I'm not Brandon Neely's twin brother, I know
that many of you were probably thinking that
last night because a couple of people
specifically asked me that question but it was
a pleasure
to meet him and certainly it's a pleasure to
be able to come and to preach the word
from this pulpit after the great preaching we
heard last night and I know that week
by week Pastor Brian has been bringing the
word from this pulpit so it's certainly a
privilege.
Now I have to note that as nice as this pulpit
is it's not quite as big as the pulpit at
Providence Baptist Church so if anybody could
be claustrophobic singing from behind this
pulpit it would be Roger Dale so I don't know
if you're a little bit claustrophobic but
if you were I can certainly understand.
On a more serious note the topic that I have
is the third state of man, the state of grace
and my text for this morning will be Ezekiel
chapter 37 verses 1 through 10 so if you want
to go ahead and turn there you can but just
for a minute I want to talk about the nature
of man and how it relates to these four states
, of course God has created every creature
under
the sun with a distinct nature and a distinct
calling to glorify him in a certain way.
That first Corinthians 1539 says that all
flesh is not the same flesh but there's one
flesh of men and another of birds and another
of fish.
He also talks about the glory of the stars and
the moon and the sun and the sense that
God has created each of them with a nature and
is intended for them to glorify him in
a certain way.
And so a bird who has one nature cannot swim
underwater or breathe underwater, cannot
spend a large amount of time underwater,
neither can a fish fly between treetops, of
course
I've never seen that before, maybe in a
cartoon and the reason why is because it is
not in
the nature of a fish to fly but they do glor
ify God as created by doing exactly what God
has
created them to do.
In a very similar way, depending on man's
state in relationship to God and particularly
in relationship to creation, to the fall, to
redemption and then finally to the consumm
ation
state, man will always think and act according
to his own nature.
That's a very important part to understand
regeneration.
Now Thomas Boston, as Brian mentioned
yesterday, has organized, building on August
ine's work,
has organized human nature into four different
states.
So last night Brandon Neely talked upon what
touched upon what Boston called the state
of innocence.
That is before the fall when Adam had not yet
sinned, he was capable of sinning but
it was also his nature that he was capable of
not sinning.
But then after the fall as man, as Adam sinned
in the garden and all of men have incurred
the guilt, the original or the imputed guilt
of Adam, we are now unable not to sin.
That is the second state.
That is a state in which all men are born and
Brother Brian very eloquently described that
last night and then my assignment for today is
to talk about the state of grace.
That is after regeneration man is still able
to sin and we continue to sin but also by
God's grace we are now able not to sin.
We're able to please God and to actually keep
the law in a way that God intended for us
to do before the fall.
And then finally the state of eternity or the
state of glorification.
Brother Neeson will talk about the final state
in which we someday will not be able to sin.
What a glorious time that will be but we'll
leave that for this afternoon.
Now because of imputed guilt as Brian
mentioned last night, every person is born
into this
second state and unless God brings us into the
state of grace, we don't have the power
to do good.
Our inclination is to do evil.
Our inclination is to sin.
We are by nature children of wrath and hostile
to God.
In fact Jeremiah 1323, God says can an Ethi
opian change his skin or the leopard change his
spots then you also can do good who are
accustomed to do evil.
That is the state of the unregenerate man and
just as I cannot fly like a bird and I cannot
swim deep underwater like a fish, the unre
generate person does not have a nature that
enables
him to think or to act or to love like a true
child of God.
That's what 1 Corinthians 2 is all about.
Paul says in 2 14, "But a natural man does not
accept the things of the Spirit of God
for they are foolishness to him and he cannot
understand them."
Why?
Because they are spiritually appraised or they
are spiritually discerned.
But those who are in Christ and who have the
Holy Spirit, we alone have the mind of Christ.
See because God has given us a new nature or
able to discern the things of God.
Now when it comes to free will, man is always
free to choose their actions but the const
ricting
force is their nature.
It is the state that they are presently in.
Man is neither forced nor compelled to sin but
they are governed by the present condition
of their own heart.
You see the person who is in the state of
nature, the second state is always hostile
towards God and their inclination is always
going to be to rebel against God and to, no
matter what they say, their heart is going to
be inclined to serve themselves and to
glorify themselves.
In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12-3, "No
one can say Jesus' Lord apart from the
Holy Spirit."
