would say, but God created
us. God created the snakes, but He's
not the Father of snakes. God created the baboons, but
God's not the father of the baboons. And God created men who have
fallen and rebelled against him, and Christ said, you are of your
father, the devil. But I always thought, but you're
not going to be judged by what you think, but rather by what
God said. The Scripture says, your thoughts
are not my thoughts. As the heavens are higher above
the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts, God
says. Let the unrighteous man forsake
his thoughts. You're never going to know God
until you quit doing the thinking and let God do the thinking.
If you're without Christ, you're without God. Jesus Christ is
not just a messenger sent from God. Jesus Christ is not just
an ambassador that came from heaven to help us understand
God. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He is God. The scripture says
He is the brightness of His glory and the express image, the exact
image of His person. While Thomas said, Lord, show
us the Father, and we'll be satisfied, he said, Thomas, he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father. If you see me, you've seen the
Father. No man knows the Father save
the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. He that hateth me, Christ said,
hateth my Father. He that hateth me, hateth my
Father." So I wish to go against the grain tonight of modern thought. I wish to go against the grain
of typical teaching. I wish to go against the grain
of today's popular preaching. If you're without Christ, you're
without God, you're without His love, you're without His grace,
You're without His mercy. You're without His presence.
You're under the wrath of a holy God. Now, I know people don't
like that. They don't like that. You say, you won't be popular
preaching that. Believe me, I'm not trying to
be popular. I'm doing my best to tell the
truth. If you're without Christ, and
I'm giving you the Scripture, I challenge anybody here I challenge
anybody listening to my voice to tell me I didn't quote the
scripture tonight. If you're without Christ, Paul
said, you're without God in this world. And he that believeth
not on the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him. And he that
hateth me, hateth my Father. And no man knows the Father save
the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. That's what
the scripture says. And Christ pointed to those religious
leaders, and he said, you are of your father, the devil. God
is not your father. The devil is your father. And
he's a liar from the beginning, and you do his works because
you came from him. Now, the second thing, what does
it mean to be without Christ? It's serious. It means to be
without God. Lord, every man partakes of the
mercy of God in some sense. It rains on the just and the
unjust. Here's a man, an honest Christian
farmer, who's planted some seed. He believes in Christ and he
loves Christ, and he's praying that it might rain on his seed.
If it doesn't rain, he's going to lose it. The boys down the
road are going to have a baseball game. And they're praying that
it won't rain. So it doesn't rain, and they
have their game, and he loses his seed. Or it does rain, and
he gains his seed, and they lose their game. It rains on the just
and the unjust. The sun shines on the wicked
and the righteous. There's a sense in which all
men partake of the common grace of God. God preserves this world
for the elect's sake. God sent his Son to save his
people, and every ungodly man will partake in some way and
benefit some way by the coming of Christ into this world. You're
the light of this world. You're the salt of the earth.
And when God puts a candle on a hill, it's to give light to
his own. But the fellow living next door
to his own is going to get some of that light too. And Paul went
to a certain city to preach. God said to him, I've got many
people in that city. You stay there, and the whole
city benefited by the ministry of Paul, even ungodly rulers. Now the second thing. What does
it mean to be without Christ? Secondly, it means to be without
hope. Look here at this verse again.
You were without Christ, having no hope. Now what does that mean? Having no hope. What is the hope of the believer? Well, the hope of the believer
is Christ. Colossians 1.27 says, Christ in you, that's the hope
of glory. Christ in you, that's the hope
of glory. In Christ, we have forgiveness
of sins. Out of Christ, there's no forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood,
no remission. In Christ we're accepted. The
Scripture says we are accepted in the Beloved. God does not
accept me tonight because of what I've done or what I'm doing. God accepts me tonight because
Christ came down here in my place and did for me what I couldn't
do. He obeyed the law and paid for my sins, and I'm accepted
for Christ's sake. Out of Christ God accepts no
man's person. God is the respecter of no man's
person. He respects Christ. This is my
Son in whom I'm well pleased. And to be in the Son is to be
under the pleasure of God. To be out of the Son is to be
under the displeasure of God. In Christ we have a mediator. I have a priest. I have a priest. The Catholics put much emphasis
on the priesthood. Well, I have a priest, but he's
not a faltering, fumbling, fallible human being. My great high priest
is the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's my mediator.
I don't dare go into the presence of the most holy, eternal God
without a priest. I don't dare go into the presence
of Elohim without a sacrifice. I have a priest, and I have a
Mediator, and I have a sacrifice. But it's not Mary, and it's not
an earthly being. It's Christ the Lord, and He
never fails. He always has entrance into the
presence of God. Without Christ, you have no Mediator,
because the Scripture says there's one God and one Mediator between
God and men. Who is it? It's the man Christ
Jesus. In Christ, we look for the resurrection. He said, because I live, you
shall live. He said, because I live, because
Christ lived, because my Lord went into the tomb, and he won
the victory over death, and over the grave, and over hell, and
over all the forces of evil, and he came out of that tomb.
