09-06-2020

Membership by Testimony and a Zoom Gathering for Prospective Families

Let's review just a little bit, before we do though I have one item of business I need to talk about. We have several families now that have sent in, filled out a form telling us about them, their salvation experience and so forth and their children and their experience and so forth and we need to select a date on our calendar and we will do this from home via Zoom but it will probably be on a Wednesday evening or something when we can meet via Zoom with our new prospective families and allow them to be able to get on Zoom and give their testimonies.

To me that's the best way to join is by testimony rather than letters. That doesn't work so well anymore because churches are all different so you might receive a letter from another church saying yeah they're great members but we don't know what the other church believes.

So the best way to me is through testimony and if we have any of our families where we have particularly bashful people then their spouse can share for them or if it's a child that doesn't want to do it the parent can share for them and so forth but we need to have a get together on Zoom, a time of fellowship to get to know these folks a little bit, let them give us their testimony and then we can have a formal decision to bring them in as members or not.

So for you guys that are out there if that's you we'll be getting you an email soon with a date and also we want feedback from you if it's a good date because we'll only do it on a date you guys can all be with us and also any of you guys out there that would like to think about joining or pray about joining if you go to parkmeadowschurch .com on one of the top tabs across the top you'll see one there that's a form you can click on it fill it out it'll come to us and we will get back with you on that.

So that'll be a fun time of fellowship on an evening sometime soon. Isn't it nice to know that by the time we do it it will literally be fall weather because we're going from like a hundred degrees today and tomorrow to maybe 70 by Wednesday is it or is it Tuesday night?

So that's going to be nice and so all right. Well let's get into the scripture together let's review just a little bit. I hope we clicked there you know what we didn't click the right one let me go back in here and fix this now may mess you up again Ben let's see this is the right one right here now that's got today's date on it.

The Timeline of Salvation in Romans 8:30

I don't want to go back and review so far that we never get to where we're going today. Here's where we go all right. So we're in Romans chapter 8 verse 30 and really we've already gone all the way the end of Romans chapter 8 but we've gone back into verses 29 and 30 and we're hitting on the timeline of salvation.

You might want to put it that way it goes all the way from eternity into time and then out the other side into eternity again and that's how saved you are when you're saved. And we've already covered the part about for whom he did for no he also did predestinate those two things happened before time began so they're not even in sequence they just are one did not cause the other they just both are because God is and he's always known you as his own child.

I was thinking about your teaching this morning Bill. It always hits on the sermon because the Holy Spirit makes it do that. But there was a verse. I believe it was verse 29 if I remember right in Luke chapter 16 really one of the most amazing election verses.

And nobody gets that they don't see that as an election verse. I may not have the verse right. But it's the one where it says those who those who have made they be given more in abundance. And those who have not made what they have be taken away.

And that people don't understand that teaching of Jesus very well because today 95 of the people believe that it's Arminianism all right and 5 believe that God's in control. If you go back just to the 1600 1700s flip-flop 90 to 95 of the people understood God was in control.

Only 5 believed like an Arminian at that point at least among Protestant people. So that's flip-flopped in the wrong direction in these end times. That's because we have so many false teachers I believe.

But the point is what that verse means. Bill is so beautiful. You're talking about it today. Those who have will be given more abundantly. That means you have the calling you have. You have the namesake of being part of the family of God.

And before the foundation of the world you had it. God knew you already. And it means he knew you with love as part of his family before he created anything. You already had that namesake. You were part of that family.

God's family not Satan's family. And so that's those who have in other words who have that namesake will be given more abundantly even in this life and after this life. But those who don't have the non-elect even what they have will be taken away.

And what is that. That's their physical life. Their life will be taken away and their eternal life is non-existent. They'll live eternally but they'll be separated from God eternally. That's not life that's called eternal death.

So what they have even will be taken away. They have a little bit of life now on this earth. This is their heaven. If you can say it that way wouldn't you hate for this to be your heaven. You know there are some heavenly things.