Now that doesn't mean you can't just say the
word Jesus' Lord.
Of course an unregenerate person can say that
but with conviction from the heart, with the
clear conscience, the fruit of regeneration,
no one can say with conviction that Jesus'
Christ is Lord apart from the supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit.
Now this person, this unregenerate person, he
or she glorifies God, okay listen to me,
by doing exactly what God has ordained them to
do according to their sinful nature.
Now you might not realize that but even the
person who has not come to faith in Christ
who is dead in their sins is still glorifying
God in the same way that a fish or a bird
or the stars or the moon or the sun is glor
ifying God by doing exactly what God has ord
ained
that person to do.
And as a result, the wrath of God is revealed
to them but on the day of judgment, God will
also be glorified as he presents them as a
trophy of his wrath, that he will be able
to demonstrate his righteousness by justly
condemning sin and this is not my
determination,
this is not your determination, this is
certainly when you think about Paul in Romans
9 and
his fellow kinsmen in the flesh, this is
certainly not what he would desire but who has
the
mind of God and God is glorified by justly
condemning sinners to demonstrate them,
demonstrate
his justice and to present them as a trophy of
his wrath.
But on the contrary, when the gospel is
preached and by faith and repentance, God
brings a
man or a woman into the state of grace through
regeneration, he or she is now able to glorify
God as a trophy of his grace.
And such on the day of judgment where when all
men, every knee shall bow and every tongue
shall confess, Jesus Christ his Lord to the
glory of the Father, his righteousness will
be revealed in two ways.
His righteousness will be revealed according
to his righteous judgment, according to the
standard of his law for some but for others as
Romans 321 says, apart from the law, the
righteousness of God is now manifested through
Jesus Christ.
And so there is a, I would argue a superior
demonstration of God's righteousness through
the gospel in which God provides a substitute
for sinners such as us, he pardons us on the
basis of imputed righteousness which Brian
mentioned last night and as a result he can
declare sinners to be just and to be righteous
and on the day of judgment he will say, look
at my chosen brothers and sisters, look at
these saints that I have called out of the
world, I have redeemed from my unglory, they
are trophies of my grace, look at the
righteousness
that is revealed through Jesus Christ in
bringing them to saving faith.
Well my topic this morning is, what I want to
specifically focus on is how God transfers
sinners from this second state of man, the
state of nature, to the third, the state of
grace.
You see in Christ, who is the second Adam, the
elect become a new creature and they regain
the power to not sin.
Now sometimes you may not feel that way.
We will still sin but our strongest incl
ination as regenerate beings is to not sin now
and
Thomas Boston in his book on this describes
this transfer to the state of grace in two
different parts.
So if you're taking notes you may want to
write this down.
The first part is that he says a change is
made in regeneration whereby their nature
is changed.
The second he says is that a change is made in
their union with Christ whereby they are
beyond the reach of condemnation.
So in other words, their relationship to the
law of God changes when they enter into the
state of grace.
Now due to time I would love to cover both of
them completely but due to time I'm going
to focus on the first one this morning.
I'm going to touch upon our union with Christ
but both doctrines are needed so just kind
of keep that in mind and towards the end of
the sermon I'll kind of tie both of those
together.
I'll do the best that I can but for the first
one to talk about God's work in regeneration
I want to look together with you at Ezekiel
chapter 37 and I'm going to give you four
main headings but I'm going to give them to
you as they come.
Ezekiel 37 is talking, this is a vision of the
valley of dry bones and it really among
other things it illustrates God's work of
regeneration in the human heart.
God is so gracious in that he gives us a Bible
that is fitted to preach.
He gives us doctrine in didactic form as
Brandon mentioned last night and the epistles
and
other letters but he also gives us the same
doctrine in these great illustrations and
these
great narratives and so what you see here is
really a theology of regeneration even
though the word regeneration is not actually
used.
Now it is used in Titus 3.5 and that word
there refers to restart something or to
rebirth,
to regrow something that is previously dead
and in Ezekiel chapter 36 the previous chapter
God promises the grace of regeneration in the
New Covenant.
He says in Ezekiel 36 verse 26, "Moreover I
will give you a new heart and put a new
spirit within you and I will remove the heart
of stone from your flesh and give you a heart
of flesh."
