This morning we direct your attention to the book of Ephesians, 2nd chapter, verses 8-10. This will be the fifth in the series of messages on the subject of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Today we'll be speaking on the Lordship of Jesus and salvation, the Lordship of Christ and how salvation occurs in the life of a sinner. We have looked at such themes thus far in the series as the Lordship of Christ in the scriptures, the Lordship of Christ and providence, the Lordship of Christ and the existence of sin. Today we come to the Lordship of Jesus and salvation. We have seen in our study thus far that if Jesus is Lord, then he has presented to us a Bible. He has preserved it. He is the Lord of this Bible. and he has given it unto us. He has controlled all things in bringing it to our possession. It is an infallible, inspired word of God. We've seen he's the Lord of Providence, that he controls all things what he has created. Nothing catches him by surprise. We've seen he's even the Lord over sin, that he can restrain sin from existing, or he can permit it and allow it to occur. And he's the sovereign ruler, even in that area. And that even the wrath, as we saw last week, of men shall be enabled to praise God. We still have a sound problem? Okay. The wrath of men shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath shall thou restrain. Now, today, we want to see that if Christ can either restrain or permit sin to occur, that he can either save or he can judge and damn at his own discretion. And that is a sobering thought, but that's where the center needs to be placed, is to see that he is under the control of Jesus Christ at God's right hand. The book of Ephesians, chapter 2. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." We have seen in our definition of lordship that lordship is the authority or the power to rule over others. That has been established from Mark 10, verse 42. We have seen from John 17, verse 2, that Jesus has the right to use his own power as his wisdom sees best. God could have created a dozen worlds, but his wisdom only saw best to create one. and that Christ has been given authority over all flesh, and he can do with that power as he sees best. And he sees best to give the knowledge of the one true God to some men, to give eternal life to those whom the Father has given to him. Now then, we've also seen that lordship is the ability to control all the events of life so as to fulfill one's own good pleasure. or purpose. We saw this in Christ's encounter with Pilate, when Pilate told him, You better speak up, I'm your Lord. I can condemn you to the cross or I can set you free. And Jesus reminded that earthly Lord that he could not do anything until the one who was in heaven first exercised his option as to whether or not he was going to be crucified or not. And so Pilate then was confronted that there is a higher Lord than any human Lord, and that's Jesus Christ, God incarnate in the flesh. Now we come to this matter of salvation. You would think in the realm of the Christian Church that with everybody talking about being saved, everybody talking about going to heaven, everybody talking about the need of Jesus, there would be great unification and agreement in this area. But it's sad to say that is not the case. While everybody is talking about going to heaven, not everybody is going there. Not everybody is going. While everybody in the Christian realm talks about being saved, a lot do not understand what it means to be saved and how salvation occurs. Our proposition and consideration today is this. Is salvation the action of the saved or of the Savior? Is salvation the action of the saved? And I consider myself a saved person this morning. Now, is my salvation to be attributed to my acting, or was I acted upon by a Savior? The Lordship of Christ addresses this vital question. For what you're trusting, that's what your salvation is going to be when you stand before God, what you're trusting in. And you'll either be trusting in something that you are, and something that you have done, or else you'll be trusting in who God is and what he has done for sinners in Christ Jesus. Now, there's going to be one of two hopes. There are two basic views of salvation. I'll be dealing with those this morning. Every so often I come across people who say, this thing is so confusing. because there are so many different churches. And it seems like every church has got a little different slant upon this thing of salvation. How could you know where the truth is and what the error is? And I want to boil them all down, to not oversimplify it, but to put it down into one or two categories. Take all the religion in the world—Buddhism, all the isms, and even introduce Christianity into it. Take all those different systems of religion and they boil down to these two propositions. And that is, how is a man saved and justified in the sight of God? And there will be one of two answers which every proponent of religion will give. It will either be that a man is saved by his own merit and ability, of his own willpower, or else he will be saved by God's will, by God's power, and by God's righteousness. That's what it all comes down to. There will be a lot of different churches that will say, or believe this and this and this and this. But here's how you can boil it all down. You can go to every one of these churches throughout the whole area here, and you'll hear men say good things, but you'll also hear it said like this. It'll either boil down where you will leave believing that your destiny rests upon your acting, or it rests upon the acting of God on your behalf. That's where it all comes down to, and that is not an oversimplification. Salvation is