to Ephesians chapter one. Kind of a, wait a minute, we
just said this, now this needs to be said also. Chapter one
says forth the glorious, absolute salvation of God's elect by the
work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. clearly in the first 14 verses
of chapter one. Then Paul goes on to say that
the church whom Christ died for is the fullness of him that filleth
all, that Christ has been set far above principality and power,
that the church has been given knowledge and understanding that
they might acknowledge God and Christ for what he's done for
them. And if you read chapter one, there isn't any bad news
at all. has nothing but good news. It's
just sweet, sweet gospel of electing and predestinating grace, of
acceptance, of provision, of faith, of guarantee in the salvation
of God's people. But often, as Paul wrote, he
would always, after setting forth something that was so clearly
wonderful, He would always put in something that showed us that
these wonderful, gracious things that happened to us were not
because of who or what we are. That we had no part in these
gracious acts except as recipients of God's goodness and God's kindness. And so after that wonderful report
in Ephesians chapter one, He talks to those whom he has said
that God has saved by his grace and says, you were dead. Lest you think this happened
because of something you did or something you were able to
generate within yourself that caused God to respond to you
or would recommend you to God. He said, when all of this took
place, You were dead. Now you know what a dead person
is. It's a person who can't respond to the environment outside of
him. He can no longer communicate across from where he's at to
the place he was once before. You were dead in trespasses and
sins. He said, and God hath raised
you from the dead. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sin. One blessed thing about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, it puts everybody on an evil standing,
on level ground. It does not raise one person
above another, nor does it lower one person above another. It
puts everybody in the same sinking boat without a paddle. It puts
everybody in death and the grave, everybody in sin. Gospel, Paul
said, hath concluded all under sin. We have all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We missed the mark of his glory. We are all transgressors and
sinners by nature, by choice and by practice, and that will
not change until God, or unless God, reveals His Son to you.
That will not change. You'll stay right where you were.
You don't have to be made to go to hell. You'll go to hell
if you can. If it's possible for you to go
to hell, you'll go to hell. The only thing that's going to
keep you from it is that God, while you were dead in trespasses
and sins, before you even existed in this world, saved you by his
grace because of the work of Christ on Calvary's tree. You
say that was a work in time. Indeed it was. It was accomplished
in time, but it was purposed in eternity. And before there
was ever a man who was made out of the dust of the earth to walk
on this earth, there was a man in glory already designated as
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Before there was
death by sin, there was death in glory because of sin. Now
some say sin might have surprised God. I don't think so, because
the answer for it and the provision for it was already in glory before
the world began. But here's what we can know about
ourselves. I've preached several times in
this passage of Scripture. One time I preached on the resume
of the believer, and this is what our resume is. Think of
yourself going to apply for a job and saying, well, what can you
do? I'm dead in trespasses and sin. Well, what's your life like? Well, for most of my life, I
walked according to the course of this world. Well, who's been
your boss? Well, I walked according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit in our work and the
children of disobedience. And all my life I've spent among
people who all we did was seek to fulfill the lust of our flesh
and the desires of our mind. And I'm like nobody else or like
everybody else on the face of the earth. Everybody's in the
same boat. I am by nature a children of wrath, even as others. We're all on slippery slopes
according to this, as far as we know. Our feet will slide
in due time if God does not do something for us. We are sinking
in the mire and in the quicksand of sin, and unless God reaches
down and rescues us, we will sink because we can't do anything
about it. Why? Dead men can't do anything. And as far as any ability to
cross that veil, to cross that chasm that's been created by
our sin, As far as ability goes, we have none. Thank God for the
mediator, Jesus Christ, who can stand in that void and touch
God as God and man as man. Apart from Him, there is no hope
for us. Here is our description. We were
dead in trespasses and sin. Donny Bell used to say graveyard
dead. The Bible says twice dead and
plucked up by the roots. What does dead mean? It means
dead, you know what that means. God gives us these simple terms
so we'll understand what it means. Dead people can't do anything.
