Foundational Truth Part 2

We're going to start in Psalm 113, please, Psalm 113. What I'd like to do tonight is I want us to try to get a good understanding of just where the grace of God found us, okay? So we're going to go a little deep into just what it means to be in Adam. Remember last night, we'll eventually get to that verse, but in Adam versus in Christ, just what does it mean to be a sinner? And then we'll marvel at God's grace and power and what he did for us.

So we'll just quickly read a verse in Psalm 113. I could read the whole psalm, which is lovely to read, but I'm just looking for an expression. You might have heard me on this before make reference to this.

It's okay to repeat it again. So Psalm 113, it starts with praise and it ends with praise. And look at what we have in the middle referring to the Lord Jesus.

Verse five, who is like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on high, who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth. He raises up the poor out of the dust. I think that's the idea of death.

He lifteth the needy out of the dunghill. Defilement, that would be that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. Now let's go over to the New Testament into the gospel of Luke.

The Lord Jesus told a parable, a very, I think it's probably one of the more frightening little pictures that he gives us. Luke chapter 11. I won't take time to read the whole story.

He's been casting out a demon. They accuse him of doing it by Beelzebub, the thief, the prince of the devils. And he says in verse number 20, it is actually the spirit of God.

Another gospel will say spirit of God, but here's the finger of God, kind of an interesting little picture of the spirit of God. But verse 20 of Luke 11, we read these words. But if I, with the finger of God, cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.

Now listen to these chilling words. Verse 21, when a strong man earned keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he, obviously a reference to the Lord Jesus, but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor, wherein he trusteth and divideth his spoils.

Those are amazing words when you stop to think about them. You know, I want you to think with me in Psalm 113. We are given a tremendous picture of what it meant to be in our sins.

We will read there about a dunghill. We all know what that is, a manure pile. And we were actually on that dunghill of sin linked with this world.

And that is where the grace of God found every single one of us. I said last night that God never wanted his people to forget that they were slaves in Egypt, never. And how quickly, it's amazing when we come into the book of Exodus, five months after they left Egypt, they're dancing around a golden calf.

Five months, that's how quickly they forgot. And things started to change in their mind. And as a result, their behavior changed.

So if we keep that balance between where God's grace found us, it doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter whether you are connected with royalty or it doesn't matter how rich or poor you were. It doesn't matter how educated you were or uneducated.

It doesn't matter how religious you were, familiar with the Bible. None of that matters. Because of our link with Adam in the Adamic family, every single one of us, you know what we were? We were nothing more than a maggot on the dunghill of sin.

The manure pile of sin. I might have told you here or somewhere else. I forget where I am now.

I'm all over the place. But anyway, I remember watching the BBC documentary on the planet Earth. If you have it, it's fascinating.

What is nice about it, they only make one or two references to evolution in the millions and millions of years. But anyways, the pictures in it and the graphics is incredible. They go into this cave and they visit the largest manure pile in the world.

Up above this high, high cave are all these bats. And this manure waste is constantly falling down. And they rig up this rope and they take the camera and at first you don't know what it is.

And you just see this thing going up a hill and up a hill and up a hill and up a hill and up a hill. And then all of a sudden the thing pans way back and you see this mountain. Largest manure pile on the face of the Earth.

And then the camera goes right down to the surface. And you know what? The entire thing is teeming with life. The whole surface crawling with maggots and all kinds of creatures that almost make you go.

That was you and I. That was us and our sin. This world. You know what I find about it? When I come over to Luke chapter 11, it's no longer that putrid pit.

Now it's a palace. And isn't it amazing that the devil was able to make a manure pile look like a palace. Do you remember when you were in your sins with no concern about God? Do you remember? Hell didn't bother you? Heaven didn't bother you? All taken up with your little world? I remember it.

I remember. I got saved, as I told you, at the age of 24. I was a DJ in a nightclub.

I remember just the parties were great. I thought I had the world by the tail. I can remember the odd time that I would, my father would work on me and I'd come to a gospel meeting Sunday night.

And I would march in with my cool leather jacket and hair down my back and everything hanging off me. And I used to strut in as if I was the cock of the rock. And I'd look at you poor Christians and go, what a boring bunch.

I got her, boy. I'm the one that's living the life. I remember that.

Do you know what we notice in Luke 11? When a strong man arm keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. They're at peace. That's why it's so significant that the moment a sinner starts to get disturbed, that is God working.

