Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I'd like to talk on Grace this afternoon, but in order to do that we have to contrast it, of course, with the law.
And let's start by looking at John chapter 1.
John's Gospel, chapter 1.
And verse 17.
For the law was given by Moses.
But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and that one verse we have.
Two different dispensations spoken out.
When God was.
Dealing with Man and the Principle of law, 1500 years.
First part of the verse.
Moses was the lawgiver. The law was given by Moses.
But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. I might define grace as.
Unmerited, undeserved favor.
It's the heart of God blessing us.
When we deserve no blessing whatsoever.
And why does he do it?
Because he wants to.
Because it is the desire of his heart to bless man.
But before he brought out the principle of grace.
And we're living in that day, the dispensation of the grace of God.
He gave man the law.
And Israel said.
All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and obey.
It was good.
Holy and justice and good.
Nothing wrong with the law.
The perfect rule for man to live by.
The two tables of stone.
10 commandments.
Let's just go over them, we'll see how good they were.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God would not tolerate any rivals.
He deserves full allegiance from his creatures.
And they said that's good.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of anything that is in heaven or on earth. Thou shalt not bow down to it.
That worship it, that's the second commandment and they said that's good.
The third commandment is, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for he will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
And they said that's good.
The 4th commandment was ceremonial. Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day.
To keep it holy, they were not to work on the Sabbath day. God made the world in six days and then He rested on the 7th day.
And so he gave man this day of rest.
The Lord's Day, the first day of the week that Christians meet on, is not.
A Christianized Sabbath day Sabbath day is the end of the week, the end of God's work.
And it speaks of that future day when he will rest from all his works.
All the blessings that he's brought us into and we'll rest in his love.
The Lord's Day is the first day of the week.
There was a man they found.
Gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. He wasn't doing anything morally wrong. He wasn't committing adultery or murder or stealing.
Or lying or coveting. He was simply gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.
And they brought him to Moses to see what would.
What was to be done with him and.
Jehovah said he shall be stoned.
Because he had broken the law. See, the trouble with the law is it is inflexible. It shows no mercy.
It holds out the promise of blessing, the promise of life to the obedient.
But to the disobedient it is a ministry of condemnation and death.
And it says cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law.
To do them.
So it's not the law that's bad.
For man.
It's the principle that man can gain acceptance before God on the ground of the works of the law.
Well, Israel tried it for 1500 years and we have two.
Pronouncements One from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in John 7, if you'll turn there.
00:05:02
John, Chapter 7.
And he says.
In verse 19, did not Moses give you the law?
And yet none of you keepeth the law.
What an indictment that was 1500 years under law being tested and he says none of you keeps it.
They had had it, they had said all that the Lord has spoken we will do and obey.
And before Moses came down from the mount with the 2 tables of stone in his hands, they had broken the first 3 commandments.
They had made another God.
And the first commandment says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. They had made an image of a golden calf, and they were worshipping it.
And they had said, tomorrow is a feast to Jehovah. They had used the Lord's name.
In vain, and attached it to that idolatrous feast that they had.
Concocted of their own minds.
They had broken the law, and so Moses breaks the 10 commandments, the 2 tables of stone at the foot of the mount.
And if he had brought it in there, it would have been certain death and judgment for them.
Did not Moses give you the law? And none of you keepeth the law?
More he says why go ye about to kill me? Look at Acts Chapter 7.
Where we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
As to whether man.
Can keep it.
In Acts Chapter 7, Stephen.
Verse 55 but he Stephen being full of the Holy Ghost.
And what was it that he said he was giving this whole?
A message to the Jews, the Jewish leaders. And he says in verse 52, which of the prophets have not your father's persecuted?
And they have slain them, which showed before of the coming of the justice one.
Of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers.
Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
So we have the testimony of two infallible witnesses, that of Christ himself. Did not Moses give you the law? None of you keepeth the law and the testimony of the Holy Ghost speaking through Stephen. They had received the law, and they had not.
Kept it.
The problem does not lie with the law. The problem lies with man.
Turn to Romans 7 where we have this discussed.
And we just look at a few verses.
Before I read this, I'll read a verse from the 6th chapter.
In Romans 6 and verse 14 for sin.
Shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law.
But under Grace, it amazes me that with statements that clear.
In the word of God, that a large percentage of Christendom is under law.
When the Word of God is so clear in stating it, we're not under law.
We are under grace.
The first part of Romans 7, there's two husbands. The woman is married to the first husband, then he dies, and then she's free to be married to the second husband.
The first husband's a picture of the law, and the second husband a picture of Christ risen from the dead.
Provided by the grace of God.
And what has delivered us from the law, it says in verse 4 of Romans 7. Wherefore, my brethren?
Ye also are become dead to the law.
By the body of Christ, Christ given in death on the cross, that ye should be married to another.
Even to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit.
Unto God.
Proved unto God.
Delivered from the law.
Now in verse 9 he says.
I was alive without the law once.
But when the commandment came.
And I died.
A little illustration to illustrate the meaning of this verse children were playing.
In A room.
At the house.
And there was a table in the center of the room and there was a bowl on the table with a cover on it.
00:10:04
And the mother said I'm going next door for 10 minutes. I'll be back shortly.
You can continue playing, but don't lift the cover on that bowl.
Now they hadn't even noticed it before she had said so.
It so happened there was a ceiling fan overhead and the bulb was filled with feathers.
And when she came back 10 minutes later, there were feathers all over the room.
Because they had lifted the bowl, it says. I was alive without the law once.
These children were playing and they weren't disturbed by anything. But when the commandment came, when she said don't lift that lid.
Sin revived. The desire to do what I was told not to do came.
And I died.
The law slaves the disobedient.
And the commandment which was ordained to life, it promised life to the obedient.
I found as to me to be death.
It deceived me.
And it's.
Sin, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and slew me. That's the sin nature that we have within.
I remember leaving California once and I noticed the road signs and then we went into Arizona.
And I remember which state had which, but one of the states had. Please don't litter.
And the other state had.
Littering strictly prohibited. Severe fine.
And it was striking to me that the mild sign that said please don't litter in that state, there was very little littering. But when I crossed into the state.
Where it was positively forbidden. That was littering all over the place.
That's the state of man, the sin that's within him. The commandment comes and says don't.
And then right away he says yes, I will.
You're not going to tell me what to do?
That's the attitude of man and we see it everywhere today.
The principle of law is the strength of sin. It doesn't prohibit sin. It doesn't stop sin.
It provokes it.
Because man is who he is. Nothing wrong with the law, he says in verse.
12 of Romans 7 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy.
And justice and good. We are having a reading.
In John.
And the Lord said, If you love me, keep my commandments. And the question immediately came and says, well, what's different about that? His commandments and the law.
And the answer was.
But there's nothing wrong with either.
They're both. A commandment from the Lord is the expression of his mind.
When the law is the expression of God's mind for man, there's nothing wrong with the commandment.
But the difference is, Christ's commandments come to us after he has saved us by grace.
Given us a new life.
Forgiven all our sins, made us His children, children of God. Our acceptance has been established by grace.
We're not keeping his commandments to gain acceptance, to gain his favor. We already are there.
Were standing in grace.
But the principle of law is that I have to work, I have to do, I have to keep.
That law in order to gain acceptance with God.
So it's the principle of the law.
Which is so deadly.
If you think you can do anything to gain acceptance or to.
Maintain your acceptance. There are some that say, yes, I realize I'm justified by faith in Christ, but that now that I'm justified, I have to to hold on. I have to do my part. I have to be obedient. I have to keep the law in order to remain saved.
Now if that's true.
If that was true of all of us here this afternoon, that none of us would be saved.
Thank God we're saved by grace.
We're kept by grace.
We stand in grace. We're justified by grace.
We are made righteous by grace.
It's a gift.
That's what grace means, the gift of God. Remember what the Lord said to that Samaritan woman in John four? He said.
She had asked him, He had asked her. Excuse me for a drink of water. How is it that thou being a Jew, ask us drink of Maine, which I'm a woman of Samaria. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Thou wouldst have asked of him, he said. Totally ignores her comment.
Thou which devastate of him, he would have given thee living water.
00:15:03
If you only knew who it was that saith to thee, give me to drink, and you would have asked of him, he would have given the living water.