By the way I don't see any role that we play
in this in that verse to you, there's really
no way to squeeze that in there so that is
really describing God's work of regeneration.
It is covenant promise that he makes to his
elect that he will give them a new heart of
flesh and Ezekiel 37 verses 1 through 10 God
illustrates how he is going to accomplish
regeneration.
So the first point, the first thing I want to
look at in verses 1 through 3 is the state
of unregenerate man.
So this is man in the second state, let me go
ahead and start reading here.
Verse 1, "The hand of the Lord was upon me and
he brought me out by the spirit of the
Lord and sat me down in the middle of the
valley and it was full of bones.
He caused me to pass among them roundabout and
behold there were very many on the surface
of the valley and low they were very dry."
Now we probably have some sports fans in here,
you know that Tiger fans, LSU Tiger fans and
Clemson fans like to argue about which state
he was real death valley but I want to say
to you that this is the real death valley,
okay.
And this is not a game that's being played in
here and I love my Tigers but this is the
real death valley and this is describing a lot
, okay.
This is describing the state in which all men
are born into and which man is only able
to sin.
It's describing the effect of the curse of the
fall in which all who are in Adam are
born spiritually dead.
So if you look a little bit closer at the two
verses, you see Ezekiel is the man that
God has called for this vision, the hand of
the Lord was upon him.
Verse 1 says that he brought, Ezekiel is
saying God brought him out by the spirit of
the Lord
and set him down in the middle of the valley.
Now that means that he's not, this vision wasn
't of him, you know, up on the clouds
looking down.
God actually brought him into it to where he
could see these dry bones.
He was actually in the valley in this vision
where he could certainly smell and see and
the five senses were available to him and so
one of the things about the Bible is sometimes
it's good to just try to imagine yourself to
be in there and so if you could picture
yourself in here, you would be able to in a
sense see what Ezekiel is seeing and in
verse 2, God causes him to pass them round
about and behold there were very many on the
surface
of the valley and low they were very dry.
So we see in verse 1 that this valley was full
of bones.
We see in verse 2 that there were very many,
now we don't know how many, but in verse 10
God makes these dry bones live.
At the end of verse 10 it says that God
created an exceedingly great army.
So these were a lot of bones, okay?
This represented the whole house of Israel.
This represented an exceedingly great number
of folks and I don't think it's a coincidence
that when we're on the eve of Halloween that
God would have me preach a passage on the
dry bones.
If you go into my neighborhood, I was actually
thinking about this on the way here this
morning.
I've got neighbors that are starting to
decorate their houses, perhaps even spend more
money
now on Halloween decorations than they do on
Christmas.
I have a neighbor looking out my front yard
that has a 12 foot high skeleton.
I've got a neighbor in my backyard who must
have spent thousands of dollars.
I counted 20 skeletons on the way here and I'm
saying how little did they realize the
spiritual significance that this is not
describing who man will be after they died.
This is describing and illustrating the
spiritual state of who you are today.
I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, but
sometimes I feel like being like Ezekiel
and just going up next to one of these
skeletons and just asking my neighbors, "Can
these dry
bones live?"
That might be a little bit of an evangelistic
tip for you, by the way, as we think about
you might stand beside your neighbor or the
next skeleton and say, "Can these dry bones
live and proceed to talk about the second
state of man?"
At the end of verse two, he sees that these
bones were very dry.
This isn't like someone who freshly died.
This is someone who newly died.
This is someone who has gone through rigor
mortis, rot, decay, the vultures and the
animals
have already picked everything from the bones.
These bones have been dead for a long time.
This is a narrative of total depravity.
You can't get any more dead than this.
Ezekiel would have understood this.
By the way, this is not just a one-off
teaching of Scripture.
Ephesians 2.5, "Even when we were dead in our
trespasses, he made us alive together
with Christ, by grace you have been saved."
Orcolossians 2.13, "When you were dead in your
transgressions and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, he made you alive together with
him, having forgiven us all our transgressions
."
If you continue to verse three, God speaks to
him and he says, "Son of man, can these
bones live?"
When he asks that question, he's really giving
us the problem statement of man, that a man
cannot resuscitate himself.
This is the state of nature in which all men
are born.
It's a serious question that people need to
give serious thought to, can these bones live?
Just without a supernatural work, the answer
is absolutely not.
With God, with man, things are impossible, but
with God, all things are possible.