That's what that is. I can remember in my own life, months before I got saved, my father took me back at least six months before I got saved. And he said, Scott, I could start to see a change in your attitude.

I didn't notice it at first. I didn't even know anything was happening to me. And then I remember just a little discontent with all of this stuff starting.

Questions. Is this all there is to life? Now, if you had to stop me right there and said, Scott, do you realize that the spirit of God is speaking to you? I would have thought you were crazy. Out of your mind.

It amazes me. It just amazes me. You know, I was thinking today, I was just going over, I always notice, dear child of God, the chronology in the Bible, how things are ordered.

Do you know what you're introducing to in Genesis 1? God, darkness, then the spirit moving, and then light. Do you know what was happening? The spirit of God was moving, preparing the earth for light. That's what happened to every single one of us.

When God, just in his grace, started to speak to us. Think of the background some of you come from. Some of us are very privileged.

A Christian didn't consider it a blessing at the time. I may be looking at some of you tonight, and you came from an irreligious home. None of that mattered to God.

It didn't help God, or it didn't hinder God. I think of a man many times in our median home, an atheist, in the military. And on guard at night, he would lay out on the grass, and he would look up at the stars, and he would think to himself, who made this? And you want to know where that man got saved? Here he was in his living room, and he decided to turn the TV on when his wife went to church.

And he loved watching the Billy Graham crusade. Did it every Sunday. She didn't know.

Did it every Sunday morning. And finally one morning, he's sitting on that couch, so burdened with his sin, not even understanding what was going on in his life, and Billy Graham on the television set gave an altar call to the audience in front of him. Did you know what this man did? He got up off his couch, and he kneeled right down in front of the television, and accepted Christ right there.

You say, how can that be? That is God. That's the spirit of God working in a sinner's life. So what I want you to appreciate just for a few minutes, I want you to think back.

Think of the background you were brought up in. Think of the environment. Think of the first time when you started to question.

That was the spirit of God preparing you for salvation. Now it wasn't a guarantee that you were going to get it. Your will had to be involved.

We're going to touch on that in just a few minutes. But it's amazing to think that the stronger than he would come into my life. You ever stop and think of the 7 billion, almost 8 billion people in the world.

The confusion, the noise. And I'm saved. Let us never lose sight of that, dear child of God, okay? Let us keep the freshness of that.

I told you last night, every single time I'm in a gospel series, it just comes back so fresh to me. You get reminded over and over and over again of just how absolutely dark a sinner is. I was speaking to my brother last night, and I was in the gospel series, I told him this, with Murray, it was in Ontario two years ago.

It went eight weeks, and we were into week number seven. We had, I don't know, maybe five to six individuals that were quite interested. And a number of them were crying and wanting to be saved.

This is going on for weeks. And I'm trying to prepare a gospel message. I'm going to make this as simple as I can.

I'm going to try to be so plain. You know what I was thinking? I'm going to be able to do something. I'm going to turn the light on for them.

You know what Murray said to me? He said, you know, Scott, you know what the problem with you is? Of course, he had the same problem too. He said, you're waiting for the sinner to come to an end of themselves. He says, God is waiting for you, the preacher too.

Let us get this straight. You and I can do nothing to save a person. We can't.

We have an obligation to preach a clear gospel message, but can we learn our limitations and can we learn when to stick our fingers out? Don't meddle with a sinner that is being dealt with by God. I love it. This is not being irreverent, but I believe the spirit of God is the ultimate birth mother.

And he knows just when and where to allow light in, to birth a sinner. In my many years, like 27 years of being saved, I am thankful to you that I can count on one finger, the amount of people that could save in front of me, one person. And I can remember her looking at verses and all of a sudden there was just a, almost like someone shine a light on her face.

And you know what I did? I just got up right away and left the room. I didn't want to mess anything up. And I remember hours later, hours later we found out, she found out for sure that she was saved.

I have heard so many stories of preachers. Listen, you know something that I was taught never to do? And I would encourage you, do not tell a sinner to put their name in a verse. Let the spirit of God do that.

That's his job. I can guarantee you this, all of us put together wouldn't even come close to the desire that's in the spirit of God to save that person. Wouldn't even come close.