either by human merit and willpower, or it is by God's merit and willpower. One of the two. There is no real in-between. In Baptist circles today, the great distinction has been divided into two different sections which really clouds the issue, and that is faith versus works. And contemporary modern Baptists will say, I am not saved by my good works, but I am saved by my faith. And that only clouds the issue even more. Because if what you're trusting in is your faith, I'm here to tell you this morning, faith is not your savior. It is not your savior. It is an instrumental means that God uses to bring you to the Savior. But it is not your Savior, and you will perish just as sure, believing that your hope is in your faith as it is in your works. If you are trusting in something that you do to commend yourself to God, you're under a system of religion that is depending upon human merit and human willpower. Now then, what is human merit and willpower? I'll explain first what system of salvation this is. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 1. Before we look at self-righteousness and free will and self-ability that men like to boast in, I'd like to read to you Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21. to give you a definition of what salvation is. What is salvation? The word means deliverance. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. This person that we recognize as the person of the Lord Jesus Christ was given his very name because his name, Jesus, means Savior. And he came into this world not to attempt to do something, but he came into this world to do something and to accomplish something. And he shall save his people from their sins. What is salvation? Its sin, as we have seen last week, is the disobedience of God's commands. That is what God reveals in his word is man's duty, and men disobey that and sin against God, that they know to do good and doeth it not, as defined by the moral teachings of God. If that is what sin is, then salvation is the deliverance from sinning and its consequences. Have you got that? If sin is the displeasing of God by our actions, salvation is a complete deliverance from sinning. Now, in salvation there are many aspects that the Bible makes known. There is conviction of sin. There's regeneration of the Holy Spirit. There's justification by faith. There's sanctification by faith. There's glorification. All of these are aspects of salvation and adoption. God's people today, if you have been saved by the grace of God, you stand justified this morning before the throne of God. You are just as if I'd never sinned. That's what the term justification means. It is not saying that you never sinned, it is not saying that you are not now sinning, but it is saying that God views you in Christ just as if you'd never sinned. There will come a day in glorification in which your sinful nature will be completely eradicated and you will be presented spotless and pure. before the throne, inexperienced what you are now in your legal standing before God, if you're a Christian. So a Christian is not someone who is sinless, inexperienced now. But they are a person who despises sin. And they have been given a new attitude toward sin, and a new attitude toward God. If sinning is the displeasing of God, and disobeying of God, then salvation, I say, is the saving deliverance from sinning against God's revealed will. Adam fell into sin, and through the Savior there is coming a day when the sons of Adam are never going to sin again. Now, that is salvation. Now, you notice that I did not say anything about heaven or hell. The contemporary preaching of the gospel is that salvation is everybody who wants to go to heaven raises their hand. And nobody wants to go to hell, so everybody raises their hand. But that is not the ultimate issue. The ultimate issue is everybody that wants to see sinning look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I tell you, you get a whole different response when that proposition is put. You get people who want Christ and the Church to deliver them from all kinds of social consequences. But unless God convinces a person of their sinfulness, they will never seek out the mercy that's in Jesus Christ to make them the person that Christ has ordained for them to be. Salvation is a deliverance from sinning. I ask you a question again. Do you want to be saved? But I'm asking that, I'm just not asking, do you want to go to heaven? I'm asking, do you want to be delivered from your own sinful self? That's what I'm asking. If sin is the displeasing of God, then salvation is the deliverance of that which displeases God and enables us to enjoy him and to serve him. Now having set that forth, how then does a person find acceptance with God, and there are two forms of salvation which men proclaim. The first one is human merit and willpower. This system is brought about by one's own self, not by God. It's brought about by a natural ability, they say, to respond to whatever God commands. God says in his law, do this and you shall live. Men say, tell me what I must do, I'll do that, and then I'll be saved. Salvation by human merit is a trusting in one's own righteousness and their own free will and ability to do whatever God commands from them. Under the Old Testament mosaic law, God commands, and under the system of salvation so-called, with a covenant of works, God commands men and then waits for men to respond. He says, do this and you shall live. He placed Adam under a covenant of works in the garden, and told Adam, if you will obey then I will bestow upon you and your posterity a perpetual life. You shall never die. Do this, Adam, and you shall live." That is a system of salvation that if Adam had done so, God