And he said, because I won the victory, it's yours. But you
people without Christ have no hope for the resurrection, no
hope. When Christ shall appear, we shall see him and be like
him. And he that hath this hope purifieth
himself. But without Christ, I say unto
every person listening to my voice, without Christ you have
no hope. You don't have a beggar's prayer. You don't have a slim chance. Without Christ you have no hope,
absolutely no hope. The third thing, what is it to
be without Christ? Thirdly, it's to be without peace. Now every person here has within
him a conscience, and that conscience has to be at peace with God before
you can be happy. There's no way, no way that you
can be happy You can enjoy any satisfaction at all unless that
conscience is at peace with God. Repenting will never speak peace
to the heart. Praying, going to church, performing
good works, these things can never speak peace, I mean real
peace, to the heart. Guilt is there, it'll always
be there because we're always guilty. And as long as that guilt
is there, there can be no real peace. Not with God. Not as long as that consciousness
of guilt, that sense of guilt, that gnawing, eating sense of
guilt, as long as it's there, there can be no peace, no lasting
real peace with God, no happiness. There's only one person Only
one person who can bring peace to the troubled heart. And he
said, these things have I spoken unto you, that in me you might
have peace. He made peace through the blood
of his cross. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God. Peace with God. Where is it? I get so unhappy when I hear
people talk about somebody just died and they say, well, he made
his peace with God. What did he do? He write God
a letter? He made his peace with God. What
did he do? He said a little prayer. It made
him die easier. Is that the way he found peace?
He found peace in the drugs they gave him. That's how he found
it. He found peace because somebody told him he's going to heaven
when he died. The only real, lasting peace is in Christ. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the only man who has real
peace here tonight is the man who has a clear understanding
of the payment which Jesus Christ made on the cross for our sins. That brings peace. A religious
experience will not give you a lasting peace, or it'll give
you a temporary emotional, sentimental feeling, a religious feeling.
You'll just feel so good you made your peace with God, but
it won't last. The only lasting real peace that
a man can have is to every day, every moment of that day, look
back to Calvin and say, he died for my sins. By his death he
put away my transgressions. My heart, you can be at peace
with God because you're covered by the blood of Christ. My soul,
you can be at peace with God because Christ died for you,
and because his death is sufficient to satisfy God's justice and
God's righteousness. That's the foundation of peace. You've sinned enough since you
came in this auditorium to send you to hell. We not only commit sins of commission,
but sins of omission. Not only sins of deed, but sins
of thought. Not only sins of action, but
sins of attitude. Not only sins because we hate
somebody, but because we don't love everybody. Because we don't
love God with all our hearts, minds, soul, and strength. But
thank God Christ is my peace. And I can say to my conscience,
be still. And I can say to that sense of
guilt, that awful cloud of guilt that constantly tries to come
between me and God, I can say, Christ put it all away and paid
the debt, and I have peace with God through Christ. Now, without
Christ, you can't have peace. And then to be without Christ,
my friend, what does it mean? It's serious. To be without Christ
is to be without God. To be without Christ is to be
totally, absolutely without hope. To be without Christ is to be
without any lasting peace. And to be without Christ is to
be without heaven. A man without a Savior will never
get to heaven. A man without Christ could never
enjoy heaven, could he? Christ is the psalm of heaven,
Christ is the light of heaven, Christ is the theme of heaven,
Christ is the king of heaven, Christ is the essence of heaven.
How in the world would a man be happy in heaven? And a man without Christ never
would understand heaven. Christ said you must be born
again or you can't see, discern, understand the kingdom of God.
Paul summed heaven up in this statement, to be with Christ. That is heaven. To be with Christ. What does it mean to be without
Christ? It means to be without God. It means to be without hope. It means to be without peace.
It means to be without heaven. Now then, secondly, who is without
Christ? I may offend you tonight, but
will you be honest? Barnard used to say, honest people
don't wind up in hell. It's deceived people. It's people
who will not face the truth. It's people who will not let
God speak for himself. Everybody's his own preacher,
everybody's his own theologian, everybody brings his little mold
to church, and if the preacher doesn't fit that mold, then he
won't listen to him. But I want you to think over
what I'm going to say tonight, and see if it's not in keeping,
not with what Baptists believe, not really interested in that,
in keeping not with what you always thought. I'm not interested
too much in that. But see if it's not in keeping
with what this book says. First of all, let's remember
this statement is not my invention. You were without Christ. I didn't invent that statement.