That's the point that God is making to Ezekiel
.
You see what Ezekiel does, he says, at the end
of verse three, he says, "Oh God, you
know."
He kind of passes the ball back to God.
They didn't have a developed theology of the
resurrection up to this point.
He says, "Only you know, Lord, but unless God
acts, man will stay in this state for
forever."
The good news of the Gospel is, he has acted
through his son, Jesus Christ.
There is hope.
That brings me to the second point.
Verses four through six show us the seed of
generation.
If regeneration is the cause of other things
related to salvation and Christianity, what
is the cause of regeneration in a sense?
There is a seed, and verse four tells us,
because God says to Ezekiel, "Prophesy over
these bones and say to them, 'O dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord.'"
The seed of regeneration is the word of God.
It is the proclamation of the truth of the
word of God.
Ezekiel is called to preach to these dry bones
.
The Bible is the catalyst.
It's God's instrument to bring forth
regeneration.
Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 23, "For you have
been born again, not of seed which is perish
able,
but imperishable, that is, through the living
and enduring Word of God."
Regeneration always occurs after the Word of
God is preached.
Paul says in Romans 10, 17, "So faith comes by
hearing, and hearing by what?"
The Word of Christ.
We need men today who are skillful with the
Word of God, who are willing to bring the
Word of God and preach the Bible, not preach
theatrics, not preach therapeutics, but to
preach the hard truths of the Word of God to
tell sinners that they are dead in their
sins, so that God will use the Word of God to
bring people to life.
Not just preachers, but do we have any Sunday
school teachers in here?
Sunday school teachers, parents?
This is the means by which God will use to
bring those little dry bones to life.
It is the Word of God.
That is what here we stand is all about, isn't
it?
We stand on the sufficiency and the authority
of the Word of God, and so we see here that
God uses the seed of the Word of God to bring
forth life to these dry bones, and it is
really
everywhere in the passage.
Verse 5, "Thus says the Lord God."
It's the Lord speaking to these bones, and
then in verses 7 through 10, five times the
word prophecy is used to refer to Ezekiel
preaching the Word of God to Israel.
Now, in verses 5 through 6, we see the content
of the seed, which is really a repetition
of Ezekiel 36, remember this chapter 37 piggy
backs off of that great New Covenant promise.
In verses 5 and 6, "The Lord God says to these
bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter
you that you may come to life.
I will put sinews on you to make flesh grow
back on you, to cover you with skin and put
breath in you that you may come alive, and you
will know that I am the Lord.'"
So what we see here is that through the gospel
, God calls a dead sinner to life and what
happens?
They come alive.
This is a picture of irresistible grace, that
when God calls His elect from the preaching
of the Word of God, there's a general call
that preachers make, but when God intends
to regenerate a heart, He gives a specific
call to a specific person, and the Holy Spirit
uses the preaching of the Word of God, the
Holy Spirit is a change agent, and this
supernatural
miracle occurs that takes all three members of
the Godhead to perform, and a person comes
to life, and the text says that it is God who
causes this to happen.
So I want to ask you, who is the focus of the
gospel here?
It's not man, I'll give you a hint there, God
is the focus of the gospel.
We don't even bring our own faith to our
salvation.
Through regeneration, God gives us a new
nature which now enables us to believe and to
repent.
The only thing that we bring to our salvation
is our own sin.
Ephesians 2-8, "For by grace you have been
saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves,
it is a gift of God.
It is granted to you as God changes your heart
and enables you to now believe the covenant
promises of God."
And so faith and repentance are actually the
effects of God causing the dead to live.
And so this is why the seed of regeneration
must be preached.
It must be the Word of God.
We cannot lose sight of the importance of this
book, that it is a supernatural book.
Other books, I read other books, but this book
reads me, and I trust that it just does
something to you as you hear the Word of God
preached and taught, and as you pray the Word
of God, that is these bones rattling and God
bringing to life, awakening you by the power
of the Holy Spirit through the living Bible,
the Word of God.
Now if we'll continue on in the passage, the
third headache that I have, verse 7 and 8,
I want you to see what I refer to as the state
of the almost regenerate.
The state of the almost regenerate, let me
show you what I'm talking about.