Or if you only knew God as a giver.
That's what he said to her, If thou knewest the gift of God.
And who it is that saith to thee? Give me to drink.
Which devasted him. He only knew God in grace.
It's utterly amazing that God has come out in his matchless, wondrous grace.
And yet man gravitates to the principle of law. It's like the law of gravity, always pulling us down.
It said to one brother just recently. Why is it we are so legal?
He said it's natural to us.
It's natural to us. It takes spiritual power to rise from that.
And to be in the atmosphere and in the enjoyment.
Of grace.
In the conscious sense, in my soul, that I am rotten through and through.
And there's nothing I can do or have ever done or ever will do that will gain acceptance with God. But he loves me anyway.
Because he's the God of all grace.
There are those that feel, well, Christ did his part on the cross.
And now we have to do our part.
It doesn't matter whether he did 50% and you have to do 50% or he did 70% and you have to do 30 or he did 90.
And you have to do 10 or he did 99% of the work.
And you have to do 1%. If that's the case with you, you're lost.
It's grace all the way through.
Unmerited favor. How could he love me?
How could he love us?
The allotted Saints of God.
Because God is love.
And his love found a way that would not compromise His Holiness.
His righteousness.
It was the cross.
And the cross was that which enabled God to act in grace and be righteous in doing so.
Well, this passage.
Makes it very clear.
It says in verse 5, again in Romans 7 when we were in the flesh.
We're not in the flesh any longer.
That was what we were in the old man.
In the flesh.
The old man represents all that we were before we were converted, before we were saved.
Before we became a child of God.
That's what I was. That's my old man.
And Romans 6 verse 10 says, knowing this, that our old man.
Has been crucified with him.
That the body of sin should be annulled.
And we should no longer serve sin.
So I am entitled by the word of God to say all that I was.
In the flesh and in Adam, the old man has been.
Crucified with Christ, it no longer has any existence before God.
Now that's not the same as the flesh.
The flesh has still existence, John says. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Yes.
We still have a sin nature within.
But that's not the old man.
The old man is all that we were in Adam and in the flesh.
And that man has been judicially judged at the cross. That's so wonderful to get a hold of.
That not only as we see Christ on the cross dying, crucified for us, not only do we see our sins being born.
But we see the crucifixion of the old man, for he stood there not only as our sin bearer.
But representing all that we were.
In our sinful condition.
So not only can we say he's put my sins away, but he's put me away.
All that I was the old man judge.
And he's given me.
A new life.
I am a new creature.
00:20:00
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things have become new.
And that's the Newman.
Christ.
In you.
The hope of glory.
Well.
Thank God.
That we've been brought into that.
And the enemy of your soul will constantly try to get you.
To put yourself in one way or another under law may not be the law of Moses.
It might be some law of a group of brethren.
It might be that you have to live up to certain prescribed rules and hold certain.
Specialized doctrines and harder to be accepted by this group.
The very legal system of things.
Be very careful.
That you don't get ensnared.
In that line of things.
Well, let's.
Go on and look at the Epistle to the Galatians.
Where we have this subject of law.
And grace.
Entered into.
Very fully.
Galatians, chapter 1.
You see the enemy in that 1St century.
Was trying to put the Gentiles under law.
Acts 15 Jews came from Jerusalem down to Antioch, and they said, Except ye be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.
And they could have settled it at Antioch. They had two apostles there, Paul and Barnabas.
But they didn't in order to maintain unity.
Among the Christians. So there wasn't a Gentile church.
Are different from a Jewish church. They went down to Jerusalem.
And the decision was made at Jerusalem that the Gentiles were not to be put under law.
It did not enter the Jewish mind of the believer, the believers that believed.
Of the Jews that believed.
Did not understand they weren't under law either. That came later.
That's why the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, to tell them, go forth unto him without the camp bearing his reproach, the camp of Judaism.
That they had been identified with.
As Jews now, they were Christians, and the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is written to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism.
The better things.
Of Christianity over Judaism. We'll look at that in a short.
While Galatians chapter 1.
He says in verse 3, Grace be to you and peace everyone of Paul's epistles.
Begins this way.
Address to the Gentiles.
