It's the 13th day of April, 2014, the year of our Lord at Zion Baptist Church, our 11 o'clock service. And if you would turn with me to Ephesians, the first chapter, the grace of God, or we may call this the doctrine of the grace of God. All the doctrines of the Scriptures are of the most grave importance. I don't guess I could say that there's any one thing in the Scriptures that is more important than any of the other, because they all are the mind and the will of God. But if I were forced to, it would be the doctrine of grace. Because it is the doctrine of grace that is the only reason that we have salvation. It is the only reason that we are regenerated. It is the only reason we are converted. It is the only reason we are conformed to the image of Christ. It is the only reason that we have adoption as children. It's the only reason that the Lord molds us and makes us, leads us and preserves us and guides us. And we'll see that this morning. The doctrine of the grace of God. We begin reading at verse 3 of chapter 1 of Ephesians. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood. the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ." Our God, we thank You for the reading of Your Word today. Pray Your blessings upon it. Pray, O Lord, that You may help Your servant, Lord, as he attempts to feed Your sheep. Lord, that You may cause us to be illuminated, enlightened to the truth of Thy Word today, that we would not be in any error, that we would stick and adhere strictly to Thy Word. O Lord, that You may make us humble before Thee, O Lord, that we may bow before Thee in all things and bow to Thy will, O Lord, and do it gladly, freely. Lord, that we may be pleasing to Thee in all things, both in word and in deed. We ask it in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. This doctrine of the grace of God And this is what he talks about here. Now, if you have a concordance, go look up the word grace. Pages of the word grace, and how many times it's listed in the scriptures, especially in the New Testament. I think we read this morning, maybe not, in our first service, that the law came by Moses. It came by God through Moses. But grace, but grace came by Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus being the Son of God manifested in the flesh, God with us, God in the flesh, whose name shall be called Immanuel, God with us, Grace came by Him because before Christ was the ceremonial law, was the law of works whereby a man would try to live according to the law of God hoping that in some way he would find favor with God or be pleasing to God in his efforts, but it was impossible. And the whole purpose of the law was to show the justice of God and man's inability to keep it. And that he would flee unto the Messiah for grace. Because without grace, no man will see the Lord. It is only by the grace of God. Now, I do not have to preach to harp on predestination. There's no reason for me to do this. The scripture is very plain. I've read it here today and there's many other places you read the same thing. So it's not predestination that I'm here to preach on today. It says it for itself, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His own will. Or according to the good pleasure of His will, meaning the will of God. God is a sovereign God and He does as He pleases. And so this grace This grace of God that the Bible talks about in so many places, just thousands of places that the word grace is mentioned. This grace of God, grace is the unmerited... I want to be sure that we understand what unmerited means. That it's, you didn't do anything to deserve it. You didn't do anything to earn it. You did not earn by anything that you did the grace of God. You did not in any way deserve the grace of God. Man fell from grace. You remember those words? Man fell from grace. When he sinned in the garden, what did he sin? He disobeyed God's commandment. God said, Adam, you shall not! And Adam did. and be failed from grace, lost in the sins, eliminated from eternal salvation, excommunicated from the gods of Eden, separated from God, alienated from Him, became an enemy of God, And all of Adam's posterity, all of his children were born enemies of God, without God, separated from him in the world, headed for hell. And grace is the unmerited favor of God towards his people. No man deserves the grace of God. Every man deserves the justice and the judgment of God upon him for his sins. God said, Adam thou shalt not, and Adam did anyway. Therefore, the penalty for that transgression was eternal damnation of his soul. And so it fell upon all of mankind the same way. And not only did we inherit from our father Adam this damnation and curse of the law, that was the curse of the law that the scripture talks about that you can read of in Romans many, many times. You can read of the curse of the law that is upon all of mankind. We inherited that. Not only did we inherit the curse of the law from our father Adam, we also ourselves have transgressed the commandment of God willingly. God said, thou shalt not lie. And every one of you have. I'm not judging