We couldn't even touch the love and the desire that's in the heart of God to save a sinner. So it's such an amazing thing to think of this strong man arm and only he alone could come in and he could break the power of that weaker man, the devil. And that's the picture of this boy that's got a demon and the Lord Jesus with his finger, the spirit of God, he casts out the demon.

Amazing thing to think of. So always keep that before you in your mind. I want you to look at a verse in Acts chapter 20 for a minute.

Go to Acts chapter 20 where it's going to continue emphasizing just the state that you and I were in. I think Paul has a tremendous summary here of just the situation, the dire situation that you and I were in when the grace of God found us. Acts chapter 26.

Notice what he says in verse number 17. He's relaying his conversion and call to be a preacher and he says, Acts 26 verse 17, delivering thee, God is speaking to him, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles onto whom now I send thee. Notice, to open their eyes, notice, and to turn them from darkness to light.

Now notice what's linked with the darkness and from the power of Satan onto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among the saints, among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Do you know that sinner, when you and I were in our sins, we weren't dim. We were in absolute darkness, total darkness.

And as a result of being in total darkness, do you know what we're told here? We were actually under the authority, the power of the devil, held captive. You know what? When I stop and think about this, lining it up with Luke chapter 11, when a strong man armed, keeping his goods, keeping his palace, his goods are in peace. Do you understand tonight? I want you to enjoy it right now.

If the spirit of God never touched us in our sins, we still would be in our sins. We wouldn't care. We wouldn't know.

It wouldn't bother us. Just wouldn't bother us. I have visited people and we would think that a close call with death or a tremendous sickness or someone that only has hours to live, you would think that that would shock them, scare them, awaken them.

I have visited people. Not a concern. Not a concern.

You're gonna die. Who cares? There's nothing they can do for you. Who cares? They don't care.

Why? Because they have missed their opportunity. I totally disagree with people that tell me this. As long as there's breath in the body, there's hope.

I don't believe that. Because the Bible would give me something different. There is a person's life span and within that life span, God alone marks out a period of dealing with them.

I don't know how long. I don't know how short. I don't know how many times.

That's His prerogative. I know enough of this Bible to know that every single sinner on the face of this earth, God will try to speak to them. That's His love.

How He does it, I don't know. But He will do it. That's something that I can be 100% confident of.

I visit someone, their son, their daughter, their mother, their father, their aunt, their uncle, their cousin, whatever it might be, died in their sins, left no hope. Here's what I can tell them. God did love them.

And God tried to reach them. I know that beyond a shadow. I love the story of Zacchaeus up the tree.

I have it marked in my Bible. When he, the Lord, was come to the place, I believe in every sinner's life there's a place. Maybe there's many places where the Lord stopped and tried to take up dealing with a person.

So just keep that in mind. There's that sinner. This is what we were in Adam.

We were not only in darkness, but we had this tremendous power that we couldn't even break. And we didn't even know we were under His power. We didn't even know we were in darkness.

And so it's an amazing thing to think about. Now come a little bit further. Go over to 1 Peter 2 for another reference.

You'll notice the little change here in a minute. 1 Peter 2. And look at verse number nine. 1 Peter 2 and verse number nine.

Here's what we read. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation of peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that marvelous? Like I was doing it today.

I would encourage you to do it. You take time to go through the New Testament where the context of the gospel is and notice how many times it's Christ calling. Christ calling, God calling.

Look at what we have here. Called you, He who hath called you out of darkness. So this is what makes a gospel meeting so solemn.

What appears to the human eye as just a man or you witnessing to your neighbor, passing a track, whatever it might be. Isn't it amazing to think behind it, unnoticed, many, many times unappreciated. Do you know what actually is happening? Christ, God is trying to call a person out of darkness.

Do you remember the first time you became aware of that? I do. I remember, like I said, when God first started to deal with me, I didn't know. I just remember being discontented and trying to find their purpose and the reason for life.

But then as the dealings of the spirit of God increased, I remember coming to this understanding. God is actually speaking to me. I wasn't going to gospel meetings.

I just remember becoming aware of that. Here's something else I remember hitting me. Scott, this is the last time that God's ever going to speak to you.

Where did that come from? It came from the spirit of God. I remember a gospel series we had on the island two years ago. And this was a Christian, this is for you parents, relatives with Christians, children or whatever, relatives that are not saved.

Here's this 21-year-old boy brought up in a Christian home. You might know his father, David Herlihy, gospel preacher. You want to know how rebellious that boy was? He would not carry a Bible into me.