When I look at my grandbabies in the face and they smile at me. I mean there's a little touch of heaven right there you see God's love and you feel it and it's there and it's real. So we have part of heaven as Christians.

We can live a heavenly life here. And we do. And we try harder every day to be more and more holy as he is holy. That's the part of our responsibility. That's the difficult part for me. I don't know about you.

It's difficult but we work at it and the Holy Spirit wonderfully is working at it in each of us. And the Word of God is always working at that mold us more into the image of Christ. So anyway as you come from that into time when Genesis 1 -1 God creates everything everything that is and time also is part of that.

Now we have a timeline if you want to call it that I'm not so sure it's a straight line but that's how we view it. And in that line two things happen in these passages. We're studying in Romans 8 29 and 30 two things happen in time.

The first is called the calling and I think doctrinally you could separate that from regeneration. But from the point of view of this study since it's not it doesn't include everything in the whole Bible.

It alludes to the calling is the calling but it also alludes to the regeneration because it happens at the same moment as the effectual calling. The Holy Spirit does about 33 things to us. One of them is he first thing is he regenerates us.

He brings us from death to life. He does that at the calling and it happens in time on your spiritual birthday. And the second thing is those who are called are also what justified right. And that's what we're talking about now.

So these are the two things that happen in time. Then it goes out the other end into future into eternity and that's called. They are also glorified right. We'll get to that later. So we're on the two things that are in time.

Now we're actually done with the calling. Now we're on the second one. That's justification and that's where we were. We kind of started that out last time. The word itself means to be rendered righteous.

Notice. There's nothing in the word study of the word itself that means you can do it to yourself. Even the word itself sounds passive. To be rendered righteous. That's obviously means someone else rendered you right or counted you as if you're righteous.

And that happens to be the father and god. The father counts you as if you're righteous because he has been propitiated by the death of jesus. That means satisfied that his justice is taken care of with regard to you and me.

Because we are the elect we are known by him. We're his children. And jesus took our sins on his body on the tree and died in our place and removed our sins from us took them upon himself. And then he gave us his righteousness.

And so god is propitiated. The father is satisfied that your sin debt is paid in full. And because of that he sees you as if you're already glorified. Now jesus doesn't. He sees us when we sin. He's with us in time.

And so is the holy spirit. That's why we can grieve the holy spirit. We can quench the holy spirit. You could only do that with god in time. The father is not grieved nor ever quenched by you. Isn't that wonderful to know he.

He sees you as glorified. Why was he rendered you. Just why. By the blood of jesus he sent his holy spirit at the calling to sprinkle you with that blood individually. It's already been sprinkled by jesus on the mercy seat in heaven turning it from a justice seat to a mercy seat.

And now he sprinkles it to you on your spiritual birthday. That's one of the other 33 things he does. He sprinkles you with the blood of jesus spiritually all over you where you're totally you're totally covered by the blood.

And the father sees that. And he is satisfied. He is propitiated and his justice has been satisfied. And he sees you as if you've never sinned. That's what justified means. And that's what we're studying right now.

Just as if you'd never sinned he rendered you as righteous. Love. Just the word study itself is all we need. But we have much more. We have this whole passage that we studied last time. And within that little passage from verse chapter we go back to romans chapter three.

But from verse 23 to 28 we see seven things that we have to understand if we ever have a hope of understanding justification and what god has done for us. Remember that justification is part of what we call the finished work of jesus christ.

It's all based on his work. None of our work nothing to do. Our work doesn't play a role in. It doesn't help it. It doesn't make it better. It doesn't make it last longer has nothing to do with it. It's positional.

We have it because god rendered us to have it. And it's all from the blood of jesus. Plus nothing we do. We receive it as a gift with joy. But we didn't do anything to get it. He gave it to us. And you need to understand.

And i need to understand these seven things. And we'll be covering those. So last time we covered the first one a little bit but it takes more than one time to totally cover that one. And that is the depravity of man.