Dead people cannot communicate. Dead people can't hear. Dead
people can't speak. And we're talking from the flesh
to the spirit. You can't reach the spiritual
realm. You can't hear. It is God who must give the hearing
ear and the seeing eye. Until that time you're blind.
It was said of John the Baptist that he had to come in and declare
that the light was on. Isn't that what it said in John
chapter 1? He had to declare to men that
the light was on. Who do you have to tell that
the light's on? Blind people. People who can see know the light's
on. But you have to tell blind people. That's our condition.
That's how we're described. We're never described in humanity and
in the flesh as having any power whatsoever. We're nothing but
impotent folk. We're described in vile terms
as maggots on a dug hill and worms of the dust, as beasts
of the field, as wilder than young ashes, cokes. We're described
as those who drink iniquity or crookedness as if it was a water.
We're described as those who hate God by nature. Hate him
by nature. We're described as those who
can do nothing without sin. Even as believers, we can do
nothing without sin and evil being present with us. Those
who were dead in sin, those who belong to God, those who were
chosen of God before the foundation of the world in chapter one,
who were predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ unto himself. to the praise of the glory of
grace. Those who were accepted in Jesus Christ, accepted in
the beloved, those who were provided for with wisdom and understanding
and all prudence was given to, those who were given an inheritance,
those who were given faith to believe the gospel, those who
are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, those were dead, dead in trespasses and sin. And
we are described also as walking in times past according to the
course of this world. Now you can apply just about
anything about the world that divides and causes men to look
away from Christ and you'll have an answer to what this phrase
means. The course of this world is the way the world goes. And
I know some people have hold out hope that things are going
to get better. They're not going to get better. They might here
and there have a spot of light to shine on them, and they might
move towards some type of idea that's worthwhile. But the world
ain't getting better. The world ain't getting better.
It's been on a downhill run since Adam, and it's not getting better.
Don't think you're going to make it better. Try your best. Vote
the way you think you should. Do your best to be a good steward
of what God has given you, but I'm telling you this, it ain't
going to get better. And had God not stopped us in
our progress and raised us from the dead, we wouldn't even know. We'd just be walking according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, according to the devil. The one who works now are the
children of disobedience. Now I know what you think when
you think about the devil. You think about drinking and chewing
and messing around with folks who do and going to the movie
show and messing around on the internet and playing cards. That's
what I was taught when I was a kid. Debbie's daddy wouldn't
even let her have playing cards in the house because it was gambling.
Of course, I guess my parents were just liberal or something.
We played cards all the time. We played rummy. You know, setback
and stuff like that. What do you think about when
you think about the devil? Here's what you need to think. Here's
what you need to understand. Satan is a religious giant in
this world. Now those who end up in the gutter
and those who start drawing pentagrams on walls and walking around outside
around the fire and chanting and acting like they're calling
down the son of darkness, those are his failures. His successes
stand behind the pulpits of this nation and other nations in this
world. His successes are the good and
righteous and upright living people who believe that their
goodness and their righteousness and their uprightness merit a
good standing with God, that somehow they're good enough,
that God's gonna take recognition of them, that something they
do is gonna recommend them to God. That's Satan's domain. And while we were dead in trespasses
and sins and while we were walking the course of the world, we were
religious folks. Everybody's religious. I know
that, and you know that too. Even those who say they're atheists,
there are very few people who say that, and I respect those
who honestly believe that. Folks tell me they don't believe
God. I'm not surprised. Are you surprised if somebody
said, I don't believe in God? I'm not surprised at all. I'm
surprised if anybody does. Because I know it takes a work
of grace, an impossible thing for humanity to make that happen.