Would not. You would pass him a hymn book at the door and he would push it away from you. You'd almost stand back and go, I was just waiting for the lightning to fall.

That's the way that boy was from his young teenage years. Now you come ahead, he's now 21. And all of a sudden, he just, I'm a sinner going to hell.

Wasn't even in a meeting. There was, I remember they wanted us to have a few meetings which ended up being five and a half weeks. But the boy got saved and another boy did.

But they just said, we just found out that the boy is troubled. Can you come up and preach with another person? I said, okay, sure, why not? Well, actually I said no the first time. And they called me a couple of days later.

We're not always ready to go, you know. But anyways, that's our weakness. And I remember I came up and after the first night preaching, I asked him into the room with the other preacher and I just asked him, I said, Luke, why now? Why are you troubled now? You know what he said? I have no idea.

I said, have you had a nightmare? No. Did you have a dream of going to hell? No. Did you have a car accident? No.

Someone at work gets sick? No. He says, Scott, I honestly don't know. You know what I told him? Just the grace of God touching you.

That's all it is. That's all it is. It's not coincidence.

It's not fate. It's not chance. It's not just some freak thing.

Isn't it amazing? I love to go through the word of God and just find out the times when God literally just pokes his finger into time. He did it in the flood. Of course, you go all different through, all different examples in the word of God.

Let your imagination run wild and just enjoy it. God just breaking in and touching things. That was you and I. I'm coming back to this again.

You and I were in absolute darkness. And then there was a call to light. Don't you ever let someone try to tell you that salvation is a leap of faith, a leap in the darkness.

I remember a young fella trying to tell me what salvation was like. His father was building a house and he was down in the basement. And the young fella was up in the first floor running around playing and it got dark.

And I guess the ladder that was up, he took the ladder away. And the little fella goes to where the basement stairs are going to be and he says, Dad, I want to come down where you are. I'm getting kind of scared up here.

And the father was actually standing in the darkness looking up at whatever light was left. He could see his son. You know what he said to him? Jump, he said, I'll catch you.

And the little guy's just looking at a dark hole, a black hole. You know, of course I'd do the same thing too. I'd be changing my diaper too.

Jump, I'll catch you. I can't see you. And the little guy jumped.

And of course the arms caught him. That is not salvation. Salvation is a call to light out of darkness.

That's what salvation is. There's a consciousness. There's a realization.

You know, you go through the word of God. When God deals with people, they understand it. Things become aware.

See, there's what I'm coming back to. That's why sometimes we think we have to try to oversimplify it. We got to try to almost force it upon them.

God is in the business of clearing up confusion. He is. God is in the business of saving people.

And guess what? He saved many before you and I were born. And he saved us. Didn't he do a good job? So the next time you take this platform to the priest, the next time you're witnessing to somebody, say little.

Get them to the word of God. Encourage them to pray to their God. Tell God what they want.

Get them to read certain... My brother and I were talking last night, as I said, sometimes what happens, if there's someone here even tonight not saved, listening to this, sometimes there's so many verses in a sinner's head, the devil loves to see them run around all of them. Just get them to focus in on one. There's salvation in so many verses, just one.

Just one. I'm amazed. I'm amazed at this.

How many times as preachers, we have given sinners instructions, go home and read Isaiah 53 or go home and read John chapter three or write on a piece of paper these verses and we're thinking that this is what's going to do it. And then they come back the next night and say, I looked at the verse in the previous chapter and I got saved. Well, you weren't supposed to do that.

You were supposed to read what I told you to read. It amazes me just how the spirit of God, He doesn't have one consistent way of saving people through one verse, one chapter. He can use anything He wants.

Amazing to think. So just what I'm trying to encourage us all is this. We can have absolute confidence in our God.

The gospel is His. The work is His. And only the spirit of God can break that bondage of darkness, the power of the devil and call us out of that awful darkness.

I want you to go to John chapter five for a minute. I didn't take time to read a verse, there's many verses, but not only you'll discover in the Bible that not only were we in darkness, but Ephesians will tell you that we were darkness. So you got a double emphasis upon the darkness.

Go to John chapter five just a little bit more on this here call. I love this phrase. If it's not highlighted in your Bible, I would encourage you to highlight it and take time to think upon it.

Look at what we have here. John chapter five and verse number 25. I call this a divine call.

