Romans 16:20-27 - Established By The Word & The Spirit (06/11/2023)

Good morning, everybody. That was lovely singing today, and good time of prayer together.

Lots of serious requests and praises today. Wow. So Pam, are you back to 100 % yet?

Wow. Nice smile. That's awesome.

I can't imagine what you went through, but the Lord took you through it. And we'll be praying for Sharon as well.

Get a better report this week. And Larry Music, by the way, is about to have back surgery in the next week or so, as soon as possible, hopefully.

He's been in an awful lot of pain. And finally, just yesterday, they found, mainly

Betsy, found a good mix, a better mix of pain pills. They won't let him have the big one, the

OxyContin or whatever you call it, until after the surgery, which is smart, because you get used to it and it quits working.

So can't have that one. So it's basically like Ibuprofen and Tylenol, but a more powerful

Ibuprofen. But she finally found one mix that works better, and he did better yesterday, and hopefully still today.

She sent me a text a second ago. He's still better today, lower pain level. And she said to tell

Ben it was a great Sunday school lesson, by the way. So we pray for Larry as well.

And we pray for Sammo. Surprised you didn't punch that dude. But you restrained yourself.

You showed good self -constraint, self -control. And that's funny, because the morning, this happened yesterday, yesterday morning, around 4 in the morning or so,

God woke me up and had me praying for each of my family members by name. I prayed for Sammo by name, for protection, and angels to be all around him and everything.

But I had several family members on the road. But you were preaching, preaching whatever you do at Sunday school,

Ben. But you were talking about benefits, how the people of God, back 400 years before Christ came, were complaining because they had no benefit from following God.

Well, it's because they were legalists, and they weren't really following God. But those who do follow God have tremendous benefits.

And Sam sitting there today is proof of that. God protected our family again. And he protects our church family too.

It's been that way for many, many years. Each of you who go before the

Lord and pray for your children, your grandchildren, your families have tremendous benefits. And when we get to heaven, we'll see how many times an angel or more saved us from things.

And it's on the highway and all kinds of things where they're protecting us.

And we sometimes don't even know it. I was going out to Midland when last year or so,

I guess, to check on the oil lease. And I was in my, before I had my current car, but I had an

Audi. And I was in the fast lane passing, about to pass a van and a truck.

And I get right in with the van, he just jerks it over like he's gonna pass the truck. And I had to go in the ditch going 75 or whatever.

I won't confess my sins today, but I was going at least 75. And I hit the ditch and it was, my car took it just like it was pavement.

And the dude driving the van woke up and pulled back over and I just waited.

And he found it and I eased back on the highway. And you just don't know what that would be like without angels protecting you, right?

So we have huge benefits. That was a great Sunday school lesson. Well, let's pray and we'll get started on today's message.

Lord, thank you so much for your word. Lord, you know, I was talking to you about that this week, about where would we be if we did not have your word.

We would have really nothing physical in this world that could lead us. And so thank you that you've given us the perfect word of God, something objective in our hands.

And that's you speaking to us. And what a wonderful love letter you wrote to all of us who are yours.

And Lord, may we learn today and we ask in Jesus name, amen. Well, I made a little funny mistake last week.

I think most of you got the email, but like I got up here to the end of my notes, I was at time anyway, and I said, it felt weird.

I felt like, well, I'm not really, there's another verse or two left in Romans, but the notes are done and I all in the notes.

So I said, okay, we're done. I get home and my printer had run out of paper. So I had about three pages.

Soon as I put the paper in, it printed them. I said, oh, that's the rest of last Sunday sermon. So we're gonna have to go one more time in Romans.

Unfortunately, I'm sorry about that. But look, 11 years, what's another day? One more day.

I'm thinking, Ben keeps telling me how long it's been that we've been in Romans. And I said, well, wouldn't that be an interesting title for a book, 11 years in Roman?

Or would that be like too big of a book? I don't know. What do you think? Would that work? Would it fly? Nowadays, it'd probably be better like 15 minutes in Romans would be better.

Yeah, sell that to all the mega churches. I would get rich. Nobody would grow, right? Okay, so joke's over.

Are you ready? Romans chapter 16, we're on verse 20.

But last time we covered 17, 18, 19. And if you remember what they were talking about, do you remember?

The topic was kind of interesting timing, I think. But like I said, these are prepared months and months ahead because I'm way ahead where I'm going verse by verse in my study.

And then when it comes time to preach it, I have to go back over it that week because I prepared it a couple of months earlier or whatever.

So this has been ready to go, but the timing was interesting, I thought. But it says in Romans 16, 17, "'Now,

I beseech you, brethren, mark them that cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid those people.

For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their self and by good works and fair speeches deceive the hearts of some."

And then verse 19 said, "'For your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil.'"

And I think I mentioned last time, by the way, that word simple in the Greek means unmixed.

Isn't that interesting? Like unmixed, like you don't mix truth together with error.

You don't mix, like you don't take a half truth out of context and say something about somebody that's only half true, but if you knew the whole context, it wouldn't be true at all.

You don't do that. So that's an interesting word in the Greek, unmixed. So he wants you to be wise concerning that which is good and unmixed or simple concerning that which is evil.

And I've taken that verse out of context my whole life and used it to try to teach people, hey, don't read a bunch of books about demons or something because Paul said to be simple concerning evil.

