This morning will kind of be an extension of last week. Turn with me to the book of Genesis, the 17th chapter. It kind of Paul talking that all men come into this world looking for something. Very few of them ever find it. That's what steers all these things. Men are looking for something that will appease himself, give him comfort, what he thinks it is, I thought about this a lot of times. The American dream, they call it. It's what they're looking for but rarely ever can find. They may find some semblance of it in the American dream, all right. I'm amazed at how much that people, working people now, they work and work and all they can think about and talk about is when they retire. I don't know, the last several years it seems to me like it has grown worse and worse at men. That's all they've got on their mind. Now, what are they going to do when they retire? There's going to be a void there. It's not going to be what they're thinking. It's better to just keep on working if you can. Instead of retiring, it has a lot to be to be what people think it is. I don't have been there and done that, the reason I know so well what it is. So be careful what you wish for. It may not turn out to be what you think it is. 17th chapter of the book of Genesis in verse 9, it said, and God said unto Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed, after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you, and I see, and after thee, every man child among you shall be circumcised. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token, shall be a token of the covenant. betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you every man child in his generation. He that is born in the house or brought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed He that is born in thy house and he that is brought in, thy money must needs be circumcised. My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant." It wasn't a circumcision that was anything, but it was the obedience of the law unto God that was it. We have a great problem today in this idea of faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And it comes by the preaching of the gospel. So many have missed it, in a certain sense. And in another sense, they hadn't missed it at all. It's always there. Even in thy mouth, it said it's there. So we have a problem because we are man. And we're born in sin. And unless the sin be removed, then man is doomed. He's condemned already. That's our problem. There's a great problem with this idea of the covenant also. Of course, scripture said, do this and live. then you've got to ask the question of who can do it. Well, nobody. The answer is quite simply, nobody. Nobody can do it. Back in the day, they weren't any different than our day. There is a trying, a doing, of these things. Even today we have so much ceremony. We just saw all that here a while back. A fella died. Took a whole week to get that dude buried because all the hype and the ceremony and all the stuff. And we're getting more and more in that position. Seems to me like as time goes on, we've got to keep on building them walls of remembrance. There isn't any faith in none of that stuff, I'm going to tell you. It's totally void of it. All of the pomp and the past and the carrying on that they call faith is absolutely void of any faith of Jesus Christ. It's a great problem. And it keeps being, trying to be carried out. Well, how much of the law are you going to go? Well, don't need to keep any of it. We just get rid of it where there's no law. No sin, is it? But the law is what is man's condemnation because he cannot keep it. But you keep endeavoring to keep it through some kind of ceremony. That's what we have here, we have ceremony, but what was it? It was the keeping of the ceremony. It was a token of the faith that man had in Jesus Christ. He could be circumcised all day long, but if he doesn't have the faith, the trust, that what God has told him to do will be good for him. He doesn't have anything at all. He's completely lacking. People want to talk about moral law today. Well, that kind of removes things, too. Lessons of law, a little bit just moral law. Well, it is. Plenty of morality in it, all right. But it's not just a moral law. It is the law of God of life. And in that law also is mercy. How you know you sin, had it not been for the law. So in that respect it has mercy. It speaks of the mercy of God always. It speaks always the inability of man and the power of God. Book of Deuteronomy, the 30th chapter. I guess in verse 5, And the Lord our God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it. And he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord our God will circumcise thine heart. Now we're getting down to the crux of the matter here. and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live. Back in the 10th chapter, Moses asked him this, what does the Lord thy God require of thee? What was it? To fear, and to love, and we can't leave this one off service. Well, we can't get rid of the law. If you get rid of the law, what are you going to serve? The law is God Himself. It's the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word is with God, and the Word was God. How do you serve God outside of the law? What do you do? Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, and soul. You try that outside of grace. I don't care what man does or what he says. And he can make a profession all day long. And he cannot do that outside of grace at all. It must be of God and not of man. You can circumcise him all day long in the flesh. But listen, it wasn't his doing here that this circumcision wasn't of him either. When he circumcised the heart, it was of God. When he circumcised the heart, it was at the time that he decided he could not do anything in this circumcision. It was all outside of that and totally of the mercy of God. He said, and the Lord, our God, will put all these Curses upon thine enemies and on them that hate thee which persecuted thee and thou shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. What was going on here? Expecting return. How? By the Lord's hand. But he was trying to give them some hope here It wasn't going to be your doing, but the Lord will do it. He's going to do it. He's going to circumcise y'all. Really going to do it without whether you return or not. He's going to save His people. And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land for good. Well, she's looking for an American dream. Lord's going to do this. And it'll be for your good if You do these things and live. You're going to have to do them, but you can't. So it kind of puts a man in a predicament, doesn't it? He's going to have to lean up on his God if he does them at all. He said, for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good as he rejoiced over thy fathers. They were a chosen people, God's people. If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep his commandments. Well, it's just over and over isn't it? You've got to keep the commandments. And today we won't get rid of them. It can't be. Of course, this is Old Testament stuff here. But the Lord hadn't removed the commandments. The same thing is still there. Keep my commandments. What is the greatest one of them? Love the Lord thy God. And His statutes, which are written in this book of the law, And if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, for this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off." It's right there. Even in thy mouth, it's there. It's not in heaven. that thou shouldest say, who can go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? Well, it's been told over and over, do it. That ought to be enough. You condemned already. You can't do it. Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldest say, who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it. But the word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. Apostle Paul had something to say just about like this. Yeah. How you gonna do it? You can't. It's all about it. He didn't do these things in a secret. Man, that's the reason every man coming into this world, he's searching for something he knows deep in his soul, that there's something he needs besides what he's got. And he also knows deep in his soul that he's not going to find it outside of the grace of God. He keep running from it, keep trying to turn it off, and is quite successful in doing it than getting busy about something besides God. You don't want to Don't tell us these things anymore, lest we die. Get away from us. Book of Romans, the third chapter then. Verse 19. said now, we know that what thing so ever the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Well, it doesn't leave anybody out, does it? It condemned already. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified. Justified, you see, in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. How are we going to know these things? Lest the Lord send the preacher with the word. What's the word? Love Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, and soul, and thy neighbor as thyself. But we gotta look somewhere else besides us for what we can do. Works won't get it done, that's for sure. We read that and it's simple enough, it's plain enough. You know, every man can understand that. I believe every man understands that. Even outside of God, if man be in Christ Jesus, he surely can understand that because he's been there. But the rest understand that also, but they're not going to yield to God. Because they're mad at Him. He's trying to make them do something that they don't want to do. The word's there. That isn't a problem. It's in the heart of man. That's how near it is to him. But now the righteousness of God, which is always of God, without the law is manifested. The law didn't have nothing to do with that righteousness of God. It showed man who he is, know his sin, and there is righteousness in the law because it comes from God, but not in the doing. It's manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Well, you've seen it. It's been there all along. You've seen the circumcision even, that it was a token of a good conscience toward God. We have today the baptism. It's an answer of a good conscience toward God. There must be some work done. Lay down your works that you might work. He said, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe or trust, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every man is the same. Being justified freely, by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. The remission of sins is righteousness. If sin is removed, then there's righteousness. He said, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and a justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is the boasting in? Well, it isn't in you. You can't say I've done this or I've done that. You better leave all that off. It won't make it right. What I've done, by what law? What law are we talking about now? Of works? Nay, but of the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of law. But if he has faith, he'll keep the command. That's where his trust is. In those things of God, on over in the fourth chapter, He said, what shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertained to the flesh, hath found? For Abraham, or if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof the glory, but not before God. For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is a reward, not reckoned with grace, but of death. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness. Had to give it to him, didn't you? without words, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Well, it's going to give him righteousness and not impute sin. Come at this blessing, they said, upon the circumcision only or on the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. It's a gift to him. Imputed, if you want to use that word, but it's a gift to him. How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? not in circumcision, huh, that didn't do the job. But he done it because the Lord said to. But in uncircumcision, but when did it come? In uncircumcision, before he had done anything. And he received a sign of circumcision, a token, a seal of righteousness. That's because he done it. Do this and live. A seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised. So it wouldn't have worked, but he did works because the Lord commanded it. That he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. and the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised. Lord give it to him before he had done any works at all. But then when he gave it to him, he turned around and got circumcised. And got all the rest of them circumcised. But it wasn't all. It didn't have any effect on most of them. There was only a remnant that believed God and believed that in doing that, they were doing what God had asked them to do in what faith. Had they not heard? Yeah, they heard. The word went out through the whole world. And it is man's condemnation that the word went out. Now, what are you going to do? Keep the law? No, you can't. When are you going to do it? After faith has come, then man will do it. best he will. And the grace of God keeps on turning him because his fleshly nature is to go away. But the grace of God keeps turning him to look back at what God had done for him. Grace had come by the power of God. and not by a decision of man. That's what's so wrong today with all this garbage that they're putting out. That man can just get it. You know what it's saying? Say not in thy heart that you go into the heaven and bring God down. That's the wrong attitude. You can't get it. You can't go into the deep and bring him up. You can't do it. If you have that attitude that you're going to walk down the aisle and make some kind of decision and have it, you've got another thing coming. That's the wrong attitude to start with. If you get right, you'll say, the Lord will do it. He'll come down or he'll come up, whatever the case might be. He's everywhere. He's so nighty, he's even in thy mouth. So we are without excuse. Plenty evident that salvation does not come by the works of the law because Jesus came into the world and suffered and died and rose again. If it could have been, Paul said, a law given whereby righteousness could come, then verily righteousness would have been by the law. There wouldn't have been any need for Christ to suffer at the hands of man, but mostly at the hands of the righteous God. So not much question there is there, and yet because of the depravity of man, cannot and will not see that truth, though it be right in front of his face, nose on his face. We used to say plain as a nose on your face, but it is true. Lord willing, we'll be talking, meditating somewhat this afternoon on that very idea of the depravity of man and the blindness of depravity. Our weakness becomes our strength. But that strength is a gift of God. And we're telling people, we sang that song, That man's a Southern Baptist man who does not believe in the Son of God. Have faith in God. That's all you got to have. Where do you get it? Yeah. Don't answer that question, does it? They don't even know that that is a question. No, they really don't. And so this is all great, but you leave people frustrated and broken and hurt until God comes by But we've got to tell, you know, I'm telling you to believe in Christ, you can't do it. I'm telling you to do something you can't do. I mean, God would require we do something we can't do every day. Oh, read it in here. And I'm just, you know, it is the great, that we tell people what they need, but we don't tell them where they're going to get it. and they dig deep down in their own hearts and get frustrated. Nothing gets any better than the top dude. They're not born again. The spirit of God has to have with them. And they walk on the sand. Them people down at the Sovereign Grace Methodist Church are foolish. Yeah. We are. Yeah. In their eyes, we are. But we say, find grace through faith. It isn't. That's not our sales. It's a gift of God. Now, some of the works, just to mention those, but we are His workmanship. In Christ Jesus, unto good works. One day it happened. For the foundation of the world. You know most people, preachers, they don't follow Petunia. The whole family said, no, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he'll send that word where he wants it to go and do what he wants it to do. That's right. It all comes back to this, a question that I asked our Sunday school teacher at San Antonio a long time ago. Well, which comes first, faith or the new birth? But you know, that's the crazy thing, if you will. That man stuttered and stammered around, but he finally had to say, well, I guess the new bird. But he never believed it. Where does the spirit come from? It comes from God. They got the theology that you're twisting God's arm to be saved. The thing is, if you're twisting God's arm to be saved, it's because he's already given you a new life. You're trying out for that. Well, that's what's