you, I just know you. I know men's hearts are evil because the Bible says they are. I don't know of anything more wicked than the heart of men. greatly deceptive and wicked and evil are the hearts of men. So therefore we inherited this curse of the law and the damnation of our souls, plus we added to that by our own wickedness and our own defiance of the Creator God that said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And we have not. And he said, Forsaken not the assembly of his heart together to matter so much, but exhort one another, and as you see to that approach, do so therefore more often." And we have not. It says to love your neighbor as yourself, and we have not. And all of the other wonderful commandments of God brought us to the throne of grace where we have to plead and beg for mercy because we could not keep them. We did not keep them. We were not capable of keeping them because we are self-centered and self-willed. We love self to death. And we mean to have our way and to have our will and not be submitted to the will of God. And the wonderful thing about the love of God, that grace of God that he loves us so greatly with, he breaks our will. He breaks it. It's not easily broken, but he breaks our will. when a man realizes that he's lost in his sins and that he is bound for hell, that if he winds up in a car wreck or a heart attack or diabetes or whatever else may be his demise, and he closes his eyes in death, he is going to be lifting his eyes tormented within the flames of hell's fire. And he don't want to go. Or the Lord convicts him that he is a sinner, headed to hell and that bearing upon his mind and upon his soul to the point that he runs to the foot of the cross and he begs for the Lord to have mercy on him. And there's one thing about a beggar, begging for mercy. You know what keeps a person from God? The same thing that got the devil kicked out of heaven. But when a man sees himself a sinner and knows he's going to hell, he'll have no pride no more. When a beggar comes begging for mercy, there is no pride. When you see a grown man in tears on his knees, begging God for mercy, there ain't no pride there. There ain't no pride there. That pride's been broken by the power of God in a man's soul. and he comes begging for mercy. No pride there. I got an e-mail this week that I sent out to y'all. Some of you, I do not have your e-mail, so you don't get it. If you want me to send you the morning devotion, it's always short. You can delete them, you don't have to read them, but you never know when you may want to. Just write your e-mail address down, give it to me, I'll put you on the list. And this is what it says. I thought, I emailed the guy that sent it to me and thanked him for sending this email that causes a man to see himself a little clearer and humbles him before God. The steady hand can never find the deep things of the Lord. The steady hand can never find the deep things of the Lord. Hopefully you'll understand that as we go through this little email I got. The undimmed eyes can never see the comfort in His Word. In other words, your clear eyes, you can see everything. Like most people think that they can. Think they're wiser than everything. That's because you love yourself and you love your will more than God's. And a person that is so self-centered and so self-willed, he thinks he's the wisest thing that ever walked and that he knows better than everybody. The undamned eye can never see the comfort in his word. The joyous heart can never know the healing of his love. The learned mind can never grasp the wisdom from above. That's the way most Calvinists think that they are. I'll just put it that way. That's the way most mature believers think they are. They're clear-eyed. They've got a steady hand. They've got faith. They've got everything they need. That's most mature believers. But oh, the trembling hand grasps clasped his, meaning the Lord, the trembling hand, clasped his and loses all fear. A person that can feel like he's got his hand in the hand of God has got no fear. It doesn't matter what he's going through. Then three Hebrew children When they threw him in the fiery furnace, the Son of God was awaiting for him. They had no fear. The whole government was against them. Nebuchadnezzar said, throw him in the fire. But their hand was in the hand of the Lord Jesus and they had no fear. They had no power over Nebuchadnezzar. But God had power over the flames of that fire. And Nebuchadnezzar said, Lo, I see one walking around in the midst of them that appears to be the Son of God. And so it was. The trembling hand clasped his loses all fear. The weeping eyes can search His Word and read His promises clean. The man that has lost his pride, the weeping eyes, those eyes that are broken hearted, are weeping because of troubles and trials and fears and all of the other things, can search His Word and read His promises The broken heart rests in His love until its faith prevails. Those that are strong-hearted and got all the faith in the world that they need, think everything, they're riding on top of the