Total Depravity and the Necessity of Grace

Now let's go back a minute. Where do we get that from. Look at verse 23. Can you see it up there at the top. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of god. That's the depravity of man is taught throughout the scripture.

This beautiful passage on salvation starts with it. And um god started with it because he put genesis. The first few chapters of genesis is where man fell from uh the garden into sin. Right. And outside the garden he went.

And that's where we are today. So it starts with the depravity of man in verse 23. And so that's kind of where we were last time. Now we we talked about this. I put those verses up last time and i said where do you think that comes from.

And it's really interesting because how many people do evil. Well it's interesting because when you look at romans 3 23 for all have sinned and come short of glory of god. How many is all. So how many human beings do evil all.

And now you come into verse 20 at the bottom of wherever this is you already know because you were here last sunday i'll pop it up there. It's in john chapter 3 right. In the same context as john 3 16.

But you gotta take all of it in context. You can't just take 16 only. So when you look at verse 20 everyone that does evil hates the light. Now who is the light. Jesus. So every human in their natural state hates jesus.

And that is total depravity. I have people come up to me meetings around the country when we used to could have them for pre virus. Uh bv i guess you would call it no bc before corona. I like that bc all right.

Now let's call it bv before the virus. Um before that people come up to me and ask me. Well you don't really believe that in total depravity. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean you're totally depraved.

That man can't see god at all. I'm saying well okay. So i don't believe john 3 16 either. Right. Because john 320 is total depravity. Isn't it. Does it leave anyone out. Everyone that does evil hates the light.

And verse 23 says all have done evil. So every human hates the light that is total depravity. It gets worse than that though. Not only does it that they hate the light it says neither cometh to the light.

That's total depravity. Not one natural human ever comes to jesus of their own will. And yet that totally knocks out most religion of today because it's based on people choosing jesus. Is it not. And yet the bible says jesus chooses you by his spirit when he sends him at the calling.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of god. The bible says and while we were yet sinners hath he called us has he quickened us. That's the regeneration. And once he quickened us a lot of effects came from that.

And we've discussed that so many times. We believed we repented. We wanted to do good works. We want to get baptized. We wanted to start going to church one to tithe all the things that different denominations say you have to do to either get saved or stay saved.

Which is blasphemy. By the way all the ones that say you got to do that to get saved or stay saved are wrong because those are effects and effect can never be the cause of the cause. Charles spurgeon said that he was right about it.

Some of us have studied logic like he did. It's a perfectly true logical statement that a an effect can never be the cause of the cause. All none of those things cause your salvation. Your salvation is caused by the calling which was caused by the foreknowledge and predestination of god which was caused because of his will his desire to save you.

So that shows you're special. He's known you from the foundation of the world with love. He's loved you from the foundation of the world. And those who have that will be given in abundance according to bill's sunday school lesson.

And those who don't have it what they have will be taken away now. That makes sense all of a sudden. Doesn't it. All of it fits brother ron if you understand who's in control. Verse 29 used to never make sense to me.

And did i get it right. Is it verse 29 and luke 16. I believe it is. Well we were in luke 6. Okay we we did both. So tell me which one. Matthew 25 point 29. Matthew 25 29. That's the one that says what they have will be given in abundance and what they lack.

Good. Okay parallel passage. You taught on it though. So it was awesome. Well i mean people. People don't understand it. But here it is. You have the depravity of man. How many people do evil all. And how many hate the light all.

And so how do you get saved. You have to be called now at the moment you are called you're also justified. But the first thing we need to do to understand justification is we need to understand the depravity of man.

Because if we don't understand the depravity of man we think justification is something we do now listen to me. If we don't understand the depravity of man then we think justification is something we do.

We live right and god accepts us. And that's a lie from satan. And it's based on arminianism which is based on humanism which is based on not understanding the total depravity of man in his natural state.

And in her natural state. So we must start there. And this is where god didn't start with john 3 16. He started with genesis 1 chapter 1 2 and 3. Let's look at it. Genesis 3 4. And the serpent said unto the woman you shall not surely die.