These are the words of the Holy Spirit. These are the words of
the Apostle Paul. The Scripture says, inspired
by the Spirit of God. You were without Christ. Now
who is without Christ? He says somebody here is without
Christ. And being without Christ, they're
without God in this world. And they're without hope. Now
who is without Christ? Well, first of all, the man is
without Christ who has not heard the gospel of Christ. Now turn
to Romans 10. Romans chapter 10, verse 13 and
14. The man is without Christ who
has not heard the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ. He hasn't
heard it. He hasn't heard it. You know,
actually, one of the men in Lucasville Penitentiary told me in a letter
that one time, at one time in his life, he didn't even know
who Jesus Christ was. He had heard the name, but he
had heard it only as a curse word. He had heard the name Jesus
and the name Christ, but he had heard it only as a curse word,
and he said, if you had asked me point blank, who is Jesus
Christ, I could not have told you who he is or anything about
him. I just knew that people said,
when they matched their finger, Jesus Christ. And that's all
I knew. There are people in Mexico who
know nothing about him. There are people in Spain and
Russia and China, and these people who've never heard the gospel
are without Christ. One lady said not long ago, said,
why you ought not send missionaries to those people and try to change
their religion? Leave them alone. Leave them
alone, they'll go to hell. For a man who hasn't heard the
gospel is lost. He's without Christ. Now listen.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they've not heard? My friends, an unknown Savior
is no Savior. You can't trust an unrevealed
Christ. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. We know that. Whosoever shall
call not upon the name of any Lord, or a Lord, but the Lord,
whosoever shall call upon the name of him who is the Lord,
the man of God's own choosing." the covenant Redeemer, the effectual
Redeemer, the Redeemer who came down here and by his death put
away our sin, the Redeemer who's the mediator, the victorious
mediator at God's right hand, a man in trouble, in sin, in
need, cries for mercy to the Lord and the Lord will save him. But now, how are they going to
call on him if they don't believe in him? And how are they going
to believe on Him if they've never heard of Him? All who have not called on Christ
are lost, right? All who have not believed on
Christ are lost, right? All who have not heard of Christ
are lost. That's right. If they haven't
heard, they certainly haven't believed. And if they haven't
believed, they haven't called. And if they haven't called, they
aren't saved. And if they aren't saved, they
aren't going to glory. Scripture says this is life eternal, that they might know the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. That's life eternal.
So a man who does not know Him does not have life eternal. It doesn't say this is life eternal,
that they might know a God. It says that they might know
Thee, the only true God. Now secondly, follow with me
now, stay with me. A man is without Christ, and
therefore without hope, without God, without peace, without life,
if he's never heard the gospel. Best thing you can do for a man
is tell him the gospel. Secondly, a man is without Christ
who has no heart, faith in Christ. Now we're coming down closer
home now. It's possible for a man to know
about Christ in his head, to know facts about Him. You say,
I'm not like that man in jail that wrote to you. I know who
Jesus Christ is. I know I believe in—what do they
say in the Articles of Faith, in the Apostles' Creed? I believe in
Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. You can learn
those words without having learned Christ. There are people who
were brought up saying that ever since they were able to talk,
and they have never They can recite the articles of faith,
but they have never been brought to heart faith. And the scripture
says, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
accursed when Jesus comes. The scripture says, If thou shalt
confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord. How does a person
confess Christ? He confesses Christ by following
the Lord in baptism, He confesses Christ by confessing publicly
before people that Christ is his hope. He confesses Christ
by a life of obedience, a life of faithfulness. He confesses
Christ by standing when Christ is attacked or when his gospel
is questioned, by standing up for that gospel. That's confessing
Christ. And if thou shalt confess Christ
with thy mouth, and believe in thine heart God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Salvation is not in a feeling,
it's in a person. There are times when I am on
the mountaintop, and there are times when I'm in the valley. But Christ is the same, yesterday,
today, and forever. He's at the right hand of God.
He's never in the valley. He's never on the mountaintop.
He's always at the right hand of God. Same place. There are
times when I feel like that I am walking with God. There are other
times when I feel like God wouldn't walk with me. But then I have
to remember Christ is at the right hand of God, and I'm seated
in Him. I am accepted in Him. I love Him. I believe on Him. He's my hope. He's my refuge.