Verily, verily, the Lord Jesus says, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead, listen to it, shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live. Now that's not talking about resurrection. That's verse 28 and 29.

That's talking about salvation. The voice of the Son of God and it's the dead will hear. You know, I was thinking today, I'm going to take a crack at Calvinism.

There are people that try to tell it. This is one verse to destroy it, to use to destroy it. Have you heard of the Tulip Doctrine? T-U-L-I-P.

Calvin, Calvin, well not Calvin himself, people, his followers twisted it all up. Anyways, they go through these five that some people call them pillars of grace or doctrines of grace. It's in my family, my relatives and oh man, we used to argue quite a bit.

We don't anymore because it's not even, you just got to leave it. But anyways, T, you know what they say that is? Total depravity. Now you would sit there and go, that sounds right.

Scott, didn't you just describe to us total depravity? Here's a sinner dead. They're in darkness. They are dark.

They're under the power of the devil. Well, that sounds like total depravity to me. But you know what they mean by total depravity? That a sinner cannot respond to good, to God.

Therefore, God has to do a pre-conversion work to give them the ability to be able to respond to Him. One fellow shaking his head. That is, that is, do you know what that's doing? That's completely removing the will of man.

Completely. Listen to what the verse says. Dead people will hear, not your voice, but the voice of the Son of God.

God is able to speak to dead sinners. Thank God He is. That's why another encouragement, be it in the children's meeting, Sunday school lessons, preaching the gospel, make much of the Word of God.

I cannot emphasize that enough in 2017 with our tremendous advancements in so-called intelligence and our ability to argue and use illustrations and stories. Do you know what really, I tell you, this is a little soapbox for a minute. Do you know what I am troubled by, by what I hear and see? When Sunday school stories end up being secular stories.

That's all they are. And then the last two minutes, they tack on a verse. Can I encourage you, dear child of God? This Bible is full of stories that are full of life, life-giving power.

So when you think you have exhausted all of Sunday school stories in the Bible, give your head a shake and thump it against the wall a couple of times and get back to the Bible again because there's a man called Nicodemus in absolute darkness. And the Lord Jesus, who could have used the perfection of his intelligence and debate and reason, he dips back to an Old Testament story. Serpent on a pole lifted up.

That's where the man got saved. He saw light in the stories. I've been enjoying this for the last couple of years.

You know another reason I love Bible stories, using them in preaching the gospel? You and I are on a linear. We just see one event after another. That's all we see.

And we don't know what's going to happen. We don't see around the corner. But you know what a Bible story gives us? We're above the story and we see the beginning and we see the end.

Do you know what Bible stories are? They are actually an encouragement to sinners to put their faith in God. For instance, why did God come into the garden after they sinned? He was afraid. He thought he was going to die.

You know what the story tells us? God didn't come in to judge them. He came in to save them. To remove their fear.

Why did God stop at the tree of that man Zacchaeus I mentioned? Zacchaeus come down. From his perspective, it was just 100% humiliation. I got to come down in front of all these people? What's the story tell us? Come down and I'll save you.

See the encouragement? So you go through all those Bible stories and you will find they are full, loaded, full of all little light to actually encourage a sinner. If I move toward God, he will receive me. So marvelous to think upon that.

So here we have it. The voice of the Son of God being able to be heard by the dead. Now let me give you another thing in the Bible.

This is why it's so good to keep reading your Bible and you're able to use the Bible. How else could I prove to you that dead sinners can respond to God? Go back to Genesis. What happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned? They became sinners right there.

Fell into darkness. They became dark. They were afraid.

They ran from God. All of a sudden God starts to deal with them. Do you remember? God was waiting for those wonderful words.

I did eat. Then he moved to the woman. I did eat.

Then he judges the serpent. He gives a promise in their hearing. The seed of the woman will bruise, crush the serpent.

What do you read next? Adam renamed his wife, Eve, mother of all living. Wait a second. He's not even saved.

He hasn't seen the promised seed. What's he doing? He's exercising faith in what God said he's not even saved. Then God kills the sacrifice after he has believed what God said.

Then he's saved. You see how simple the Bible is? So that story right there in Genesis shows me that a sinner without God even doing anything to them just simply given his word, they can respond to it. Because linked with free will is faith.

You actually have faith. Every single person is born with faith. The ability to trust.