And that's not even what it means. In the context of this, when you take verses 17, 18, and 19 into consideration, and then verse 20 is the next verse, what it is actually saying is for us as a church body, this would apply in your family, in your office, if you have a

Christian company or a company with mostly Christian people in it, but mainly for church is what this is for, is

Paul is telling the people to be wise about the good things that the people in your church are doing and don't know much about their weaknesses.

Don't think about their weaknesses. Be simple concerning their weaknesses or the bad things they might be doing.

Now that doesn't mean we overlook sin. I mean, there's times when we rebuke and admonish and so forth, but in general, what it's saying is, if you wanna look at the bad in people, you can find it every day.

And if you wanna do that, you're never gonna get along with anyone. You're just gonna cause division everywhere because you're gonna pick the bad things about the people and tell the other people about it and turn them against that person and that creates division in church.

That's what verse 19 is saying not to do. Be wise concerning the good in people, but be simple concerning the evil or the weaknesses in the people.

And so, you know, that's not natural. What we like to do is pick on each other for whatever reason, and it's not good.

And when you, when I think, you know, we need to have times where we remind ourselves of these things because we forget.

And when we catch ourselves doing it, even if it's in our family of a couple of family members against another family member is not there and you're talking about them, catch yourselves and remind the person doing it, hey, by the way, that person's not here right now.

Just say something like that and it'll stop it. You see what I'm saying? Hey, by the way, that person's not in the room.

Oh, you're right, you know? And that is a really good thing to practice. And if it really is a problem though that needs to be addressed, you just dial their number and hand it to the person, say, hey, tell them, tell them right now.

That is the way to be according to God's word. So we can either live in the flesh and according to the devil or we can live according to God's word.

And when you do, by the way, you become weird, okay? Like everyone thinks you're a weird group because you're trying to live by the

Bible on every issue. They don't want you to be that, that biblical, okay? But I'm sorry if it's 30 of us till the day

I die, I'm gonna be that biblical. And it drives people nuts. And the farther we go along in this thing, the more so it will be.

They will be gathering people to scratch their itching ears and they will hate people that tell the truth.

And I don't think for a minute that I have a Messiah complex. I know I'm not the only one telling the truth. There are little pockets of preachers all over this world that preach it right from the

Bible. We just don't know who they are and where they are because they ain't famous right now. And the ones that are famous, you gotta, especially, you know, they write a book that's a bestseller.

You gotta read very carefully that book and see, well, why did the world like that book? And I'm talking about the world of Christians.

Why'd they like it? Well, you might have one in a million where it's actually really sound and they like it, but you better read it very carefully if it's really, really popular, right?

And that's just, Jesus said, you cannot please the world and please God at the same time.

And so that still holds true. So that's what verse 20, I'm sorry, verse 19 was talking about.

Now, verse 20, when you live this way, when you live by the

Bible, even when it hurts, when you live by the Bible, even when people in church with you turn against you, then verse 20 comes true.

So let's read it together. Then the God of peace will bruise

Satan under your feet shortly, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, amen.

So when you get a group of people who say, look, we're gonna work on these things, we're gonna try hard not to talk about each other.

What is it called in the Bible, by the way, when you talk about someone who's not in the room with you, what's that called? Backbiting, okay?

But yet when you're the person doing it, you don't think you're a backbiter. You do realize that, right?

You just think, well, we're just trying to help this person by talking about them where we're really like, if we can get together and maybe, you know, it'll help them by us talking about their weaknesses behind their back, it'll help them be better.

We can change them. And you know, why not just don't talk to the person, just go in your closet and pray to Jesus and say, hey, help that person, they have a weakness, would that work?

Do you think the Holy Spirit can fix people? Okay, then ask him to do it, not your friend.

You see, but when you have to remind yourself and I have to too, or we just naturally will gravitate into talking about people behind their backs.

Now, if we can avoid that in other areas of scripture where we ought to walk according to the word of God, then verse 20 comes true.

And we will together have peace from God, but we will bruise

Satan under our feet. Now, how does that happen? Well, let me tell you, when you have a problem in your marriage or with a church member or with the pastor, if you will not let the sun go down on your anger and go to him that day, it would be best, but certainly before the next service, because you're not supposed to worship as long as you have something against somebody or they got something against you, you're supposed to go fix it before you worship next.

And if you do that, which means you get to it quickly and you communicate in love and truth, the problem will go away and Satan will have to flee.

And that's what it means when it says you will put Satan under your feet. You know, like he cannot handle godly loving communication between truthful, real born again people.

Now, if it's a tear, it doesn't work. You can talk to a tear all day long and they're not gonna get right with you.

And I'm not saying that everybody that didn't get right with David Mitchell was a tear, I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying in general that like this stuff doesn't work with tears.

But when you have sheep and they get cross -grained over, no matter what it is, if you just sit down and talk and tell like, okay,

I said that, but in my heart, I meant this. And the other person says, okay, I'm more interested in what you meant in your heart than I am what you said, so I forgive you.

You see how that works? And you run into people all the time and say, yeah, but you said it. Well, okay, so you're perfect.

Like you never said anything wrong to anybody. So you're gonna hold me up to that standard. See, that won't work, will it?

So you have to have an attitude where each person apologizes to the other person because you both probably did something wrong.