He's my shepherd. He's my resting place. Christ
at the right hand of God. It's not just a head faith, it's
a heart knowledge. And a man is without Christ who
does not have that heart faith. That heart faith. that confidence
in Christ. Now, thirdly, a man is without
Christ who's never heard the gospel. A man is without Christ
who never has in his heart, intelligently and consciously and lovingly,
received Christ to be his Lord and his Savior. Christ is my
hope. Man can't put that there. It
has to be revealed by the Holy Spirit. and once revealed, nobody
can take it away. But a man is without Christ thirdly
when the work of the spirit of righteousness cannot be seen
in his life. Now there are multitudes of religious
people in this condition right here. They know who Jesus Christ
is, at least in their heads. They have made some kind of public
commitment and some kind of public statement, and they've united
in some way being identified with a local congregation or
denomination or church. They say they believe the Bible,
they go to their places of worship, they teach Sunday school, they
want to be married in the church building by the preacher, and
they want to be buried in the church building with all the
church ceremonies, and they'd be offended if you questioned
their Christianity. But where is the work of conversion
to be seen in their lives, huh? Where is the fruit of the Spirit? Where is the new birth? Where
is the holiness of God? Where is the faithfulness? Where
is the truth? Where is the love? Where is the
compassion? The answer comes Well, it's not
there. Well, then they're without Christ.
For the Scripture says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new
creature. He's a new creature. If any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. If any man
say he loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar, God said. Christ said, you are my friends.
If you do whatsoever, I command you. A man who knows Christ,
who is one with Christ, will be one with the mind of Christ.
You're not going to find a man who is one with Christ rejecting
the Word of Christ. He's going to say, Speak, Lord,
thy servant heareth. His heart is going to be open
to receive the Word if he's in Christ. You won't find a man
rebelling against the words of his master, will you? If Christ is his master, he will
receive the words of Christ. They hear my voice, Christ said,
and they follow me. They love my word. A man who
loves Christ loves his word. He loves his gospel. He loves
his church. He loves his people. A man who
knows Christ will strive to be like Christ. He will say with
David, I will be satisfied. I'm not satisfied, but I will
be when I awake with his likeness. A man who knows Christ will love
Christ and he'll love Christ's people. By this shall all men
know you are my disciples if you love one another. A man who
loves Christ and who knows Christ will delight in the law of Christ. I delight, Paul said, in thy
law. I delight after the law of God
in the inward man. I delight in it. I thank God
for it. A man who knows Christ will manifest
the fruits of the Spirit. He will manifest the fruit of
joy, the fruit of faith, the fruit of humility, the fruit
of meekness, the fruit of gentleness, longsuffering, temperance, if
he knows Christ. A man who knows Christ will look
forward to being with Christ. John Bunyan wrote these words,
The River of Death has been a terror to many. Yea, the thoughts of
it often frightened me. But now, in Christ, I, the chief
of sinners, stand easy. I see myself at the end of my
journey. My toilsome days are ended. I
am going to see that head which was crowned with thorns and that
face which was spit upon for me. I have lived my days by hearing
and faith, and now I am going where I shall live by sight,
and be with him whose company is my delight. I have enjoyed
hearing my Lord spoken of, and now I am going to see him. I
have seen the print of his shoe on this earth, and now I am going
to sit at his feet." I've read his word, now I'm going to hear
his voice. I have beheld his world, beautiful
though touched by sin. I'm going to dwell in his world
where sin can never enter in. I have worshipped and adored
his sinless character and his holy bearing, and now I'm going
to be like him. Who is as rich as I? Who is without Christ? The man
is without Christ who's never heard the gospel. The man is
without Christ who's heard it but who hasn't believed it. The
man is without Christ who has not believed it to the salvation
of his soul and the renewing of his will and to the washing
of regeneration and to the indwelling in his heart of the Holy Spirit.
and into that striving to be like his Lord. He's without Christ. And without Christ, he's without
God, and without hope, and without heaven. Our Father, we pray for
the application of thy word to these hearts of ours. Let us
not hear the gospel in word only, but let us hear it in power in
the Holy Ghost in much assurance. Our Father impress upon us as
never before the vanity of life. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. There's nothing here that shall
not pass away. Only that relationship which
we have in Christ, and that relationship which we have with Christ, and
with one another because of Christ. We are the children of God. It
does not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear,
we'll be like Him. We are the sons of the living
God. We are a family. We are in Christ together, redeemed,
and we shall ever be in Christ. And cause all of us to be made
more conscious of that than ever before, that we might number
our days and apply our hearts to wisdom. Whatever the cost,
let us be willing to forsake friends, family, wealth, this
world, popularity, Whatever comes between us and our Lord, let
us be willing to lay it aside that we might know Christ, that
we might be found in him, not having our own righteousness,
but that righteousness which is thine in Christ the Lord.
Receive us in him. Our Father, love us in him. Cleanse
us in him. Because it's in his name we pray. Amen.