I invite your attention back
to Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 22. The writer says to the Hebrew
children, as he's setting forth Christ as the mediator of the
new covenant, through his blood, having offered his life once
for sin, putting away the sin of his people, declaring the absolute necessity
of that sacrifice in order for sinners to be saved, He says, without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission of sin. I watched a movie many years
ago called Amadeus about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And the last piece he ever wrote
that was unfinished was a Requiem Mass. We get a lot of our ideas of
what a funeral dirge is from that Requiem Mass. It's a wonderful
piece of music. But for some reason, while I
was listening to that music, this short passage here kept
coming up in my mind. And I can't think about the passage
without hearing that music in my head or hearing that music
without thinking about this passage, because it is kind of a requiem
to all other hopes. than Jesus Christ. And the manner
in which God is honored and His glory is honored and His justice
is satisfied in the salvation of sinners. And it simply reads
in the negative sense, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. That's
an absolute statement. It's a statement. Without the
shedding of blood, There is no remission. What I'm going to
say to you this morning, what we're going to look at, we've
looked at for 35 years, we're going to probably look at it
for another 35 if I live that long, which I doubt if I will. But this is the message. The
Gospel, especially as it relates to what men generally hold as
truth, is a very negative message. I'm a positive kind of guy. I'm
a very hopeful and optimistic kind of fella. But the gospel
as it relates to what most men hold in opinion is a very negative
message. The words of this last phrase
sets forth an absolute. People don't like absolutes.
They absolutely hate them. But they're absolutes nonetheless. And it sets forth an absolute
in a very negative way. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sin. Without that perfect death of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and when you read about the blood of Christ
in Scripture, it's talking about His death. His blood was shed. That means His life was given.
His death was offered unto God and accepted by God. without
that perfect death, without that precious blood, without Christ,
that precious blood of Christ, not the blood of boars and goats
which can never take away sin, but without that precious blood,
no sin has ever or will ever be remitted. And that really
is a misnomer to say it will ever. It's either been remitted
or it's not going to be remitted. It was either remitted on Calvary
or it's never going to be remitted. Because when Jesus Christ died,
that was an accomplished act of salvation. When he said, it
is finished, sins were put away. How? By his precious blood. Now, we're talking negative absolutes.
It's not a very popular way to deal with things in this day.
In this day, everybody's supposed to be a winner, so you don't
have any negative thing on the sports field, and all the children
get trophies, and therefore the trophy's worth absolutely nothing
when everybody gets one. Everybody's supposed to have
self-esteem, even though there is no basis for it. You're supposed
to give people self-esteem or try to give it to them. But you
can't give somebody esteem. You know how you get self-esteem?
You get self-esteem by starting something and doing something
and finishing something. And then you feel good about
yourself. And that's all right. Nothing
wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. But
folks say everybody should have self-esteem. Children are supposed
to be disciplined with positive reinforcements. I'm not exactly
sure what that means, but I know it means that you can't have
a switch or a belt or a hand across the rear end. That's negative reinforcement,
and it'll teach kids to be mean and hateful and hit other people.
Well, it didn't teach me that, but I'm sure I'm the exception
of the rule. We don't want to negatively reinforce
children because it might affect or wound or bruise their psyche. Reasonable tolerance has been
replaced by legislative acceptance. And regardless of these silly
efforts to dismantle reality, and they are, No remains the
most powerful word in the English language. There's no greater,
more powerful word than that word, no. And if you ever learn
how to use it, it will benefit your life forever. There are
a lot of things we can do. bicker about. There are a lot
of things we can have a difference of opinion on. But when you're
solidly entrenched in the concept of no, you can finish any conversation
in a hair's breadth. Just say no. No. A fellow asked me one time, he
had visited a couple of times and he was a preacher. He asked
me if he could preach here. And I said no. I didn't say, well,
we'll think about it. Well, I'll ask you. I want to
hear what you say. I knew what he believed to start with, and
I said no. He never said another thing. Why? Because no is the
most powerful word in the English language. It allows no quarter. It takes no prisoners, it counters
no mitigating circumstances and suffers no notion of an option
or possibility or probability or some pusillanimous vacillation. No, you've heard this before,
your parents have said it to you, no means no. You've heard that, haven't you?
