Exceptional Things

Thank you, Cal and Aubrey, for those clear testimonies. It's a real thing to be saved. And the same God that saved our two brethren, as we have been hearing, he's still able to save sinners to completion.

All that come unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we're going to read some scriptures together. First of all, from the book of Romans, chapter 7, please.

Romans, chapter 7. Appreciate all who have stayed for the gospel meeting tonight. Romans, chapter 7, and we'll read at verse 12. Wherefore, the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good.

Was then that which is good made death unto me, God forbid, but sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. Notice that last expression, exceeding sinful. Now, turn on over to 2 Corinthians, chapter 9. 2 Corinthians, chapter 9. Paul is talking to these believers at Corinth and others who were praying for them.

Verse 14, and by their prayer for you, which long after you, for the exceeding grace of God in you. So these Corinthians were showing evidence of the exceeding grace of God that was in them. Now, the last verse in the chapter, verse 15, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

That's a reference to our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, over to 1 Peter for one more scripture. 1 Peter, chapter 1. 1 Peter, chapter 1, and read in with me there at the end of verse 7. He's talking about the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now you see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Full of glory. Now, the Lord will bless too as the reading from his word. We're going to talk tonight about some exceptional things.

You know, people are attracted to exceptional things. Extreme sports have become a very popular thing in the world. Death-defying stunts.

The more death-defying it seems to create, the more excitement. So you have people that jump out of planes with little small parachutes, jump off cliffs with these suits on, and they fly along and skim the rocks. There's freestyle rock climbing.

There's motocross stunts where they grab lots of air. All that kind of extreme thing for the adrenaline rush, for the thrill, for the applause of the crowd. And so people are attracted to extreme things.

Well, we're going to talk about some extreme things from the Bible tonight. I want you to think with me from the book of Romans there, chapter 7, about extreme or exceptional guilt. Exceptional guilt.

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. We'll talk about that for a moment. Then from 2nd Corinthians chapter 9 verse 14, I want you to think there of exceptional grace that was displayed in these believers at Corinth.

Exceptional grace. God's grace manifested in their salvation and in the change in their life. Exceptional grace.

And then in that next verse, that little short verse, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. We're thinking there of an exceptional gift. It's the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ into this world to be the savior of poor sinners.

And then finally, I want you to notice the exceeding joy that these believers that Peter's writing to are enjoying. And we have the thought of a joy unspeakable, notice, and full of glory. I've written over that.

Exceptional glory. It's our destiny, those of us who are saved in the meeting tonight. So in these few verses, I believe we have lessons in the gospel for us this evening.

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. You know, we live in a world where sin is thought of very lightly. It's called fun.

It's not taken very serious. It's no big deal. And in fact, even in the religious world, they will tone down the language, make it less strong.

They'll use words like a mistake. He made a mistake. Or it was a bad decision.

Or he makes poor choices. You see, and it tones down the seriousness of sin. Last time I checked, S-I-N still spells sin.

And it's still a word that's prevalent in our Bible. Because sin is a serious offense in the holiness of God's court. And it's a dangerous thing to make it less serious.

Supposing, for example, you had a bottle of strychnine poison in your garden shed to control the rat problem or whatever. And on that little bottle in bold red letters was the label poison. Poison.

And your little children that are running around old enough to read and reach that shelf, they'll come and see that word poison. And then they know enough not to touch it. What kind of a person, what kind of a parent would take that label off and put another label on it, something like essence of peppermint.

And leave it there on the shelf. What could possibly go wrong? What damage could it do? It's a nicer label. The wording is less pointed.

You get the point, don't you? The milder that you make that label, the more dangerous you make your poison. And so it is when it comes to this matter of sin. The holiness of God is absolutely opposed to sin.

And you cannot enter heaven in your sin. You can't. You're a candidate, rather, the Bible teaches for that place called hell.

Now, that's the seriousness of sin. In order to show the ugliness of sin to man, God gave to Israel the Ten Commandments. It's not that man could keep those Ten Commandments in order to get to heaven, but it just turned the spotlight upon the condition of the human heart to prove that man could not meet God's standard.

Nor did God give those Ten Commandments in order that those that make the best stab at keeping them. Why? God will take the cream of the crop and bring them into heaven. The better portion of humanity.

That's not found in the Bible either. God's holiness is absolute and cannot be compromised. So, Paul writes that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

We have gone through the book of Galatians there in Mount Sterling, the Bible reading, and we find in chapter 5 verse 3, some words that were written to every man that wants to keep the law in order to be saved. It says, Paul, he is a debtor to keep the whole law. And there's not a man that ever lived apart from the Lord Jesus that could keep the Ten Commandments.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's broken the law. He's guilty of all. We all know what a log chain is, or just a chain.

Tell me, boys and girls, how many links in a chain have to be broken before the chain is broken? That's right, just one. The weakest link will go first, and that chain is broken. And so it is with God's holy standard.

God's standard is absolute perfection and holiness. And there's not a human being could ever reach that standard of himself. Only one, our Lord Jesus Christ, that perfect one from heaven, he kept the whole law.

Indeed, he made it honorable. So keeping the law will never save a soul. But breaking the law, on the other hand, and sinning against God disqualifies that soul from heaven.

They're disqualified from heaven. But thank God they are qualified for a savior. There's a savior for sinners.

And thank God there's a savior for a sinner like me. And so the Lord Jesus preached as he came to earth. He said, the time is fulfilled.

The kingdom of God is at hand. He said, repent ye and believe the gospel. Repent ye and believe the gospel.

That is, turn away from sin with that attitude of soul of hating your very sin, your own sin that's taking you to that place called hell that we've been hearing about. Acknowledging that God is holy. God is right, and I am not.