But what have god told her. You will die if you sit if you eat the fruit of this one tree which is my tree. God said if you eat that you will die. And satan comes to her as remember what lucifer means.

Son of the morning is his name. Satan's name is son of the morning son of light. Some interpretations call it. He comes to her as an angel of light and says god didn't. God's not going to kill you. He loves you.

He wants you to know everything. He knows you. Just you're interpreting it wrong. So he gives you his interpretation gave her his interpretation. You won't surely die. For god knows in the day that you eat thereof.

Then your eyes will be open and you shall be gods knowing good is evil good and evil. And surely god would want you to be like him and like me satan said. And no good and evil. Right. Now all you know is good.

And so what did eve ask for when she ate that fruit. She said well i'd like to know he. I want to not. I don't want to just know good. I want to know evil too. So now from that point till today that's what we get.

We mentioned earlier you have a bit of heaven here. You look in the eyes of your grand baby and see the love of god. And you're in heaven for a moment. Right. But tragic things can happen in this life.

Can they not. I hate to even speak of it. I don't like to even speak of it. But you know it can. Right. Tragic things can happen. So we get the good with the bad because we asked for it. And adam and eve did what they wanted to do.

That's what all humans do. And god held them accountable for it. And yet it didn't surprise god. It was part of his divine plan because without sin we wouldn't have had a cross. Without the cross god couldn't have shown us the breadth of his love.

So none of it surprised god. But yet man did what he wanted to do and god held him responsible. There's the will of man and the sovereignty. God fitting very well together. I learned that from brother otis.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also to her husband.

And he did eat. The bible goes on elsewhere and tells us that adam i'm sorry eve did that because she was deceived. She thought she was doing god's will. That should put a shutter through us. So every time we see something miraculous can we just assume god did that.

Every time we see a healing every time we see something grand happen can we just assume god did it. Or can satan do some of those things. And that's why the bible says we must try the spirits. Eve didn't try the spirits at all.

Now elsewhere in scripture not here but elsewhere the bible tells us that adam knew exactly what he was doing. It did not deceive him. He knew it and interpreted it correctly. And he ate the fruit for an entirely different reason.

And i you have to have a theory about that one. The bible doesn't necessarily tell us exactly what he was thinking. But i think he was looking at eve. What do you gentlemen think god. I mean god puts her there.

I don't know they'd been together a long time. I think it because think about it. Well we don't know. Do we know if adam named all the animals after he was made. I guess he did some of that before she was made because god later said he still doesn't have a companion.

Right. All right. So i don't know how long that the two of them had been together. But it doesn't really matter. I know this. He loved her and he knew instantly she was bound for hell. Did he not. Didn't he soon as she ate it.

Wouldn't he know that because he was not deceived. And i think he thought maybe if i eat it god won't destroy all humanity. I'm just this is purely david mitchell theory. It's not biblical at all. But that's probably what i'd been thinking.

If this happened to my wife i've been thinking well she just lost her life and so i'm going with her and we'll see what god does with that. That's a little bit arminian. Don't you think. Adam thinking he can change god.

But guess what. God already had a plan because jesus was slain before the foundation of the world. But adam didn't know that yet. But god showed him very quickly when he killed the first animal and took those fig leaves off of them that did not cover their nakedness at all.

And he put the animal skins on them because that took blood sacrifice to create that. And he taught god taught them that they caused that death to happen. They'd never seen anything killed before they caused that death to happen.

And that is a picture of a messiah that i'm going to send for you who will come from your line. And it says that eve was saved through child bearing. Remember that verse. She had to have children and there would be a lineage and then a messiah would be born.

And this death of this animal pictures the fact that he will die with your sins on his body. They knew that from the beginning and taught it one to another orally all the way down to the times of moses when moses penned it by the inspiration of holy spirit.

