GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #410
“IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE” 1
Corinthians 15:22
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
The only hope of salvation
and deliverance from that state and condition of spiritual death which we have
incurred by the sin and fall of the first Adam is the free grace of God in
Christ, the last Adam. As sin and death came by the doing and dying of the
first representative man, Adam, so righteousness and life come to God’s elect
by the doing and dying of the second and last representative man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, the second Adam.
This is what David, the
inspired psalmist spoke of in Psalms 69:1-4. In this Psalm, it is Christ
himself who speaks. He speaks as our all glorious Substitute and Redeemer. "Save me, O God; for the waters are
come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am
come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying:
my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me
without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy
me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I
took not away." The Son of God restored to his people everything that
was lost by the fall of Adam. This is grace indeed! Salvation comes to sinners
by grace alone. “By grace ye are saved!”
·
By
God’s Election and Predestination.
·
By
Christ’s Redemption and Righteousness.
·
By
The Holy Spirit’s Regeneration and Effectual Call.
Salvation
must be by grace alone because sinners are so utterly ignorant that we could
never know God if he did not choose us and make himself known to us by the
sovereign operations of his grace. In so far as spiritual things are concerned,
all men and women are more stupid and ignorant than brute beasts. Man is like a
wild ass’s colt by nature in his rebellion, but far more ignorant. Even the ass
knows his master’s crib! Man by nature is like the ox, strongly plowing the
fields of iniquity, but again more stupid. Even the ox knows his owner! Even
wild birds know the time of their coming and going; but no man knows the Lord
God or his ways either of grace or of judgment. Therefore, as the horse rushes
to battle, so man rushes on in sin to judgment and to hell (Job 11:12;.Isa.
1:3; Jer. 8:6-7).
Fallen man is so corrupt and
depraved that he cannot and will not, if left to himself, seek the Lord, choose
righteousness, or come to Christ. There is in fallen humanity a general
corruption and depravity of all the powers and faculties of the soul which are
all immersed in sin, and full of it. All the members of the body are willingly
yielded as instruments of unrighteousness.
There is in us all a
propensity and proneness to all that is sinful, an inordinate desire after the
lusts of the flesh and of fulfilling them. We all, by nature, serve our lusts
and pleasures. We serve our lusts as our highest pleasures by nature, because
we are all by nature lovers of sinful pleasures more than lovers of God.
There is, moreover, a
disinclination to all that is good, even an aversion to it. We all hate good
and love evil. Indeed, the carnal mind is enmity against God, and all that is
good. Then, too, there is an impotency, an inability to do that which is good.
Man is without strength, having lost it, and became unable to do anything that
is spiritually good.
There is no possibility of
salvation for any except by electing love, redeeming blood, and effectual
grace. Yet, there is no possibility that any who are the favored objects of
God’s electing love, Christ’s redeeming blood, and the Spirit’s effectual grace
shall not be saved. Thank God for grace! Free grace! Sovereign grace! Saving
grace! Though we all died in Adam, in Christ we are made alive! All who know
themselves to be sinners rejoice in God’s amazing grace and confess with Jonah,
“Salvation is of the Lord!”
AMEN.