world, but he can never see and never feel the love of God like when he's broken hearted. When he's broken hearted over his own sin and over his own self-will and over his own pride, when he's broken hearted over the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ that had to suffer in his room instead on the cross the wrath of an almighty God, so that I might have eternal life, that broken heart, before the throne of grace, rest in the love of God. The childlike mind can reach the source where wisdom never fails. You remember Jesus said, Forbid them that, let them come unto me. Talking about them little children. Bring them to me, the little children, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. For of such is the kingdom of God. They're made up of people with childlike minds that are very teachable, very humble before God, no animosity toward him. They're like childlike minds. The salvation of God for his people. Everything that we just pointed out about God that happens to believers at one time or another, especially at regeneration, when God breaks their heart, causes them to see themselves a sinner, and see Jesus Christ as their only Savior. That's the grace of God. Undeserving, but His love poured out upon the hearts of His people that causes them to come begging and weeping for mercy with no pride. All the pride is gone. All I want is eternal salvation and the love of God to flood my soul. That's the grace of God. All of salvation, the whole scheme of salvation, the glory of God's grace, It's His glory. You see, in verse 5, He says, "...having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." That Himself is God the Father. "...according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should behold Him without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children." He adopted us. as his own children, when we were not his children. Because we had fallen from grace. Alienated from God means that you're separated from him. You're not part of his family. You're separated from God. Enemies of his. Turn to chapter 2, same book. And you had to be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. A trespass is a disobedience of God's commandments. That's all. Just like Adam. God said, Adam, you will not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said, I will not. And Adam did it. And you know, it wasn't such a bad thing. That's because you were looking through a finite idiot eyes And you're not looking through the eyes of God. God said, I shall not! And He meant you better not. I don't care how little you think it is, or how minute you may think it is, you broke the commandment of an Almighty God. Not some human, not some president, not some IRS, not some government entity. The Creator of God that put the breath of life in you, and can take it away just as easy. said thou shalt not and Adam did and it cost him life because he said the day that you do Adam you shall surely die and he did he died spiritually and he began to die physically You were dead in trespasses and sins, 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, among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. Even as others. So we were not children of God, we were children of the wrath of God. Because of where we stood in our prosperity of Adam being his children, he was fallen from grace, separated from God, alienated from Him, dead in our trespasses and sins, We were not children of God. Therefore, in verse 5, we were adopted. Now, who was adopted? Not everybody. Now I know it's not a very popular thing to preach that not everybody was saved. And not everybody had their sins forgiven to them when Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead and ascended to the Father. I know that's not a popular thing, but guess what? I don't like the popular preacher either! And they killed Jesus for telling the truth! So I'm going to tell the truth and be unpopular. I'm not seeking no popularity contest, as you well know. If I was, I'd shave, cut my hair, and try to be dignified. I'd rather be honest and truthful and preach the truth of God's Word that His people might benefit from it. Now, we were not children. We were adopted. Who was adopted? having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. According to the good pleasure of His will. You see, it didn't have anything to do with our will. It had everything to do with the good pleasure of His will. You have to remember, He's God. He's sitting in the heavens. and endures as He pleases, not as we please. I know that it's a very modern thing to believe that the will of man is stronger than the will of God. Everybody preaches today, well not everybody, but the great majority of preachers preach today that it's God's will to save everybody. that God wants everybody to come to Jesus and that He's trying His best to get everybody to come to Jesus. I want you to just hear how stupid that sounds to somebody that understands and knows God is sovereign and do as He pleases. God's trying. That's a very stupid statement. A very unscriptural statement. God's trying. But God needs to