Before that it was all taught father to son. And the father was the priest of the family and taught it to the wife and the kids. And they passed it down all that time until moses. But we see here that man left the garden at that point.

Didn't they by their own. What choice would you say. Would you say that it was free will. Or would you just say it was a choice. Did they do what they wanted to do when they ate the fruit. Yeah. But was it free will.

Did eve decide to eat that fruit on her own. Or did someone put the thought in her mind. Satan put the thought in her mind. Lucifer put the thought in her mind. So it was not sovereign will on her part it was influenced will.

So man doesn't really have free will but he does have a will. And let me ask you this was her will. Important. Her decision was that an important decision. Absolutely. And god judged her for it because she did what she wanted to do.

And the rest is history. So you know we need to teach our children that even though god's in control the choices you make are extremely important and they count. And they all have a reaction. Everything you do has a reaction in the world in the universe.

And it can cause god's blessings. It can cause god's chastening. It can cause people to die. It can cause people to be happy and have abundant life. Every choice you make does something. We need to teach our kids that.

But here we see that the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed figs fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Which god said that's not sufficient. Doesn't cover you.

Well enough. Man's had a problem with that since that time hasn't he still has a problem with it. And they heard the voice of the lord walking in the garden and in the cool of the day and adam and his wife hid themselves.

Look at this one of the most sad verses in the bible. They were used to spending personal time in god's presence every day in the cool of the day. And now they didn't want that anymore. Now let me ask you this.

How many times have you had a time. Maybe when you were under some type of pressure or trouble and you went outside your house and you got alone with the lord. And you said why won't you just let me see you do something.

Let me know you're there. Have you ever done that. Who's not done that. Everyone's done that. Right. Why doesn't he show himself. Because we chose for him not to. That is a really impactful verse in the bible.

All of this came before john 3 16. The depravity of man where he walked with physical god which had to be jesus christ a theophany. It was jesus christ because the father is not in time and space. But jesus was there walking with them and they hid from him.

Right. And now we live in that state from now on. So there's the fall the subsequent depravity of man and i say subsequent. That's how the theologians teach it. I have a problem with that personally myself i happen to think that they had to have already had a nature that would do that or they wouldn't have done it.

But many theologians teach that the eating of the fruit caused them to be fallen and depraved. I do think it caused them to fall. But i don't think it caused them to eat the fruit. Do you. I think their human nature caused them to do that.

So you can debate on whether it caused the depravity or whether the depravity came as a result. I mean i can tell you this adam was created straight from god's hand. Was he not. And he didn't do a whole lot of sinning before that happened.

Did he. How much did he do before this happened. None. And he walked with god in his presence and apparently enjoyed it a great deal. All right. But nothing had been presented to them yet all they'd ever seen was good and god all of a sudden satan shows up now.

That's debatable too because do you find it interesting that eve didn't fall back and and gasp and be fearful when that serpent spoke to her she just acted normal like she had heard animals speak before.

Don't you think if you just read it like she said oh hi you know. Like that. Would you have done that if a snake talked to you. So she was used to it. So apparently he was hanging out down around there.

But i don't think he had tempted him yet at all. But as soon as he did what happened. Their nature responded to the temptation. Did it not. Especially the woman. No i'm kidding. I'm looking at pam when i say that man and woman responded to the temptation because they had the equipment to respond with which is a sin nature.

Didn't they. And if you want to debate theological then let's don't call it sin nature. Let's call it human nature. They had that didn't they. And they fell now. That changed everything from man's viewpoint changed nothing from god's viewpoint because he planned it and he was pleased with his plan because it includes him showing us his love in a greater way than he could have ever done in that garden.

It's a beautiful amazing story. No human could have thought it up. Could they. Romans 11 verse 3. Chapter 3 verse 11. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after god. Total depravity.

But it started in the early chapters of genesis. Are you with me. We can't understand grace. And we cannot understand justification if we don't understand. That's where we are when we meet god is. We're in a place where we don't want to meet god.