Verse 7 and 8 reads, "So I prophesied, as I
commanded, he bade God, and as I prophesied,
there was a noise, and behold, a rattling, and
the bones came together, bone to its bone,
and I looked, and behold, sinews were on them,
and flesh grew and skin covered them,
but there was no breath in them."
So they were not yet regenerate yet, and that
's why I say this is the state of the almost
regenerate, the state of the halfway saved,
and really there's no such thing as being
halfway saved, so the almost regenerate is
still not regenerate.
Thomas Boston and his book on the fourfold
state of man is very helpful in this area.
He gives some examples of what regeneration is
not.
Let me give you a few of those.
He says regeneration is not baptism in church
membership.
That's not regeneration.
Regeneration is not a good education.
Education is not going to change your heart.
You can have a PhD in biblical theology and
still be unregenerate.
You can be a dean of a seminary and still not
have a changed heart.
Regeneration is not turning from profanity to
civility and sobriety.
The longer I walked with Christ and the more
that I have tried to share the Gospel, I see
many people trying to convince themselves that
they are Christians because they are
moral people, and to them, what Christianity
means is morality.
It means voting a certain way.
It means acting a certain way.
It means raising a good family and those kind
of things, but that is not regeneration.
Regeneration is not engaging in all of the
outward duties of religion.
Boston also says regeneration is not a sharp
initial conviction, only to fall off and to
become as careless about their salvation as
they once were and sometimes to be worse
off than they were before.
And then finally, regeneration is not coming
forward too soon, only to later be regenerated
under sound preaching, and sometimes that
happens.
Sometimes somebody will profess Christ, but
only much later, sometimes in their 20s or
30s or maybe even in their 60s and 70s, the
Lord, at that point, they have been hearing
the preached word and the Lord will regenerate
their heart at a later time.
And the sad thing about the state of the
church today is that there are dead churches
who
are full of people who are almost regenerated.
They give the appearance of life.
And as a Baptist, it's important to understand
that in Baptist theology as it relates to
the church, Baptists believe in something
called a regenerate church membership.
Reform Baptist practice regenerate church
membership.
That's one of the differences.
And so what that means for us, what it means
for our pastors, what it means for our members
,
we all desire to see the church grow and to
build up the body.
But we need to be patient with people and let
God complete the awakening process because
perhaps they're almost regenerate, but the
Lord is still in the process of convicting
them of their sin, of showing them their need
for Christ, building up their theology such
that before they might say, well, why am I a
Christian because Jesus died for my sins,
but at some point they may be able to grow in
their theology and say, well, I now understand
the penal substitutionary atonement.
Now they may not be able to articulate it in
high doctrine words, but to be able to say,
I understand that I need a substitute.
There should be a basic understanding of how
it is that God saves a sinner.
I don't see how you can truly have confidence
that you're a Christian, if you can at least
in some way verbalize what happened at the
cross.
What's significant about this?
So you give people the opportunity for God to
complete the awakening process, and I think
our churches would be much healthier if we
were to be faithful to our understanding, our
reformed understanding of satiriality.
Okay.
And then finally, looking at verse 9 and 10,
this is the state of grace or the state of
regenerate man.
We see here in these verses, God says to him,
okay, so he prophesies once, he says prophesy
again, but this time prophesy to the breath,
prophesy son of man and say to the breath,
thus says the Lord God, come from the forewind
s of breath and breathe on these slain that
they
come to life.
So I prophesied as he commanded me and the
breath came into them and they came to life
and stood on their feet and exceedingly great
army.
You see, it's not until the Holy Spirit breath
es life in them that they can actually respond
to the gospel call.
And so that goes back to what I said at the
beginning.
In regeneration, God gives sinners a new
nature.
Okay.
Now along with that, we're also united to
Christ.
That's the other part of the state of grace.
We're united to Christ how?
In his death, burial and resurrection.
And as such, those who are transferred to the
state of grace actually begin to take on
a new identity, a Christian identity.
That's what Roman six through eight is all
about, that God has united us to Christ and
his death, burial and resurrection.
We have a new nature.
We are sin no longer has dominion over us.
The old self has been crucified.
In fact, Paul tells us the very first command
I believe in Roman six is to consider yourself
to be what?
Dead to sin.
And I want to say, if I could just put on my
pastoral hat for a second, a lot of people,
a lot of truly born again Christians struggle
with thinking of themselves in that way.