so blessed to us. But it's not to the lost man. He will not have this man to rule over him. He just won't do it. They say that you already have the books, right? Well, that's the truth. But how's Dick, then? He's given you some of their names very fast. What's he doing all these ceremonies going on? He's just laying there. And what's he doing right now? He's just laying there. That's it. Alright. What about Sister Joyce? Did y'all talk to her this morning? Sister Linda? She's sick. Okay. We miss her being here. I guess has Joel got the sore throat now or is he just worn out or what? It's not feeling good. All right. I did not get to go over to see Brother Marvin this past week. It's been a whirlwind. So I do intend, by the grace of God, to go over there this week and hopefully either Tuesday or Wednesday to see him and to minister to him, but continue to pray for Brother Marvin. I did talk to several of the people up in the North Country, Brother Jimmy Hamrick for one, and Haygoods, and I had good conversation with them. Of course, they're always interested in Brother Marvin's condition and what's going on with him. But sometimes it's just good to fellowship with them, and we did have some good fellowship over the phone. I think I've already announced last week the conference at Divide will be the 27th, last Saturday in October. If you can go, that'd be great. If you can't, pray for that conference. What about Seth, brother? That's the same thing. We prayed to God to give us grace. Well, you know, it is difficult on the flesh. Everything about sin is hard. Nothing good about it. brings forth nothing good. Except when man sees his condition in that sin, he will flee unto Christ. Now that's the key to it, isn't it? A person that really sees his sin, in other words, when he sees the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as Paul says in Romans chapter 7, You can't keep him from Christ. I just had turned the Facebook thing on this morning for a few minutes and I saw, I believe it was Tom Lasseter that had this little thing on there talking about how that it's the Spirit of God. Without the Spirit of God, the preaching will accomplish nothing as far as the salvation of the soul. I just about quit commenting on any of those things on there, but I couldn't refrain myself this morning. I just commented on there. What is the question about what is wrong with most of religion and the preaching today? There's not a question about it. It's a lack of the Spirit of God. And so, you know, again, we can fight this all we want to, but it's still truth. And it's just like, brother, Burr said a while ago, you know, we want to believe so bad that all these people that are fighting the truths of the sovereignty of God are really God's people. And I know you can be ignorant about it, just like he said. He's preached some of this stuff himself. So did I. But, you know, when God reveals the truth to you, what are you going to do if you're one of His people? You've got to acknowledge the truth. And until that truth is acknowledged, you have to be like the Apostle Paul, stand in doubt. It doesn't mean that you're opposed to them as if they're your enemies as such, but which they are if they truly are not God's people. But I mean, you don't take it that way. You're at peace with them. They may not be at peace with you, but you're at peace with them. But it's still the same thing. Yes. It's not true. And you see that you're wrong according to scriptures, and you don't change. You don't buy the truth and sell it on. Yeah. And you're not the child of God. No. My sheep, you're my voice, and I know them, and they follow They will not follow. And that's another thing that nobody hardly ever says. They might talk about the sheep following Christ, but they never talk about the fact that they won't follow the others. And you can't get out of a sermon on the mountain until you've got Jesus pointing at us. There's one way, and then all these false teachers and prophets are going to take you off that narrow way. And he said, you beware of that. And read your Bible. The reason we're so concerned No, no, he's not wringing his hands. But if it's not the truth, and we sit there and we allow it to be said without any word. You know, I'm tired of sitting around listening to guys say, well, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. That's all I ever, I told you everything. You really got to get up and say, that's enough of this. You guys sing your song, dance your dance, That's it. But I don't know. Well, again, the depraved man just can't see it, and that's it. It does. It does. Right. And again, as bad as you don't want that to be, there's no use fighting the truth of it. It's going to be. But, live at peace with all men as much as within your lives. And... For most of our listeners there, I keep my mouth shut. And that's another thing, too. That's the judgment out there. I'm telling you. Is that not the judgment? Yes, sir. Absolutely. I see nieces, nephews, grandchildren. I mean, they're all just as pagan as they can get. And they expect you to come in and have fellowship with them. You come to be a cat in the neck. And act like they're all right with God. Earthly, fleshly, selfish, godless accomplishments. I know what you mean. And we do. We understand that. Alright. Well, number 240. We can sing this song. And it is a positive statement. There shall be showers of blessing. But why? Because it's promised of God. And even in the grimmest and dimmest of times, he still had 7,000 that did not bow the knee to Baal. I'm thankful that we can gather together here today and not bow the knee to Baal, but bow the knee to the great God of our salvation.