for a person to actually believe in God. Now I know we believe
in gods, and we have our little gods that we believe in, but
we've manufactured them in our minds that are palatable to our
behavior. What we wanna do, we manufacture
to God and accept us on that basis. But I'm talking about
the God of Scripture. Satan has convinced men that
they are accepted by God based on their own merit and their
own righteousness. And he's good at it. He convinced me for a
long time. Because I went to church and
I went down front and I gave and I prayed and I read my Bible
that I was a child of God. And it took a miracle of grace
to shut my stupid mouth up and knock me off them pegs and show
me that I had no hope in myself whatsoever. That's our condition. Satan has convinced us that we're
okay. I'm okay and you're okay. Don't
worry about anything. God said of his false prophets
in Jeremiah, they preach peace when there is no peace. They
tell you it's all right. God's not like that. You better
find out who this God is. This God who does as he pleases. with whom he pleases, whenever
he pleases, however he pleases, and everything he does is absolutely
unquestionably right. Not because it's right that he
does it, he does it that makes it right. God doesn't have a
system of rules whereby he goes by that measures whether or not
he does something right. If he does it, it's right and
righteous and good. And it doesn't matter if it kills
10 million people. It's the right thing to do. He said, I am the Lord, I create
the light, I create darkness, I create good, I create evil. Shall the potsherds, that's you
and me of the earth, strive with their maker? Does a bunch of
clay on a potter's wheel stand up and say, I don't wanna be
this, I don't wanna be this? No, it's made as the potter makes
it. What if God, willing to show His wrath and make His power
known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels fitted to destruction,
that He might make known His glory to the vessels of honor
which He's made, which He's prepared for glory? What if God's like
that? It's a question we ought to ask ourselves when we read
this book. God says, I gave people for thee. I ruined nations for
thee. I knocked down worlds for thee. I kill people for thee. That's God. That's the God of
this book. Better get to know him. Better
pray he introduces himself to you. Because I'll tell you, if
this is our case, walking according to the course of this world,
according to the principle of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also
we all had our conversation. This is not just some bad people. This is Paul the Apostle saying,
I was just like that. That was me right along with
you. I was going along, I had letters, and I was carrying out
threatenings against the church. Everybody talked about Jesus
Christ. I wanted to put their name off the face of the earth.
I wanted to end the name of Jesus Christ. I put people in jail.
I had people killed for my cause. I did all that in the name of
God. I was one of God's people. I was one of God's people. So
unless you think somehow that you are better, or that you think
somehow because of your situation in life you are more accounted
as worthy, wake up. Among whom we all had
our conversation in times past. In the lusts of our flesh, and
again, that's one of those words people jump on, lusts of our
flesh, that has to do with sex. Must have to do with sex, lusts,
must have to do with that. Well, it does, to some degree,
you know, there's no doubt about that. But it's anything your flesh
wants. That's against God and against
what he prohibits and what he teaches. And your flesh wants
a lot. Your flesh wants recognition. Everybody loves to get a pat
on the back. I don't care, I do. I'm ashamed of it, I'm embarrassed
by it, but I like it just as much as anybody else and so do
you. Everybody likes to find out how special they are. And
it's all right to look at your children and your love wouldn't
say you're special, because they're special to you. But nobody is
by nature, in the flesh, special to God. If you're special to him, you're
special in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You're valuable
to him only in that sense. Whatever the flesh wants, the
flesh does. And remember, most time in the flesh, spoken of
in the spirit, it's not talking about the skin, the body, the
organs, it's talking about man's desire and need to feel recognized
before God. Somehow. And all you gotta do
is ask people. They won't outrightly, they'll
say, oh, I'm saved by grace. I remember Debbie tell me people
would look at her funny when she'd say, oh, it's all Christ,
it's Christ alone. Christ is all my hope is in.
They'd say things like, but don't you have to go to church? Don't
you have to do this? Don't you have to read your Bible?