No means no. Crow and I often talk about our
dads and how we lived with them. We never asked the question why,
did we, Crow? They said, do something. You
never asked the question why. When they said no, you didn't
do it or you knew what was coming if you did. Now, God makes ample
use of that little word, that little word no, and that word
of God is replete with negative reinforcement. That word no settles
most of the questions and assertions that permeate religion in the
day in which we live. To what does God say no? Just
read your Bible. You'll see it says no to a great
deal of things. We're going to look at 12 things
this morning. That sounds like a lot, I know,
but I'm not going to be too long. 12 things that God says no to. And we're going to approach it
on this basis, the general opinion is, and then we'll see what God
says. Because what God says is so,
and if it differs from the general opinion, then the general opinion
is wrong. The general opinion to start
with, number one, the general opinion is that man can know
God. I heard a man, I heard a priest
on TV this morning talking about the man's spirit. And he was
saying, he was equating man's spirit, his natural spirit, the
spirit of man as called in 1 Corinthians 2 as being spiritual in the sense
of being with God or knowing God. And he's saying that a man,
if he works on this spirit, and not natural, not outside things,
but works on his spirit, he can become a better person. And that's
true. But that has nothing to do with God. You can improve
your flesh in the flesh and according to flesh, but you can't improve
your flesh before God. Because all flesh is grass and
it flays as a flower. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh and will never be spiritual. Never be spiritual. But this
man believed that if he could work on his own flesh, that is
to say, improve his appreciation of love and art and kindness
and these things and use them and employ them in his life,
he would become a better person. But he was equating it to being
saved or being like God, being like Christ. The fact is, No
man, as he is born in this world, can know God. No man can, unless
Christ Jesus reveals God to him. And the God that is revealed
to him by Christ is Christ. because Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Father, Son, and Spirit reside
in that person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord said to those
who didn't like him and didn't like John the Baptist, they didn't
like John the Baptist because he was too austere, he didn't
get along with anybody, he got up in the pool, came out of the
desert and waylaid everybody and then went back and nobody
liked him, he wouldn't fellowship with anybody, wouldn't go to
their house, wouldn't have a glass of wine, they didn't like him. It
is just too austere. And they said, you can mourn
all you want to. We ain't going to lament. You
can preach your sad, hard message as you want to. We're not going
to lament. Then Jesus Christ came along and sat down with
sinners and ate with them, went to the houses and had wine and
told them the truth about the grace of God. People didn't like
him. They said, well, when you pipe,
He says, you've got a silly little nice message. We don't want to
hear that nice little message you've got. We're not going to
dance when you die. We're not going to dance to your
tune. You're a wine-bibber and a drunk is what you are. And
that just shows you human nature when it comes to spiritual things
are never satisfied anyway. That's why it's always coming
up with new stuff. But our Lord said to those, He
looked to heaven in Matthew chapter 11, verse 25. He said, I thank
Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes,
even so for it seemed good in thy sight." You mean it's good
for God to hide the gospel from some people? Evidently, Christ
said it was. Proverbs 25.1 says, it's the
glory of the Lord to conceal a thing. To conceal a thing. He went on to say, no man knoweth
the Father but the Son. And no man knoweth the Son but
the Father. And He to whomsoever the Son
will reveal Him. Will reveal Him. No man can know
Christ or know God unless Christ reveals Him. The Son is said
to be in the bosom of the Father. And He declares the Father. He declares the Father. He dwells
in a light where unto no man can approach. He's the invisible
God. He's the image of the invisible
God. Can you see the invisible? Of course you can. Unless you're
hallucinating. Taking the right kind of drug,
you might be able to, but other than that, no. The general opinion
is that man can know God. He's just accessible and he's
just there. You just reach out and you got
him. If you want him, he's there. But what if you call on him and
he says, I'm not going to answer you. I'm not going to hear your
prayers. He says that to Israel in Isaiah
chapter 1. He says, you're going to have
prayer meeting after prayer meeting after prayer meeting. You're
going to call on my name and I'm not going to hear you. I'm done with you.