God is pure, and God is absolutely righteous, and I am not. And for the soul that bows in acknowledgement of that, that's what repentance is. It's taking sides with God against myself.

That's God's call in the gospel. Repent and believe. Tell me, how many times have you heard the gospel? Come on.

How many times have you ignored it? How many times have you heard about your need of a savior, and yet you have gone out and you have passed it all up? How great is your guilt before God that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful? You know this, that as you persist in your unbelief, you're actually calling God a liar. And having heard the gospel, and up until this moment having refused Christ, calling God a liar, I tell you, that's exceptional guilt. Exceptional guilt.

For the people that heard the Lord Jesus and saw the miracles that he did, he said it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them. They were so highly privileged. You that have heard the gospel, you have exceptional guilt, even far more than those that have never heard the name of Jesus and may be living as drug addicts or whatever kind of sinner they might be.

To hear the gospel and refuse Christ. That's exceptional guilt. On to another one now.

2 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul is writing to these Corinthians. We were thinking a little bit about them today, and he writes about the exceeding grace of God in you. Because not only is God holy, but God is gracious.

Now listen, this is the good news in the gospel. He offers to man what man could never deserve, and what man could never achieve of himself, and he does it freely. And so down from the glory the Savior came, down to the cross and the death of shame.

And he has displayed exceptional grace in Christ by providing a Savior for poor sinners that do not deserve God's salvation. You know, back in those ancient times, those Corinthians, it was a bad, a byword in the ancient world. To be a Corinthian, that was the worst kind of sinner.

To Corinthianize meant to corrupt someone. That's the way these Corinthians were. In fact, before they were saved, Paul says, such were some of you.

He goes on to say, be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves of mankind, homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, he says. But Paul came with a gospel to Corinth, and he preached how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and how that he was buried, and how that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

And he proved it from the word of God. And those Corinthians, they heard that message, and they embraced Christ as their Savior, and they became genuine Christians, saints, in the very sight of God. Now they are washed.

Now they are sanctified. Now they are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. And so he speaks of their lives now as being evidence of the exceeding grace of God in them.

They never deserved it. Not one bit. But God's salvation makes a change in a person.

He changes the life, and he changes the destiny. It's exceptional grace. Exceptional grace.

Tell me, let me ask you a question tonight. Every single person in this room, you answer this question in your own heart, and I will too. Is there evidence of change in your life since you professed faith in Christ? Do we manifest the exceptional grace of God? That's reality.

The Savior hasn't changed. He's still the Savior of poor sinners. And so we go on to the next verse here, verse 15.

He says, now thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. And that's a direct reference to our Lord Jesus Christ. Earlier on, he has been talking about gifts.

In chapter 8, he talks about the Lord Jesus. And he says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. So think of it.

This whole world was lost to God, and man was wallowing in his sin. And into this same world there comes the Lord Jesus Christ, one who came from the very heights of glory, though he was rich, into a world of sin and shame and sham. Yet for your sakes, he became poor, that ye through his poverty, who could tell me the poverty of the Savior as he hung upon that cross.

He owned very little in this world, and they took that from him too. They stripped him. They nailed him to that cross.

He's a king, we'll give him a crown, a crown of thorns, with his back lacerated with the Roman scourge. And then the Lord made to meet upon him. Listen to it tonight, sinner.

The iniquity of us all. And on him, almighty vengeance fell, enough to sink a world to hell. But he bore it for a ruined race, and thus became my hiding place.

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, the exceptional gift that God gave when he gave his son, who voluntarily gave up his life. He sacrificed himself. He gave himself.

He offered himself seven times over in the New Testament, expressions like that. The Lord Jesus voluntarily, holding nothing back from God, in order that you might be saved, friend, tonight in the meeting, in order that he might welcome you. The moment that you receive him as your Savior, he welcomes you.

He cleanses you. He fits you for his heaven. He makes you an heir of his throne.

The exceptional gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I wonder tonight if you would receive God. Exceptional gift is your very own, a Savior for a poor sinner, just like you.

There's no reluctance on his part to save. He has proved and told out the full extent of his love when he died for poor sinners upon that cross. In fact, he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

And tonight, he's the same yesterday and today and forever. He's still the Savior of sinners, and you receive God's gift tonight, the Savior, and you'll have everlasting life. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And now Peter, he's writing to believers, and he's talking about those who have trusted Christ as their Savior. And he goes on to say, whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now you see him not, we've never set eyes on him, yet believing, trusting in him, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. So for the believer who is enjoying what God has brought him into, there's a welling up in his heart of joy, of gratitude that even words can't fully describe.

It's joy unspeakable, and it's anticipating the fullness of glory. Because God not only saves for time, and that's a wonderful thing to be saved in time, but God saves for all eternity, and that's exceptional, exceptional glory. And it could be your future tonight if you receive Christ, if you trust in him as your Savior, and acknowledge that the one who took your place on Calvary was bearing the judgment you deserved, but the Savior cried, it is finished.

He bowed his head, he gave up his life, entering into death. And me as a poor sinner, dead in trespasses and in sins, I need him as my Savior to take me from death onto life. And God raised him from the dead, and now he sits at God's right hand, and he has, he's in the power of an indissoluble life, and he gives eternal life to whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life.

And so every saved person tonight in the meeting, we're looking forward to the glory of heaven. It's exceptional glory, full of glory. So why would you be without him? You've heard of the grace of God in the lives of our brethren, the grace of God in sending his son, the one who died for poor sinner just like you.

You receive him tonight as your own, and you too will have that destiny, heaven, glory, with Christ, which will be far better than anything we know down here. May God help you to trust him tonight as your very own for his name.