Don't you have to pray? Why do they say that? Because that's what
they're counting on. If you're counting on anything
other than Jesus Christ for your salvation, I hate to tell you
folks, you're not saved. That simple. Because folks who
are saved are saved one way. God's not saving people different
ways. God's not saving people over here by making them believe
they're saved by their free will and saving people over here,
making them believe that they're saved by his grace. Because he'd be talking out of
both sides of his mouth, and he don't do that. God says what's
true. God makes it plain. That by nature,
all we did was the lust of the flesh, and the desires of the
flesh, and the mind, oh, our mind. And we were by nature,
that is exactly the same as anybody else, the children of wrath. By nature, that's what we were.
In the flesh, that's what we were. There's no difference.
There's no difference between the disease-infested harlot on
some street in New York City and the finest church lady in
the world. There's no difference than the
person born in utter poverty and ruin without a whole lot
of hope in this world and the one who's born in great affluence
and power. No difference. None. There's no difference between
the finest upstanding father that takes care of his children,
provides for his family, and the gutter drunk who's deserted
his family and left his wife in destitution. There is no difference
in the flesh in those people. That hurts our feelings. That rubs us the wrong way. We
need to be rubbed the wrong way. Because God said, oh, I've done
all these wonderful things for my people, I've done them, but
this is what they were when I did it for them. They were not special,
they were not special. So God says in verse four, but
God, we were all these wretched things, we are by nature all
of this, but God, the word but, remember, states an opposite,
states something in opposition. I've told the story of the UN
interpreter who was working with a man from one country He was
interpreting the speech of a man who hated that country that the
fellow was from. And so the fellow was listening
to the speech and finally got tired. He says, listen, told
the interpreter. He said, I don't care what he says, but when he
says the word but, he says, tell me what he said just before that
and just after that, because I know it is an opposite. Here's what we are. Satan's minions. Here's what we are. Dead in trespass
and sin. Here's what we are. Living for the lust of the flesh
in our mind. Here's what we are by nature,
children of disobedience. That's what we are. But God. But God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith
he has loved us. Because of that, but God intervened. And just in case you didn't get
what he said in verses one through three, he says, but God who is
rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, even when we were dead and sin. You mean
with all these things God loved us? He loved his children even
when they were all those things. Don't you love your children
that way? Everybody here, all their children done exactly what
they want to do and they fulfill all the desires and dreams. You
know and I know that ain't it so. But we love them, don't we? And they're our kids. God loved
his children even when they were wretched. and unclean and undone. And his grace has given them
a spiritual understanding of what they are. And they know
that even though they are now new men in Christ, they still
have this natural vileness and rebellion against God. For his
great love were with he loved us. And when you're talking about
God's love, you're not talking about what the world's talking
about. And you're not talking about what religion's talking
about. There are preachers and people who stand up to say God
loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and they'll
swear by it. God loves you, God loves you, God loves you, and
I love you too, they say. God loves you. Maybe, maybe not. But I'm telling you this, if
he loves you, he's shown mercy on you. If he's ever loved you,
he'll always love you, he'll never hate you, and he'll never
put you in hell if he loves you. Never will. your Savior. Hereby perceive we the love of
God that he laid down his life for us. He laid down his life
for us. God's love is eternal love. It's
love that is fulfilled. It's love that is shown. It is
not unrequited love. It is not that teenage angst
that you have when your girlfriend breaks up with you, you just
have this awful feeling in your heart. That's what folks think
God is feeling. He's up there in heaven and got
this awful emptiness under his soul because men just won't let
him express his love. And when God expresses his love,
somebody gets saved. Everybody whom God loves comes
to Christ. Everybody. Not one is left out. Not one is left out. His great
love wherewith he loves, even when we were dead in sins, he
quickened us together with Christ. Here's a wonderful thing. You
mean when Christ rose from the dead, we rose with him? You were
dead in sins. What happened? I don't fully
understand any of this, but that's talking about the first resurrection,
isn't it? It's the resurrection of the life. Quickened us together
with Christ. By grace, ye are saved. Not you can be, you might be.