I'm done with your sacrifices, your new moons and all these
things. When I punish you, you get meaner. An ass, a dumb ass
knows his master's crib. But my people don't know. Can a man know God? Only by revelation. Oh, Barney, you say I never got
in more trouble when I preached the gospel, when I preached that
salvation is by revelation. God has to show you or you ain't
going to get it. Can a man know God? No. Absolutely
not, apart from a revelation of Jesus Christ. Secondly, the
general opinion is there is such a thing as a righteous man. Whole
religions are built on men being holy. This same priest was talking
this morning about Pope John Paul, the last one, the one who
got shot in a Popemobile and who died recently, the Pope before
last. He said, they're going to make
him a saint. They're going to canonize him. They're going to
make him a saint. I'm a saint. And so is everyone who believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ. We're all saints. We're all sanctified.
We're all holy. He said, they'll make him a saint. He'll be seen as a holy man.
Every one of you here, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you're
as holy as Christ. Or you can't fellowship with
God. It's as simple as that. Either
you're that holy. How holy you got to be? You got to be completely
holy. How good you got to be to get to heaven? You got to
be perfect. That's how good you got to be to get to heaven. You
say, well, I can't do that. Of course you can. But someone
did it for you if you're His. He lived that perfect life. There's
no such thing on this earth. Is there such a thing as a righteous
man? No. There is no righteous man. Our Lord said in Psalm 14 and
Paul quoted in Romans chapter 3, there is none righteous, and
just in case the none didn't sink in, there is none righteous,
no, not one, not even one righteous man on the earth. That's clear
from Scripture. So when men talk about righteous
men, there's no such thing. I'm not a righteous man in and
of myself. Not at all. Thirdly, the general
opinion is a natural man or even a justified man of himself can
do something good. We talk in terms like that in
the flesh and that's all right. We know some people who we are
happy to say, those are good people. And in the flesh they
are good people. But we're talking about good
before God. And God says, of the just man. There is not a
just man, a justified man on earth that doeth good and sinneth
not in the doing of the good. And there is none that doeth
good. And again, in case none don't sink in, no, not one. The general opinion is that a
natural man or even a justified man can do good? The answer is
no. Can he? No, he can't. He can't
do good. The general opinion is that man
by his own will can come to Christ or come to God the Father. No, he cannot. Man by his own
will cannot come to God the Father. Nor can he come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. You say, well, don't his people come? Yes, when God
gives them a new heart and a new mind and the will follows. Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power, he says in
Psalm 110. But no man will come by his own
will because he does not want to come to God. And not only
that, he cannot, he is unable to come to God because he is
spiritually dead and coming to Christ is an act of a regenerated
man. Life comes before every other
thing. And life comes through Christ. Our Lord says, no man
can come to me except the Father which has sent me to draw him.
And what that word draw means is heilcho, means drag. That's
one of the meanings. The actual rendering of it in
most cases in scripture is to take an inanimate object and
move it from one place to another. Same word is used when Peter
drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus. That sword has no life. It's
dead. It's cold steel. Peter had to
reach and grab the sword and pull it out of it, scabbard to
use it. It's moving an inanimate object from one place to another.
That's what we are. You say, no, we're alive. No,
we're dead. We're inanimate. Spiritually, we are dead. We
have no inclination, no understanding of anything spiritual. What's
it going to take? It's going to take God Almighty
to bring us to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's going to take that. Our Lord said, No man comes to
Me except the Father, except it were given him of the Father. Given him. And no man cometh
to the Father but by Me. That's John 6.44 and 65, John
14.6. No man cometh to the Father but
by Me. So how are we going to get to God? God's got to do it.