Otherwise you're not cross -grained, right? So when you have that attitude, you bruise

Satan under your feet shortly. Isn't that interesting? And so the opposite is true too. When you don't have that attitude,

Satan wins a little battle and we don't like that, do we? Okay, so now let's go to verse 21.

Now, here you see some other people that are commended. Timothy is the one that he wrote,

Timothy 1, 2, Timothy 2, teaching him how to be a preacher, how to run a church and so forth. And Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, how you like that name?

There's a good one for your boys. You could change on that, Ashton. The baby's not born yet.

You could change to Sosipater. Thy kinsmen salute you.

And then Tertius who wrote this epistle, how many of you know what that means? You say, well,

I thought Paul wrote the Book of Romans. But the Bible says Tertius wrote it. Well, that's why it takes me so long to preach all the way through it because Tertius wrote it.

You get that? That's a joke, all right, sort of. Too good, I just thought of it, so I had to say it.

But Paul, they think Paul had trouble with his vision. And so he would have other people, he would dictate and they would put it in writing and that's what we have.

Not all of the books, but several of the books, he had a penman write what he told them to write.

So that's who Tertius was. And Gaius, my host and of the whole church, salute you.

So a lot of these folks had churches in their house at first when it was in a new area. Erastus, the chamberlain of the city.

So they had reached some political leaders who had become born again, who had influence, not many, but some, a few, and that's always good if you have a few of those.

And Quartus, a brother, just means he's born again, right? So that tells you once again, how many times have we heard preachers say, well, they don't have a yellow stripe on their back, you can't tell who they are.

But sometimes apparently you can tell who a Christian is. How many of you think that the brothers and sisters that you know in this room, you kind of think they're saved?

Don't raise your hand, because I don't want to know the ones that don't think they're saved or that I'm saved or whatever. But you obviously can tell a brother from a tear over time.

Now you can't always tell in a short amount of time because people can say the right words, can they not?

They can look, dress right for church and all that stuff. But over time, the

Bible says, the apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Spirit said that it will be revealed who the true

Christians are and who people are just not doing right. For whatever reason, it will reveal who they are, just happens, but it takes time.

So wouldn't you agree that this where Paul is telling you, oh, this guy is a brother, it proves that we can tell who the brothers and sisters are at some point, would you agree?

So the idea that you can't know is false. So we can know and when we have a brother or sister who acts inappropriately in any area listed by scripture, not just that we think wrong, but where scripture says, don't do that or do that and they're not, then we should go and talk to them privately, find out why, because either they're backslidden or they're a tear.

And the only way you can figure out is to go talk to them. So you go and you talk to them. And if they won't hear you, the

Bible says you take another brother or two with you, talk to them again. If they won't hear you, you bring it before the whole church and you let the whole church know about this person and what they're doing or not doing.

That's how God says deal with these kinds of things. And other than that, when you're living together in peace over long periods of time, like I kind of think

Sharon Bland is a saved person. You know, Raymond seems kind of saved to me, right?

And everybody, I guess Viviana and her crew are like the newest, but I've been watching them and I think they're saved, right?

You can just, you look in people's eyes, you can tell. Even in a short period of time,

I'm telling you, you can just, you can tell. And this proves it. Even though this is a funny little verse here, you wouldn't think, well, that doesn't prove anything.

But when he says, quartus, a brother, it tells you Paul looked in his eyes and said, okay, he's saved, right?

So now we have information showing us that we can know that. Verse 24, the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. Now from 25 through the rest of the chapter, which ends the book of Romans, if my notes are all printed, some theologians call this the doxology.

And so let's take a look at it. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, that's the word.

What two things do we have to have just to review in order to be saved and to keep walking with the Lord? Two things, what are they?

The water and the spirit, right? And the water represents the word of God. So where it says the gospel, that's the word of God component.

So Paul here is saying that he, that's God, who has the power to establish you according to the word of God or by the word of God and the preaching of Jesus Christ.

So first he mentions the gospel, which is very specific. It means that Jesus died for his own.

He was buried with the sins of his own on his body. He rose again so that we might be risen in him.

That's the gospel and people have to hear that to be saved. You cannot be saved without hearing that message and receiving it as truth for you personally, right?

But then he broadens it out when he says the preaching of Jesus Christ, that's the whole New Testament and really the whole

Old Testament. So now you got the whole word of God involved here. So God uses the gospel and the entire word of God to establish you and the power that it mentions, you see how it says now to him, that is of power to establish you.

The power is the Holy Spirit part. So now you have the spirit and you have the word. You have those two components.

It's the only thing that'll save anybody. The only thing that'll cause anyone to grow and without it, you're not real. Without it, you won't grow.

You're not real, you'll fall away. So when you have those two components though, God has the power to establish you.

Now, what do you think the word establish means? If something is established, what does it mean?

It's solid, it doesn't turn, it's just there and it's there to stay. So this is talking about a major doctrine that you can go all through the

Bible and find it and it's called eternal security. Now I've been criticized for preaching that way where you're going along here, verse 21, 22, 23, 24.

Now we get to 25 and it says, God's got the power to establish you. I am not supposed to stop there and talk about eternal security all through the

Bible. And yet that's how God taught me to preach because I didn't go to seminary. So that's how

God taught me to preach. Now it's funny that John MacArthur preaches the same way and he did go to seminary and Spurgeon preaches the same way and he didn't go.

He never even went to college and Arthur Pink preaches that way and he did and then he quit early because it was boring and he already knew that stuff.