try to do anything. God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let the water separate from the solid ground, and it did. And God said, let there be cattle, let there be birds, let there be fish, and there was. And God said, let us make man in our image, and he did. And he breathed the breath of life into him and he became a living soul. And you think God's trying to do something? God created all the universe. Do you know they're still looking for life on other planets? They got telescopes and they got rockets, probes sent out through yonder going through space and went by Mars and Saturn and just... Been going since 1970-something, I think, just hooked up, looking for life out there on some of them other planets. They ain't even left our galaxy yet. And there's millions of galaxies, bigger than ours, through space! And guess what? Ask one of them real smart scientists, how far does it go? How far does it go out there, yonder? Where's it end? You see, they don't understand infinity. Their little pea brains don't have a gear in it that makes them understand eternity, everlasting. Never was a beginning, never is an end. They don't understand that there is no end. And the Bible says that everything that is in heaven and in earth. You know what it says in verse 10? That in the dispensation of the foolish at times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. But they don't think earth is an important part. It just happens to be the place where some sails bubbled up out of the ocean, goop come from it and we watered up on land. Life started. It just happened to be here. The conditions just happened to be right and the moon ran into this rock and that ran into that and boom, water, boom, we just happened to have it. That's the worldly mind that does not have a love for God, nor any understanding whatsoever about God. But only His adopted children. Who are His adopted children? This is where grace comes in. Who are His adopted children? Verse 4, "...according as He hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy without blame before Him in love. Who's His adopted children? Those whom He chose before the foundation of the world in Him, in love. He loved His children. And guess what? It didn't have anything to do with you or anybody else. What was it according to? According to his own good pleasure, according to his own purpose. Why is that? Why is that? Why was it according to God's good pleasure and according to his own purpose? The Bible says that no flesh should glory in his presence. It was all thy grace. No flesh will ever be able to say when he stands before the great throne in heaven, I accepted Jesus. That's the reason I'm here. I made a decision for Christ. That's the reason I'm here. Because I did something. I did this or I did that. I kept the two commandments. I loved my neighbor as my dad. I'm not the Lord but I'm a hard man down on this street. That's why I'm here. Not a snitch! And ne'er so will ever say that that's in heaven. They'll all say, take my crown Lord, cause I don't deserve it. We'll all have a crown that go to heaven and every saint will take his crown Nothing to deserve it. It's all by grace. I deserve eternal damnation of my soul. I deserve to be burning with our billions in hell today. But by grace, read Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, for by grace are you saved through faith in that God of yourselves. It is the gift of God. What can't people understand about that? I'll tell you what they can't understand, they're yet dead in their trespasses and sin separated from God, neglected from Him. They've not been born from above. They hadn't had their pride broken. They hadn't had their will broken. They hadn't come before the throne of grace on their knees begging for mercy as a sinner that deserves nothing but hail. having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, meaning God the Father, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the blood." That's verse 6. And that's the point. To the praise of the glory of his grace. to the praise of the glory of his grace. You see, this grace of God is so great. There's a fellow that said that the grace of God is greater than the power of God at the Red Sea. Now, if you'd have been a Jew, and you come up upon the Red Sea, and the chariots of Pharaoh's army was on your heels about to slaughter you, and to hack you into little pieces, and throw you off into that Red Sea, you would have thought there was nothing greater than the power of God. when it separated the Red Sea and the wall stood up as water on this side, and the wall stood up as water on that side, and you begin to walk across on dry ground. Judah thought there was nothing greater than the power of God to do such a thing. And that's what they did. Can you imagine? The Red Sea. Now, when I was in Baptist College, They told us that, well, you got to understand that there was over a million of them Jews, and the Red Sea probably really wasn't very deep. And as they walked across it, they just choked it dry. It was just dry ground as they walked across. There were so