How are we going to get to Christ? God's got to do it. No man by
his own will. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy, who were
born of God, who were born not of the will of man, not of the
will of the flesh, not of bloods, but of God, born of God. Fifthly, the general opinion
is that men killed Jesus Christ. But they didn't. They wanted to, and that revealed
what we think of God when He let us put our hands on Him one
time in human history. We just ripped Him to shreds.
That's what we think of God. We didn't kill God. God didn't
kill Christ. God the Father, when he poured his wrath out
in punishment, did not kill the Lord Jesus Christ, because he came
out of those three hours of darkness and said, Father, my God, my
God, why has thou forsaken me? Then he said, I thirst. And then
he said, it is finished with a loud voice. And then he what?
Gave up the ghost. Our Lord said, no man takes my
life from me. I give it. I receive this commandment
of my Father. I lay down my life, my own life. No man takes it from me. How
could he? He's God. He's life himself. You going
to take his life? All he's got to say is they go,
I may. All he's got to say is I am. And you'll fall down backwards.
You won't even be able to move. You'll be paralyzed in the dirt
with just a word from his mouth. You going to take his life? No.
If it's given, if his life is taken, it's because he's given
it. I give my life for the sheep, John 10, verses 15 through 18.
Sixthly, the general opinion is those for whom Christ died
can be eternally lost. A lot of people believe that.
They're saved one day and lost the next. Well, you ain't never
really saved if you're lost. If you're lost, you ain't saved.
If you're saved, you ain't lost. That's one or the other. One
or the other. whom God has saved are saved
eternally. Now I'm not talking about this
gibberish and silliness that's in religion where you walk down
some aisle and the preacher shakes your hand and tells you you're
okay and then tells you never to doubt it. I did that for years. I believed that mess for years.
Didn't know God, but I believed that, man. Those for whom Christ
died will never be lost. Christ said,
All that the Father giveth me will come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from
heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. This is my Father's will, which is sent me. Of all that
he has given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again
in the last day. That's an absolute. My sheep
hear my voice, he said, and they follow me, and I give unto them,
I give unto them eternal life. And no man is able to pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which is greater than
me, who gives them me, no man is
able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. My Father warned.
How are you going to get to me? You've got to go through God
the Father, you've got to go through God the Son before you can even
get to me. Yeah, I ain't going to lose my life. I'm in the hands
of the king, in the hands of a sovereign God. Seventhly, the general opinion
is sin can be put away without punishment. People think they can straighten
up and fly right. Isn't that what they say to you
when you talk to them and you say, you know, why don't you
come down and worship with us? Well, I've got to get straightened
out first. That means salvation by straightening out. Salvation
by my will and my doing. My doing, that's what they're
saying. Can sin be put away without punishment? Were you ever punished
by God if you were His? No. But your sins were punished.
Your sins were paid for by death. Your sins were paid for by hell
and three hours of darkness. God cannot, because of His infinite
holiness, disregard sin. He said, I will in no wise clear
the guilty. And yet I'm going to have mercy
on thousands. How am I going to do that? By the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ according to Romans chapter 3. God has made
Him to be propitiation for our sins. Propitiation. He's charged us with propitiation. To declare God's righteousness
and salvation of those whom Christ died for. That God might be just. How? Well, I've got my punishment. And justify the ungodly. and
let them go free. My sin was punished. The stripes
were laid upon my iniquities when they were made to meet on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin cannot be put away without
punishment. Can it? No. No way. I know people like to think I
can better myself, and I hope you do. May God have mercy on
your soul if that's all you got, but go ahead and better yourself.