And if you can understand the believer's
identity, that you are now united to Christ
in his death, burial and resurrection, and you
just trust the Bible in terms of who God
says you now are, that will free you of so
many worries, so many bouts of melancholy.
You will have more joy because you will
understand that even when I sin, God tells me
to consider
myself to be dead to sin and alive to Christ.
And that's what it means to be in the third
state, to live in the state of grace.
Now Roman seven teaches us that there is no
part that's perfectly renewed, right?
Because Paul continues to practice the very
things that he hates.
We're going to still wrestle with the flesh
and no part is perfectly renewed.
That's going to happen in the fourth state,
the state of glorification.
But yet in the state of grace, because of
regeneration, there is a real change into
Christ's likeness.
Because we are presently today united with
Christ.
Paul says we're united with him in the liken
ess of his death, such that we are now dead to
sin because we have a new nature.
Now we're still able to sin, but by God's
grace, we're now more like the pre-fall and
that we are also able to not sin.
I think that's the hard part for people to
grasp is that in Christ, not because there's
anything good in you, but because of Christ in
you, okay, you are now able to not sin.
That's what it means to be in the state of
grace.
We're united in the likeness of his death and
in the likeness of his resurrection, which
means that we're alive.
We're unable to walk in newness of life, Paul
says.
We are now dead to sin, but alive in Christ
Jesus because God has made these dead bones
live.
Boston says in regeneration, four things
happen.
First, the mind is illuminated by the Holy
Spirit to the knowledge of God.
So you start to have an exact knowledge of who
God is and understanding of the relationship
between God's attributes and the relationship
of God to man.
So you start to see yourself a little bit more
clearly in relation to him.
You're able to see your need for the cross a
little bit more clearly and to understand
Christ and then also to understand the passing
, the vanity of this world.
The world starts to look different to you,
does it not?
Because God has illuminated your mind to the
folly of this world.
I never would have thought about these 12-foot
skeletons and hopefully there's some grace
there.
If you have one of those, I'm not beating you
up for that, but I would ask, think about
your motives a little bit on that, so maybe a
little bit, but you would start to see things
a little bit differently.
You would at least give some thought to what
God is teaching there.
So the mind is illuminated.
Second, the will is renewed.
That's why you desire Christ, why you trust
him now because he has changed your will and
has inclined it to good and God has cured you
of the utter inability to will which is
good.
You know, a regenerate person is now inclined
to want God's will rather than their own.
Those are the kind of things you want to look
for when you're looking at your children,
when you're looking for the fruit of
repentance.
What is the desire of their heart?
Are they more inclined to want to do what glor
ifies and honors God or are they making
decisions solely for their own good?
Third, the affections are changed.
Not only are the affections changed, but they
are regulated by God now.
Romans, what is it, five, he's put the love of
God, said the love of God in our heart.
So God directs our hearts.
Sometimes when I don't even think about, I don
't understand scripture and things are
a mess and I look at the world, there's just
something about the Holy Spirit that enables
me to love him and to trust him and to put a
smile on my face even when I'm going through
the rigors of life and going through the rat
race and going through the, maybe even having
a sense of melancholy, there's just something
about the Holy Spirit that he just keeps me
holding the rope until better days come and
this is an effect of regeneration.
And then finally, the conscience is renewed,
being willing to conform to the scripture.
The scripture becomes our authority.
There's no, just as faith cannot come apart
from hearing the word of God, you can't be
a true regenerate Christian and not love the
Bible.
That is one of those things, Hebrews 6, that
accompanies salvation as a love for God's
word because if you're not going to be willing
to obey him and to listen to him, how can
you love the God of the Bible without being
interested in his very word that he gives
us?
So as we, as I wrap this up, I know, looks
like I'm a little bit out of, close to being
out of time here.
So as we wrap it up, let me just conclude with
two questions, okay?
First, so how do you know that God has
transformed you or transferred you to the
state of grace?
I want you to ask that question of yourself.
Let me give you a couple of things to look for
.
First, don't look to yourself.
Look outside of yourself and look to the
person in the work of Jesus Christ.
The ultimate basis of our assurance should
never come from ourselves and not even come
from our own faith, but should come from the
object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember it ultimately, it's not your faith
that God is going to accept in heaven.
It's the righteousness of Christ imputed to
you that God is crediting to you in his ledger
in heaven.