If you try to do something, you will be. It's by grace, ye are
saved. Who? You who were dead in trespasses
and sin. You, who in time past walked
according to the course of this world, according to the principal
power of the air, we're now working children of disobedience. You,
whose conversation was in the lust of flesh and fulfilling
the desires of the mind, and where by nature the children
of... You are saved by grace, unmerited favor. Unmerited favor. Think of that. Why did God save
you, Ethel? Ain't no use to ask, is it? The
answer's right here, isn't it? He chose in His good mind and
heart to grace you. Now you were all those things
in verse three while you were walking along in this world in
your deadness and your vileness. God had loved you before the
foundation of the world. You didn't know anything about
it. He had chosen you in Jesus Christ and predestinated you
to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself. He
predestinated you to conformity to Jesus Christ. You had no idea.
Why you? Because he would. And that's
it. God simply showed you favor. Why didn't he show him favor?
I don't know, but I'm glad he showed me favor. I'm glad he showed me favor. While you were dead in sins,
by grace ye are saved. And not only that has he resurrected
you, he has put you in a new place that you haven't even seen
yet, but you're already there. He has raised us up together
with Christ to sit in heavenly places with him. Right now. You don't have to worry about
science fiction, about space-time continuum. You're in two places
already. You are here on this earth in your flesh and you are
seated with Jesus Christ in glory right now in every place within.
Why? Because God has shown you grace. Why'd he do that? Why'd he do
that? Christopher Sopherson sang Why
me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve
even one? The good things you've done.
Why me, Lord? The basis of that argument is
good works. You realize that, don't you? He thinks that something,
he must have done something that caused God to be good to him.
What have I ever done? You've never done anything. And
you don't do anything that recommends you to God even now. Why did God save you? For His
glory. That's why. For the glory of
His grace. That in the ages to come, what's
that? Eternity, I reckon. The new heaven and the new earth,
I reckon. That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding
riches of His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ the Lord.
Heaven's gonna be about what grace has done for us. God's
gonna show us. We don't know much about life.
We just trip along this life. We stumble through it. We make
successes here and failures there. We think we know something that
we really don't. Can you think of the number of
times you really thought you had to answer to something that
turned out to be absolutely the opposite of what you thought
it was? Can you think of those times? Boy, before that happened,
you just knew you was right. You was right as rain. You couldn't
be convinced of it. You was mountain right. Don't
tell me I ain't right. But all of a sudden, it changed. God saved you by grace. And for heaven and forever, He's
gonna show you that. Those little trips and stumbles,
those falls, those falters, those sins, those wickednesses, those
good things, those happy times, those sad times, those trials,
those errors, those weaknesses, those frailties, all of those,
God's gonna say, this is why that happened. I'm gonna show
you, it's my grace. It's my grace that brought you
here. It's grace that taught my heart to fear. Grace and my
fears relate. Grace. For by grace are you saved. Through faith. And that faith
is not of yourself, the gift of faith. It's a gift of God. It's not of works. Because if
it was, you'd boast in it. Not of works lest any man should
boast. It's a gift. It's a gift. And
when you have it, what do you do with it? Well, I can make
mountains move. Go ahead, I don't see that. Well,
in my faith I can raise people from the dead, let's have it.
Come up on my stage and I'll touch you on the head and you'll
fall down back and somebody will have to throw a blanket over
you. Because I got faith. Now, you know what faith does?
You know the most amazing thing faith does? It believes that
you're saved by grace. That's the most amazing thing
that faith does, that you actually, by God's grace and this God-given
gift of faith, you actually believe and you live on it and you hang
your hat there and hang your eternal soul there. I'm saved
because of nothing I did and nothing I deserved. I'm saved
because God Showed me grace. That's it. That's a miracle. And it takes the gift of faith
to believe something like that. Takes the gift of faith. God
goes on to say that we are his workmanship. His workmanship. That means we're on his workbench
and he's working us, we're not working him. He's working us. He's changing us, and moving
us, and making us, and bringing us to where we're supposed to
be at our expected end. He said, I know my thoughts toward
you. They're good and not evil to bring you to an expected end.