If you stay out of the penitentiary and you treat people fairly and
treat people nice, I say more power to you. If all you have is this earth
and this life, I say live it, enjoy it, because it's all you
got. Jesus Christ was punished for the sins of
the elect. The general opinion, eighthly,
is that once sin is punished, it can be punished again. That's the general opinion. You
say, well, I don't know if anybody believes that. You don't? How
about all those people who stand in the pulpits today who are
saying that Christ paid our sin debt, but then at the end of
time, if you haven't accepted Him, which is a foolish notion,
that you're going to have to face judgment again. You're going
to have to face punishment again. Now, those of us who believe
in the sovereign grace of God, we believe that Christ died for
His people, His elect, His chosen, His sheep, His church, and secured
their salvation by His death. And we believe, therefore, since
we were punished in Him, and our sins were punished, we'll
never be punished again. Because justice cannot twice
demand payment at my bleeding surety's hand and then again
at mine. But those people who believe
that Christ died for everybody and was punished for them and
paid their sin debt and then they're going to have to pay
it again, they call us unjust because we say Christ didn't
die for everybody. But I say they're unjust because
they have Christ dying and paying a sin debt, and then the person
for whom He paid the sin debt paying it again. That makes God
unjust. You look at the Old Testament.
When God set out judgment, He said, judgment must fit the crime.
And He said, if it's 25 lashes that it needs to be in Deuteronomy,
then at 25 you stop. You don't make 26. And when it's
done, you're never punished for that thing again. What's in is punished. It cannot
be punished again. When you face the judgment, what
is called the judgment, you're going to face it as an uncondemned
person. There is now no condemnation of them that are in Christ. Who
is he that condemns? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather He's risen again and is even making intercession for
us. If you are here this morning trusting the Lord Jesus Christ,
you are not condemned. You will never be condemned.
You will never face condemnation. There will never, ever, ever,
ever be a charge that can be laid against you. if you're in
Jesus Christ. By God, by angels, by devils,
by men, by the law, by judgment, by justice, no charge can ever
be laid against you if you're in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you've been punished in Christ, you'll never be punished again.
What about the great white throne? Yeah, it's there. What's going
to happen there? Well, if you read Revelation
20, here's what's going to happen. God is going to open some books.
I don't know if that's metaphorical language or just God going to
open up the book of his head and show people what they are.
But God's going to open up some books and there will be some
people punished when he opens those books. He's going to open
those books and he's going to punish people. They're going
to be judged by him out of those books and he's going to cast
them and hell and all of that into a lake of fire. But there's
this other book. It's not among those books. It's
another book. It's called the Lamb's Book of
Life. The Lamb's Book of Life. Now, if you're a child of God,
that's where your name is. It's not in those other books.
Because, you see, those other books are about punishment, and
God's already punished you, so you're not in that book. God's
going to open up this Lamb Book of Life. And here's what's going
to happen. Robert Husky, here, It's a roll
call. That's all the Lamb's Book of
Life. The names of the people in the last will and testament
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the testator died, that
will came in force. That's what it's going to say.
What it's going to say. Loretta Crowe. Here. Going to be fear there? There
is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.
We don't fear the judgment, for as Christ is, so are we in the
world. 1 John 4, verse 17. One sin is punished. Can it be
punished again? No. No. The general opinion ninthly is
that men have within themselves the ability to produce or merit
an accepted righteousness before God. They call it progressive
holiness, progressive righteousness. They call it righteousness by
the law. They call it a lot of stuff,
but it just ain't so. It just ain't so. Isaiah, who was a prophet
of God, some have said he lived 120 years. He prophesied during
most of the kings and second kings and second chronicles,
along with Ezra, along with Joel and Amos and Obadiah. He was a man whom God called.
A man who saw Christ in Isaiah chapter 6, and he thought he
had changed his life forever. And when he looked at himself
and what he was, he said, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That word,
filthy rags, is minstreless rags. Now that's a double condemnation
under the Old Testament law. Because when a woman was in her
menses, she had to be put outside the camp. Anything she sat on
had to be cleaned or burned. And she couldn't come back into
the camp until an atonement was made for her. And we're saying
that which God requires an atonement for, our righteousnesses, we're
going to hand them to God and they're like minstrels, right?