So I mean, I think it's a good way to do it. Now I'm not gonna do that today because I told you we're gonna finish

Romans but now Ben did tell me this morning, he said, dad, if you could go just a few months more, it'd be 12 full years.

And if you're gonna write a book, 12 years in Romans sounds better than 11 years in Romans. So we could take a little trip here on eternal security if we wanted to, but that's what it's talking about, being established according to the word of God and by the

Holy Spirit power. Isn't that awesome? That's what keeps us safe. See, those who teach you can lose it, they don't get this.

They think they got it by doing something good but they'll tell you, oh, but we don't believe in salvation by works but they live it.

They practice salvation by works because the only way you can lose it is you've got it by works and then you messed up, right?

But if it's not by whether you did it right or messed up or not, but it's by grace and the Holy Spirit power in the

Bible is what God used to regenerate you, then God saved you. And if God saved you, it says he cannot repent from what he does.

He cannot turn from his promises. So if he promised you that he has given you eternal life, you cannot lose it without making

God a liar. And I don't think anybody in this room can do that. Now, Ben was talking about some people in the book of Malachi, right?

Because he was in Habakkuk a while back. I'm getting confused. In Malachi, who actually, you know, they actually thought they could make

God a liar. But guess what happened? They just sort of went into nothingness for 400 years, never amounted to anything and then ended up being the

Pharisees that killed Jesus. So we don't want to think

God can ever be a liar because he can't be. All right, so God can establish you and give you, make you grow until you meet

Jesus and not lose your salvation. And he does it through the power of the

Holy Spirit and through the gospel and the whole word of God. But then it also says, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.

You know what that is? There is one mystery that the

Old Testament prophets and the psalmist, David and Solomon, and the law and all the priests, there's a mystery that they all looked into and could not understand it, but they tried, but they could not.

And even the other apostles, Peter, James, John, none of them could see it either. And when

Paul spent the better part of three years in the Arabian desert, people have challenged me on that. Can you prove that from the

Bible? Yeah, I can through inference. But the better part of three years that Paul spent in the

Arabian desert with Jesus, and Jesus appeared to him in person and taught him.

And how do I know that? Because you can't be an apostle unless you see him in person and Paul is an apostle and Peter said he was.

So Jesus taught Peter, Paul, I'm robbing Paul, hey Peter or something here.

But he taught Paul something that no one ever knew from the time of Adam and Eve.

No one ever knew it. Noah didn't know it. No one knew it until Paul.

And that's the mystery it's talking about here. Does anyone know what the mystery is? Now, if you just search that word only in the

New Testament where you should search it, you'll find quite a few mentions of the word mystery, but not many,

I mean, maybe 10. So it's a finite number. And if you read all those, you'll find out what the mystery is.

And it really is one main thing, but it can, there are some verses where it goes into specific, like if the main thing was a

Roman numeral one and there's other verses that go into an A, B or C under it, but it's all about the main thing. And the main thing is this.

It kind of has to do with the Jew not believing God would save a Gentile for one thing. So the mystery is that God in Christ will bring the

Jew and the Gentile to himself through the gospel and the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit, which had never happened before. The Old Testament saints had the spirit with them, but Jesus said, you shall, he said, he's been with you.

He told the apostles this. He said, he has been with you, but he shall be in you. And that happened at Pentecost.

That's when the church started. And at that point, Christians were indwelt by the Holy Spirit and sealed.

He was sealed within your body until the day of redemption. That means when Jesus comes back. So now there's another proof of eternal security because when you look at when

God puts a seal on something, it's like it's a done deal. It is established, okay?

So when the Holy Spirit is placed within you, at the moment you're saved, when you're regenerated, he is placed in you and sealed within you and your body becomes the temple of the living

God and he's sealed there until the day of redemption. You cannot lose it because you're sealed. And then check out when

God puts a seal on stuff. There aren't too many occasions in the Bible where he sealed something, but every time he did it, it was a done deal.

And it's the same way with this. So now we see that this revelation of the mystery, the mystery is that when you get born again, you are indwelt by the

Holy Spirit and you're connected to every other church member, rather Jew or Gentile.

And one of the little A, B's or C's under that whole idea is there's coming a day when the last trump will sound and Jesus Christ will return and every knee will bow and the church will be raptured and we'll all be tied together by the

Holy Spirit and brought up together to be with him. That's part of that mystery as well. But the only reason that happens is because he lives in us and Jesus brings his people from the four corners of the earth to himself at the rapture.

So that's part of the mystery as well, but it's all the same thing. It's all dealing with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the church.

By church, I mean, saved people, all the saved people. We're connected by that.

We're connected to each other. That's why we don't have division among us. We're like, we're the same connection with Jesus and with the father.

And the Holy Spirit connects Jesus with the father, the father with Jesus, Jesus with us, us with Jesus and the father and us with each other.

And the only thing listed in the Bible that grieves the Holy Spirit is division among his people, grieves him.

So we can't afford to have that. So before the sun goes down, you fix it. Before the next worship service, you go to the person in person, not on a text, not in an email, face -to -face and you fix it.

That takes guts, doesn't it? How many of you like admitting maybe you were wrong about something to another person?

I would rather be the person that gets wronged than the person that did the wronging because I hate having to go admit, oh man,

I was so wrong. Don't you? But we have to. And when we don't, we grieve the

Holy Spirit. So isn't it funny that all of this is in context together here in this passage at the end of Romans.