would not have gotten the glory because there's no grace involved. It's just God telling man what he's to do, And then God waits for man to respond and do what God asks out of him. This is a system of salvation by self-righteousness and self-ability. Man's response to God's revealed will then determines what his standing is before God. This, in religious terms, has been formulated in the expression good works. Now, most Baptists do not believe in good works. That's evident if you're around them very long. That is, when we talk about good works, we're talking about actions. Now, if man's response determines his standing before God under a system of self-salvation, A bad work, then, would be a disobedient response. God says, Jim Gables, keep the Ten Commandments. If I do not respond favorably, that is a bad work. If I respond obediently, that is a good work. Now, place that in your thinking. Try to. A work is a response to a duty in which God makes known unto us. So we may either have a good response or a bad response, a good or an evil. And whatever the response is, then under the system of salvation by response, or works, then if you respond good, then you're in a favorable state with God. If you respond adversely, then you're not in God's favor. So it is the termination of works is the response of man to what God commands. Now the question is, are we saved by works? And most, even Roman Catholics, will say, no, we're not saved by works. So I phrase it again. What is it that saves us? It is our response. And what they've done is that they've made a distinction between response and a work. Salvation is not caused to Adam's descendants by how they respond to God's commanded will. Salvation is caused by God's grace working in them the response which he desires out of them in his revealed will. So a person may say, I don't believe in salvation by works, but yet they may be trusting in themselves all along, and saying, I am going to heaven because I have responded to God. I've believed, I've repented, and because I have responded to what God has commanded, that is my hope. And if you're one of those this morning, I want to say the words of the songwriter, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. It was not my response to God that caused me to gain God's favor, whether it was a response of obeying the Ten Commandments or whether it was the response of obeying the gospel. For I must obey the gospel, and there is a duty to be obeyed in the gospel. The gospel messenger is to cry out unto all men, repent and believe the gospel. And there is a duty for men to perform therein. I have performed that duty, but listen, I did not perform it until God first of all renewed me by regenerating grace. And so it was not my response to God which caused me to gain God's favor, it was God's unmerited favor which worked in me that which he created so that I am a workmanship of God. So which causes which? Is it my response to God that causes me to gain God's favor? Or is it God's sovereign favor bestowed upon me which causes me to respond favorably to him? One of those two systems will be what men will be trusting in if they hope to see God in glory. So it's just not a question of good works and bad works if works be understood and defined properly as our response to God. Good works are acts performed by men in obedience to God's revealed will. And under this system, man causes his own salvation from his sins by responding to God's commanded will. And under this system of self-salvation, the response of man is caused by an inherent ability of his own willpower. Man just wills his way back to God. Now let's look at the second system. I said there are only two. One is self-righteousness and self-confidence in one's own ability and their willpower. The second system is God's grace. Our text deals with that this morning. Notice that our text in Ephesians says, are you saved? Through faith, and that not of yourselves. Why is it that God is so concerned in the revelation of himself in the gospel to shut up man's mouth to this thing of self, salvation? Our text tells us man will boast in it. Anything that man can do in his response to God. If he does it of his own willpower and righteousness, you can put it down that man will get the glory for it, and not God. He'll do the boasting. And so our text says it's by grace that we are saved through the instrumentality of faith. And even that not of ourselves. It is a gift of God not of works, not of our response, lest any man should boast. Where does the response come from? For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good responses, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Without a show of hands here this morning, how many of you believe that you have sincerely, to the best of your knowledge and ability, have confessed that you are a sinner, repented, and have trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior? Do you believe that? That is a good response to the commanded will of God, for he commands all men everywhere to what? To repent. That's a commandment. That's just as of binding upon you and me as the Ten Commandments are. For the summation of what God is requiring out of the Ten Commandments is that we are to love the Lord thy God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Has anybody under the sound of my voice responded to God and done that perfectly? I don't get any takers. At least I'm dealing with a bunch of honest people here today. Your conscience immediately condemns you that you cannot say, I have responded to God perfectly, I have loved my God perfectly, I have loved every one of my neighbors perfectly. No, we can't say that, and yet we are obligated to do that. Well, if we have sinned, then, and