And say, here, accept me on this basis. All our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and we do fade as a leaf. Leaves are coming
out. I'm glad to see it. But in the
fall, they'll fade. They'll turn pretty colors, and
they'll dry up brown, and they'll crinkle, and they'll go away.
That's you. That's me. That's our righteousnesses. We
do fade as a leaf. Our Lord said in Matthew 5, verse
20, He said this, that except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom
of heaven. That is a righteousness you can achieve in the flesh.
He said it's got to be better than the righteousness achieved
by the Pharisees. Paul was a Pharisee who said
in Philippians chapter 3, before the law I was blameless as a
Pharisee in the flesh. I was blameless before the law.
What does that mean? That there is a possibility that
if you could exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, you'll enter
heaven? No. This is a condemnation of the very best that man can
do. It can't be achieved. Man cannot
achieve a righteousness because there's none righteous, no not
one. Tenthly, the general opinion is that men keep the law for
justification. I hear this a lot. I'm hearing
it more all the time. When people, rather than apologize
or just own up and take responsibility for their actions, they've done
something bad, they like to say, I'm a good person. I'm a good
person. You hear that? You hear that
a lot. I'm a good person. No, you're not to start with.
You're not a good person. There are no good people. But
they say that, why? Because they believe that though
they did this horrible thing, they've done some other stuff
that kind of counterbalances that in your life. Karma don't
exist, you know. In reincarnation and things like
that, people talk about, you know, why don't they ever say
that when I come back, I came back as a bug? or a dung beetle. Why don't they say that? No,
I came back, I'm going to come back as a queen or a lion or
something. That's a progressive holding this idea, what it's
thinking about. And men think that they can keep
the law. If I do right by the law, I'm justified. No, you're
not. No, you're not. The Bible says no, you're not.
Romans 3.20 says that no flesh is justified by the law. None. In Romans 3 it says, Therefore,
by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in
God's sight. You can keep the law all you
want to, but the only way you really keep the law is the way
you are going to keep the law, and that's to die. One day you're going
to die. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight, for by law is
the knowledge of sin. I didn't know what sin was until the law
came in. In fact, there was no imputation of sin until the law
came in. Without the law, sin can't be
imputed. That's what it says in Romans chapter 5. You see,
the sin has to be defined. The sentence has to be set. The
judgment has to be on books in order for it to be a sin. So
before Adam ever sinned, there was already a law in place to
take care of the sin that he would sin. You shall not eat
of the fruit of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In the day you eat thereof, you shall die and surely die. You
shall die and die. Well, I think I'll have a bite
of that. condemned. Why? Because the law is already
in effect. How do I define sin? The law. That's what defines it, not men's
ideas and men's notions. Men's laws are stupid. For the
most part, they come up with the stupidest things. You know
there's still a $2 bounty in Massachusetts on a Rhode Islander's
tongue? It's still on the books. You know why that was? Because
them Rhode Islanders got out from under that Puritanism and
started talking about freedom in Christ. And them Puritans
said, we've got to cut out their tongues. They're going to ruin everything. You'd be surprised at the laws
that are on the books. I bet if you could find the laws
on the books in Cherokee, I bet some of them would make you laugh.
Or in Silver, or in Haywood County. I bet some of them would make
you just either hilarious. But God's law has one design.
I had not known sin, except when I did it, the law condemned me. The law condemned me to find
what I did. To go to the law for righteousness is against God's Word. Galatians
3.21, Galatians 5.4, Galatians 3.21 said, By the deeds of righteousness
shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. Galatians 5.4 said,
If you go back to the law for righteousness, Christ is no effect
to you. Now, I don't want to live in
a world where Christ is no effect to me. Do you? I don't want to
live in that world. The general opinion is that men
can keep the law for justification. And God says, no, they can't.
No, they can't. Well, I've got a lot of friends,
and I don't care. I like your friends, too, probably. They're
probably really nice people. But I'm talking about before
the law. This gospel is a very negative thing. Negatively reinforced
by God saying no over and over again. Shall no flesh be justified. Shall no flesh be justified.