It's all talking about the same thing. So according to the revelation of the mystery, that's the indwelling of the church predominantly and some other minor points under it that are connected to that whole idea, which was kept secret since the world began.

Isn't it wonderful that we live in a time when that's not a secret anymore? But now it has been made manifest.

What? This mystery has been made manifest, which means it's come to pass that it's real in the world now.

You can see it, it's real. It's been made manifest. And by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting

God, it has been made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. Now, how many of you think that's an interesting phrase?

Obedience of faith. Because don't we contrast the two? Works, salvation versus grace, which is by faith.

Works is over here and it's apart. Salvation is apart from that. And there's a great gulf between the works and the faith. And you've heard that, we learned that in Romans about what, eight years ago when we got to that passage.

And here it says, this mystery has been made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.

Well, what does that mean? Well, it's not talking about a mixture of faith plus works to save you, that's impossible.

So what it's talking about is obeying the gospel. And what's interesting, if you look that word up, in fact,

I wish someone would. Do you have a phone where you can look it up? Tell me what the Greek word, I should have done it, but I didn't for obedience is right there.

Cause I think I know it's the reason I didn't look it up, but every once in a while, there'll be a different word for that.

So I wanna know what the word in verse 26, Romans 16, 26 for obedience.

What is the word and what's the definition? Okay, what's it mean to obey?

All right, submission. That's the word I was looking for. So it means to submit to the gospel, submit to salvation by faith rather than salvation by works.

Now, do you get that? I mean, think about that. If you don't understand the mystery, which is the indwelling

Holy Spirit, and this goes back to Ben's Sunday school lesson as well. If you don't understand the mystery of the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit, God in us, the hope of glory, then you will start to make rules for everybody to follow because you don't think the

Holy Spirit can fix them. So you tell the women what they can wear and can't wear. You tell the men how long their hair can be, brother

Raymond. You tell the kids what music they can and can't listen to.

And you make up all these rules because you don't believe in the mystery. Now, what does the mystery say that if God now lives in you, can't the

Holy Spirit tell you what music to listen to? Can he tell you how to dress at church or at home or anywhere and how not to?

Can he tell you everything and teach you what he wants to do if you're in fellowship with him? The answer is absolutely yes.

And so that's what obedience to the faith means is that the gospel, and I find this interesting, don't you?

In the first century, the gospel had already gone into all the nations of the known world of that time.

That would mean all the European and the Eastern, Middle East nations of the world.

Where the Roman Empire was, this gospel had gone everywhere by the time this was written.

And it's real interesting that when we sent missionaries to Africa for the first time from England, there were already churches there in Africa.

What do you remember the story of the Ethiopian eunuch that got baptized in the pond? Or like we say in Texas, the stock tank, right?

Guess what? He started churches. And so it had already gone there.

And a lot of people don't understand that, but they'll say, well, what about, how can this be fair? Christianity be fair over in Africa and India where they never even heard the gospel?

The Bible tells me they have heard the gospel. They just rejected it. And many of them chose to worship rocks and trees and animals in India and in Africa in particular.

But there have been many missionaries and there are a lot of Christians there now mixed in with all the other stuff.

And so anyway, this is really fascinating information from 2000 years ago that tells us these things.

So this mystery has been made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets.

So the Old Testament spoke of it, but they didn't understand what they were writing. It mentioned, it talked about a new heart rather than a stony heart.

Remember that? I think in Isaiah, is that right? Jeremiah? Ezekiel.

Thank you. That's what happens when you're reading through the Bible every day, staying up with that stuff.

But Ezekiel, I don't think it's the only place, but it talks in the Old Testament about getting a new heart.

That is a thing they didn't fully understand yet, but Paul explained it. And that was made known to all nations so that people could obey salvation by faith rather than salvation by works, which cannot change the heart.

Salvation by works tries to take the old corrupt heart and make it do better. How many of you think that'll last?

It just doesn't work. And then verse 27, to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever.

Amen. Now, that little last passage that we talked about there from 20 through 27, it talks about three main things.

First of all, eternal security. Secondly, the mystery that Paul revealed of the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit with every born again Christian. And third, the gospel has been made known to all nations in the first century.

That's pretty remarkable to understand that. That means a lot of people turned away from the gospel, doesn't it? In some of these pagan nations.

Now, I wanna just say a little bit, I've said what I'm gonna say about the mystery and about the gospel being taken to all nations.

I'm gonna say a little bit about eternal security in other passages of scripture, just as a reminder.

And so let's do that just for a second. We got a little time left anyway. So verse 25 says now unto him that is of power to establish you.

Eternal security is based upon the power of God, not upon our own power or good works.

And in 1 John 2, verse 25, it says, and this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life.

Now, how long does eternal last by definition? Forever. So if it's eternal, can it stop?

Okay, if it can't stop, could you lose it? And if you did lose it, who broke the promise? Let me read it again.

And this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life. So you have to make

God a liar if you lose your salvation. Now, this is not talking about tares who never have been saved in the first place.

This is talking about people who've been regenerated. And how does that work? You have to be called. And how do you know if you've been called?

Because all of a sudden you wanted Jesus Christ when you never wanted him before. That's impossible in the flesh.