Grace be to you. We need grace every day. We need to have the sense in our souls that we are the the objects of His Grace.
Grace be to you in peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who gave himself for our sins.
That He might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. I remember when I was.
In Jamaica.
With another group of brethren at that time they had.
23 assemblies down there.
And I walked into a Sunday school and I heard a sister teaching.
The children if you don't obey him.
He won't like you.
And I was horrified at hearing that.
That his attitude, his smile towards you will change to a frown.
If you're.
Not obedient.
And you will lose your acceptance with him.
That's not to understand grace, is it?
He will deal with us if we're disobedient children.
Those of us who are fathers know what it is to send a child from the table to his bedroom because he's been naughty.
But we don't kick them out of the house. We don't disown them.
We deal with them as children.
In discipline and so our Father deals with us as children.
But we don't ever lose.
Our salvation. We don't ever lose our standing in grace.
Because that doesn't depend on us. Thank God. It doesn't even depend on 1%.
00:25:00
For on us.
Doesn't depend at all.
All the gifts that we have and all the blessings that we have in Christianity are the gift of God's grace.
We don't deserve one of them. We don't deserve any of it.
It's all grace.
Or to get a sense of that in our souls, Paul says to Timothy, be strong.
In the grace that is in Christ Jesus have such a sense in your soul.
That you're standing before God doesn't depend on you at all.
It's all grace. And because of that.
You should seek to serve him.
Far more than you ever did when you were under law.
I remember the story of a slave girl, a beautiful girl, black slave girl. She was being sold.
And a wealthy man bought her.
And she came up to him.
And she spit in his face.
And he said, my dear.
I bought you.
To set you free.
And she fell at his feet.
And she said, Master, I will serve you forever.
Not because she was in the position of a slave.
But because of the love that he had shown to her.
That's what Grace does.
It produces a willingness of response in my soul to please him.
Because of all that, he's done.
For such a Wretch like me.
Odor as we learn more of His grace.
We learn more of our own wretchedness.
And nothingness.
Verse 4 Again, who gave himself for our sins?
That He might deliver us from this present evil world.
According to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And then he says, I marvel.
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ.
Unto another gospel.
The Gospel of works.
Which is not another.
It's not a gospel.
Works is not good news.
But there will be some that trouble you. These Judaizers, these legalists, they were putting them under law.
And would pervert the gospel of Christ, he says. And he speaks in such strong language here, he says, But though we are an Angel from heaven.
Should preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received.
Let him be accursed. He had preached it. They had received it.
They stood in grace.
He says I'm.
Marvel.
That you removed from that.
That you've listened to this.
This other voice, these other voices, and.
Imbibed such error.
Look at the second chapter.
He says.
In verse 16, Paul is rebuking Peter.
For compromising the truth of the gospel of the grace of God.
And he says in verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law.
But by the faith of Jesus Christ works of the law.
Is contrasted here with the faith of Jesus Christ, the faith which has Christ as its object.
Whenever you read that expression, the faith of Jesus Christ doesn't mean Jesus Christ's faith.
It means the faith which rests upon him is an object.
That we might be justified by the faith of Christ.
It's a little different thought than faith in Christ, but it's very similar.
And not by the works of the law.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, whether it's Jew or Gentile.
Remember, when Paul went to Jerusalem, he was told by the Spirit of God not to go, and by his brethren not to go. But he went because of his intense love for his brethren after the flesh.
And James says.
It's reported of you, brother, that you're teaching the Gentiles.
To forsake Moses.
00:30:05
And the Jews too.
Gentiles weren't under the law, but the Jews were, and that's exactly what he was preaching.
Let's read that verse again.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. He's talking to Jews here when he says even we.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ.
We ourselves also are found sinners. Here we seek to be justified by Christ, and then we put ourselves under law.
That's like the woman in John in Romans 7 being married to two husbands at the same time.
That spiritual adultery. You can't be married to Christ and the law at the same time.
Death has to come in to free you from the first husband, which is the law, in order that you might be to another.
Even to Christ, who is raised from the dead.
And he says, if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
For I, through the law, am dead. To the law, the dead, the law kills me.
That I might live unto God.
I am crucified with Christ. Now he looks at the cross.