Christ has become no effect to you. No! The general opinion in number
11 is this. The general opinion is that Christ
died for everyone. This is one of the biggies. One of the things, I've lost
friends over the years who just couldn't, because of the pressure
of religion, the pressure of their family, because, you know,
their family just hated it and, you know, run the doctrine down
and just couldn't believe it. You know, they act like they
have such sympathy for people, you know. Why, if they pull out
in front of them on the road, they'd run over them, not without
a second thought, but they got such sympathy for people. I just can't believe
one man said to Dusty Rhodes on a radio show one time, he
said, I just can't believe there's somebody out there for whom Christ
did not die. Dusty Rhodes said, well, I can't
believe there's anybody in hell for whom he did die. But you believe that. You believe
that there's people in hell for whom he died. Do you believe
He died for everybody? Because there's already people
in hell when He died. He died. Who did He say He died
for? He did say that. Now people will quote John 3.16,
but John 3.16 doesn't begin with John 3.16. The first word is
for or because. You have to look back at 15 and
14 to see what He's talking about. And if you want to ask, Julie,
I preached a message on what does John 3.16 really mean? And yeah, I'll give it to you.
She'll give it to you. Because I ain't got time to do
it right now. Christ said He died for somebody.
He said, I'm the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep. That's who He died for. Who He
died for. In Ephesians chapter 5, Our Lord said to husbands concerning
their wives, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church
and gave Himself for it, that He might redeem it and present
it without spot of blemish. Who did Christ die for? He died
for His people, His elect, His chosen, His severed, His picked
out, His church, His bride, His sheep. He died for his people. Christ
said that. Christ said that. So the general
opinion is that Christ died for everyone. And God said, no he
didn't. No, he didn't. And the big gun,
verse 12, or the 12th thing is this. The general opinion is that God
loves everyone. I don't care where you're at,
you can find some sign or some bumper sticker or something that
says, God loves everybody. God loves you. The preacher said
on TV, God loves you and I love you too. God loves you and has
a wonderful plan for your life. Well, does God's plans always
come to pass? Yeah. Well, if you wind up in hell,
how does that say God loves you? It punishes you forever. Imagine, if you will, Noah going
into that ark with all those beasts and it begins to rain.
And suddenly the rain is up to the waist of the people and in
the chest and they're holding their chin above water and the
ark is floating up on top. And here they are dying under
the wrath of God and they look on the back of the ark and there's
a little yellow smiley face that says, God loves you. You think
they'd believe that? God doesn't love everyone. In
Psalm 11, he said he hates the workers of iniquity and the workers
of violence. He hates them with a vehement
act of hatred. In Romans chapter 9, Malachi
chapter 3, it says, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. Now if he hates one, he doesn't
love anybody. He doesn't love everybody, does
he? He doesn't love everyone. Every
time you find God's love mentioned in His book, it's about His people. You say, well, what about John
3.16? Well, understand what He's saying and who's He's talking
to when He says it. The world there, cosmos, is translated
in a thousand ways in Scripture. It's just a general, we do that.
The world of football. You know, the world of dancing,
the world of movies. We've got the same word, same
idea. But when he said that to Nicodemus, when he said the world,
you know what it meant to Nicodemus? He talked about the Gentiles.
Because that's what the world meant to the Jews. God loved
the Gentiles, God loved everybody, all the world. Gentiles too. God, and I don't get any pleasure
in saying this, but I do in one sense because it's the truth.
God doesn't love everybody. But I'm so thankful that whom
he loves, he saves. Everlasting. If he loves you,
it's everlasting. And he's going to draw you with
cords of love to himself. The issue is this, basically,
when you finally get down to it, do you have respect and reverence
for what this book says? Do you weigh your opinion in
light of this book? And wherein this book differs
with your opinion, do you bow to this book and not your opinion? Thus saith the Lord, without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.