No, none seeketh after the Lord, the Bible says, not one. No one is seeking God. So if you ever had a point in your life where all of a sudden you were, then you got called by the

Holy Spirit. And he doesn't, there is a general call, which is really, I think, the word of God.

It goes out to, like in the first century, to all nations. That's called the general calling. And the

Bible talks about that a few places. But most of the time when it uses the word called, it is a specific, what the theologians call an effectual call, which is when you get called like that, you were saved like Paul was on the road to Damascus and you're saved forever at that point.

It totally changed your mind, changed your heart in a moment of time. I was in my car driving to work one day when that happened to me.

No one in the car but me. And I didn't know the Lord was in there, but he was. And he called me.

I didn't hear a voice. I just felt an impression in my mind and heart for the first time.

And that impression caused me to pray out loud in the car. And I said, Lord, I've always known about you.

My mom told me about you my whole life, but for the first time in my life, I wanna let you be my boss instead of me being the boss.

And he saved me. And I went home that day and told Charlotte, something happened to me in the car on the way to work today.

She said, what? I said, I think I got saved. I won't tell the other part that I'd like to say.

She said, good. No, that's not true. She didn't, but I've said it that way many times because it's funny. But I still really do remember it that way.

But anyway, so that went, like when that happens to you, you did not do that because you, like 10 minutes before that, you didn't want that.

I didn't want him being my boss the day when I left the house that day. I was the boss. I was running my whole life doing just exactly what

I wanted to do. And after that moment, I knew I wasn't.

I knew the Lord was my Lord. And he set me free from every lesser Lord, as my wonderful Rocky Freeman said.

He set me free from every lesser Lord. Well, that is salvation.

And God promised that when that happens to you, you now have eternal life. It cannot stop.

Hebrews chapter seven, verse 22 says, by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better Testament.

That's talking about the New Testament, the gospel as opposed to works. But this man, Jesus, because he continueth forever as an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost, which according to his abundant,

I'm sorry, to the uttermost, he can save them that come unto God by him.

So when someone comes to God by Jesus, by receiving Jesus as their personal

Lord and savior because they want to, because the Holy Spirit changed their want to and made them want to, and put that desire in their heart.

When they do that, Jesus is able, this one who continues forever as your priest continually before the throne of God.

When you do do something wrong, he says, yeah, I know, but they're saved. They're covered by my blood. That's what the priestly role is.

This one is able to save us to the uttermost. That's an interesting Greek word to look up.

You know what it means in Greek? Uttermost. You can't get saved more than uttermost.

That's the most you can get saved. It is the highest. It's all there is. He's able to save you to the uttermost that come to God by Jesus, seeing that Jesus lives forever to make intercession for you.

Secondly, or thirdly, or wherever I am on these points, the only way you can lose your salvation is if Jesus stopped making intercession for you, which it says he never does.

So if Satan comes before the Father and accuses you because you sinned last week, if Jesus doesn't step up and say, but Father, my blood is all over that person.

They're saved by the blood, not by the stuff they did or didn't do. If he didn't do that, you could theoretically lose your salvation.

But he does do that because it says he continues forever. How long is forever? He continueth ever. How long is that?

So your eternal security only lasts forever. All right, 1

Peter 1 .3 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again.

That means we are born again. Did you know he didn't try to fix the old man? He is still corrupt.

You say, yeah, but he's been crucified with Christ. He has been positionally, but experientially he's still hanging around your neck.

And when you let him be in control, you can sin, can you not? But when you let your spirit and the spirit of God inside of you be one, you will not sin and cannot sin.

That's actually your new man. When you're walking like that, you will not sin. You gotta go to the airport. It'd been funny if he just said, no,

I'm just going to the bathroom. Yeah. All right, you guys be careful. We love you.

And we'll be asking the angels to be around you too. We already have, but everyone in the church will.

Have a great time. And Matt's already out there, I guess. They're going to a business meeting.

It's going to be a really great experience for them. So according to his abundant mercy, he has borned us again.

Good preaching there. Unto a lively hope, a living hope, a hope of salvation that's continuing on and living by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

So how did God accomplish our born again experience?

And I might add, when did he accomplish it? How long ago was that?

Approximately 2000 years ago, because it says that he accomplished this.

He borned us again, gave us a lively hope, a living hope, a hope of eternal life by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

So our eternal security is based on something that happened 2000 years ago and something you did not do because you weren't born yet.

Jesus did it. And that's why we call it the finished work of Christ. He did all the work that it takes to save us.

We didn't do any of it. It's his blood plus nothing. I love that. The reformers used to say that and the

Catholics would kill them for it. So it's his blood plus nothing.

He accomplished everything to save us. And when he rose from the grave that day, you were sealed, you were saved.

Now I know there's a time in your lifeline, in time and space when you get regenerated.

And that's when the Holy Spirit visits you and calls you to Christ and lifts your chin. It works just like this, exactly.

He lifts your chin up and says, there's the shepherd, you're a sheep, you're hungry, he's got the food, what will you do with him?

And by then the Holy Spirit's already opened your eyes and your heart and your ears. And you just say,

I'm going with him. And that's when you're born again, right there. But the power of it and the cause of it happened 2000 years before that you had nothing to do with it.

So you can't lose it because you didn't do it. Does that make sense? Why doesn't everybody understand this?

Because there is a powerful devil who goes around to simple people who won't read the

Bible, who won't study it. They just listen to preachers preach on the radio or maybe go to church one Sunday, maybe every

Sunday and hear them preach and that's all they ever do. They don't know the word of God. And then they hear somebody say, well, yeah, but if you don't live right, you can lose it.