And he says the wonderful deliverance that he saw there. I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I.
But Christ liveth in me.
The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Who loved me and gave himself for me. Notice that last verse of this chapter. I do not frustrate the grace of God.
For if righteousness come by the law, if it comes by that principle, then Christ is dead.
In vain.
Even if Christ could have kept the law for me.
And that be the righteousness that's imputed to me. Then he didn't have to die.
Because his keeping of the law during his life would be my righteousness, and that is not correct.
Christ would have died in vain.
The righteousness that we stand in before God is Christ risen from the dead.
He is my life. He is my righteousness.
Then he goes on Chapter 3. Old foolish Galatians.
Who hath bewitched you?
What kind of a spell has been cast over you that you could have shifted from grace to law?
That you have listened to this voice that has seduced you into error.
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you? He had been portrayed before them on the cross, dying for them, bearing their sins, and.
The old man crucified with him.
On that cross done away with.
Not only all the evils that I have done, but all that I am.
In the old man judged and dealt with by God.
And now going to place the Newman under law.
This is only what I learned of you received ye the Spirit by the works of the law.
Or by the hearing of faith.
Just ask the question, it's clear what the answer is. It was by the hearing of faith they hadn't done a thing.
In order to get the Holy Spirit, it's all grace.
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh?
And that's what it would be if they put themselves under law.
It would be something they had to do in order to maintain their salvation. That's the principle of law.
Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain?
He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth He it by the works of the law.
Or by the hearing of faith.
All of us by the hearing of faith.
Even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, he didn't do one thing. He simply believed God.
God had taken him out and showed him the stars of heaven, and he said as.
The stars of heaven.
So shall thy seed be. Abraham believed God.
And it was counted to him for righteousness.
00:35:01
Then he says, No, ye not that.
Know you therefore, that they which are of faith the same of the children of Abraham?
And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith.
Preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying In thee.
Shall all nations be blessed?
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Now notice verse 10. Very important verse.
For as many as are of the works of the law on that principle before God are under the curse.
For it is written cursed is everyone that continue with not in all things.
Which are written in the book of the law. To do them, put yourself under the under law. You're under the curse of breaking it because you haven't continued in all things.
It's like a chain with 10 links.
And you have to be lifted from this pit.
And you grab hold of the bottom of the chain and someone starts to drag you up to haul you up.
And one of the links breaks.
All you have to do is break one of the commandments.
And you're.
Drop back down into the pin.
Cursed is everyone that continue with not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Verse 11 Here's the conclusion, but that no man is justified by the law.
In the sight of God it is evident for the justice.
Shall live by faith on that principle, the principle of faith.
And the law is not of faith.
But the man that doeth them?
Shall live in them. That's the principle of the law doing.
And then there's blessing if you're obedient, if you're not obedient.
According to Two Corinthians chapter 3, it's called a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation.
But what we have in Christ is a ministry of the Spirit.
The ministry of righteousness.
Spirit of God ministering Christ to the soul, filling the soul with power.
Energy.
So that we live Christ and Christ becomes our righteousness, not something we've worked out by the principle of law works.
But by grace.
By Grace.
There are so many passages that speak of this.
Let's go to chapter 5. We'll Passover 4. I could speak on 4 but.
In chapter 5 he says in verse 3.
In verse, we'll start with verse one. Stand fast, therefore.
In the Liberty.
Wherewith Christ hath made us free.
And be not entangled again with the yoke of *******. The yoke of ******* is the law.
The liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
You set us free.
From having to do something, anything, in order to get saved or to maintain our salvation.
And he set us free, set us before him, accepted, taken into favor.
In the beloved.
It's all grace. Stand fast, therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.
You're not entangled again with the yoke of *******. Behold, I Paul, say unto you, that if he be circumcised.
Christ shall profit you nothing.
It's either Christ is everything.
Or if you have to do anything.
Anything.
Circumcision.
Water baptism.
Whatever it might be that someone adds to the gospel.
A baptism has a place, but it has no place when it comes to our eternal salvation.
It brings me into an outward place on earth where the Christians are.
Does not admit me to heaven.
What does the blood of Christ?
The blood of Christ.