So that proves we don't cause it. We don't make the choice by deciding whether we accept jesus or not. Because the decision would 100 be. No i don't want him. Just like it was three seconds before you got saved.

And every day before that your whole life you chose to be your own god. And so did i. And then something changed us. Something changed us. It's passive from our viewpoint active from the holy spirit's viewpoint.

He called us. He opened our eyes he opened our ears while we were yet in our sin. He quickened us he brought us to life. And he showed us our savior our shepherd. And we were sheep already. So we responded because naturally that's what sheep do.

And we received him as our personal lord and savior because we what wanted to. So what did the holy spirit have to do to us at our calling. In order to be able to justify us. He first had to change our want to.

We never had a want to for jesus. Now we do. And that's we feel it from from our soul to the our very souls and spirit and our body from our head to the bottom of our feet. We totally feel it in that moment.

And we do exactly what we want to do. We receive jesus as our lord and savior. And uh with that and at the same moment some 33 other things happen. But one of them is that god justified us at that moment he rendered us to be righteous.

He took our sins away and had already placed them in jesus body 2 000 years earlier on human time with the father it's just now. So he took our sins put them in him took jesus's righteousness put that on us.

And now we stand justified. And that's the only way god could save us because we were totally depraved and didn't want any of it. So how special are you that god would do that for you into you. And did he violate your will.

No he just changed your nature. The bible says very clearly that we're a new creation. Does it not. We're a new creature. We are now gened after the father not our human parents. So what do people who are gened after god what they want.

God's things. Did you know your new man will never sin because it does not desire to sin. It hates sin. Your new man first john says cannot sin and will not sin because you've been regened. So god didn't force you to do something you didn't want to do.

He just changed your want to because he changed. He gave you his nature. And that's how salvation has always worked. And it's the only way it's ever worked and ever will work no matter what the modern churches say about how it works.

This is called the pro evangelium and it's found in genesis 3 15. And they call it that in latin because it is the first allusion to the gospel message and to the messiah and the whole bible other than maybe what god told adam and eve it's not in not written for us but this is written for us.

And i will put enmity between thee and the woman and between the seed thy seed and her seed. And it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. That speaks of upcoming messiah and the battle between lucifer and jesus christ.

And how lucifer would bruise his heel by putting him on the cross. And they those who know about crucifixion say when they put that thing and it goes and falls down in that hole. And and it just jars the body that it bruised the heel of the person that's on the cross.

But in the same time period jesus destroyed the head of satan. So satan bruised his heel but he destroyed he crushed satan's head on that cross and especially in the resurrection in the days to come. So that's the first allusion to the coming messiah.

And adam and eve were taught about this by the father and he also taught them the sacrificial system and the pictures that were in it of their messiah and what he would do for them matthew 13 27. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him sir did not thy.

Did you sow good seed. Didn't you sow good seed in your field. From whence then came the tear. So let's let's shift gears just for a few minutes. We have seen very clearly that adam and eve made a choice of their will and they chose the flesh and the devil and the world system after being tempted.

And there was a resulting fall from the garden of eden. And yet very soon thereafter the father himself or perhaps we'd say jesus in time and space which is god with us. Isn't he sacrificed the first animal and gave the first blood offering and said that's a picture of what i'm going to do for you.

And the woman will be saved through childbearing. There will be a messiah that comes and dies in your place and takes your sins away. So remember that every time you do this sacrifice remember that's coming in the future and trust that for your salvation.

And by grace i'm saving you. There's nothing you can do to deserve to be saved now that you've eaten that fruit. But i'm going to save you by grace by sending a savior who will die in your place. So that's being justified by grace.

And they learned it just moments after they fell. I believe. Or maybe he did like i did my kids and sent them back to the study for a while to think about it. Didn't you guys do that too. Was that y 'all somebody else.

Some other parents do the same thing. Probably a lot of parents do that. Let them think for a little bit about the sin they had done in the spanking. They're about to get. But god. So god god let him think about a little bit.