So they believe that because they don't know what the Bible says. That's the only thing. So they don't have the word of God and they can't know this without it.

So this is part of the mystery, by the way. So this man, because he continues forever, keeps us saved.

He's able to save us to the uttermost and he gave us a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now look what else he gave us in first Peter chapter one, verse four. He gives us this living hope to an inheritance that's incorruptible.

Now, what does that mean? It means everything, excuse me, everything Jesus owns, which he made everything physical in the universe.

Jesus made everything. So he owns it all. Everything that he owns, you are a co -heir with him.

Now, if you're a co -heir with Jesus or a joint heir, I should say with Jesus, that's your inheritance.

So you own everything he owns and the Bible says it's incorruptible. What does that mean? Kind of like saying it's established.

It can't stop. It can't go away. It can't rust. A moth can't eat it. It's forever. Then how could you lose your salvation?

If you already have that inheritance and it's incorruptible, how could you lose it? You can't. There are 10 ,000 ways to prove this.

And I'm probably, if I said a thousand, I would not be exaggerating. A thousand ways to prove it.

And that's why it's hard to prove it because when someone doesn't believe it and you want to sit down with them, you don't know where to start. There are a thousand places, directions you could go to prove it.

I did that once with one lady and she ended up, when

I left that day, she asked the Lord to save her and she'd been going to church her whole life, to Pentecostal church where they taught you could lose it.

When I showed her literally every verse in my Bible, it took two hours, about eternal security.

It was those verses that the Lord used to save her soul. Not anything else. She had already heard all the other stuff.

And she came to church and told me that next Sunday. And she said, I got saved after you left. I said, I thought you were saved.

Sweet little lady, right? Going to church her whole life. And she just didn't, she was going to a church that taught you could lose it.

And when she saw that, she said, man, I didn't even have real salvation. I just had religion. Wow, that was a great day.

So, and then guess what? The evil people in the church turned against me and some other people and left and took her with them.

After she'd been with us, what, three years or two? Maybe more than that. And took her with them, got her angry by backbiting.

And guess what? About two years later, I went to visit,

I kept visiting her anyway, even though she left. She lived in Friendship Tower at that point. And I'd go see her a few times a year.

And about two years later, I went to see her and she said, sit down, Brother David, drink some tea. I need to tell you something.

She said, I need to apologize to you. I was wrong to leave. Isn't that something? Two years later, that was a blessing though.

Well, all of the passage we talked about today deals with all of that. But we have an incorruptible inheritance.

What else? This inheritance is undefiled. Now the word defiled implies that someone else could mess with it, right?

It says it's impossible for someone else to mess with your inheritance. Satan cannot come and take it away from you.

He can't defile it. You can't defile it. It's undefilable. And it's an inheritance that the

Bible says fades not away, but is reserved for you in heaven. How can you get more secure than that?

How can you be more established than that? You, it's kept for you who are kept by the power of God.

So who is it that keeps us saved? Kept, what does that mean? Keeps us saved, God is.

We're kept by the power of God. That's the Holy Spirit through faith. That's faith in the gospel, in the

Bible. Unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. So when the rapture comes, Jesus comes back, you don't need to hide.

You'll be ready. Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be,

I'm thinking about Larry music right now. If need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations.

That means trials. And you just went through some Pam, manifold trials, pain, suffering in this world.

We go through that if need be, that means it's God's will when we go through it. Think about that, if need be, who is it decides if you need to go through it?

God. And Otis used to tell me, yeah, but when it left God's hand, he meant it for good.

Isn't that beautiful? So all of these things are happening and God's in control of all of them, but we have eternal security.

Y 'all are getting tired, I can see it, but I gotta read you one or two more. They're just so amazing. Just be thankful I don't have my little

New Testament because I got a roadmap through that thing that I took that woman through. Bess Reynolds was her name and sweet lady.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that's for sure, that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you've been called, you're saved forever. Ephesians 2, 4, but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us.

So he loved us before he made anything because he knew you before the foundation of the world as his own sheep. The goats, he doesn't know them like that.

I mean, he knows who they are, but he doesn't know them as family. The sheep, he's always known them as family.

And so here, because the love he had for you, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, even when we were hanging out with the goats, because we weren't saved yet in time, we weren't born again yet, he still loved us.

He already loved us. He was already protecting us. He had angels all around us. He was bringing us right to that date when we would be called.

He knew it forever. It was part of our journey that he ordained that we would have because he put us here as his own sheep and he's gonna save every sheep.

He won't lose one and of them all shall be raised in the last day, Jesus said. Even when we were dead in sins, hath he brought us to life together with Christ.

That means it happened 2000 years ago when Jesus came out of that grave, he brought you alive and he made it be manifest on the day you got regenerated, which was in this lifetime.

All of it was by his work. This is just amazing material. Even when we were dead in sins, he brought us to life together with Christ because by grace you were saved.

It happened before you were born. So you didn't have anything to do with it. No, it wasn't your little prayer that saved you.

Dear Jesus, come on and say amen. That's not what saved you. It wasn't my prayer in the car. I said, dear Jesus, always known about you, but I want you to be my boss instead of me.

For months I went and told the church how I had prayed that prayer and that's why I got saved because I, David Mitchell, prayed that prayer and gave in.