If ye be circumcised, you put yourself under law, he says. Christ shall profit you nothing.
Before I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor, to do the whole law, put himself on that ground, he has to keep it all.
And if anyone of those 10 links in that chain breaks.
Is lost.
00:40:01
Christ has become of no effect unto you.
Whosoever of you are justified by the law.
Ye are fallen from grace.
It doesn't mean that they'd committed some great evil sin murdering someone or something like that.
They'd fallen from grace.
If he says Christ has become of no effect to you.
Whosoever of you are justified by the law.
You're fallen from grace.
Whether that's your initial justification or whether that's what is to maintain you.
You've fallen from grace.
To remember.
That grace is God's favor shining upon us.
Says in Romans 51. I didn't read it.
But I'll quote him.
Therefore, being justified by faith.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom also we have access.
By faith into this grace wherein we stand.
Rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We're standing in grace in Romans 3, he says we are justified by his grace.
He has called us by His grace unto His eternal glory.
It is the God of all grace that has so done this.
And he says here you've fallen from grace.
If you add just one simple thing like circumcision, something that you can take credit in.
Something that will.
Enhance your standing before God will make you more acceptable to God.
That's the principle of law.
Those that were insisting that these Gentiles be circumcised, they wanted to glory in their flesh.
That's what he says later on in this epistle.
Glory in their flesh.
I remember speaking to a Roman Catholic instructor at Northwestern after I'd gotten saved, and I set before him some of these principles of grace.
And he looked at me and he said I don't want it. He said I want to do my part.
And that's what's built into man. It's ingrained in man.
There's nothing so humbling as grace. It makes absolutely nothing of us.
Nothing of you, nothing of me. It makes everything of God.
What's the difference between mercy and grace? The best distinction I've ever heard.
Is this?
Mercy is great in the greatness of the need.
You'll find in scripture wherever man's need is set before.
Man's condition, his state, his deplorable, wretched condition is set before us.
Then it says like in Ephesians 2, when it says dead being dead in trespasses and sins, in which he once walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air.
And so on. And he said, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love, wherewith he loved us.
And then he goes on to say, by grace you are saved. And then he unfolds the blessings.
That God has brought us into.
Grace is great in the greatness of the giver.
Grace magnifies the heart of God.
Trembling, I had hoped for mercy some lone place within the door.
Just to be admitted. Just to be inside.
Just inside the door. That would have been great mercy.
But the crown? The throne?
The mansion already long before. That's Grace.
It not only brings us into the house, he gives us the whole house.
Because that's his grace. That's the heart of a God that is so wondrous, it says in Ephesians 1.
As it outlines all the wonderful blessings that we've been brought into.
And then it says to the glory.
Of his grace.
There is no higher glory.
Of our blessed God than the glory of his grace.
His Majesty wonderful, His Holiness, majestic and wonderful, but his grace.
Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich.
Yet for your sakes, he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich.
Paul preached 2 aspects of the gospel, and in Acts 20 he speaks of the gospel of the grace of God.
00:45:05
God was manifest in the flesh. God became a man.
What grace? What unspeakable grace?
That he came down to where we were in order that he might reach us.
And bring us into blessing. And then he also preached the gospel of the glory, that one who became a man carried that manhood, that humanity into the very presence of God. And that's where he is tonight.
He's in the glory.
And that's where He's going to take us. He came down a stoop of grace so immense and so wondrous that we can't speak enough of it in order to lay His hand upon us.
You notice that one Timothy 316 the last the first part of the verse says God was manifest in the flesh, and the last part says he was received up in glory.
Not only he was received up in glory, but He's going to bring us there too. I believe that's why that's not in chronological order in the verse. It comes last because it embraces us.
Those that he's picked up on the way.
He preached unto the Gentiles. He was the message, was believed on in the world, and then received up into glory. Those of us who have believed that message are now one with Him, and we're going to be in that glory too. What grace?
What matchless grace.
Oh, who has bewitched you? Paul said to these Galatians.
That you should not obey the truth.
Who would be so foolish as to put himself on the principle of I have to do something?
In order to get or maintain these blessings.
When it's all grace, When 1500 years under law the indictment came down, did not Moses give you the law? And no man keepeth the law.