We always tell people preaching the gospel, the reason if I'm speaking to someone here tonight and you are not saved, you know why you're not saved? Because you are trusting in something else other than the Lord Jesus. And that same energy, effort, believing that's over here, you can easily switch it to Christ. It's your free will.

100% your free will. So keep that in mind. It's marvelous to think all of what we're talking about, this tremendous miracle of salvation, to think, think of the split second you put your faith in God.

An instantaneous miracle took place. I was born again. Isn't that amazing? I find, I don't know about you, but I find this stuff desperately exciting.

I find it very interesting just to think, it's almost like we're peeling back the wallpaper and we're looking at the mechanics, all the inter-workings of salvation. And it's tremendous to think. Now let's go over to 2 Corinthians 4. Here's another beautiful, another picture for us to think about.

2 Corinthians 4, you probably know where I'm going, verse number 6. 2 Corinthians 4, linked with the ministry, reconciliation, and on and on it goes. Look at verse, the gospel is brought in, verse number, well, verse 5, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Obviously, the first part of that verse is taking you back to creation's day. And I like to think of that scene. God created the earth and it's completely enveloped in darkness.

And God is outside of the whole entire universe. Now let me ask you a simple question. What if God had done nothing more from that point on? Still be in darkness.

There was nothing in the earth, on the earth, of the earth, that could even develop a spark. Nothing. In fact, it didn't even know it was in darkness.

And just outside of the whole thing, and what did we discover? I mentioned what was happening. The spirit of God is, it's actually the word fluttering, touching and going. It's actually a word that's linked with like a bird fluttering above its nest.

The idea of something getting ready to be birthed. I love to think of it. The spirit of God works in every sinner preparing the soil to receive the light.

Do you want to know why you discovered you were a sinner? Because God shone that light into your heart and you took it. You would never have come to it by yourself. You remember the moment you first understood you're going to be in hell? Do you know why you got there? God actually put it in and you took it.

You remember the moment the split second before you got saved. But he died for me. Do you know how that got there? God commanded the light to shine in and you grabbed it.

How do you get an apostate? That's bringing them right through. If you want to call it the steps, whatever you want to call it, the turning process of repentance. They're accepting light from God.

I'm a sinner and I'm going to hell. And God gives them the light. Christ died for you.

Nah, turn away. That's why in Hebrews, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. Once God has taken time to take a person, a sinner, through that process and he's actually given them the truth and they refuse to take it, God says, I'll never do it again.

Never do it again. It's impossible to renew them again into repentance. Impossible.

It almost would sound like we're Calvinistic, isn't it? Everything's on God's side here. But no, remember what I'm saying. God is giving light and the sinner's taking it.

And then God gives them more light. He takes more light, more light. They take it, they take it, they take it.

That's why we stress so much. We pray in the prayer meeting. Everything depends upon God, don't we? We preach the Gospel.

Everything depends on the sinner. And if you and I want to try to figure that out any further than that, you're absolutely out of your mind. You're crazy.

It's a miracle. The day that you and I can understand a supernatural miracle, there will be four people in the Godhead, not three. I will become God.

We'll never figure it out. It's just something to be just rejoiced in. I can't help it.

Every night, every time when I'm in a Gospel. It's already Sunday, I'm preaching the Gospel. While I'm preaching, my mind's going back to the darkness, the hopelessness, the... Do you remember getting frustrated with God? Trying to figure it out.

How come I can't see this? It's right in front of me. The moment you could say, did God put anything different in the Bible? No. Did God add anything new to the Bible? No.

You know what you discovered? It was there all along. Yeah. God just gave the light.

And he took it. Never felt anything. Amazing.

Glorious. All right, let's move a little bit further now. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 5. We're just here over just one chapter, one verse, one page.

2 Corinthians 5. As a result of all of this happening, think of where we started. Darkness outside, darkness inside. The power.

Then you got the voice calling. You got light coming in. The sinner responds.

Look at verse number 17. This is the verse we quoted the other night. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

That's the same word for creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.

You know, as we become more intelligent, so to speak, whether telescope and microscope, doesn't just the earth, creation of the earth and the stars cause you to just, wow. As they discover more about the human body, we were talking about just the whole insulin. All that works.

The balance. Absolutely stunning. You want to know something that is far greater than that? I'm looking at them here.

What God has done to you. I, you and I in Christ, we are a new creation. Never existed before.

We're not a remodel. I told you that I'm 51. I know I don't look it.