come short of God's glory. But that same God also comes to us in the Christian gospel of redemption, and he says that we are commanded to repent and to believe the gospel. That is a duty which is incumbent upon all men, just as their duty is to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul, and their neighbor as themselves. I ask you again the question, have you responded to God in repentance and faith? And your conscience ought to let you know that. You say, yes, Brother Gables, I recognize I'm a sinner. I recognize that God has a right to tell me what's right and what's wrong, and I have come short of perfect obedience. I confess that. You say, Brother Gables, I believe that God has sent Jesus Christ into the world to be my sin-bearer, and my only hope of being saved and living in a life after this life in favor with God is on behalf of what Jesus did for me in his death, burial, and resurrection. All right, that's another good response to God's revealed will. Now, are you ready? Did you gain God's favor by your response to the Ten Commandments? Did you gain God's gracious favor by your response to the gospel? No. God already favored you before you ever came to respond to him, if you have now responded to him in repentance and faith. it was by his unmerited favor. Beloved, it was not by my obedience to the Ten Precepts that merited my favor with God, and it was not my repentance that merited my favor with God. It is not my faith which merits my favor with God. It is God's unmerited favor, and he can either bestow that upon a sinner, or he can pass the sinner by. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ this morning? That is an evidence of God bestowing unmerited favor upon you. Paul says, If any man love not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. And so if you have responded to the precepts of the gospel, it is because you can trace that back in your family tree. to the grace of God, his unmerited favor. Now let's go back to Ephesians chapter 2 again. Ephesians chapter 2 again, and let's see how this grace starts. Is it something which God responds to men? That is, after men respond to God's will, then does God respond to men? and give grace? If so, it ceases to be grace and becomes a debt or something that God owes man. Look in Ephesians 2, verse 1. We'll see what the condition of man is prior to his salvation. To you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. The word quickened is an obsolete English word. It means to be made alive. What was the spiritual condition of the sinner prior to the work of God upon him? Was he sick, was he wounded, or was he dead? He's dead. Now, what are some of the characteristics of a dead person? No life, no movement, no response. for the hour. You can go into the morgue or go to the funeral home next door over here, and I don't care how much you beg, how much you invite, how much you plead with the people who are in those caskets, there will be no response to what you ask out of them. And my people, that's how man is when God's revealed, commanded will comes to him. God says, obey me, love me, serve me, repent, believe, and man will not respond until there's a quickening of life. And so if life manifests itself, it's because God intervened in a dead situation, not in a sick situation, but a terminal situation. Now, here's what man was doing prior to his quickening or his regeneration. Verse 2, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." That is, we were held captive by Satan at his will. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. That's what a spiritually dead state is. Self-centered, not interested in God, they're interested in self. But God, you ought to underscore those words, but God who is rich and mercy for his great love wherein he loved us. And notice that the us is those whom he's speaking to who have been made alive. The Ephesian believers, he hath loved us even when we were responding to him. Did I read that wrong, Brother Jim? He loved me because I was responding to him. Now let's know what the text says. Even when we were dead in sin, even when there was no response, God took the initiative and moved toward us in love. and has quickened us together with Christ." Now, in your Bible, there's a parenthesis inserted there. What are those words in that parenthesis? By grace, you're what? Do you see what salvation by grace is? It's not just God telling a person to do something and then him standing back and waiting for them to do it. Grace takes the initiative when there is no response, and it creates the response. That's why in the five and a half years I've been your pastor here, I don't think one time that you have ever heard me make the statement from this pulpit, Sinner, God's done all he can do, the rest is up to you. You'll never hear that from this pulpit. Why? because the sinner is dead in trespasses and sin. And if God doesn't call the Lazarus forth, that sinner will continue to go his own self-centered way and will never respond to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God must come to a dead being and speak life. You say, well, Pastor, are there not invitations in the Gospel? Certainly there are invitations. I give invitations, invite people to come to Christ. But they don't come. They don't come. But every once in a while somebody does come. And you know what's happened? God has performed a miracle. Preaching a revival one time, and a lady came up to me after the service down in Oklahoma. She was upset. I could tell it wasn't registering right with her. She just sort of stood there and frustrated. She said, Mr. Gables, you made it sound like it'd take a miracle for somebody to get saved. I said, you got it. You got it. It takes