God's going to bring you where you're supposed to be. And I
expect, knowing me and knowing you, we'll buck Him most of the
way. But it don't matter. You're going to get there. You're
going to get there. We are His workmanship. The word
there is poema. We are His poem. Very sweet language,
if you like literature, very wonderful language. We're God's
poem in each step of our life and each breath we take and each
thing we see and each thing we hear is a part of the stanzas
that He writes. And we're created in Christ Jesus,
that's that new creation, that's what the old creation is about.
This new creation, we're created in the likeness of Him who created
us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're created unto good works.
And I'm here to tell you, if you're a child of God, you're
gonna do them. And I'm not gonna have to list them for you. I
wouldn't know where to start. I wouldn't know where to start.
But I'm pretty sure if you think you understand what a good work
is, you might just throw that one away to start with, because
it's probably not. But we're ordained to good works. What
does that mean? God talks about funny little things being good
works in Scripture. The one good work he actually
treated to humanity was the woman who took that alabaster box of
ointment and anointed him for his burial. He said, she done
a good work on me. He's done a good work. God talks
about giving somebody a drink of water. I want to go out and
build great big kingdoms for God. I want to go out and build
churches for God. You see, if you give a saint
a drink of water when he's thirsty, it'll not be forgotten in heaven.
It'll not be forgotten in heaven. And if they're sick and you stop
by the hospital or stop by the bedside, hold their hand, tell
them you love them, hope they get to feeling better and have
prayer with them, God said, I'll remember that. But he don't call
it a work. You know why that ain't a work?
Because it's done out of love. It's done out of love. What you
do out of love is never a work. It's love. It's love. God has prepared the works for
you, whatever they are. He said, I prepared them, which
God hath foreordained and prepared that you should walk in. They're
there. God has equipped you for it. You don't even know what
it is, but I'll tell you this about you, and I'll tell you
this about me, I'll tell you about every child of God. When he arrives
at the place where God has ordained for him to do a good work, he
will do it, and he won't even know he's done it. It's ordained
of God. And what this says to me in this
passage of Scripture, that we who've been so fortunate to be
graced of God, who were dead in trespasses and sin, our life, our life, our rising up in the
morning, our going to sleep at night, our meals that we take,
our jobs that we do, our employers, or the people we're employing,
how we do the job for them, the things we do, normal things. Breathing and eating and blinking
our eyes to moisten eyes are moisturize our eyeball these
things This is these are the works that God has ordained for
us Works ain't something big works is life Living the life
so how to know what God's or date you don't need to know Stop
asking silly questions You will do it because God has ordained
it. And you won't get any credit
for it. In fact, you'll give glory to God. You'll give glory
to God. Who did God save? Dead, wretched,
Satan following, lust-minded sinners. And He saved them by
His grace because He loved them. And I'm telling you here, If
you believe there's something in you that's worthwhile and
God will accept based on merit, and you know, this is hard to
get rid of that thinking. Isn't it? We wish we could, we
wish we was done with it. Don't we? Don't you wish you
was done with self-righteousness? I do. I wish I was done with
it, but I ain't. I tell people I'm a legalist
in recovery. That's what I am, I'm still in recovery. Haven't
made it yet. Don't you wish you could get
rid of that? I do. But if you think that you have something, no matter
how small, even that you believe the truth, if you think that
recommends you to God, you're dead wrong. You believe the truth
because God taught you, not because you're something special. You
believe God's truth because God revealed it to you, not because
you're something special. Why do you believe the truth?
Same reason you're saved, grace, and grace alone. Can you believe
that? Can you believe it? Boy, I believe
it and I wanna believe it better, don't you? God bless you. Father,
bless us through understanding and praying in Christ's name,
amen, all right.