many of them, and as they went like cattle across that Red Sea... I was young, 18 years old. So you can count it as a miracle either way. Professors. Remember that word I said earlier? Professors. There's a difference in a person that believes what the scripture says, because God's put it in his heart to you. Then somebody that professes to be a believer, You see, I don't care what the professors teach. I know what the book says, and I believe what the book says. The power of God at the Red Sea, whether it was... No, not whether it was. He separated the water and it stood up as walls on both sides, no telling how far it was up above their heads. Can you imagine? The Pharaoh's army, Egyptian army, hot on their trail, about to slaughter them. And God told Moses, SHUT UP MOSES, DO WHAT I TELL YOU, AND WALK! And across they go. Water is walls on most times. And they walk across the sea. Pharaoh's army follows them. And God turns loose of the water. And drowns them all. That's power of God. It does not compare. to the grace of God, to the praise, to the praise of the glory of His grace. There'll be such shouting in heaven, that verse 10, is it verse 10? Yeah. but in the dispensation of the fullness of times," I like that, "...in the dispensation of the fullness of times, that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both are which in heaven and which are on earth." There's going to be some shouting going on, I'll guarantee you, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Because every believer there will have a perfect picture of how much he deserved hail, and God gave him grace. God gave him grace. And it will be to the praise of his glory, of his grace. So when we sing, when we worship, you think about that. It's to the praise of the glory of his grace. We deserve hell and still do and always will. But He gave us grace and saved us from our sins. And look, it's a graceful thing when a man's trembling hand clasps into God's. It's good to have faith, people! It's good to be strong in the faith! Boy, it's good to be weak sometimes and scared. grab hold of the hand of God. There He is! There's my Lord when I need Him. It's good. It's good to be weak minded sometimes and just read the scriptures and the Lord enlighten you and illuminate something and bless your soul. It's good to be firm in the Scriptures and know them. The Bible says to study, to show thyself a workman that he does not be ashamed. Rightly am I. This is the Word of truth. And it's good to be that way. But sometimes it's just good to be weak minded and just read. And the Lord shows you something. Broken hearted. Rest in His love until faith prevails. To be broken hearted over our sin and over our weakness and over our failures. over our failures as a father, I think about that all the time. My children are not here. My dear daughter is here. Her husband has Chris, by the way. It's been a while since we've seen him, hasn't it? He works at Walmart. They don't let him off on any Sundays, but I thank the Lord he's here today. I'm broken hearted over my children. Because I didn't do what I should have done when they were coming up. Now they're not here, my boys. They profess to be believers, but in works they deny them. You can profess all you want. If your works don't agree with your profession, your profession is useless. It's worth nothing. So I'm broken hearted over that. It's good to go to the Lord. It's good to weep. It's a wonderful thing to weep over your sins and over your miseries and over your troubles, over your failures. It's good to weep before the Lord. I don't mean to feel sorry for yourself. I mean to weep because of the failures and your sins. And the Lord comforts you. I remember when I was a boy, my daddy used to whip the dog out of me. When I was a boy, you got to whip him when you got to whip him. You didn't get a spanking, you didn't get a paddling, you didn't get a slap on the butt, you didn't get a scolding. You was glad when he got off of you. You wasn't mad because he got on you. You was glad when he got off of you. And that's the way a whipping went when I was a boy. You would cry. You'd be glad to cry. Because you knew when you went to squalor, mercy would begin to take over and he'd slack off and quit. And there was nothing better than to put his arms around you and to love you and to say, I love you, son. I just beat the devil out of you, but I love you. And the Lord's the same way for his children. He may put you through some tormenting times. He may cause you to weep and to suffer, but He wraps His arms around you and says, I love you. And my causing you to suffer is only for your benefit and for your good and for my glory. Oh, what a feeling. It's a wonderful thing. We'll stop there for today. Brother Randy, would you ask the Lord's blessings on us and ask the Lord to watch over us this week? Father, I thank you for allowing myself and each and every one of us here this morning, Father, to come and worship with each other, Father, and pray for one another, and pray with one another. I thank you, Father, for the Word that God has given us.