a miracle. of life and grace to bring Lazarus out of a tomb. I can go there and I can say, Lazarus, come out of that tomb. Leave your old lifelessness and come to me and I'll give you life. And if he could speak, you know what he'd say? You put some life in me and I'll come forth. Put some life in me. and I'll come forth." Men get this thing all turned around. They think that by our responding, that's what brings about life. But no, it is by grace that God imparts life as he opts to do so. And men respond. Cold weather is here, a lot of people now are going to get up today and going to go to the automobile and turn the key on, and it's not going to respond. And you know what the problem is going to be? No life in the battery. It's dead. Now what are those people going to do? Are they going to get outside that car and have a conversation with it and say, Horn, if you'll start blowing, there'll be some life in the battery. Are they going to say, headlights, if you'll shine, you'll put some life in the battery. Windshield wipers, if you'll flop, they'll put some life in the battery. Turn signals, if you will blink, the battery will have life in it, and the car will start. You say you're silly, Pastor, and yet that's what multitudes of so-called informed preachers are preaching right now. Nicodemus, are you a master in Israel, and you don't know these things? That except a man be born again and have life given him, he'll never see or he'll never enter the kingdom." If that automobile could respond back to that person who was asking all those questions, you know what it would say? It would say, you put some life in my battery. and all begin to blow the horn, the lights will begin to shine, the windshield wipers will flop, and the turn signals will blink. There must be life. There must be life, and that life is imparted by Jesus Christ, the one who has been given authority over all flesh, John 17, 2, to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given him. And when he speaks life, In connection with the public preaching of the gospel, there will be a response which is favorable, a response which desires to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and it comes and gives all the glory to him. He gets the honor for it. It is salvation by grace. Now go with me to the book of Ezekiel, the Old Testament. Let's illustrate this. Under the covenant of works, God says, I will if you will. If you will do this, I will give you life. But under a covenant of grace, there's a different expression. Ezekiel chapter 36, did I say? Yes. Now listen carefully. Verses 26 and 27. God says, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and what? Cause you to walk in my statutes. And ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." Now notice, is God speaking to a people here who didn't know what the will of God was? No. He'd given them the commandments, but they were not responding. What does God say he's going to do? He says, I will put a new heart in you, and you will respond the way I want you to. I will cause you to do this. Now if God does it, who gets the glory for it? He gets it. And man can't take any credit. Look back in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 32, for this same expression. Jeremiah, chapter 32, verses 39 and 40. I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good, for I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me." Do you see that, my people? God says, I will, you shall. God says, when I do this, here will be the response. As a result of the new heart, the transplant, the new nature which God creates by grace in the life of his own, then his own respond in repentance and faith and serve him. Look back in chapter 31, verses 18 and 19. doctrinal question among Christians today. Does repentance precede God's turning in regeneration, or does regeneration precede repentance and cause a person to repent? Which is which? Jeremiah 31, verse 18. I have surely heard he from bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised. unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be what? Turned. For thou art the Lord my God. Verse 19, Surely after that I was turned, I what? I repented. Repentance is the response of a person to God. God commands men in his revealed will, Brother Gerald, to repent. Ephraim says, after you turned me, I responded in repentance. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God's turning. Not of your response, For our response is that which was created in us by Christ Jesus, that's the good work which he hath ordained that we should walk in them. This is known as the covenant of grace, the blood of the everlasting covenant wherein God saves the sinner. Now, I'm a sinner this morning, I have been saved. I have been saved not by the action of this sinner, but by being acted upon by a Savior. And hence I must praise my Savior and not praise myself, for any good response that I have at all, I must trace it back and attribute it to God himself as the source of it. Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father which is above. For by grace are ye saved through faith in that knowledge of yourselves. It is the gift of God. If you're saved this morning, it's because God initiated it, and he produced the response which he desired in his revealed and commanded will. So salvation by grace. is an act of a Savior, not the person being saved. Under a covenant of works, God says, if you will, I will. But under the covenant of grace, God says, I will, you shall. You shall. When I work, here's the response. Now, the final passage, let's look at the source of where this grace came from. 2 Timothy chapter 1, your New Testament, 2 Timothy chapter 1. The source of this grace, chapter 1 and verse 9. Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Are you a Christian this morning? Are you in God's favor this morning? If you can say yes, then the text says it was not according to your response. But you were called with a holy calling, based on a purpose in grace which God had for you before he ever created the first star, Brother Doug. Before he ever spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, he had you on his heart. That's humbling to the child of God. That's humbling. You were an object of God's unmerited favor. And in due time, verse 10, is now made manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. This purpose which God had for his own chosen in Christ, before the world began, comes to through his applying his purpose in grace. And they respond because he gives them a new heart, and now they come because they want to come. Those people who are always running around saying, well, this thing of Christianity, I just don't like it, I have to endure it. Oh my soul, my soul, that's the mark of the unrenewed. The renewed longs to run after the things of God in Christ Jesus. For he shall have a what? A willing people. That's why we make clear God does not save people against their will. He renews their will, gives them a new nature where they become new creatures so that they respond with good actions because God had before ordained that they were to respond in those good actions. Let me quote our text again in completion and see if it has on new meaning. For by grace, before the world began, have you been saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not of your works, your response, lest you should boast, for you are his workmanship, created a new creature in Christ unto good responses, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in now." That's why I'm glad to be able to minister to a group of people who want to do God's will, who want to seek after the things of God. It's my responsibility as a gospel preacher to tell you all, to tell myself, what our duty is. It's my duty to love you. It's my duty to love my God. It's my duty to believe in my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But I don't care how much I do of that, that doesn't add one brownie point to gaining my favor with God. But every time I do do it, Brother Dale, It's an evidence of God working in me that which is well-pleasing unto him. And so Christians ought to love one another, amen? They ought to be able to seek the good of each other. And when they are doing so, it's an evidence of God working in them so that they can't even boast and say, Boy, we're really loving each other now, aren't we? Let's pat ourselves on the back. No, you can't do that. The credit must be given. unto God. Now, which system are you trusting in? A system in which God reveals his will and says, Now I will, if you will, and so then you will, and you're trusting in self? Or are you trusting in the system in which God says, I will, you shall, and do you give all the glory to God? That's the evidence of salvation. And that's why, then, I don't have to stand here and sing ninety-eight verses just as I am to try to get some sinner out of the grave. God must raise them from the dead. There was a time in which that my wife would verify on Monday morning was the hangover day for me as a preacher. We didn't have anybody move on that previous Lord's Day where I'd say, go home the next day. Just like my dad, who used to be a baseball player, he'd come home after throwing a homer in the ninth inning, he'd come home for a whole week, he'd lament, I should have thrown a fastball instead of a curveball. Things would turn out different. I followed that same mentality as a preacher. Monday morning, if I'd just sung twenty-one verses, of just as I am instead of twenty, we'd have got Lazarus out of the grave. No, people come to the Lord Jesus Christ when Christ opts to grant life. Pilate said to Jesus, Don't you know I control this thing? Jesus said, No, you don't. There's one who controls what you shall do. I want to leave this scene this morning with presenting to you a Jesus who is on a throne, Brother Scott. And he is the Savior of sinners, and he opts what he will do with sinners, not what sinners will do with him. The contemporary preaching of the gospel has Jesus down in the dust and the sinner on the throne, and the gospel preacher is saying, now then, you can do with Jesus whatever you want to do. You can either accept him or reject him, and if you reject him, then his purpose is frustrated. That's not the issue, my people. The issue is, what will he do with you? If you're dead in sin, will he opt to pass by and leave you in the grave of spiritual death? Or will he opt to come by and speak life? Do you see what the songwriter is saying when he is saying, while on others thou art calling, do not what? Don't pass me by. Do you see then that if you have had Christ come to your house as he did with Zacchaeus, and said, little fellow, come down out of that tree, I'm coming home with you today, and now you love him, do you see it's because he opted to come by your house? And that ought to make salvation so precious. It ought to be the greatest treasure that a person could ever possess, because he didn't have to. And the concept that Jesus owed us salvation is totally incompatible with the precious teachings of the gospel. All he owed us was passing us by like he did the angels and taking us all to judgment. Instead he opted to come by your house if you love him today. Now what does that do then, Brother Doug? It presents, then, the sinner has to get down before the Lord, and not the Lord down before the sinner. Which one honors God, and which one honors man? Let's stand together.