That's the basis of your salvation and the
basis of your assurance of faith.
So first, you always want to look to Christ
and recognize that Christ's righteousness is
credited to you.
But second, as it relates to regeneration, you
do want to look inwardly for evidence
of regeneration.
Because again, Paul says in Romans 6, you
cannot continue to live in sin so that grace
may be increased because of our union with
Christ.
Paul says in Romans 6, too, how can we who
died to sin still live in it?
And rhetorically, the answer is you can't.
So you want to ask yourself, has your mind
been illuminated by the knowledge of God?
Do you really want to be here this morning?
And I think the answer for most of us, if not,
hopefully all is yes, because you're here
on a Saturday morning.
You're here not because you have to be here,
but because you want to.
But also, is there a change of your will that
's now bent towards lawkeeping?
We're not saved by keeping the law.
The nature of our relationship to the law
changes.
But do you desire to keep God's commandments?
Because Christ says, if you love me, you will
keep my commandments.
And then third, where do your affections lie?
Are your affections placed on the right
objects?
Do you truly love Christ in His person, His
work, and do you truly love the brethren,
as John says in 1 John?
So consider that.
And then the final question, and then I'll
turn it over to Brian, is if salvation is
entirely
a work of grace, then are there just going to
be a few people who are saved?
And the answer in verse 10 is absolutely not,
because we see that God is raising up an
exceedingly
great army.
And what an encouragement that is, that God
still makes dry bones live today.
And even as God is pruning His Church, I know
attendance numbers are going down in many
churches.
Even as God is pruning His Church, as false
teachers are being exposed, God is still
gathering
His elect.
And back then, He was using people like Ezek
iel.
During the time of the Protestant Reformation,
He was using people like Martin Luther and
John Calvin and John Knox and the great Reform
ers.
But today, He's using people like you and I,
just ordinary sinners saved by grace who
has experienced regeneration to go out and to
warn other sinners to be saved by grace.
And as we continue to share the seed of
regeneration, don't be surprised when God
continues to bring
dry bones to life.
Thank you.
Praise God.
You know, in our cohort of pastors, I'm going
to have to start giving out some nicknames.
For Philip, it would definitely be the court
gesture.
And I think for Chad, it's the scholar.
Man, that was good.
Praise God.
It was good stuff.
And just so thankful for each one of these
brothers and all that they do in our state
and for God's glory and the fellowship that we
have among our churches is just precious.
And I'm so thankful for each one of you.
Now, I've bragged a little bit on these
pastors and also their churches, I would just
want
to say have brought some refreshments, so we
're about to go and enjoy.
So thank you to each church that has done that
.
And then I have to brag on this church where I
pastor because all of you have wonderful
churches, but I'm pretty well convinced I
pastor the best church in the world with some
of the most incredible people.
So I just want to say thank you to those folks
who are running media for us.
They are the unsung heroes of this church, as
well as all those who have worked to prepare
the fellowship hall.
So many.
Thank you.
(inaudible)
Yeah, I pay them to say these things.
And so, you know, bribes go a long way.
You know, a $20 bill will get you a lot of
grace and not with God, but with man for sure.
So anyways, we are just so thankful for each
one of you.
So I'm going to ask a blessing on our meal and
our fellowship.
We are breaking here, and we are going to come
back at 12 o'clock.
Now that's 39 minutes.
Don't do like last night when I tell you 15
minutes and you take 25, okay?
We are going to start at 12 o'clock on the dot
noon because we are not going to take
time away from the word of God being
proclaimed.
And so I look forward to that.
So let's pray together.
We just thank you so much for each soul here
today and each church represented here today.
These churches are so precious to you, Father,
that you sent your son to this earth.
Having human flesh stepped down from his
throne in heaven and came to redeem creatures
made
from the dust of the ground so that we would
be his bride by grace, Lord.
What incredible price the blood of the Son of
God that was paid to purchase us out of
our slavery to sin and rebellion against the
King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.
So Father, we are just grateful and thankful
for all that you've done and the churches
here today and the work that you are doing
through these local churches in our community
and in our state.
Now God, as we enjoy this food and fellowship,
would you bless our time.
And thank you for all those who've worked so
hard to make this conference possible.
We pray all these things in the name of King
Jesus and for his glory alone.
Amen.
Thank you.