Thank you. I have to say that every now and again. It makes me feel good.

I've been saved 27 years. Really in God's sight, I'm only 27 years of age. That's all I am.

I have done this. I have put a line on a piece of paper. I was born on February the 25th, 1966.

Then I've drawn a line and I put up another line. April the 4th, 1990. Now I'm saved.

Sinner. Saint. This is the old man.

This is the new man. This is what I was in Adam. This is what I am in Christ.

From age 0 to 24, God doesn't even know about it. He doesn't even recognize it. It's not even... You know like what we do.

We will make a mistake, you know, and we might use whiteout. And you're able to look at it and go, Oh, someone made a mistake here. There must be something underneath the whiteout.

That's not the way God looks at you and I. Or somebody is working with a pencil and they make a mistake and they erase it and they don't really press too hard and go too long and you know the paper's indented and you can obviously see that there was something there that was removed. God doesn't look at me 51 years and go, Oh yeah, I can still see a little bit what Scott was in Adam. And now I can really see what he says in Christ.

He doesn't see anything prior to April the 4th, 1990. It's not even in his brain cells if I can say it that way. Why am I thinking about it so much? Why do we allow that old heart to take us... Oh, that's what we used to do.

Why? That's the slippery old eel inside of us. Don't enjoy what you have. Keep thinking back here.

It's gone, dear child of God. Gone. Gone.

All the habits, all things are passed away. Everything has become new. Tremendous.

I'm actually completely different from the person I was when I was born. Totally different. Not even in the same ballpark.

Totally different world. He's translated us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Isn't that tremendous? See, these are the things that we need to be constantly... I'm going to say it this way.

Brainwashing our brains with truth in this book. So that when the old devil comes knocking and that old heart within me tries to get me down... Oh, you're doing... You failed again because it used to be like that. See what we do all the time? Do you know what God says about that old man, that life in Christ? It's crucified.

It's buried. Absolutely buried. Symbolically, the day I got baptized two months after, I left that old boy underneath the water.

That's just symbolically. Spiritually, April the 4th, he was put out of sight and buried and gone. Absolutely gone.

You know, you're going to discover something here. We're going to get into this tomorrow night when we actually commit sin. Such is God's ability that the first time I acknowledge something as being wrong, gone out of his mind.

I can tell you of a young boy that was caught molesting his sisters. Saved. He actually did it before he got saved and then it found out.

It broke that boy. He literally, physically, slenched him for months. He just was so overcome by guilt.

I remember talking to that young man and I said, have you told God that what you did was wrong? Thousands and thousands of times. Let's say 2,000 times. God is looking at you for the last 1,999 times going, I haven't a clue what that boy's talking about.

I haven't a clue. It's not that God forgot. God just says, I choose not to remember it.

That's totally different than forgetting. Why is it then when we fail, when we commit sin, why is it that we're just like old Martin Luther, beating ourselves? There's the dog chasing his tail. We're not enjoying our Christianity.

We're just going around in circles because we haven't entered into, if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us. That's where a lot of people stop in the verse. That's not where the verse ends.

And to cleanse us. There's the dirt that comes with it. There's the sin, then there's the defilement, the dirt.

The same book that removes the actual deed is the same word that removes the after facts, the dirt. Isn't it marvelous? You know what? I was just enjoying this today. I thought to myself, what a God that is able to take such a defiled maggot on a pile of manure, bring me into his family as his child, given me the ability to be able to actually commune with him.

And when sin does come up, right away it can be gone. Go back to the Old Testament. Certain sins, out of the camp for seven days.

That's not in the New Testament. Certain sins, out of the camp for a day or gotta go wash your whole body or wherever it might be. Gotta go find an animal and offer it.

Isn't it amazing? Now this doesn't mean that we take our sin lightly, but isn't it amazing? Instantaneously, gone. Communion restored. Don't even have to worry about it.

Don't even have to think upon it. That old heart likes to, are you sure you were feeling low enough when you said it? God's not even looking at how you felt. He's looking at what you said.

That's all it is. Quickly, we're just about at the end. Divine creation, I was thinking, I'm not gonna get time to get to everything, but anyways, let's go to Ephesians chapter one.

There's so much to do here. But anyway, you're sticking with me fairly well here, so that's good. I wanna quickly, I wanna get to something that I was really enjoying today.