I gave in to Jesus and he saved me and I didn't know until years later I was wrong about that. That is not why I was saved.

That was the effect of my salvation, not the cause. The cause was when the

Holy Spirit put in my heart and mind to pray that prayer. By the time I prayed it, I was long since already saved by a few seconds.

Regenerated. The regeneration is what made me want to pray the prayer. The prayer did not cause it.

The whole world today in churches, they have that wrong, except for a few preachers out there that understand this stuff and preach it, just like Spurgeon did so many years ago.

So, even while we were dead in sins, he quickened us together with Christ. By grace we are saved and he has raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ.

And in the Greek, that is in the present tense. You are already seated in the heavenlies with Christ, so how can you lose your salvation?

The Father already sees you there. How can you lose your salvation? You cannot.

These are just many of the ways. Second, Thessalonians 2 .13, God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation.

From the beginning of time, he'd already chosen you to get saved in your lifetime. God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation.

How? Through sanctification of the Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, and belief of the truth, that's the

Bible. Two things. I find it everywhere. Once I found that once, I find it everywhere. Verse 14, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? Romans 8 .29, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he did predestinate, that same group of people got called during their lifetime.

And that group that got called, the same group of people got justified. It means made as if they'd never sinned, made totally righteous by the blood of Jesus.

And the same group that got justified, then he also glorified, and that's in the past tense.

So the Father sees you as if all of that's already happened, and you're already seated in the heavenly. How can any religious man tell you that you can lose your salvation?

Only a religious man who, when he reads the Bible, is totally blinded by Satan, because he ain't saved probably.

He's just not a believer. He's a theologian. He's a, not all theologians are bad. There's good saved ones, but I mean, he's a lost one.

What shall we then say to these things? In Romans 8, verse 31. If God be for us, who can be against us?

Who's gonna be able to make us lose our salvation if God's for us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is

God that justified them. So if God justified us, who's gonna judge us and send us to hell?

Nobody. And then here's the best of the best. John 5, 24.

Truly, truly, I say unto you, he that hears my word, there's the Bible, but you got your ears open, who did that?

The Holy Spirit, when? At the what? When he did what? When he called you, he opened your ears.

So Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life.

How long does that last? When can it stop if it's everlasting? So how could you lose it?

And shall not come into condemnation. So if you lost it, wouldn't you then go to hell?

If you could lose it? But he says, you won't go to hell. This is

God's word. This is Jesus saying you can't. You shall not. You shall not come into condemnation, but is already passed from death unto life.

Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall what? Never die.

Can he lie? Wouldn't you have to die if you lost your salvation? Apparently you can't lose it.

John 6, 36 says, but I said unto you that you also have seen me and believe not.

He's talking to the Pharisees, the ones Ben was talking about in Sunday school, the

Pharisees that killed Jesus. He's talking to them right now. And he says, look, you've seen me, but you don't believe.

Looked him right in the face and said, you don't believe. And look what he says. All that the father gives me will come to me.

All, not some, but all that the father has given me will come to me. In him that cometh to me,

I will in no wise cast out. So can you lose your salvation? All right. So for I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him that sent me.

So it's the father's will that you not lose your salvation. God, the father sent

Jesus. So you wouldn't be lost as a sheep. You wouldn't stay lost. When you were lost, you would be found.

And this is my father's will, which has sent me that of all them, which he has given me,

I would lose nothing, but will raise it up at the last day.

And this is the will of him that sent me that everyone that beholds the son of God, the

Holy spirit has to open your eyes, open your ears. But when he does, and you behold the son of God and believes on him, every one of these may have everlasting life.

And I will raise him up at the last day. Wow. John 10, 26, but you believe not.

Hallelujah. He said, you said you were quitting, papa. Talking to the

Pharisees again in chapter 10 of John, verse 26, but you believe not because you are not of my sheep.

So what does that mean? What are they? If they're not sheep, what are they? They're goats. Will they ever be saved?

Can you make a goat morph into a sheep? Absolutely not. Can you make a sheep turn into a goat by losing his salvation?

Absolutely not. Say it again. Yeah. You're gonna fill my shoes one of these days, little brother.

But you believe not because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit calls them. My sheep. He says to heck with that losing your salvation stuff.

For you guys out there, that's my grandson, Winston's back on the back pew, helping me preach this sermon.

Yeah. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.

My Father which gave them to me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

I and my Father are one. Let's stand and have prayer. I think Winston's hungry like the rest of us.

But I mean, there are thousands of these, by the way. I just picked a few of the best ones.

Lord, thank you so much for your word. We thank you that we are established by the word of God and the spirit of God.

And you saved us forever. You didn't save us for a short time. You saved us for all eternity and gave us an inheritance that is totally indestructible.

And thank you for that. Lord, thank you for your word, which reveals this great mystery to us that the world didn't know in the

Old Testament. Thank you for the apostle Paul, this great man that you called out and chose out of time to write most of the

New Testament and these great mysteries for us to know. Thank you that the apostle Peter received

Paul as an apostle and said that many of the things he taught were difficult to understand because they had never been heard before.

Thank you that you gave us a life in this day and time where we can look back on these things and see them all.

And they're not a mystery to us at this point. Help us to share these very truths with our friends and family that don't understand these things, if that's the case.

Lord, we ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship now and bless our meal together in Jesus' name.