None of you keeps it. And Stephen spoke by the Holy Spirit saying.
You receive the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it. They didn't keep it. You can't keep it. I can't keep it, but I'm saved by grace.
So are you when you believe the gospel.
A sense of grace.
Wherefore in Romans 14 he says, Receive ye one another. How? Even as Christ has received us to the glory of God.
He received us in grace, and all our fellowship together should be founded upon.
And based upon grace, Mr. Darby.
He wrote two pamphlets that were.
That were so fundamental and basic to the recovered truth and the first was.
Separation from evil. God's principle of unity.
A wonderful pamphlet.
God who is holy, God who is light, can have no fellowship with evil.
But long after that, Not immediately, but many years after. I don't know how many years intervened.
He said that only contained that pamphlet only contained half the truth.
And then he wrote.
Grace, the power of unity and of gathering.
The one gave the first pamphlet gave the principle of.
Unity is separation from evil, but the power of unity and of gathering the power that keeps us together, going on together, is grace.
Grace.
So he says in verse 4 of Galatians 5, Christ has become of no effect unto you.
Whosoever of you are justified by the law.
You're fallen from grace.
In chapter 4, back up a minute.
He says.
He observed days.
And months.
And times.
And use.
They were put under law, the ceremonial law, all the rules and regulations that accompany Judaism.
And he says I'm afraid of you.
Are you Christians?
Are you really Christians?
I'm afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor.
00:50:00
In vain.
This was so serious.
To abandon grace for law per the law principle, He questioned whether they're even.
The Lords and he says.
I would that they would cut themselves off, which trouble you, these legalizers, these Judaizers.
How serious we heard yesterday.
In the address.
That we have not come to the Mount that was all on fire and that was burning Mount Sinai.
That was the law, the thunderings, the lightning. So terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear in Quake.
Thank God we haven't come to that much that could only condemn us, that could only slay us, but ye are come unto Mount Zion.
And to the city of the living God. And so on. We heard that yesterday. Mount Zion speaks of grace.
It was at Zion where?
Where everything was reestablished by grace that had been forfeited.
By man's disobedience. By Israel's disobedience to the law.
It was re established by grace.
And so it speaks of grace.
And God has come in.
And he has reestablished a relationship with us.
On the principle of grace, which we have all forfeited.
On the principle of law.
How foolish.
Than to go back.
To the law principle.
And yet.
It's everywhere.
It's everywhere around us.
It's in our own hearts.
And we have to be so careful.
That we deal with one another.
Not by the law principle.
But by grace.
Christ's commandments that He gives us should be the desire of our hearts to obey.
Because we're saved by grace.
Not in order to get saved or to maintain our salvation. Not with any fear that we're going to lose it.
If we don't keep what he tells us.
No, that's not the principle of grace.
That's the principle of law.
But it's the desire of our hearts now to be obedient.
The desire of our hearts to return to Him.
The response of our hearts in grace to Him.
What he's done for us.
Let's just close by reading the last two thoughts that Peter sets before us.
In his two epistles, first Peter chapter 5.
And verse 10.
But the God of all grace.
Who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus?
After that ye have suffered a while make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
To him be glory.
And dominion, forever and ever.
Amen.
He's the God of all grace.
Second Timothy. Second Peter.
Chapter 3 and the last sentence the last verse 18 but grow.
In Grace.
And in the knowledge.
Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As we grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we will grow in grace and truth, because that's what came by Him.
The law given by Moses, Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So he says, grow in grace.
And then the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.
You don't have to turn to it, but in the last book of the Old Testament.
Don't know if you've ever noticed this. Many of you have Malachi 4. It says he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children.
And the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Isn't that interesting that the Old Testament ends with the word curse?
It was the dispensation of law.
And curse it is everyone that continueth, not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
But now we're in the dispensation of grace. And notice how the New Testament ends.
In Revelation 22.
Precious.
00:55:00
Truth.
Revelation 22, verse 20. He which testifieth these things sayeth, surely I come quickly. Amen.
Even so, come Lord Jesus, the grace.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Be with you all.
Amen. Sin shall not have dominion over you.
For ye are not under law.
But under grace.