Ephesians chapter one, you say, well, you know, I was enjoying everything else, but there was something else I was really enjoying. And it's just taking me too long to get there. Ephesians chapter one, we know these verses, but I want you just to enjoy them.

Let them just flood over your soul. Verse 13, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, the gospel of your salvation. That lovely.

In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest, the guarantee, the pledge, the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory. That Greek word earnest is the actual word they use today in Israel for an engagement ring. That's what the spirit of God is to us.

It's a guarantee of something else greater coming. What is it? The redemption of the purchase possession. As I look at you and you look at me, because we are indwelt by the spirit of God, do you know what God is able to say? You are mine.

You know, I say it this way. Every time my girls go shopping, here they go shopping, and we've all been in a store, and there's like maybe 50 shirts, you know, and whatever. Men are really simple shoppers, but I guess you women have to go through each one and try each one on and make, okay, whatever, whatever.

But you know what I was always amazed at? The kids would burst into the door, Dad, look what I bought. Okay, it's one of 50. I don't really get it, but okay, whatever.

I'll enter into your excitement. No, no, Dad, I picked this one out. This is mine.

I purchased it myself. Almost as if it was the only one in the world. Isn't it something to think? God purchased you, and he didn't send the spirit of God along just to sort of, you know, like a rubber set.

There, mine, Scott. It belonged to God. No, he actually took his spirit, and he put him right inside of me.

Permanently. I often like to think of it when I'm flying with Murray at night. I love flying at night.

You see all the city lights and the darkness and more city lights. I think of God up in heaven. I think of him looking down upon this earth, this little city of La Crosse, and each one of us, we just glow like little lights.

Do you know what God is able to say? He knows everything about you, and he actually loves you more than you could ever know. Do you understand that God's love toward us is not growing? Have you ever thought of it that way? It's often presented in the word of God as a perfect tense. Something complete in the past, and the results of it are still present.

We are the opposite. We are growing in love for our wives. We're growing in love for each other.

We're growing in love to God. It's impossible for God to love us any more than he already has and does. You say, well, I'm finding that awful hard to take on board because I've had to miserably stop thinking about your failures.

You're missing the purpose of this whole week of ministry. Get taken up with what God sees. I'm in Christ.

Let's read that lovely verse in, where are my glasses? Here they are, here. Let's read that lovely verse in verse number six. I'm going to read you a Greek word that only appears twice.

You probably know this in the Bible. Ephesians 1, verse six. To the praise of his glory, to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath, here it is, hath made accept it.

We got the pronoun us in there, but hath made us, hath made us accept it in the beloved. All right? Now you go back to Luke. Go back to the gospel of Luke.

Oh yeah, Luke, Luke, Luke chapter one. You probably know what was said to the Virgin Mary. With this, I'll have to end.

I'll get to what I was going to get onto last night. Okay, Luke chapter one, verse number 28. The angel comes to Mary and look what she says, what the angel says.

And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail thou that art, here's the word, highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.

Accepted in the beloved, in Ephesians. In Luke chapter one, highly favored. Do you know what the word means? It actually means encompassed, surrounded by love.

How many times have you thought that's how God sees me? Do you know it's hard for us to comprehend because we're always working backwards. You know, when my wife disappoints me, it doesn't really happen very often, but sometimes she does make me mad. I'll have to admit that I make her mad.

I don't feel like I love her. I'm angry. I'm upset.

I really don't want to be in the room with her, to be honest with you. Do you know what we think when we sin? God doesn't love me like he did five minutes ago. God's love never alters, even though it be the grotesque sins you and I are involved in.

Never alters. That exalted position of being accepted, it doesn't even drop for a second. It doesn't even go dim.

That's what it means, dear child of God, to be not in Adam, but in Christ. That's what it means. So I want you to go home tonight.

I want you to enjoy that. As a result of God's salvation, I, forget about everybody around you, I am highly favored of God. See if that changes the way you look at life.

I am highly favored of God. I am accepted in the well-beloved. Amazing to think what God has done.

So enjoy it, revel in it. That's why God gave these truths to us. He wants us to enter into it and just let it thrill our hearts.

You got a hold of these truths and you know what? The next time you find yourselves in the presence of God, that's why we can enter with boldness. I like to refer to it almost as holy arrogance. The words don't even go together.

I can actually come to my father with 100% he's going to do this for me. I can, expectation. So let us enjoy what the Lord has brought us into.

Let's pray.